Tag Archives: English

When Did Biscuits Become Light and Fluffy?

A visiting preacher from England spoke out our church last year, and he share what he was offered for breakfast by his host on his first morning in our city. There may have been more to the offer, but he focused on his initial take on being offered biscuits and strawberry jelly. He knows how Americans use English differently than he does, but he couldn’t help reacting to the thought of having cookies and strawberry Jell-O for breakfast, because that’s the British use biscuits and jelly. For the actual food he was being offered, he would have said scones and jam.

The American Encyclopaedic Dictionary of 1896 defines biscuit first in this way: “Thin flour-cake which has been baked in the oven until it is highly dried. . . . Plain biscuits are more nutritious than an equal weight in bread, but owing to their hardness and dryness, they should be more thoroughly masticated to insure their easy digestion.” Among other explanations, the writers warn that toasted biscuit crumbs have been used to “adulterate coffee” grounds (which is far preferable to sheep dung, if adulterated coffee is all they have at the market). They also allow that some biscuits are “raised” with shortening or “lightened” with baking powder and perhaps known to be dunked in coffee, but this definition doesn’t carry the weight of authority of the first one does.

Look at the etymology of the word, and you see what our forefather’s bit into. Biscuit comes through the French from the Medieval Latin biscoctum, which means “twice-baked.” It’s something of a fraternal word to biscotto, which is actually baked twice and dunked in 99.97% pure coffee.

So, how did twice-baked flour discs become comforting bundles of all that’s right with the world?

Shawn Chavis of How Stuff Works attributes it to improved flour coming out of Midwestern mills and the invention of baking soda in the 19th century. In these early days, risen biscuits were called “soda biscuits” by some to distinguish them from the regular kind.

Fluffy biscuits rose in the South for a variety of reasons. Debra Freeman writing for King Arthur Flour notes regional biases sidelined this quick bread in the North and allowed it to flourish in the South. Mix in particular creativity from various African Americans, and Southern biscuits were popping out of American ovens from coast to coast.

Photo by Stephen McFadden on Unsplash

Words for the Flock

We talked about the word egregious and its change in usage last week. It comes from the Latin ex grege, meaning “rising above the flock,” so its use as a word for excellent or extraordinary, which are not the same thing, makes sense. This word grex or gregis is Latin for “a flock” or “gathered into a flock” and has given us a, uh, small herd of words.

Gregarious derives from this word alone, no stir-ins, no additional flavors. We use it to describe someone who loves to be around other people. He enjoys running with the flock.

Segregate means to separate from the flock.

Aggregate means “to collect or unite as a mass or sum,” similar to congregate, which also means “to bring together.” Coleridge said, “cold congregates all bodies,” making them appear united when they are spiritually indifferent.

Allegory does not come to use from grex, but it does comes from the related Greek word agora. Agora means “assembly” or “place of assembly.” “To speak in an assembly” or “to speak publicly” is the Greek word agoreuein. If you add allos or “other” to that, you get “to speak other in an assembly.” Tell the truth but tell it slant. This is the root of the Greek word allegoria, “the description of one thing under the image of another.”

Yes, I see that hand! That’s a thoughtful question. Thank you.

As words are wont to do, our word flock comes from completely different root words. On the one hand, flock (from Middle English flokke and earlier from Old French and Latin) means “a lock of wool or hair.” It can describe cotton or woolen rejects used to stuff a bed. You can use it as a verb to mean “to stuff a bed with flock” or “to give something a fibrous appearance.” If you didn’t know, and I didn’t, you can flock almost anything and could have been doing this for a good long time, allowing for a now obsolete meaning of this verb, “to treat contemptuously.” Considering today’s high levels of vulgarity, I don’t recommend attempting to fit this into daily conversation.

On the other hand, flock (from Anglo-Saxon flocc, related to Old Norse flokkr) means “a group of people.” If you say flocks, you’re going to indicate a large number of people from several sizable groups. Etymonline appears to say this word sprang from the ground of its own will, because it isn’t found in other Germanic languages beyond the Middle Low German vlocke, meaning “crowd, flock (of sheep).”

Continue reading Words for the Flock

The sufferings of ‘S’

In this strange life I’ve stumbled into, I spend a lot of time living inside a foreign language. I think I’m beginning to develop a slight empathy for what foreigners encounter when they try to learn our very bizarre English tongue.

What struck me the other day was the way we use (or torture) the letter S.

At the end of a word, “s” can mean one of three different things in English:

  • It can mean a simple plural: “dog” becomes “dogs.”
  • If we precede it with an apostrophe, it means a possessive: “Edward’s” (except in the case of “its,” an unfortunate and confusing side effect of the very problem I’m complaining about).
  • Finally, when used with a verb, it means present tense: “This is the product Acme makes.”

This is all the result of bad table manners on the part of the English people – bolting down a Germanic language and Old French without chewing them properly (Old Norse for dessert).

Norwegian is much more rational (a final “s” means possessive. That’s all). I’ll bet Chinese is too.

And pretty much any other language you could name.

But I love English. It’s kind of like one of those exclusive neighborhoods with the winding, poorly marked streets: “Welcome to Pretentious Heights, Minnesota. If you can’t find your way around, it’s probably because you don’t belong here in the first place.”