I ran across a reference to Adelbert von Chamisso [ˈaːdl̩bɛʁt fɔn ʃaˈmɪso] (who came up here in the context of “translingualism” in 2021) and suddenly wondered what kind of name Chamisso was. A little trawling produced this footnote from the Transactions of the English Goethe Society VII (1891-92), p. 109:
* Einem alten Hause entsprossen. Chamisso’s words. Works (2nd edition in 6 volumes), Vol. I., S. 5. This edition will be used for all subsequent quotations. The name Chamissot occurs ᴀ.ᴅ. 1305. Other forms are found : Chamizzot, Chemizzot, Chamisso, perhaps also Chamesson. In Oporto there is living a Senhor Chamiço.
I don’t know whether anyone has traced it farther back, but I love that final line “In Oporto there is living a Senhor Chamiço.” I wonder what his story was?
I see that the English WP believes that “belles lettres” means “beautiful letters.”
I wonder how they came up with that? It doesn’t seem to be based on the French or German versions.
I’m guessing the Comte de Chamisso (+1874) whose grave is Frenchly documented here may have been Adelbert’s nephew? https://www.appl-lachaise.net/chamisso-louis-auguste-adolphe-comte-de-x-1874/
Surely you recall Brouillon’s article, “Les origines d’Adelbert de Chamisso”, in the Travaux de l’Académie nationale de Reims, 127:287–371 (1910)? As it says, the family came from Italy, and the name Chamissot may derive from camiciotto ‘blouse’.
I had somehow missed that, so thanks, that sounds plausible!
Bert Shirt.
Raul Brandão was a Portuguese writer, 1867-1930. He wrote a short theatrical piece, O Gebo e a Sombra, in which a character is named Chamiço. The character is a musician. Gebo is another character. The name translates as zebu, an oxlike ruminant.
Gebo
nome masculino
2. [Depreciativo] Indivíduo que se veste mal, sem elegância, e cujo aspecto é ordinário.
3. [Zoologia] Mamífero ruminante da Ásia e de África, parecido com o boi, que tem no cachaço uma giba. = ZEBU
masculine name
2 [Deprecating] A person who dresses badly, without elegance, and whose appearance is vulgar.
3 [Zoology] A ruminant mammal from Asia and Africa, similar to the ox, which has a hump on its neck. = ZEBU
Chamiço doesn’t appear in any of the Portuguese dictionaries on my shelves or in the interwebs.
Senhor Chamiço of Oporto may have been in the port trade. You can still buy a bottle of F. Chamisso Filho et Silva 11815(!) Vintage Port, just $895.
Marked down from $5,430.00!
@cuchuflete
https://dicionario.priberam.org/chami%C3%A7o
I go for porco magro. If you don’t like that, there is the placename in Alentejo.
@PlasticPaddy
Porco magro sounds about right. Especially if one likes oxymorons.
Muito ‘brigado.
From the same page-
Origem etimológica:chama + -iço.
“chamiço”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa [em linha], 2008-2024, https://dicionario.priberam.org/chami%C3%A7o.
@DE: Bert von Shirt, Sir, thank you very much.
We Extreme Radical Socialists™ scorn such relics of feudalism, but I am prepared to compromise on “Bert the Shirt.”
Except that a Bert shirt is a shirt, not a Bert.
Not at all. “The Shirt” is to be construed like “the MacDonald.”
The Shirt of That Ilk.
That is to say, the chieftain of Clan Shirt (Clann Siortagh.)
That might work, except that Bert shirt already refers to a specific iconic garment. I guess that’s just not the case outside North America.
The McWhorters, hereditary “linguists” (in the Ghanaian sense) to the chieftains of Clan Shirt, in fact bear a cognate family name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_s-mobile
That might work, except that Bert shirt already refers to a specific iconic garment. I guess that’s just not the case outside North America.
It’s not the case for me either. I remember the character, but I didn’t know he was who you meant, and I couldn’t have told you what kind of shirt he wears.
Meme fashion is a stern taskmaster.
