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OK. This is a food thread, but I think it's within the framework of words, too.
My mom is making what she calls "punch bowl cake" today. When she described it, I said, "You're not making punch bowl cake; you're making trifle."
What she's making is layers of cake and whipped cream and custard and fruit in a bowl--and she's drizzling liqueur in it. And that's trifle--right? It just so happens that whoever wrote the recipe said to put all the layers of sweet ingredients into a punch bowl.
So I told her, "Mom, somebody saw trifle in a punch bowl, figured out the ingredients, and then called it 'punch bowl cake' when writing out the recipe for the Rocky Run Church cookbook. But it's really trifle."
Now my question after all that jabberwockying:
Why is trifle called trifle? If it's really great trifle--with farm fresh ingredients and nothing fake...everything made from scratch--it's really close to being ambrosia!
So, why is trifle called trifle? I don't get it.
Best regards,
WordsMouthWatering
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Why is trifle called trifle?
Depends. Is it made out of moderately hard pewter?
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Dear Wordwind: "Trifle" is English understatement carried to an extreme, a pretended modesty on the part of the originator of a rather elaborate creation.
Dear Faldage: Peeeyoow on your pissed in pewter plumbum poisoning pitchers.
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dr. bill, did you perhaps mean not your but ewer?
[ducking for cover -e]
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Trifle the cake so called probably because it's a light concoction. This usage dates from 1781. Interestingly (ahem) the term sponge-cake is later, 1808.
The original sense of trifle is a deception, gibe, jest, or idle tale. It comes from the Old French trufle, diminutive of truffe, with this sense. The change of vowel is Middle English.
The origin of this Old French word is unknown.
But it is, in form, effectively the same word as truffle the tuber, and indeed probably came from Latin tuber. (The consonant changes are slightly dodgy there and it's not entirely convincing.)
In the extended form terrae tuber, 'earth tuber', this gives Italian tartufo, German Kartoffel 'potato' (with another dodgy consonant shift t -> k), and the character Tartuffe.
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Mississippi Blues Song, c.1920...pertinent excerpt:
Well they cut so many trucks and trifles,
White folks you oughta work more mules than men.
(?) (?)
Other southern usages I've heard ...
a) Don't trifle with my affections.
b) Milo's a low down, no count, trifling man.
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b) Milo's a low down, no count, trifling man.Don't be so hard on yourself hon! I likes ya' just fine! 
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Adage: De minimus non curat lex.
[The law does not concern itself with trifles.]
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Okay, true story time. My first wife's grandmother was a teetotaller, signed the pledge, the lot. She not only didn't drink, but she didn't like other people drinking either, which put her into a semi-permanent foul temper when she was in my company, I can assure you. And that was only on "family" occasions when neither of us could avoid the other's company.
To business: It's Christmas and, as usual, my mother-in-law went through the arduous task of making not one but two trifles - one with the requisite amount of booze added, the other innocent of a drop. Christmas din-dins comes around, and the turkey, the chicken, the pork - damn, I'm drooling all over my keyboard again - is consumed with the appropriate amount of gusto by those who had absolutely nothing to do with cooking it all.
Then comes dessert. "Would you like some trifle, Nana?" asks my ex-dearly beloved, full of Christmas spirit, although this was artificially engendered through the liberal consumption of her favourite tipple. Not naturally given to jollity, my former missus.
You should understand that at this time, mother-in law is in the kitchen out of sight. Father-in-law, brother-in-law and I were in the lounge trying to find out if drinking more whisky was going to make us sober again. I can assure you, as the result of assiduous repeated experiments over the years, that it does not. But we must persevere, mustn't we? So grandmother and granddaughter were more-or-less left to their own devices. Dangerous to all concerned, in both cases.
My former ball-and-chain serves gran up with a heapin' helpin' of trifle - but, as you may have guessed by now, out of the wrong bowl. Gran scoffs the lot, likes it, and asks for more. Granddaughter duly tops the plate up again, and gran disposes of that as well.
