How should this old term for marshmallow be pronounced? I really like the appearance of this word because it looks like the name of a cat for some odd reason--perhaps because it has a kangaroo 'mew' inside it.
it looks as if it's pronounced with a mouth full of marshmallows...
toasted marshmallows - just a little too hot to eat safely. Darn, now I'm hungry.
mer : as in Mary
sc: sh
meal: like mal (or mad) but with a diphthong, as in Southern (?) US accent
wes = as in west, or maybe neutral as in unstressed 'was' but with s
MERSH-mael-wes
Thank you, Jenet, very much. Your suggestion of using the Southern diphthong was practical. I'm from the South, so I could guess the approximate sound you wanted given the fact that there are quite a variety of diphthong pronunciations depending upon which part of the South you're in. The North Carolinian would have quite an active diphthong, whereas the Virginian's wouldn't be quite as pronounced. But I hear a two-beat diphthong and can guess pretty well what you've shown me. Again, thanks.
Where dj'a get this spelling from, dubdub? Looks interesting.
fwiw, I would go with the Welsh way of pronouncing the 'wes' part - treat the W as we name it, which is to say a long 'U' sound, the e functioning more as a silent case marker with the s marking it plural. This makes the overall sound “marsh~me~looze”, or very much similar to our current 'marshmallows'.
b. A confection made from the root of this plant. Also fig., esp. something or someone that is soft at the centre, ‘gooey’, sentimental.
1884 Chamb. Jrnl. 4 Oct. 640/2 Gum-arabic+makes about thirty per cent. of the best quality of gum-drops, marsh~mallow, and jujube paste. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 11 Aug. 12/1 Chocolates, ‘marsh-mallows’, and other toothsome delicacies. OED2
Dear Mav: "tooth-decay-some"
In reply to:
Where dj'a get this spelling from
Reading back issues of the Word Maven, now defunct, from tsuwm's archives link on his site. [I even found one question posed by tsuwm himself--and there may be more!] Keep in mind: I have limitless time on my hands since we're out of school due to ice storms, so I'm in word heaven till we return.
This was worth the wait! Marshmelooze would make a great name for a cat, cats are so flexible and sweet!
A confection made from the root of this plant
the marshmallow plant provided a thick gummy sap, that 'gels' like a gelitan, marshmallow are basicly meregue (beaten egg whites) stiffened with gelitan. while they do have sugar as an ingredient, they are lower in sugar than many candies-(mostly because they are made up of mostly air!)most marshmallows today are not made from the plant but from commercial (meat by product) gelitan.
'noughat' is meregue that is stiffened by cooking it. the meregue is cooked by adding hot sypup to the meregue while beating it. noughat used to be made with honey (the nice italian ones still are!) honey is slightly acid, and because the acidity varies, so did the results.
depending on the temperture of the syrup, you can get soft noughat (milky way bars) or hard noughat..
cats are so … sweet
I dunno. I find them rather gamy, myself.
While I was puzzling over when mersk became mersh, along swooped jenet and beat me to the punch. Thanks! Anyway, while dipping into the old Old English dictionary, I found another great mersc word: merscmeargealla 'a kind of gentian'. Now that's a name for a chat by any other name.
> rather gamy
s'okay ifn you dips 'em in a sweet crumb like KFC :)
KFC - Kentucky Fish Chain in Asia now.
Thanks, Dr. Bill, much better.