The shirt is significant. Ernie is the goofy kid and wears kid-style horizontal stripes. Bert is the opposite (and technically, it’s a striped vest.)
Don’t put your semiotics aside when watching Sesame Street. Especially not when watching Sesame Street.
I know this as a joke in Undertale: “You’re a kid too, right? I can tell ’cause you’re wearing a striped shirt.”
Fandom consensus seems to be that it’s a reference to the Earthbound/Mother JRPG series (which Undertale is heavily inspired by). TVTropes tells me that the franchise name “Mother” is a reference to a John Lennon song, so despite being a Japanese game it’s definitely in conversation with some Anglophone culture, but it seems like kind of a jump from Lenon to Sesame Street.
Is this a broader symbolic association?? I can’t say I’ve really noticed it myself elsewhere myself. Unless the Blues Clues guy is supposed to be a kid [Correction — there have now been three Blues Clues guys, and they are 2 for 3 on horizontal stripey shirts.] I guess Blue’s Clues is *for* kids… but that doesn’t work with the Bert-Ernie distinction explained by Y.
(I have also heard a “fashion rule” that horizontal stripes are to be avoided because they make you look fat, but since stores continue to sell clothes with horizontal stripes I assume that rule isn’t universal)
@sarah: The guy on Blues Clues (or at least the first one) was definitely supposed to be a kid. You could tell this because of the way he was shown. I don’t know whether it was done via a lens during filming or in post, but his body was depicted foreshortened—vertically compressed to give him more childlike proportions. It wasn’t especially noticeable expect when he shrugged with his arms out horizontally, because then the modified aspect ratio made his arms looks freakishly long.
Ernie is kind of a chubby kid, with a round face. The stripes suit him. Likewise the chubby kid on The Far Side.
Bert is in the same cohort as Ernie: they are socially equal. But Bert emulates an adult.
(I have also heard a “fashion rule” that horizontal stripes … I assume that rule isn’t universal)
According to Qi, that “rule” is nonsense. You can also find the opposite of that rule on the interwebs, which more or less proves it’s nonsense. Youtube also has David Mitchell’s rant as to how much counter-counter-intuitive nonsense is involved.
Since this is the Hattery, it’s probably one of those illusions depending on whether your culture has a more rectilinear environment.
That doesn’t matter, if the rule is cultural. People will wear vertical stripes because they think it will have the effect, whether or not it provably does.
Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa [em linha]:
chamiço
nome masculino
1. Lenha meio por queimar para fazer carvão.
…
The entry covering chamiza (also chamisa) and chamizo in Coromines’ etymological dictionary of Spanish.
I know chamiza/chamisa especially from New Mexico, where it is the name of the ubiquitous and beautiful native plant Ericameria nauseosa. (I gather that an English name is rubber rabbitbrush, which is nice to say, although I have never actually heard anyone say it, that I can recall.) The species epithet is nauseosa, but I love chamisa honey—I had it with breakfast every day when I lived in Santa Fe, looking out at my garden blanketed in silvery foliage and yellow flowers. Also note chamizo meaning ‘fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens)’, a widespread plant of western North America with silvery foliage and yellowish flowers. And in other regions, chamizo can be a name for other plants, too.
@Xerib: That reminds me of the fact that the flowers that are said around here in the Southeast to produce the best honey are those of the sourwood.
Sourwood’s name is nonetheless fairly earned. It is also known as “tree sorrel.” However, the acidic compounds that make its leaves sour are much nastier than those in dock sorrel. Chewing sourwood leaves has traditional use as a laxative. (Crossing over threads, this reminds me that T. E. Lawrence talks a lot about the ailments he and his camels suffered. The camels could get by on significantly fouler water than a human could stomach, but he describes how it gave the animals diarrhea.)
My last comment got me wondering about etymology (and gave me something to do while I avoid doing several dreary work-related tasks). The origin of sorrel is pretty much what I guessed: from the West Germanic sour word, mediated through Middle French. However, the synonym dock is of unknown origin. It goes back to Old English, but is apparently only found in English and Dutch. The OED says it is unclear whether the English and Dutch are ancestral cognates, or whether one (probably the Dutch, for dating reasons) is a borrowing of the other.
