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I am curious about the word dandelion in English. Based on my few years of high school French, I guessed it started out a" dent de le lion", teeth of the lion, maybe because of the resemblance of the flower to a lion's mane, and assumed that this was its name in French as well. In my homeland of Australia, we also called this flower " pee the bed" because of the supposed effect on those unwise enough to touch it [ or maybe drink dandelion wine?]
When I took up residence in bilingual Canada, I was amused to discover that in French the name is actually "pis en lit" [ pee the bed ]. Now I wonder how Aussies had the association with the French term, but used another name entirely .
I know that Norman French entered the English language after 1066. Was dent de le leon the Norman name? Did the English say
" pee the bed " and the Normans adopt a new name? Did the English new comers take this association to Australia?
Anyone have any other ideas?
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welcome, Nereida!
my computer dictionary (which I believe is M-W) says this:
ORIGIN late Middle English : from French dent-de-lion, translation of medieval Latin dens leonis ‘lion's tooth' (because of the jagged shape of the leaves).
formerly known as etaoin...
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Some etymologies suggest that it is the dandelion's diuretic properties that are being referenced. It's lion's teeth in most Romance languages. Latin aphaca 'dandelion' < Greek αφακη (apakē)'tare'; Greek αππαη (apapē) 'dandelion'. It was æg-wyrt (lit., egg-wort) in Old English.
The earliest citation I could find for French pisenlit is from the late 15th century book Évangiles des Quenouilles (The Gospel of Spindles), which a few years later translated into English and published as The Gospelles of Dystaues (The Distaff Gospel) by Wynkyn de Worde. Not sure what is was called in French before that or what it was in Norman French. The first citation for Middle English dentdelioun is as a name from the middle 14th century.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And considered a weed by so many.
A girl I once knew as a child, used to hold the
flower under everyone's chin and if a yellow
glow appeared (which it always did) she would
say "Oh, you like butter too". Interesting folk-ism
from somewhere.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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And considered a weed by so many.
A girl I once knew as a child, used to hold the
flower under everyone's chin and if a yellow
glow appeared (which it always did) she would
say "Oh, you like butter too". Interesting folk-ism
from somewhere.
yup, did that!
formerly known as etaoin...
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Étymologie du mot [modifier]
« Pissenlit » attesté dès le XVe siècle, est évidemment lié aux propriétés diurétiques de la plante. C'est-à-dire de certains des espèces du genre Taraxacum, notamment de la section Ruderalia.
Le pissenlit commun est aussi connu sous le nom de dent-de-lion, lié à la forme recourbée des dents de ses feuilles. Cette expression est bien sûr à l'origine du terme anglais : dandelion
Yes, < pissenlit > refers to the diuretic properties of the leaves, < dandelion > to the curved toothlike form of the leaves. The bleeched young rosettes of the leaves are a springtime (bitter) delicacy. The leaves are bleeched by covering them with a layer of earth when they have the right size. Because of the resemblance of this little heap of earth to a molehill we call it 'molsla' (molesalad). Not to be confused with the Mexican mole salad.
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stranger
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Thank you for the personal welcome, etaoin.
I only learned of the dandelion under the chin when I moved to Canada. No one wanted to touch a yellow dandelion in Australia, unless it was a gardener with a weeding implement. Dandelion clocks were okay, though.
I would have thought that Canadians would have this ptb association because of the French. How did it get to Australia?
I am still curious about how the French and English names diverged, and will stay with my theory about the Norman invasion until I learn otherwise.
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Unless I missed something (who me?)
But what is a "dandelion clock" Nereida.
Yes, and welcome to the site!
----please, draw me a sheep----
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When the dandelion flower had developed into a seed head, children in Australia [ Canada too ?] would pick it and blow the seeds away, the idea being that the number of times it took to send all the seeds off equaled the number of the hour of day.
This of course helps to account for the spread of what most consider a weed!
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Fascinating. Thanks for the trivia. Appreciate it.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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old hand
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And considered a weed by so many.
A girl I once knew as a child, used to hold the
flower under everyone's chin and if a yellow
glow appeared (which it always did) she would
say "Oh, you like butter too". Interesting folk-ism
from somewhere.
yup, did that! You guys are using the wrong flower! What a hoot! You are supposed to do this with a buttercup which makes sense. The dandelion version doesn't jive... :0) 
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enthusiast
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welcome, Nereida!
my computer dictionary (which I believe is M-W) says this:
ORIGIN late Middle English : from French dent-de-lion, translation of medieval Latin dens leonis ‘lion's tooth' (because of the jagged shape of the leaves). And those leaves make a WONDERFUL salad!! I (fondly) recall my father making "Dandelion Salad". I would help him gather leaves from our 'farm' (aka my front yard).
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
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The bleeched young rosettes of the leaves are a springtime (bitter) delicacy. The leaves are bleeched by covering them with a layer of earth when they have the right size. Because of the resemblance of this little heap of earth to a molehill we call it 'molsla' (molesalad). Not to be confused with the Mexican mole salad.