At about that time the Xmas pud is declared ready in the kitchen, is semi-ceremoniously carted into the dining room and deposited on the table, and the brandy is poured over the top. CK lights it and everyone goes ooooh and aaah as if it was some kind of burning-bush miraculous event rather than the simple application of chemistry or physics or whatever.
"Mum, would you like some Christmas pudding?" asks my mother-in-law.
"No thank you. But I'd like some more trifle," replies that withered but pretty-well inebriated ancient crone. Mum-in law goes to give her some trifle, and realises two things:
(a| Her mother had said that magical word, "more", and
(b) The unlaced trifle has not been touched.
I had a lot of time for my mother-in-law. She wasn't stupid and she was rather quick on the uptake when uptake quickness was required.
"You want this one?" she asked her mother, in a strangled tone.
"Yes, that one" says gran, just about licking her lips.
"Okay" says mum-out-law, and puts a small quantity on her plate.
"Oh, I think I could manage more than that," says the old biddy. Her daughter duly adds more. Gran tucks in like there's no tomorrow.
By now, we'd just about all realised what was going on. There were a number of clues, not the least of which that the old besom was actually smiling, something unheard of before, at least in my arch-ex-wife's lifetime. And I'd always wondered who she'd taken after. What's more, gran wasn't complaining about anything at all. She was a past mistress of the "It's too hot, it's too cold, the younger generation is rubbish, do this, don't do that, especially if you like it" form of peevish geriatric monologue. She tried a few jokes. She even smiled at one of mine. She was pleasant to everyone, even her son-in-law with whom she'd had a running thirty-year feud. Further, when she got up to go to the little girls' room after scraping her plate clean for the third time, she was even less steady on her pins than normal.
We all looked at each other and just burst out laughing.
Anyway, you pay for your fun and after dinner, when we were all sitting in front of the television in the usual Christmas Day post-prandial stupour, she went firmly to sleep and snored all afternoon.
The moral is obviously that you shouldn't trifle with an old teetotaller's trifle!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear CK: The moral I get from your tale is that you should sophisticate the victuals of such a harpy if you can get away with it. True, the best of attentions are not always appreciated. I remember an elderly Scots lady who came into the ER, having fallen on the stairs at home. I decided to have her kept in the hospital overnight for observation. Something told me she might be a candidate for DT's. So I decided to give her some paraldehyde, which was the only thing suitable available over fifty years ago. It tastes god-awful, and makes breath smell even worse, so it is hardly used at all now. I knew I would have to con her into taking it, so I told her I thought she needed something for her nerves. She brightened up perceptibly, and said bravely, that if it were for her own good, she'd take it. So I told her that I thought she needed a little whiskey. She brightened up very obviously, and said even more bravely that if it were for her good, she'd take it. So then I told her that she had to understand that the hospital whiskey was awful cheap and bad tasting. She still was brave. So she took the glass and downed the shot, coughed and glared at me furiously. "Ah'v dronk mony a glass of cheap whusky, but none so cheap as that!"
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Dear wwh,
I think you could give James Herriot a run for his money, were he still here, with your own tales from the world of healers. Your tales would have a different twist, but creatures is creatures, and you've got awfully entertaining ones in your brain!
Best regards,
WordWon
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Dear wwh,
I think you could give James Herriot a run for his money...
-wordwindYeah, yeah WW, your goodbuddy wwh's story was cute. But what about Capital Kiwi's great trifle story. I could edit it, give his ex-wife and his ex-mother-in-law a thick 19th century irish brogue, and make Capital Kiwi the staggering innocent victim of strong drink. Then me and Capital could split the two thousand dollars we would win in the Virtual Ireland Short Story Contest. Kiwi -45% Milum -55% 
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Nice one CapK Reminds me of my mum's aunt, my great Aunt Jess (rest her soul!) She lived with us for the last few years of her her life and was, on the whole, a pretty good old stick. Became a bit of a sponger though - but I digress..... AJ was a very prim person who never swore, hated "new" music and so on. So, when she let rip with an enormous fart at the dinner table one night, you can imagine the delight of us three kids - heavily smothered of course!! She didn't miss a beat - looked up, glared at us all, and said, "Who did that?" just like a Victorian school marm. This completely finished us kids off, we laughed uproariously and my sister, ever the straight shooter, said, "You did Auntie Jess, you just farted - it was you!!" I'm grinning like a Cheshire cat as I write this - still funny 25 years later. (And guess what I say first thing every day when I greet the world in a male's time honoured way......)stales
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I don't think Wordwind meant to slight CapK---she's just been starstruck by Dr. Bill's ongoing saga of patients and the personnel who sometimes exercise great patience with them.