Come to think of it (procrastinating further…), do any Americans use dock? I certainly do not. I have no memory of knowing the word prior to encountering it in the, “But, El-ahrairah, you have no ears and fleas will not go to dock leaves,” context. I am honestly not sure whether I already knew then that it was a synonym of sorrel. Moreover, does pretty much anybody at all call the plant dock in a culinary context? The OED has citations, but it seems like in soups, salads, and sauces, it is overwhelmingly known as sorrel.
Some Rumex species is or are common in wet areas around here, and I certainly call it or them dock. That’s what they’re called in on-line sources. I hadn’t quite put it together that edible sorrel is in the same genus. Like you, I wouldn’t expect it to be called dock in cooking.
do any Americans use dock? I certainly do not.
Nor do I. I’m not sure I’d ever known the word (in that sense).
Thanks, Xerîb. I was going to write about the plant but you saved me the trouble.
The common English spelling is chamise, with an s. By coincidence, I was at a nursery two days ago, with lots of those for sale. It’s very Californian, and is one of the most drought-tolerant plants here, especially in the southern part of the state.
To be clear, I mean the Atriplex.
Prairie dock, a silphium species, is familiar in the Midwest, at least in those naturalist / native plant circles that know about swales! I have prairie dock in my yard.
Also, burdock is fairly well known, and is compounded from dock.
I knew burdock but didn’t know it was compounded from dock. The things you learn around here!
@Ryan: I knew that burdock contained bur-, but it never occurred to me that the second element was the same dock. The plants don’t seem very similar. The leaves are both pointed, but that’s about the only thing they seem to have in common.
The only dock I’ve heard of is, I think, curly dock (Rumex crispus), in some circulars about weed eradication.
The dock that I know from England is Rumex obtusifolius, which is often found growing alongside stinging nettles. According to folkloric homeopathy, squeezing a dock leaf and rubbing it on a sting will ease the pain. We would swear to the effectiveness of this remedy when I was growing up, but Wikipedia is skeptical.
I had no idea that docks were related to sorrels, or that they were edible.
Burdock, on the other hand, I know from the burdock and dandelion soft drink that is (somewhat) popular in the UK. It’s a bit like root beer, a concoction I had heard about from Peanuts but never seen until I came to the US.
in u.s. wild-foods worlds, dock is pretty well-known by that name as well as by “rumex”. “sorrel”, though, gets used for the whole array of edible rumexes and oxalises (the latter often as “wood sorrel”).* in my neighborhood, though, “sorrel” almost always means the spiced hibiscus drink (a/k/a jamaica, bissap, etc).
.
* it’s all shchav to me, personally, and i’ll eat any kind i can get.
According to folkloric homeopathy, squeezing a dock leaf and rubbing it on a sting will ease the pain. We would swear to the effectiveness of this remedy when I was growing up, …
Yes we had the same family folklore — I don’t think we knew of homeopathy at the time. I’ve always suspected it’s the rubbing with a soft leaf that distracts the nervous system, not any juice expressed. And yes, Dock is often found growing alongside.
New Zealand Stinging Nettle (Urtica Ferox) is an order of magnitude more ferocious; not likely to be found growing alongside anything to ameliorate the pain, and repeats on you for up to several days.
@Brett: Dock and burdock seem pretty similar to me:* common weeds with big pointed leaves growing profusely, initially in a rosette, later a stout flowering stem. Both bring the word “coarse” to me mind. The inflorescences and fruits are quite different, but “bur” takes care of that.
*Not similar to me, actually. To me they seem similar.
with plantain, the anti-itch effect (especially for mosquito bites) is definitely about the liquid. rubbing a leaf on the spot doesn’t do anything, while the ground/chewed (not in the city) leaf gives fairly reliable relief – which may be because of being pulpy and wet, or because of something specific to the plant.
In America, at least where I come from, this effect is attributed to jewelweed (Impatiens capensis).
