Jenka Guevara of Mexico City wrote:
"In Mexico, pan marmol, pastel marmol, or panque marmol, or, pan marmoleado, pastel marmoleado, or panque marmoleado, refer to two toned bread or cake."

These comments brought to my mind something that I have puzzled about for a considerable time; the origin of the name of "marmalade" - you know, the very English tangy and bitter-sweet jam (US: jelly) we put on bread or toast, especially at breakfast time. You could describe the contents of a jar of marmalade as 'marbled'.

For anyone who doesn't know, marmalade is made from the flesh and sliced or chopped peel of (preferably) sharp and bitter oranges from Sevilla in southern Spain, boiled with sugar and water to a setting point, together with the fruit's natural pectin from the pips, to give a firm set, then bottled. Good quality marmalade is a real speciality, and tastes delicious on hot toast with real butter. Mmmm!

Sam

I still have my Ovid text book. Having struggled thru it
in 9th grade, I appreciate your signature.

According to Collins english Dictionary's etymology, this is the origin, Sam.
American Heritage Dictionary gives a very similar result.

n
(Cookery) a preserve made by boiling the pulp and rind of citrus fruits, esp oranges, with sugar
adj
(Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Colours) (of cats) streaked orange or yellow and brown
[via French from Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo quince, from Latin, from Greek melimēlon, from meli honey + mēlon apple]

Such a sweet reply.

melimēlon

And just to be clear about the lack of a connection here, marble is from Latin marmor < Greek μαρμαρος (marmaros) 'marble'.

Which is, of course, often two-toned - which takes us back to Sam's original post.

Which, presumably, is why ginger cats are called "marmalade" - because they are two tones of ginger! I had never thought that one through before - amazing what you can take fopr granted.

As to my chosen signature...
My "classical" education was more Latin than Greek, so I have actually never ever read, let alone studied, Ovid. I followed scientific disciplines in my professional life, only recently taking an interest in classical themes.
What struck me about "Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit" was its timeless and literally universal applicability, a sentiment coined long before voluntary "recycling" or "make do and mend" initiatives were launched in the last century, and are becoming ever more important. Of course, a mistake made by every human generation since individual thought became possible, has been in believing that "we" have been the first to have what seems to be an original thought.
Sam

"Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit" strikes me as similar to the French, "Plus ça change; et tout sont la même chose."

and, of course >>a sentiment coined long before voluntary "recycling" or "make do and mend" initiatives were launched in the last century<< was only coined after we had strated to become, to some extent, a 'throw-away society'. In the C19 and the preceding centuries, everything was kept and reused until it, literally, fell to bits and was irreparable. If you were rich enough to cast things off before they were totally useless, then you passed them on down the line, either as gifts to your servants or sold to the second-hand shope which abounded.
(like Charity shops in UK today!)
It is only mass production techniques (and global ease of transport!) that has made it more expensive tor ecycle than to make new.

Another variant, a more recent coining with similar sentiments, and made in a working environment (I know, I was there) where technical and scientific people made their living, but were about to be made redundant, was "The Only Constant in Life is Change".

This will have particular resonance for anyone trained in mathematical or scientific disciplines, where the very concept of a constant relies on it being unchanging, immutable.

Sam

Yes, I came across notices of this naturem stuck on the side of main frames in my computng days.
Another one read, "We have acheived a perfect harmony between theory and practice: nothing works, and we don't know why."

Is this a non sequitur? You are talking about Publius Ovidius Naso, yes?

Well, you can free associate all you want to, but the words marble and marmalade are not cognates.

Oh well, as you put it so authoritively, I should accept that what you say must be true, shouldn't I?
I should add that I have found that people who express themselves with arrogant and condescending assurance are at least sometimes themselves in error.
So, if it's alright with you, I will continue to think for myself, and treat language as the continuously evolving entity that it most certainly is (please excuse my arrogance in saying so), not attempt to place language in an amber prison, where many people seem to want to keep it.
Please understand that I'm not saying you are wrong in your assertion, only that nothing is ever certain in the field of human endeavours.
Sam

Oh dear, it seems I am getting in over my head here! Glub, glub!

It may be best that you should tell me, whether or not I am talking about Publius Ovidius Naso. All I know, without embarking on more research, is the attribution I put in my signature, that the quotation came from "Metamorphoses Book XV".