Me and the wind be pretty close, you know...
OrB~
PS: Milum, I like your arithmetic! One for you and two for me, and one for you and two for me....
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Dear Stales et al.: Here is a story by Mark Twain you might enjoy: http://www.mbay.net/~jmd/1601.html
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Dear stales: Your story about jokes at formal family feasts reminded me of prank my father played on his mother one April first. The year before Grandmother had given him an elaborate cut glass tumbler which she had gotten at a Boston store, Daddy & Jacks, which specialized in items for playing tricks. The goblet had one of the flower leaves cut into the glass that would not leak when tumbler was sitting on table, but would leak a lot onto your necktie when you took a drink. When his tie got wet, my father did not say a word. But the next year when Grandmother came, when she sat down, there was a loud, prolonged rude noise, sounding very much as though she had passed a very large amount of flatus. She got very red.
My father had been to Daddy & Jacks, and bought a chair cushion which concealed a large airbag connected to a Bronx cheer razzer.
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First you would have to get the Irish editor to strain his belief to the point that he would think there actually was a teetotalling woman in Ireland.
TEd
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In an editorial about "1601" I found a mildly amusing anecdote about flatus in Parliament:
"That certain types of English society have not changed materially in
their freedom toward breaking wind in public can be noticed in some
comparatively recent literature. Frank Harris in My Life, Vol. 2,
Ch. XIII, tells of Lady Marriott, wife of a judge Advocate General,
being compelled to leave her own table, at which she was entertaining Sir
Robert Fowler, then the Lord Mayor of London, because of the suffocating
and nauseating odors there. He also tells of an instance in parliament,
and of a rather brilliant bon mot spoken upon that occasion.
"While Fowler was speaking Finch-Hatton had shewn signs of restlessness;
towards the end of the speech he had moved some three yards away from the
Baronet. As soon as Fowler sat down Finch-Hatton sprang up holding his
handkerchief to his nose:
"'Mr. Speaker,' he began, and was at once acknowledged by the Speaker,
for it was a maiden speech, and as such was entitled to precedence by the
courteous custom of the House, 'I know why the Right Honourable Member
from the City did not conclude his speech with a proposal. The only way
to conclude such a speech appropriately would be with a motion!'"
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The tale is told, too, of a certain woman who performed an aeolian
crepitation at a dinner attended by the witty Monsignieur Dupanloup,
Bishop of Orleans, and that when, to cover up her lapse, she began to
scrape her feet upon the floor, and to make similar noises, the Bishop
said, "Do not trouble to find a rhyme, Madam!"
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"One day, while standing upright, addressing his prayers to Jupiter,
Aethon farted in the Capitol. Men laughed, but the Father of the Gods,
offended, condemned the guilty one to dine at home for three nights.
Since that time, miserable Aethon, when he wishes to enter the Capitol,
goes first to Paterclius' privies and farts ten or twenty times. Yet, in
spite of this precautionary crepitation, he salutes Jove with constricted
buttocks." Martial also (Book IV, Epigram LXXX), ridicules a woman who
was subject to the habit, saying,
"Your Bassa, Fabullus, has always a child at her side, calling it her
darling and her plaything; and yet--more wonder--she does not care for
children. What is the reason then. Bassa is apt to fart. (For which
she could blame the unsuspecting infant.)"
