Thursday, September 24, 2020

Giggle peas

I think one of the funniest words in the German language has to be 'giggle peas' or in German 'Kichererbsen'.

Sadly, the German word for 'chickpeas' has nothing to do with giggling (or 'kichern'), just as the English word has nothing to do with baby chickens.

The German and English word have the same root: "early 18th century (earlier as chiche-pease ): from late Middle English chiche (from Old French chichecice, from Latin cicer ‘chickpea’) + pease."

Basically, therefore, the word means 'pea pea'. 

Which is not half as funny as 'giggle pea'.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The headlines of The Economist

 When my students as me to recommend some good reading material, The Economist is one of the few publications that I recommend. As I tell th...