Where I come from (northeastern Ohio), I heard that jewelweed was good for poison ivy and, i think, mosquito bites. Nettles weren’t common and I never heard any local folklore about them.
Jerry, I think you’re right–jewelweed was associated with poison ivy. The nettles where I lived, a little ways away in WV, were a wimpy variety whose sting wore off in about ten minutes without intervention. Was a European cure for nettle rash applied in America to poison ivy?
I also am familiar with the word “chamizo” from its use in the Southwestern U.S. and Northern Mexico. As Xerîb pointed out the name can be used for different plants. In addition to the links above, the “Diccionario del español de México” has an entry here: https://dem.colmex.mx/ver/chamizo
A place where a lot of chamizo grows is called a chamizal, a word that gave name to the Chamizal Dispute on the border between the U.S. and Mexico: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamizal_dispute , as well as the Chamizal National Memorial: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamizal_National_Memorial .
(I am familiar with that area because I have family in El Paso – Ciudad Juárez and since I usually go though El Paso and Ciudad Juárez on my way to see family in Durango, I always end up passing by “El Chamizal”.)
I see that dictionary doesn’t have an entry for “chamiza”.
There’s a very small community called Chamisal in Taos County, New Mexico. I don’t know which plant it’s named after—Four-winged Saltbush (Atriplex canescens), Chamisa syn. Golden Rabbitbrush syn. Rubber Rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa), and sagebrushes (Artemisia spp.) all seem to be possibilities. A couple friends of mine have lived up there and I visited often, so you’d think I’d remember what shrubs I saw. Robert Julyan, in The Place Names of New Mexico, is sure it’s A. canescens
From Rubén Cobos’s Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish: “chamizo (chamiso), m. [<Mex. Sp. chamizo, var. of chamiza] bot., Sagebrush; chamizo jediondo, chamizo pardo, vars. of Sagebrush; chamizo blanco, bot., Goldenrod.”
It’s interesting that Cobos says “chamizo” comes from “chamiza” but doesn’t define “chamiza” or have an entry for it. Anyway, that dictionary has been very helpful to me, but I don’t trust Cobos on natural history. See “durmilón”, especially in the second edition.
What about durmilón? I only have the first edition of the dictionary. It defines it as ‘a kind of nighthawk’ and ‘a kind of stink beetle’ (plus dormilones ‘a plant of the Aster family’), all too vague, especially the aster. The Diccionario del español de Mexico has dormilón ‘Psilocybe aztecorum’, a hallucinogenic mushroom, and the Diccionario de Americanismos defines dormilón as ‘Hydropsalis spp.’, a nightjar genus (N.W. Argentina), ‘Cyclopes didactylus’, the silky anteater (Venezuela), and ‘Gobiomorus dormitor’, the bigmouth sleeper, a fish (Honduras).
I need to get the second edition of Cobos. I agree that the vague natural history doesn’t inspire confidence, but who knows?
The second edition is very much like the first edition, except all or almost all the etymologies have been removed. A few definitions are changed, and that of durmilón is changed for the worse, in my opinion.
Jerry Friedman wrote:
“I see that dictionary doesn’t have an entry for “chamiza”.”
I think that dictionary probably limits itself to words used within the present borders of Mexico even though I’d consider New Mexico Spanish to form a part of “el español de México”.
Even if “chamiza” is or was used in say, Northern Chihuahua, its possible that the word is too local or obscure or old for the compilers of the dictionary to have come across it.
Using “chamizo” and “chamiza” for different (but similar?) plants sounds like a familiar habit, though. In Spanish “huerto” means “garden” but where my mom is from we use “huerta” with an “a” specifically for those pieces of land encircled by low stone or adobe walls where people grow food, often fruit trees or maize and they often line the banks creeks and rivers.
