George from Maple Grove, Minnesota, was driving through West Virginia and stopped at Grandview outside Beckley. The view of the New River Gorge was indeed so grand that he texted a picture to friends and family with the message, What a gorgeous view of a gorge. Then he wondered, is the gorge in a landscape related to gorgeous? Yes, but in a roundabout way. Gorge comes from an Old French word for “throat” deriving from the Latin gurges, meaning “throat,” “gullet,” or “jaws.” In the late Middle Ages, the elegant part of a French woman’s wimple was a gorgias, which ultimately became gorgeous in English. These throat-related words are the linguistic kin of expressions like make someone’s gorge rise, gorge yourself, and regurgitate. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Throat Connecting “Gorge” and “Gorgeous””
Hello.
You have A Way with Words.
Hey, Grant.
Hey, Martha.
This is George Zahn from Maple Grove, Minnesota.
A while back, I was driving through West Virginia on my way back from my parents’ house in Virginia.
And I stopped at Grand View outside Beckley, and there you get literally a Grand View of, the New River Gorge, which if you’ve never been, it’s truly a spectacular sight.
And I took a picture and I was I was leaving.
I texted the picture to friends and family and said, what a gorgeous view of a gorge.
And it hit me that I needed to call you guys about a gorgeous gorge.
You thought of the two most gorgeous people you knew and you had to call us.
That’s right.
Yeah.
That’s something like that.
So the question is, does Gorge, G 0 R G E, In A, you know, geographical sense, have anything to do with gorgeous, g o r g e o u s, meaning beautiful or very attractive?
Sure.
Yeah, there is a connection between those two words, but it’s not what you might think.
It’s actually really surprising.
The word gorge, as in a narrow canyon, comes from an old French word that means throat.
If you think about it, that makes sense because a gorge is essentially a throat in the landscape.
And it goes back to a Latin root, gurgis, which means throat or gullet or jaws.
And it can also mean golf or whirlpool.
And actually, the same root gives us the word regurgitate, which has nothing What’s to do with being really interesting is that modern French retains that throat meaning.
La gorge means, the throat.
If you have mal de gorge, you have a sore throat.
Now, the word gorgeous itself may be related, but here’s the connection with the idea of the throat.
In the late middle ages, fashionable women wore an elaborate headdress that in English we call a wimple.
And the part that covered the throat and the shoulders had its own name in French, from gorge meaning throat.
And over time, a beautiful wimple became a mark of an elegant woman, you know, very, very fashionable.
Then that term expanded to mean fond of dress or simply elegant.
And from that, we get the word gorgeous.
So these words are likely related, but it has to do with a throat.
Isn’t that wild?
Wow.
There are a couple other places where gorge still means throat in English.
One of them is if you make someone’s gorge rise by doing something nauseating, you make them vomit.
And also has the verb to gorge yourself on food.
Yeah, there’s that one too, right?
Oh, sure, sure.
Oh my goodness.
This goes much further than I thought.
Always does.
That’s what we do, George.
That’s what we do.
All right.
Take care of yourself.
Call us again sometime, all right?
Yeah.
This has been great.
Thank you so much.
Sure.
Bye bye.
Thank you, George.
Take care.
Bye bye.
All right.
Bye bye.
(877-929-9673 is this gorgeous phone number that you can call or text toll free in The United States and Canada.