Hi, Parkin T, it never harms to double up information for a good imprint on the memory. It ís a good salad indeed.
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And considered a weed by so many.
A girl I once knew as a child, used to hold the
flower under everyone's chin and if a yellow
glow appeared (which it always did) she would
say "Oh, you like butter too". Interesting folk-ism
from somewhere.
yup, did that! You guys are using the wrong flower! What a hoot! You are supposed to do this with a buttercup which makes sense. The dandelion version doesn't jive... :0) well, maybe, but it's been 40-some years, and I still get yellow under my chin.
formerly known as etaoin...
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I would like to use the term " folklore" rather than trivia.
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You are supposed to do this with a buttercup which makes sense.Was google-booking about and came across this: When children find a flower of the celandine or buttercup, they pluck it, hold it under the smooth, fair chin of their comrades, to see "if they like butter." The liking is proportional to the brightness of the yellow reflection on the skin. [...] Children will not gather or smell at the beautiful yellow flower of the dandelion, "piss-a-bed" or "pissimire" they call it, because they believe unpleasant results, as recorded in the former name, will ensue. The leaves of the plant grow close to the ground, but the flower stalk grows erect, though hollow and easily broken. As a conceited person walks with head erect, it is said "He walks as brant (upright) as a pissimire." Children, however, delight to pluck the flower stalks, when the flu fly ball of downy seeds is quite ripe. They call them "clocks," and puff at them, scattering the winged seeds broadcast. The number of puffs required to dislodge the whole, denotes the time of day, and the little rogues regulate the length and strength of the puffs, on purpose to bring matters right, believing it best to prophesy only when you know. " Dandelion, with globe of down, The school-boy's clock in every town, Which the truant puffs amain, To conjure lost hours back again." [In John Nicholson (1890) Folk Lore of East Yorkshire ( link) [Addendum: I finally got a chance to look up pissabed in the OED1. Interestingly, there is one citation in 1640, John Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Palnts: "Pisseabed ... is also Crowfoote". Crowfoot is another common name for (wait for it) buttercup.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 04/16/09 12:32 AM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I did some digging in an old thread where we had the yellow spring flowers.
03/29/07
olly
As a youngster we would hold a buttercup under our chins. If the reflection was yellow, you were healthy. If it were bright yellow, you were very healthy. It was only later in life that I associated the tone of skin with the brightness of reflection, darker seemed brighter.
tsuwm 03/31/07
in the U.S., there is a more pedestrian childhood custom..
Like the buttercup a dandelion in bloom held under the chin tells whether you like butter if there is a yellow reflection.
-joe (and a bouquet of dandelions, for mom) friday
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[Addendum: I finally got a chance to look up pissabed in the OED1. Interestingly, there is one citation in 1640, John Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Palnts: "Pisseabed ... is also Crowfoote". Crowfoot is another common name for (wait for it) buttercup.] " "Pisseabed" word remains alive in Dutch, but not meaning a flower. Pissebed = woodlouse, the little usefull creepers that help turn the green wastes to compost.
Last edited by BranShea; 04/16/09 10:52 AM.
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welcome, Nereida!
my computer dictionary (which I believe is M-W) says this:
ORIGIN late Middle English : from French dent-de-lion, translation of medieval Latin dens leonis ‘lion's tooth' (because of the jagged shape of the leaves). And those leaves make a WONDERFUL salad!! I (fondly) recall my father making "Dandelion Salad". I would help him gather leaves from our 'farm' (aka my front yard). Dandelion greens made frequent Spring & Summer appearances on our World War Two dinner table. My paternal grandmother who reared my sister & me was a frugal Swiss-German who knew the value of yard greens. Dandelion was only one of several natural greens that graced the table of my youth. We never thought to eat them fresh; there were always served blanched (I think that's the correct term). Lamb's Quarter & Plantain were also candidates for the table. With a dash of cider vinegar, they were quite satisfactory.
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OED has 1597 for the earliest citation of pissabed for dandelion. Dandelion itself is dated back to 1513, not that much earlier.
As a side note, I have seen dandelion seeds for sale in those little seed packets that are ubiquitous in the spring planting season.
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OED has 1597 for the earliest citation of pissabed for dandelion. Dandelion itself is dated back to 1513, not that much earlier.
And, le Trésor de la langue française informatisé gives late 15th century (ca.1483 by another source) for pissenlit in French. That's a gap of almost five and a half centuries between the Norman conquest and 1597. There were a lot of French loanwords coming into English in the 15th and 16th centuries. And pissabed is not a loanword, but may be a loan translation (calque). Because other Romance languages have a similar word (e.g., Spanish meacama) and given its late citation date, I think it's more likely the English probably borrowed and translated it from early modern French. OTOH, dandelion was probably borrowed from Norman or Anglo-Norman.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I have found the discussion about dandelions interesting. It has covered a lot of ground, as the plant itself is wont to do !
Thank you for the additional historical background, zmjezhd. I enjoy learning about the changes in the English language, especially after the Norman invasion.
Have we said everything we have to say on this topic? I think maybe we have.
