Talking Turkey

According to National Geographic, Nov. 07, the people of Israel eat more turkeys per capita than any other country.

Hungary, a place and people that I cherish, comes in No. 5. Odd, because I never remember eating it over there. Pork, fish, venison and chicken a-plenty, lovingly lathered in lard, but not turkey.

In fact, I had to look up the Hungarian word for turkey, not remembering it at all.

Pulyka.

Usually, a word borrowed from another language is somewhat recognizable in its new linguistic home. Hamburgesa, komputador, beisbol, futbol, come to mind. And people do tend to be lazy and borrow when encountering a new phenomenon. Europeans borrowed raccoon, moose, squirrel, chocolate, etc. from the natives when they encountered these things in the New World.

"Pulyka" obviously has no kinship to "turkey." It's not borrowed. That's unusual, especially since the turkey bird is another American original, not native to the Old World. In other words, it would have been a perfect candidate for word-borrowing. And such borrowing would have been recent, since Europeans have only been on this continent 500 years or so.

"Turkey" was apparently what Old Worlders sometimes called the guinea fowl, since that tasty bird was often shipped through that country on its way to the dinner plates of Europe.

So when the Europeans saw a similar creature here in America, turkey is what they called it. Later, they called a certain hairy prairie beast a buffalo, though it's actually a bison. That's the other side of linguistic borrowing. If you don't take a word from the natives, you can always put together a label for the phenomena from your own memory bank.

Thus, the Greeks called a big, grey beast of Africa a water-horse -- hippo-potamus. American Indians called alcohol fire-water. The Dutch settlers in Africa called one of their new neighbors "aardvark" -- earth pig.

That mystery is resolved. "Pulyka" remains.

The scent of insolence

Guerlain has created a new perfume for Women called "Insolence."

If you're in the mood, they have a website, http://www.insolence.com/.

I'm really surprised that someone else hasn't grabbed that domain name long ago.

Insolence, according to these people, is the "sparkle in the eye of a carefree spirit."

Hmmm. My dictionary defines it as being "disrespectful of custom or authority."

To me, the word is negative; it implies childish disrespect for rules that should be followed, as opposed to rules that are unjust or merely confining. I don't think of some happy hippie dancing in a daisy field but of a bratling who won't give up his seat on the bus for a senior citizen.

Hiney whining

After reading a delightful article recently about the author's perceived lack of personal gluteal protuberance (translated, she thinks she has no butt), I am thinking about all the synonyms associated with said rear region and how verbally unsatisfying they seem to be.

I must confess, I don't much care how one refers to the male human backside. Being a hetero human male, my hard-wired, evolved-ape interests naturally include the female human backside, which deserves its own proper and attractive terminology.

Specifically, there is no sweet, soft, gentle word for this important secondary sexual characteristic. Topside, she has breasts -- a lovely, romantic word, IMHO, a lot better than the stupid and infantile slang of "boobies" or the grotesque t-word, which is suitable for dairy cows, not Ladies. May my tongue be ripped out of my head and fried on a hot rock if ever I lower myself to such verbal ugliness.

But under and yon, what options are there? Butt is short for buttocks, which just sounds ugly and clinical. Ass is just crude and no synonym for a stubborn, hairy beast of burden belongs on a woman's body. Only fitness freaks talk about buns anymore. Derriere is as close to a lovely lilt as we seem to have available, but it still sounds like some foreign car or an old-fashioned dueling weapon to me. Hips are for grandmothers. Fanny, behind, rear end, hiney, backside -- all these fail to satisfy. And "Where the Good Lord split you" should never have escaped the Tennessee hills.

Tsukas or whatever they say in Yiddish, sounds like a disease. Nalgas may work in Spanish but to my English ear, it sounds like a relative of nopalitos, which are canned cactus slices.

As a lover of words and of Womankind, too, I find this deficit disturbing. Whatever shall we do?