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pissed in pewter plumbum poisoning pitchershttp://dictionary.com/search?q=trifleDef 4a first entry
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I know a triflin' man,
They call him Triflin' Sam,
He lives in Birmingham,
'Way down in Alabam,
"Aggravatin' Papa" sung by Alberta Hunter 1923-24
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Dear Faldage: Same in my dictionary. I just despise peyoowey pewter. My grandmother had a large colection of it. My father would not allow its being used because of lead content. My mother made me polish it, because we had gas stove, and sulfur tarnished the pewter. When my mother died, my father just threw it away.
In a report similar to ours, Scarlett et al described lead poisoning in a married couple who ingested
non-alcoholic carbonated beverages from a pewter drinking mug.10 Traditional pewter mugs contain 25% lead and 75% tin, and are not recommended for food and drink containers. Highly toxic lead
concentrations may result from elution of lead from the pewter by the acidity of effervescent
non-alcoholic beverages.
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Do they even make pewter stuff any more except as decrative?
i have "new pewter" Wilson's "art metal" a greyed, but still shiny aluminum alloy that is heavy, pewterish in color and lead free. it is no worse than using aluminum pots (and i know there is some concern about using aluminum for cooking)
i have a pitcher, a tureen, a serving bowl and platter. the non food stuff, (candle sticks and the like) i use all the time. the others are used infrequently.
but it is my understanding you can't by pewter bowl, tankards or other food stuff, just real pewter candle stick holders, or the like.
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No, you can can still get "pure" pewter stuff, Helen. You just have to go to the trendy shops to buy it. And they charge like wounded bulls.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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And they charge like wounded bulls. Cute!
What would happen if a gunsmith made a trifle rifle? see Faldage's definition #4
Bang regards,
WordWound
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What would happen if a gunsmith made a trifle rifle?
Eewww! Talk about your lead poisoning!
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My mother made me polish it, because we had gas stove, and sulfur tarnished the pewter. When my mother died, my father just threw it away.
Ouch! The proceeds from selling that pewter would have been considerable .. as noted in CapK's post the "good stuff" costs a bomb these days.
A friend sold her 100-year-old pewter charger (which she bought years ago for $50) and the proceeds paid her round trip ticket from east to Hawaii -- first class!
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Dear wow: My father would not sell something poisonous.
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wow, what is a pewter charger?
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Dear belMarduk: my dictionary gives a second word, charger, meaning a large flat dish, a platter.
I never heard it before. I sure as hell would not buy any pewter, even lead free types. The price of titanium is due to drop perhaps as much as seventy five percent, according to recent article in New Scientist. Titanium resists corrosion, and except that it is not as easy to shape as pewter, may lend itself to very attractive kitchenware.
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Dearr Max: You must be really pinching pennies. The amount of titanium in a ring must cost less than a buck. The US Army in Gulf War had tank treads made of titanium. The only problem is it may not be as easy for a jeweler to form.
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A long shot here, but Max, could you be thinking of platinum?
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Dear Max: I'm sure your wife would be glad to lean on her brother (if this is the relationship) to make band for you without much injury to your wallet.
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wow, what is a pewter charger?A charger is a large, flat plate placed directly on the tablecoth. Your other dishes are placed on the charger. They are usually silver, although pewter would work, or they are china that may compliment or contrast the china used for the main course. To see a picture, go to: http://www.bluesuitmom.com/food/jorj/dinneretiquette.htmlThis, of course, is a dish used at a very formal dinner. Never used in our home. Paper plates on top of a charger? I don't think so! 
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Dear Angel: then the cost of a trifle charger would not be a trifle.
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Dear wwh,
Chargers are attractive in table settings. You see 'em used all the time in junk mail slick magazine photographs--just sittin' there on those Martha Stewart kind of table settings framing in a circular way each place setting.
What I'd like to know is why are chargers called chargers?
And I wonder whether trifle really might have been called trifle because you use a trifle of this and a trifle of that...
Best regards,
WordWonderer
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My sweet Max, you could wear it on a (breakaway) chain 'round your neck, Dearest. Just a thought.