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All that matters I guess. Only on the point of appreciation I'd like to say that the English are best off with their name for this bright flower.
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Have we said everything we have to say on this topic?Maybe not. I asked a francophone friend at work yesterday about pissenlit, and he told me about a saying: Bouffer (ou manger) les pissenlits par la racine. ("To eat dandelions by the root.") It means to be dead and buried. I told him that we say "pushing up daisies." There is an online Anglo-Norman Dictionary at the Anglo-Norman Hub site ( link). Searching on the English dandelion, I find two entries: dandelion (?)
squinant, dellion, mastic Pop Med 330.24
dandelion
Dens leonis: g[allice] dent de leon Bot Gloss 119
den[s] leonis [...] G[allice], dent de lion, A[nglice], doleroune Alph 49.7
dente de lyoun Medical Codeswitching 145 is Alphita, a medico-botanical glossary, ed. J. L. G. Mowat, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Med. & Mod. Ser. I, ii, Oxford, 1887, and shorter versions in BM MSS Addit. 15236, ff. 2r-22r, 172v-197v (A), and Sloane 284, ff. 1r-48v (B). (This work is from about 1400, almost the end of the Middle English period. Digitized on Google Books link.) Bot Gloss is T. Hunt, ‘The Botanical Glossaries in MS London BL Add. 15236’, Pluteus 405 (1986-87), 101-150. Pop Med is Tony Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England, Cambridge, 1990. Searching on the Middle English word deleroune 'dandelion' (see above), I came across this discussion (in German, link) about the words dandelion and pissenlit. One of the commentators there seems to think that dandelion was never French, but only Anglo-Norman. Though, the discussion is in German, one person has copied the entry for dent-de-lioun from the Dictionary of Middle English, which includes citations not in the OED1 entry. Another entry in this dictionary, under wort, has another Middle English word for dandelion: bitter-wort.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Thank you for unearthing more information about the English/French connection [ sorry if that is a groan I sense !] I like the theory of Anglo/Norman for dandelion, and find it interesting to know of the French equivalent to our pushing up daisies. Wort [ lungwort, masterwort for example] means plant in old English, so perhaps this was the pre-Norman name.
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And on a non-word tangent if you pick a dandelion with a longish, thickish stem and lop off the flower and blow in one end you get a - well not a whistle exactly but a musical moo rather like a kazoo. If it doesn't work take a little more off the thin end. You can even nip a little hole part way along for a two note kazoo.
Probably the worst tasting musical instrument there is.
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I never considered you capable of lopping of heads  and I'm stil wondering about the name. In German it is called Löwenzahn so lion's tooth. I've been trying to find why among all the other names we have for what we generally call 'horseflower' the lion never comes into picture. Neither can I find why it is called 'horseflower'.
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Do the Hollandaises no longer say leeuwetand but paardebloem? How about pisbloem 'pee-flower', varkensbloem 'pig-flower', elkbloem 'moose-flower', konijneblad 'bunny-leaf', ganzetong 'goose-tongue', luusbloem (? 'louse-flower'), kettingbloem 'chain-flower' ( link)? I've no clue why it's called 'horse-bloom' in Dutch. [Addendum: It seems there are more names: Frisian hynsteblom (??), Flemish zeekebedde (? 'sick-a-bed', my Flemish ain't what it ought to be) ( link).]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 04/19/09 07:53 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Ah, I had that same page but overlooked the leeuwentand that came in the end. They may have dropped the tooth as we also have a leeuwen bek (mouth). I'm really glad that someone here speaks fluent Dutch occasionally  .
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Pooh-Bah
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I always thought the lion part ought to have come from the golden mane. It does look like a dandy lion's mane.
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I'm really glad that someone here speaks fluent Dutch occasionally You exaggerate. (Only when I drink Belgian beer, and even then I speak German with a thick Platt accent.) ought to have come from the golden maneI think Zed's on to something. Some of the other names involve yellow, too.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I have found the discussion about dandelions interesting. It has covered a lot of ground, as the plant itself is wont to do !
... Have we said everything we have to say on this topic? I think maybe we have. However, I have seen no reference to dandelion wine.
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No seriously, I've had a great love for the Englsh language ever since early childhood, which counts for these many posts, but it really feels like a nice courtesy when a foreigner adresses one or shows interest in one's native language. ( it took some glasses of dandelion wine to make me say this.) Latisha may know what I mean. Most English native speakers take this for granted. To us it feels like a courtesy.(and it needn't be perfect)
Last edited by BranShea; 04/20/09 09:26 AM.
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No seriously
Well, thank you. Very kind of you to say.
I will never forget, during my first visit to Europe, 33 years ago, sitting in a train compartment, listening to the five other occupants arguing heatedly in English. It took me more than a few minutes to turn from the course of their argument to wonder at five non-native speakers of English pulling this off. (I can only dimly recall that one was a Finn and another a Frenchman.)
And, let me take a moment to compliment you on your excellent English. At times I forget it's not your first language.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Don't know if I would would pass the heated argument test though.
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