Feb 6, 2007

devil's avocado*

I've always wanted to know this and today JEC inspired me to find out, and lo, lawyer=testicle! that's a jackpot I wasn't even looking for.:

"The history of avocado takes us back to the Aztecs and their language, Nahuatl, which contained the word ahuacatl meaning both “fruit of the avocado tree” and “testicle.” The word ahuacatl was compounded with others, as in ahuacamolli, meaning “avocado soup or sauce,” from which the Spanish-Mexican word guacamole derives. In trying to pronounce ahuacatl, the Spanish who found the fruit and its Nahuatl name in Mexico came up with aguacate, but other Spanish speakers substituted the form avocado for the Nahuatl word because ahuacatl sounded like the early Spanish word avocado (now abogado), meaning “lawyer.” In borrowing the Spanish avocado, first recorded in English in 1697 in the compound avogato pear (with a spelling that probably reflects Spanish pronunciation), we have lost some traces of the more interesting Nahuatl word."
--answers.com

'Twas a major mail day here in the BK. And check out what they have now!

. . .
*spicy!

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