Friday, March 11, 2022

trivia

Whenever I hear talking talking about a "pizza peel," I always assume the term peel comes from the French pelle, which means "shovel." From there, I've always assumed that the American peel was just a mispronunciation of pelle, and that "pizza peel" is actually spelled "pizza pelle." Wrong! Americans, in all sooth, spell it "peel." Go figure. Were I a linguist, I might be interested in tracking down the history of the word. But I'm not, so I won't.

From etymonline.com:

peel (n.2)

"wooden shovel with a broad blade and a long handle," used by bakers, etc., late 14c.. pele, from Old French pele (Modern French pelle) "shovel," from Latin pala "spade, shovel, baker's peel, shoulder blade," related to pangere "to insert firmly," probably from PIE *pag-slo-, suffixed form of root *pag- "to fasten."


That's all you're gonna get from me—no deep linguistic histories.



No comments:

Post a Comment

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING!

All comments are subject to approval before they are published, so they will not appear immediately. Comments should be civil, relevant, and substantive. Anonymous comments are not allowed and will be unceremoniously deleted. For more on my comments policy, please see this entry on my other blog.

AND A NEW RULE (per this post): comments critical of Trump's lying must include criticism of Biden's lying on a one-for-one basis! Failure to be balanced means your comment will not be published.