@Pancho: in my dialect of Spanish (Rioplatense) huerto is literary or antiquated, while huerta is the everyday word for ‘vegetable patch’
Conversely, we only ever said almácigo and never almáciga for ‘raised planting bed’. I was very surprised the first time I heard the latter in Extremadura
Must be related to “the Giant Queensland Stinging Tree – it won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it had…”
@Pancho: Your huerta seems to be similar to or the same as Academic Spanish. The DLE says,
“1. f. Terreno de mayor extensión que el huerto, en que se cultivan verduras, legumbres y árboles frutales.
“Sin.: huerto, vergel, granja.
“2. f. Tierra de regadío.
“Sin.: regadío, ribera1, vega.”
I think that dictionary probably limits itself to words used within the present borders of Mexico even though I’d consider New Mexico Spanish to form a part of “el español de México”.
I’m a bit out of touch with this sort of thing, partly because my students, as far as I can tell, get along with each other regardless of ethnicity. I haven’t heard the “We’re Spanish, not Mexican” thing for a number of years. But still, here in northern N.M., I’d be careful about saying that New Mexico Spanish is part of Mexican Spanish.
Must be related to “the Giant Queensland Stinging Tree – it won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it had…”
Yes, they’re both in the nettle family. According to Wikipedia, the Giant Stinging Tree isn’t as bad as its relative the Stinging Bush (Dendrocnide moroides). However, the only member of this genus blamed for a human death is D. cordata in New Guinea. The Tree Nettle or Ongaonga of New Zealand, Urtica ferox, has also been blamed for a death.
@Y: The entry for durmilón in the second edition of Cobos is
“durmilón m [NM-CO Sp. durmilón] a kind of small hawk that sleeps on tree branches (observed in Martineztown, Albuquerque). This species of hawk must now be extinct.–RC”
Maybe he saw a Common Nighthawk or Common Poorwill sleeping during the day and someone he was with used the understandable name durmilón for it, but I doubt he saw a hawk, and why did he think it was extinct? If he couldn’t find it in a bird guide sometime later, I’ll be he wasn’t remembering it right.
The etymology given there is an example of the kind that appears a lot in the second edition. Now that I’m actually looking at it, I see that some entries have been added, some examples have been added, and a few examples have been removed. The second edition is about 50 pages longer; I’m not sure why. Further details if you’re interested.
I meant to add above that I’ve never written a dictionary or anything of comparable size, and I really do like Cobos’s dictionary.
Also, I recently noticed a mistake in one of my translations from Machado that the editors where it’s submitted are probably howling about. (I misunderstood prójimo as próximo.) I should avoid being the sartén that told the cazo not to blacken it.
Speaking of which, does anyone know a good forum for a few questions about lines of Machado that I’m having trouble with? I’ve been forbidden to do that at the Wordreference forums, for reasons I don’t understand.
You can try asking here; I don’t know if you’ll get useful help, but it doesn’t cost anything!
(I misunderstood prójimo as próximo.)
Uh-oh. There’s a difference ?!…
@Hat: Thanks! I’ll try it.
1.
Canta, canta en claro rimo,
el almendro en verde rama
y el doble sauce del río.
(Canciones de varias tierras VII).
Is that an imperative (probably addressed to himself) or present indicative? I though it had to be imperative because it was singular, but then I noticed Tiene amor, rosa y ortiga in Al gran pleno. By the way, is using a singular verb with a compound subject normal, or poetic license to save a syllable?
2.
Conversación de gitanos:
—¿Cómo vamos, compadrito?
—Dando vueltas al atajo.
(Proverbios y cantares in Nuevas canciones, LVI)
Does the question have a double meaning, “How’s it going?” and “How will we go?” And what does the last line mean, “Going back and forth on the shortcut”? “Turning around and around on the shortcut”?
And there’s another one… which I’ll post when I think of it.
