Shuba in Sammamish, Washington, grew up in India, where she heard speakers of Indian English refer to an eggplant as a brinjal. She assumed that this was a British English term, but later realized that in Britain, this vegetable is called an aubergine. The CRC Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants (Bookshop|Amazon), by Umberto Quattrocchi, lists 116 different words used in India to denote an “eggplant,” many of them similar to brinjal. Actually, brinja l and aubergine and even the Italian name for this vegetable, melanzana, are etymologically related, going back ultimately to Sanskrit. In the Caribbean, eggplant often goes by the name brown jolly, which is yet another adaptation of this earlier form. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter!
Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.
