On perusing some literature for hamstring pull treatment (ouch!)I encountered this:

>The origin of the word "hamstring" comes from the Old English "hamm," meaning thigh. "String" refers to the characteristic appearance and feel of the tendons just above the back of the knee.<

So how and when did ham evolve to come to mean exlusively pork, when it originally applied to any kind of thigh? And, so, in Old English did they say "cow hamm", pig hamm", lamb hamm," etc. Did the randy youth of the those times say, "methinks the lady has nice hamms!"?

>The power advantages of strong hamstrings have been known for a long time. In times past, a sword wielding knight
would disable an opponent by a slice across the back of the thigh. Cruel masters were known to have severed the hamstrings of domestic slaves or prisoners in order to make escape less likely. The origin of the term "hamstrung", meaning to have been crippled or held back, is derived from these practices.<

Has anyone ever heard or used the term "hamstrung"? I seem to recall an old, brief mention of this here as a Brit-ism?

Ham still refers to the thigh (meat) of any quadruped, according to OED. But "especially" pork. I believe on the right bank our English-speaking friends are more likely to use gammon than ham. Cannot remember Ozzies using the term gammon instead of ham, but suspect they do.

Yes, I use the term hamstrung to mean crippled. As in: "That manager really hamstrung us on this one."

I was fascinated to see that my OED does not include an overly emotive actor or actress in the definition of ham.

I believe on the right bank our English-speaking friends are more likely to use gammon than ham.

Gammon is the cured meat from the upper part of a side of bacon. It is sold uncooked, to provide gammon steaks or rashers, both of which are moderately thick, not like bacon rashers.
Gammon is, essentially, the same part of the pig as ham. However, whereas in the UK ham is sold after being both cured and cooked, gammon has only been cured.

Did the randy youth of the those times say, "methinks the lady has nice hamms!"

Well, the sentence you've constructed is more (late) Middle English. And I'm not sure if any youth would be seeing a "lady's" thighs.

In my OE dictionary, ham is glossed as "the ham, the inner or hind part of the knee" and was used to translate the Latin poples (poplitis) 'hollow of the knee'. Here's an old English sentence fragment cited in that dictionary: "Monegum men gescrincaþ his fét up to the ham ... gebeðe ða hamma" (with many a man the feet shrink up to the ham ... warm the hams); writing about some disease, from the Liber Medicinalis in the Leechdoms 1, 26. Also, "mid hommen iuolden" (with bent knees).

In my first pass above, I missed that OE ham is also the word used to translate Latin suffrago (suffraginis) 'ham, hock'.

> not include an overly emotive actor...

mmm, interesting - the OED2 gives this, from which I suppose a back-formation is only a hint away, but...

slang.


To act in a ‘hammy’ manner, to over-act. Freq. const. up. Hence "hammed-up ppl. a.; "hamming vbl. n. and ppl. a.

otoh, it's worth quoting a couple of the other hams which have also been mentioned here before, I think...
n2:
local.

A plot of pasture ground; in some places esp. meadow-land; in others spec. an enclosed plot, a close. Found in OE., and still in local use in the south; in some places surviving only as the name of a particular piece of ground.

and n3: The OE. hám home, which, in composition, has been shortened to ham, as in Hampstead, Hampton (:—Hámtún), Oakham, Lewisham, etc., and, in this form, is sometimes used by historical writers in the sense ‘town, village, or manor’ of the Old English period.