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Titanium is all the rage with jewellers for a number of reasons - and, for jewellery grade stuff, IS quite expensive. I apologise however for not knowing the relativities of price with other metals. Fancy a visit to the London Metal Exchange site anybody.....?
One of its benefits is that it passes through a range of vivid colours when heated (as do other metals, but arguably not so prettily). The colour is retained when it cools, so the item can be blue, straw, pinkish, violet or some other combination. If the heat treating is applied locally on the piece it can exhibit a range of colours across its face.
My neighbour's son, a talented young jeweller, made a beautiful ring from gold and electric blue titanium. It was like a sandwich, the outer band of gold had a celtic pattern cut into it, exposing the blue titanium below. An absolute eye catcher.
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Ooo, I didn't know they could make colored titanium. I wonder if that'll be the next colorful Mac thing: Blue Titanium G4 Powerbooks. (No, probably not, all there products are white now.)
I've actually been wondering if my Titanium Powerbook is actually titanium. It's a dull gray, not really shiny at all, and there are a few scratches on the bottom. I had the impression that titanium was impervious to just about everything.
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Dear Jazzo: Titanium can be made fairly hard. I have a set of drill bits that package said were titanium, but I am sure they are just plated or something. For aircraft, the wonderful thing about titanium is that when air friction at high speed heats it up a lot, it does not sag the way aluminum would. One undesirable thing about it for boats is that it is a bit brittle when very cold. I wonder if it will ever be used as girders in big buildings for that reason. I thought at one time magnesium would have very desirable uses in buildings, until I remembered seeing German WWII aircraft made of magnesium burn like gigantic Forth of July displays.
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underable
Is this a real word? I love it, Dr. Bill!
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Magnesium simply shouldn't be used where intense heat is likely to occur. Therefore, no buildings, no warships and no military aircraft should have it in their structures. The Brits were nuts to use it in their warships, but even they learn. Titanium, as stales said, goes through a range of colours when it's heated, and this colourisation can be controlled quite minutely by the application of heat at the point when the colour is desired. Me missus has a real liking for expensive titanium earrings which are made in a range of colours by just that process. Whoever invented the method should be taken out and shot ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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noun-verb number agreement Calme-toi, Chéri--we love you anyway. Plus, that sort of thing is easy to do when one is caught up in the "heat" of the moment...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Jackie: " underable " should have read " undesirable".
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
why are chargers called chargers?
charge, n, adopted from OF-F, comes from OF-MF chargier, to load, whence "to charge", orig to load, hence to place, upon someone, a load other than of weight... A charger, whether a large platter or a cavalry or ceremonial horse, carries a weight ...
.......-- Origins A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English
Chargers are also called service plates or place plates. They can be made of china, metal or wood. A charger is in place when the diners come to the table; the napkin may be centered on it, with a place card centered on that, in which case the diner and not the server removes the napkin for use and puts the place card aside. A soup plate, with or without an underliner, is placed on the charger; a soup cup requires an underliner even if a charger is used. A plate of oysters or clams may also be placed on the charger.
The charger is removed after the soup and shellfish courses, so that a plate for the fish or meat course may be substituted. For proper removal, the server must stand behind the diner and lean to the right to remove the charger and then immediately lean to the left to slip in a fresh plate, so that at no time during a proper dinner, until just before dessert service, is the place in front of the diner empty. A dinner plate may be used instead of a charger, and is just left in place for use during the main course.
My chargers are metal.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Dear Sparteye,
Thanks for the information about chargers. I always figured that the horses in battles were called chargers because they charged forward into battle, so your information taught this old dog a new mental trick.
You also wrote:
Chargers are also called service plates or place plates. They can be made of china, metal or wood.
At the family reunions and church picnics, we often see the woven grass paper plate holders. Would they be classified as "The Plugger's Chargers"?
Curious,
Wordwind
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I remember, but can find no confirmation, that the quart sized dispensers of carbonated water for mixing drinks used to be called "chargers" because carbonated water was also calle "charged water."
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