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#125059 03/14/04 07:24 PM
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English pottage < French potage < Late Latin pottus 'pot'. I hadn't heard the porridge < pottage etymology before. And as for cockroaches, as I learned in South and Southeast Asia, it's not the ones that crawl that disturb me, but the big flying ones.


#125060 03/14/04 09:44 PM
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T thanks, everybody.

grapho, whenever I refer to any of tsuwm's worthless words as being useless and/or worthless, I am only echoing the master affectionately.


#125061 03/15/04 03:07 AM
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Maahey, I know what you mean about "las cucarachas". The first time I saw one, that was very much my own reaction, but after living in Mexico for ten years, I became rather blasé about them. Fortunately, living in Michigan again, I haven't had occasion for any more Great Cockroach Massacres. Not to say that they don't live in Michigan, they do, but they are not as all pervasive here as they were in Mexico.


#125062 03/15/04 03:18 AM
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My first wife and I made our first home in Japan. One of the luxuries of our Japanese-style house was that it had linoleum in the kitchen. The tiles were old and the glue which was supposed to hold them down was loosing its stickiness and some of the tiles were curled up at the edges. Shortly after moving in, I heard a shreik from the kitchen and rushed in to see my new bride, standing there with a half-empty can of Raid in her hand, looked at a poor cockroach who appeared to be treading water (Raid, actually) which had pooled in one of the dish-shaped linoleum tiles. When I bashed the poor thing to death, the force of the blow sprayed Raid all over the kitchen. Thereupon, I assumed all responsibility for pest control in our home.



#125063 03/15/04 12:25 PM
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I am only echoing the master affectionately.

Ah, so. And "when the student is ready the master appears".



#125064 03/15/04 03:08 PM
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A short sojourn in NY City didn't prepare me for the huge, flying cockroaches of Thailand and environs. Cockroach is from the Spanish cucaracha by folk etymology. (The cock for rooster and the roach for a kind of fish.) A-H gives L cuca 'caterpiller' as the origin, but Meyer-Lübke gives coccum 'fruit kernel' (cf. Gk kokkos & Welsh goch 'red' origin of the surname Goooch) which is actually the cochineal or kermes a small insect that gives us carmine a red food coloring (not kosher, the locust is the only insect that may be consumed) that makes so many of our foods a nice, bright red. Scarlet, vermillion. (The latter from vermes 'worm', so little worm.)

http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.htm



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