I had not realised that there may have been more than one 'Ovid'. I s this so? If so, I suppose I should be more careful when delving into areas of literature that I am largely ignorant of.

Sam

Don't beat yourself up over this, Sam.

(There's plenty here who'll do that for you, if you step too far out of line! - but we are, on the whole, a friendly bunch, supportive rather than competitive [except in Wordplay and Fun,mof course])

And zmj isn't really arrogant - just very well informed about language(s).

Yes, Publius Ovidius Naso was the Ovid who wrote the Metamorphoses. I just wondered about your comment about your classical education being more Latin than Greek and using that as a reason for not having read Ovid.

Oh well, as you put it so authoritively, I should accept that what you say must be true, shouldn't I?

You're not under any obligation to accept anything from anybody. You asked a question and I answered it to the best of my abilities. Have a nice day.

I should add that I have found that people who express themselves with arrogant and condescending assurance are at least sometimes themselves in error.

I'm a little less well done than those folks. When I am in error, and somebody proves it, I apologize and move on. If you nose about in the archives to this site, you may find evidence of that.

Funny how online communication is so fraught with the risk of unmeaning. When you swooped in and made your bold assertions that marble and marmalade were related, I took it that you were one of these people who could not be bothered to be confused by the facts and who had already made up his mind about the relationship between the two words.I tend to run into folks like this from time to time on various Web forums. They are not swayed by any sort of argumentation. Sorry to have wasted your time.

So, if it's alright with you, I will continue to think for myself, and treat language as the continuously evolving entity that it most certainly is (please excuse my arrogance in saying so), not attempt to place language in an amber prison, where many people seem to want to keep it.

Another non-sequitur? (Faldo, I think, was confused when you said you had studied Latin and not Greek, because Naso (there is only one author I am aware of with this name) was a Roman poet who wrote in Latin.) I, too, know that language is constantly changing, but that has little to do with whether or why marble and marmalade are related or not. You could look up the etymologies of these two words in any moderately popular dictionary and see that for yourself.

Please understand that I'm not saying you are wrong in your assertion, only that nothing is ever certain in the field of human endeavours.

Well that's a relief. And I was just saying that given the historical evidence of the two words and what I, and others, know of the historical-comparative method, I find it highly unlikely that the two words are related historically.

By the way, welcome to the board and I hope, in spite of my presence, that you will have a good time here. I'll try not to annoy you any further with answers to your questions.

All good stuff, Sam, and you too, Rhuby.
Thrift stores are all the rage here too.

My classical background was Latin too, and that Little Latin
Ovid book still scares me when I go near that shelf. Great
passage for a signature, however.

Hi Sam...this is my very own, not so little marmalade! He goes by the name PUCK. Did you know that most ginger cats are males? Something to do with how that colour gene is passed down.

I had heard that, too. Hadn't realised that it was because of X-recessive genes, though. That would allow for the occasional female ginger, which does occur. (And which wouldn't. if it was the Y gene that was responsible.)

(PS - what a lovely cat! Lucky you to share your life with him.)

Wow! This combines two threads into one - Marmalade and 'The Cat Who Walked by Himself' (Kipling, 'Just So Stories'), and 'marmoreal'.

Who could deny that this fabulous creature is beautifully 'marbled'?

Despite zmjezhd's doubtless erudite confidence that there is no cognate connection between marmoreal and marmalade, I still find myself wondering...
This is despite evidence from dictionaries, which are compiled by fallible humans, I suspect sometimes following their own private agendas, and indeed are out of date by the time they are published. I am not always convinced by the 'facts' they present.

Sam

P.S. For interest, as you are clearly 'a cat person', I thought I would share a wonderfully fearsome image of a cat called Azzie who owned us many years ago. Definitely not marmalade, but so full of feline haughtiness that she later divorced us for taking in another moggy, to her very great annoyance and disgust. Sadly this image is from a scan of an old photo, so it doesn't really do her memory justice - I've had to 'photoshop' it to make it presentable. I hope the image link works.

P.P.S. For zmjezhd, if you read this. I must ask you to forgive me for my irreverent provocations - being a scientist by training and conviction I love to 'push the envelope', even when sometimes I realise it can cause disquiet. In truth I do try not to ignore facts, and am often persuaded by them, providing that they can be proven, and shown to be irrefutable.