"In the place of the fowl a dish of haricot beans made its appearance--an enormous dish in which some bones of mutton that at first sight one might have believed to have some meat on them pretended to show themselves."
ARTFL online French dictionary gives just "bean" as translation for "haricot", so I wonder why the ttanslator
used the word haricot at all.
haricot
n.
5Fr < harigoter, to cut to pieces < ? MDu *harigod, sharp tool < haren, to sharpen + god, a tool6
1 a highly seasoned stew of lamb or mutton and vegetables
2 5altered (infl. by the stew) < ? Nahuatl ayecotli, bean6 [Chiefly Brit.]
a) KIDNEY BEAN b) the pod or seed of any of various other edible beans
Please forgive me, but I am very, very sleepy and must go to bed.
But this sharpened god word I must at least say is a strange thing to sleep on.
Those haricots verts--or however you say them in French--those are shapened gods? That's so strange. They don't look anything like gods, although they do look like sharpened pencils while still in the pods.
Yes, that's it! Haricot verts (or however they're spelled) = sharpened pods! It simply must have been a typo!
And now I'll sleep much more restfully, wwh.
(However, I suppose the Jolly Green Giant might be considered to be a sharpened god...hmmm. I wonder whether the marketing agency that came up with him studied etymology?)
Ooh, Wordy. I want to know what your dreams are made on from this lovely misreading of the etymology.
Well, I was very, very sleepy, but my eye caught this phrase from what wwh posted:
haricot
n.
5Fr < harigoter, to cut to pieces < ? MDu *harigod, sharp tool < haren, to sharpen + god, a tool6
And somehow in my sleepinees, all I could think of were wwh's haricots and then the old word above harigoter and then the reading on "to sharpen + god." Somehow I made the leap backward to haricots being little beany sharpened gods. 'Twas a wonder.
But why would harigoter be sharp god? Why? What a strange word.
I am still sleepy, by the way. It's 5:30 p.m. and I'm about to go to bed early tonight, so please go gently with me.
I'll splain you when you're awake, Dub Dub'. Longs you remember your sharpened god dreams.
Dear WW: by a circuitous process of association, I went from haricot to remembering reading Im Westen Nichts Neues many years ago about the conditions in the German Army barracks for recruits. Beans have a well known "drawback".
For which one of the recruits gave the motto: "Jedes Bõhnchen gibt sein Tõnchen." For which the English parallel is "Every little bean must be heard as well as seen."
And the management of recruits was typified by the fiendish sergeant who cured bedwetters by compelling them to sleep in same triple tiered wire mesh bunks, in rotation from top to middle to bottom.
Goddam Nazis. I looked up Im Westen Nichts Neues to find name of the brutal sergeant = Himmelstoss, and found this about the author:
"Seine Schwester wird wegen "staatsfeindlicher Reden" zum Tode verurteilt und mit dem Beil hingerichtet."
His sister was decapitated for making subversive statements.
P.S. Im Westen Nichts Neues = All Quiet on the Western Front
Well, now I'm wide awake with Isabel's approach in the offing.
And I see that this god is a tool6, but I haven't look up the tool6 yet.
And I can say: What an unusual name for a tool--a god! I will now go look up 'tool' in Webster's and see what tool6 is. Maybe it's a bean cutter!
wwh--I don't understand how that 3-tiered arrangement cured bedwetters. I thought bedwetting was pretty much uncontrolable.
Dear WW: I was biting my nails, in despair that nobody asked.The bedwetters took turns in top bunk, and took turns in wetting on the two beneath.
wwh,
I honestly never know whether you are grandly pulling our legs here or not with some of your war stories.
Now: Are haricots verts string beans or lima beans? I think they're string beans and lima beans are some kind of legume word in French.
Dear Mav: Genuine Haricots verts. I couldn't read the fine print, but they also look stringless. How I hated the old sting beans that had to have strings removed.
They really look delicious.
mmm, they are, Bill - just cooked al dente, with a knob of butter, or served in a cold salad dressed with vinaigrette.... yum!
But having said that, I'm still loving fresh string beans from the garden right now... we call those runner beans over here, btw.