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The Dictionary Comes Out Again December 16, 2007

Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , 1 comment so far

Another interesting discussion hit at breakfast today. The kids were eating CocoWheats and Miss Language wanted to know what they were, anyhow. I told her chocolatized farina. That did not satisfy so she read the box and then wanted to know what farina is. We have cleverly positioned her seat near the piece of furniture that holds our dining room dictionary (when it’s not on the rungs of her chair) just so she can quickly deal with a Vocabulary Emergency.

She looked up ‘farina.’ (Un)fortunately, she got distracted en route to ‘farina’and asked if anyone knows what ‘fard’ means. Someone said something about a type of poet and then Devastatingly Handsome asked could it be a bard who ate too many beans? No. Turns out to be some archaic word:

–noun

1. facial cosmetics.

–verb (used with object)

2. to apply cosmetics to (the face).

[Origin: 1400–50; late ME < MF, OF: n. deriv. of farder to apply makeup, prob. < Old Low Franconian *farwiđon to dye, color (cf. OHG farwjan, G färben)]

I helpfully pointed out to Miss Language that when young men come to call and she is not ready, we can tell them she is in the bathroom farding. She did not seem to appreciate the suggestion.

Then at dinner I served pesto tortellini. One of Miss Language’s had ruptured. This led to a discussion of what is the word for just one ‘tortellini’? Doubtless you will be heartbroken to hear the dictionary let us down. So we were going with ‘tortellinus’, till we discovered actually several had ruptured. Whew. Problem solved.