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On the beef thing: French: "biftek" from the English: "beef steak", beef from boef. The borrow words come full circle! The French used to routinely boil thei
by gerdesj 3y ago
On the beef thing: French: "biftek" from the English: "beef steak", beef from boef. The borrow words come full circle!
The French used to routinely boil their beef but during a lengthy Parisian siege, the locals noticed that the peoples that they came to call "les rosbifs", roasted their beef (phnaaar!) We were chucking steaks on the barbies long before Australia was even thought of ... or something jingoistic 8)
These essays are a bit of fun, as you say. History and life and language are rather more messy than many would like. At one point the article witters on about France and Wessex. Both terms were valid "back then" and are still valid now but they are sodding complicated ideas and neither mean the same now as they used to.
Even the notion of English (and French - obviously) is pretty tricky. Nowadays, in the UK alone we have a largely homogenised language, with some localisations ... on the surface. For example: jitty - allyway, bairn - child, skritch - cry. Then we have the collisions between the Brythonic languages (Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cumbric, Cornish and the rest) and English. So a Devonshire bird like my mum spoke what sounded like complete twaddle to a modern (!) lad like myself, when she was a child.
You (@gumby) might know the difference between twaddle and twiddle but I am sure I've lost a few readers right there.
My point is that language, nationality and the like are rather more fluid than people generally think.
Was hal!
- fuzztester 3y ago>biftek Seen that word, with that spelling, IIRC, in Iranian restaurant menus in India.
- hackernewds 3y agoyou're thinking of Bistek, also in indonesia
- prawn 3y agoI remember biftek in Turkey also? Bistek appears to be "beef steak" in the Philippines?
- bitbckt 3y ago“Bistec a la X” for many types of X is part of the Spanish-speaking world, including the Philippines. The spelling with a “k” is a loan word into Tagalog.
- fuzztester 3y agoAnd what does the X stand for in that?
- jdminhbg 3y agoAnything. Bistec a la Mexicana is “Mexican-style steak.” Replace with any nationality or style or whatever.
- teknico 3y ago“Bistecca” in Italian.
- narag 3y agoBistec a la X” for many types of X is part of the Spanish-speaking world Right, even for X = pork. But lately, it's fading in favour of "filete" (slice) of X, at least in Spain.
- fuzztester 3y agoYes. Not been to Turkey, but I read about cuisines, for fun, including on Wikipedia and food blogs. And IIRC, steak is called biftek in Turkey.
- cyberax 3y agoIt's also similar in Russian and Ukrainian: "beefshteks"
- nemo8551 3y agoThis was definitely a tradecraft code word when two dudes passed a briefcase between each other in a cold park one day in Moscow. Heavy, heavy pronunciation going on to near comical effect.
- makapuf 3y agoThat spelling is not the generally used one in French (or other languages) : it's spelled bifteck (See https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bifteck https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bifteck)
- fuzztester 3y agoYes, but I've seen it the way I wrote it above, in restaurants in real life, that's why I wrote it the way I did. :) Also, see the Czech, Macedonian, and other entries under the Descendants section at your own link above. Many of them spell it the way I did.
- nottorp 3y agoRomanian doesn't use K so it's "biftec" in menus and recipes :)
- donall 3y ago> Then we have the collisions between the Brythonic languages (Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cumbric, Cornish and the rest) and English Small correction: neither Irish nor the two languages people might refer to as Scottish are Brythonic languages. Drinkhail! ;-)
- gerdesj 3y agoNoted. I'm just a linguistic civilian 8)
- samstave 3y agoI have the etymology bug. Interestingly as I have been on meditative trail rides recently, I have been thinking about a desire to compile the etymology of the corpus of words used in tech. And was wondering if there might be an easy way to build a a tech geneology/etemology tree.