Spices and Herbs

Here’s a look at some common spice words and their etymologies. 

Though often used interchangeably, herbs and spices refer to different parts of plants, so let's look at that first. HERB comes from the Latin herba, meaning “grass” or “green crops.” It typically refers to the leafy parts of non-woody plants. Think basil, mint, or parsley. 

SPICE traces back to the Latin species, meaning “kind” or “type,” but in medieval usage, it referred to valuable goods or wares, especially aromatic ones. 

Spices can come from roots, bark, seeds, or fruit. Cinnamon is bark. Ginger is a root. Peppercorns are a fruit. 

Pepper comes from the Sanskrit word pippali, which originally referred to long peppers. Through travel and trade, the term entered Greek (peperi) and Latin (piper) before becoming the English “pepper.” Peppercorns may look like seeds, but are actually dried berries from the Piper nigrum vine. They start green, then darken as they dry, eventually becoming the familiar black balls we grind into the familiar pepper spice.

Dill is an interesting case. It comes from the Old Norse dylla, meaning “to soothe.” You probably associate it with pickles, but its traditional use was as a digestive aid. In Colonial America, dill seeds were nicknamed "meetinghouse seeds" and chewed during long church services to calm restless children and refresh sleepy congregants. Their mild, anise-like flavor made them a natural breath mint.

Cinnamon comes from the Greek kinnamon, meaning “sweet wood.” The spice itself is the inner bark of trees in the Cinnamomum genus. In ancient Egypt and Rome, cinnamon was used in religious rituals and for embalming corpses. It was once considered more valuable than gold. Its culinary use became widespread in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Nutmeg is actually a misnomer. Nutmeg is the seed of the Myristica fragrans tree, native to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. The name comes from Latin nux (nut) and muscat (musky), though nutmeg isn’t technically a nut. It’s rich in antioxidants and has been used in traditional medicine to aid sleep and digestion.

Cumin comes from the Latin cuminum, which itself was borrowed from Greek kuminon and ultimately from Semitic languages like Hebrew (kammon) and Arabic (kammun). The spice is the dried seed of Cuminum cyminum, a flowering plant in the parsley family. It’s been used since ancient times in Middle Eastern, Indian, and Mediterranean cuisines. 

Two exceptions

Salt often is next to your spices, but it’s not one of them. Salt is a mineral, not a plant product, and its name comes from the Latin sal. That Latin also gave us "salary,” which might seem odd, but shows that salt had historic value.

Garlic is a vegetable that we often consider to be a spice. The word comes from Old English garleac, meaning “spear leek,” which is a reference to its long, pointed leaves and its relation to the leek family. Though we use it like a spice, garlic is botanically a vegetable, and every part of the plant is edible. It’s been cultivated for over 5,000 years, with early use in Egypt and India.

Cock and Bull Stories

Signs for the two inns -- via  Cnyborg/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

A "cock and bull" story is one that is rather unbelievable. The phrase sounds a bit obscene.

The most common origin is that the phrase is connected to two inns in Stony Stratford, England. Stony Stratford ("the stony ford on the Roman road") was an important stop for coaches in the 18th and early 19th centuries that carried mail and passengers en route to and from London to northern England.

One version of the etymology says that rivalry between groups of travelers resulted in exaggerated and fanciful stories told on those coaches and in the two inns in town, which became known as 'cock and bull stories'.

The inns are real (signs for them above). Both were on the coach road (A5 or Watling Street). The Cock Hotel is documented to have existed in one form or another on the current site since at least 1470. The Bull existed at least before 1600.

The second most common origin story is that these stories were another form of folk tales that featured magical animals, such as those found in Aesop's fables or The Arabian Nights.

The early 17th-century French term coq-a-l'âne ("rooster to jackass") is sometimes mentioned as the origin, and that it was imported into English, though I found little evidence for this. However, the Lallans/Scots word "cockalayne" with the same type of meaning appears to be a direct phonetic transfer from the French.

I wondered if there is any connection to the words poppycock and bullshit.

"Poppycock" appears to be a much more recent mid-19th-century Americanism. It might come from the Dutch pappekak, which literally does mean dung or excrement, whether from a bull or not.

Poppycock tends to be used for pretty lightweight nonsense, while bullshit has the stronger sense of the intention of deceiving or misleading. "Bullshit," once considered taboo and an expletive, seems more acceptable these days. It is also an Americanism from the early 20th century. It may have a connection to the Middle English word bull.   

The idiom "shoot the bull", meaning to talk aimlessly, was used in the 17th century. It came from Medieval Latin bulla, meaning to play, game, or jest. You still hear people use the shorter and more acceptable "bull" to mean bullshit, as well as the shorter and even less acceptable "shit" to mean the same thing.

Simple Minds

It's always nice when I find a simple explanation for the origin of a band's name. And so it seems appropriate that this is the case the simple explanation is for the band Simple Minds.

Simple Minds, 1982   image link

Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1977. Their name is taken from a line in the David Bowie song "Jean Genie."

The band is currently a core duo of original members Jim Kerr (vocals) and Charlie Burchill (guitar), augmented by guest musicians. 

Initially signed to Arista Records, Simple Minds released their debut album Life in a Day in 1979 to moderate commercial success, while the following two albums, Real to Real Cacophony (1979) and Empires and Dance (1980), achieved critical praise but limited sales. 

"Don't You (Forget About Me)", their contribution to the bestselling soundtrack of the very popular 1985 film The Breakfast Club, became their breakthrough hit in the US, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. 

The following album, Once Upon a Time (1985), reached number one in the UK and the Netherlands, the top three in Canada and New Zealand, and the top ten in the US. It was certified 3x Platinum in the UK and Gold in the US, and spawned four more hit singles - "Alive and Kicking", "Sanctify Yourself", "All the Things She Said" and "Ghostdancing".