Posted on by theresourceress

Biscuit

Etymology Post: Biscuit

The word biscuit is just so weird I had to research it. Also, my cousins have a dog named Biscuit. Hi Biscuit! Hi cousins!

The word is made up of two word-forming bits: bis from Latin, meaning “twice,” and coctus meaning “cooked.” The word was originally panis bis coctus, meaning “bread twice-cooked,” and was shortened to biscotum, and then eventually biscotto. Then French got ahold of it and suddenly it was bescuit because French can’t help but throw an errant i or e into everything. Then English was like, “we’re mostly illiterate so we’re gonna call this a bisket cuz that’s what it sounds like you weird Frenchies are saying.” And, as most people know, it’s really definitely only used to refer to harder bread products that we would call cookies here in the states.

Traditional biscotti is a twice baked sweet bread, and though most cookies are not twice baked, the texture is similar so it’s understandable why the English would start calling them biscuits.

Best Biscotti Recipe - How To Make Biscotti


The first use of biscuit being used to for those awesome things you get with gravy in the south, was recorded in 1818 to describe the sort of food that sawmill workers were being served in Appalachia at the time. Those biscuits were probably pretty stodgy because baking powder and soda hadn’t been invented yet, so to give them some leavening they (meaning a kitchen slave) just beat the crap out of the dough until slavery was abolished and then a machine was invented to do it. These were served with gravy because pork fat was abundant and cheap. These biscuits were sort of a more nutritious and filling form of hardtack because they had lard added (fats are filling). The thinking around calling them biscuits is that it came with the Scottish colonists who settled in Appalachia. They called them “soft biscuits” in Scotland, and the name, much like biscuits and gravy, stuck.

Easy Homemade Sausage Gravy Recipe - How to Make Best Sausage Gravy
Oops, now I’m hungry.


Here’s a WAPO article about the origins of the southern biscuit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/07/22/today-even-fancy-restaurants-serve-biscuits-and-gravy-but-the-dish-comes-from-modest-beginnings

Posted on by theresourceress

Tutu

To make up for today’s earlier word, here is a less gross one, suggested by my friend Noelle Boc:  tutu

tutu

The etymology of tutu is a bit naughty to be honest.  Tutu actually comes to us from the latin culus meaning, [clears throat] “backside or undercarriage.”  It was shortened to cucu and then changed again to tutu by the flirty French.  How did this word come to mean a fluffy skirt that ballerinas wear?  Well, in the traditional theaters back in the 1700s & 1800s, ordinary citizens stood in an area called “the pit,” located below stage level.  The elite sat in the balconies gazing down on the action.  Dancers back then were really pushing the envelope on how much leg they could show.  Not with the intent to be naughty, but because they worked so hard on fancy leg and footwork and wanted to show it off.  Underwear, as we know it to be, wasn’t invented until the late 1800’s.  Everyone wore pantaloons and long knickers back then, which would disturb the line of the leg, so dancers didn’t bother with underwear.  Thus, the mob in the pit had quite the view of the undercarriage of the dancers, otherwise known as the tutu area, whilst the genteel folk upstairs did not.  I’m sure you can imagine the chaos this would create.

In order to disguise the tutu area, costume makers created a sort of multi-layered drooping dress with frills that were joined across the bottom and over time the special dress took on the commoners name for the area it was meant to cover.  Voilà: Tutu!  Très risqué! 

Posted on by theresourceress

Debauchery

Tuesday Morning Etymology Lesson: debauchery

Today’s word comes from my pal Bree.  What a fun word!  Debauch is, obviously, a French word from the 1590s meaning “to lead one astray from work.”  The word is made up of two other words de and bauch, meaning “make less” and “beam or plank” respectively.  Thus, debauch literally translates to “make less the beam, or plank.” 

So how did it come to mean “entice from work or duty?”  There are several theories.  One is that a literal use of the word, “to shave wood from the beam,” [clears throat] was bastardized into urban slang. 

I’m sure if we put our thinking caps on we could find some, let’s say, less than wholesome ways “shave wood from the beam” could be used as a euphemism.