@Stu: though they’re etymologically the same, in current usage prójimo is a hifalutin’ noun meaning ‘fellow human’, surviving mostly in Biblical references, while próximo is an everyday adjective meaning ‘next’
@Jerry Friedman: dar vueltas al atajo (lit. ‘to wander around a shortcut’, but usually taken to mean ‘to waste time and effort; to dilly-dally’) is an original Machado coinage that learnèd Spaniards will occasionally trot out but hasn’t become commonplace
The first example I’d parse as present indicative. With this much hyperbaton indicating that poetic license is in play, it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to imagine a second canta elided after sauce . But the text is ambiguous, having examples of both indicative (canta una voz de mi tierra) and imperative (canta, ruiseñor) uses
The ethnobotanical literature in California mentions several plants used for treating or preventing poison oak: mugwort, manzanita, white sage. However, it also mentions poison oak used medicinally, or that people simply were immune to it.
Th effects of another urushiol-bearing tree genus, the poisonwood (Metopium sp.) of Florida, is supposedly treatable by the bark of the gumbo-limbo tree (Bursera simaruba).
Florida has also the fearsome manchineel tree, for which the best treatment is to stay very far from it. Scariest plant ever.
Southern California has the poodle-dog bush (Eriodictyon parryi), pretty, and common enough, but somehow not well known. Supposedly it feels like poison oak, but much worse in intensity and duration. A friend told me that honey from bees which had fed on poodle-dog bush flowers was the tastiest honey he’s ever had.
@Alon: dar vueltas al atajo (lit. ‘to wander around a shortcut’, but usually taken to mean ‘to waste time and effort; to dilly-dally’)
To hesitate to take advantage [even] of a good thing ? Wie die Katze um den heißen Brei [unentschlossen herumschleicht].
I like it.
@Jerry Friedman
Yes, my huerta is similar to the definition given in the DLE (the español de Mexico dictionary also has a similar definition) except the way its used in the ranchos of the sierra of Durango it usually implies a stone or adobe wall around it as well.
If I planted corn people would call it a milpa. If I built a fence around it out of river stone, people would call the area a huerta as well. If the fence were made of barbed wire, people would call that area a cercado instead.
(Correct me if I’m wrong but “huerta” is also used for the countryside in Murcia, Spain.)
Mostly I was getting at that I guess I’m not surprised if the “diccionario del español de Mexico” doesn’t have an entry for “chamisa” since it doesn’t have definitions for other local usages that I’m familiar with.
Another example of this would be the word “atarantado” : https://dem.colmex.mx/Ver/atarantado ,
which it describes as to be confused or bewildered or not able to understand something well but I frequently hear it used to describe being dizzy. That’s still different from the way I learned it which is to be or become exhausted or very tired. I might hear an uncle say, “vine del trabajo todo atarantado” meaning, “I came from work all exhausted.”
“I haven’t heard the “We’re Spanish, not Mexican” thing for a number of years. But still, here in northern N.M., I’d be careful about saying that New Mexico Spanish is part of Mexican Spanish.”
Yes, I’m familiar with that cultural attitude. I once described how my former sister-in-law, who is British, once got into trouble with that when my brother was stationed in New Mexico (my brother still lives in Albuquerque). I had read about that before in school and I have even come across it within the past couple of years on the internet.
I’m sympathetic but I can’t help but raise an eyebrow at it since to an outsider Hispanic New Mexican culture is clearly related to, if not a part of, Northern Mexican culture, green chile and posole included.
Since my mother is from Durango which has historic connections with Chihuahua and New Mexico I can’t help but notice the resemblances. If you saw my grandparents’ house you would think it was in Santa Fe: adobe house withe flat roof (azotea), round wooden beams (vigas) in the ceiling; we even have a beehive oven in the back.
For what it is worth, from Mary Caroline Montaño (2001) Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas: Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico, p. 153:
The author is apparently from Albuquerque but with some family background in Colorado. This book is available on the Internet Archive, but ‘login and borrow’ functionality has not been restored yet after the cyberattack.
You can see the relevant section at Google Books.
A friend of mine from NM learned Spanish at home, and later took it formally in school. He said that to him it was like learning a different language.
After two weeks, the Internet Archive is back up, and it appears to have have full functionality.
In Panama I heard of a fellow GI who’d paid some locals for a pony ride, and, behaving like an asshole to the pony (“Giddyup!” whap whap), was led by it under a manchineel, whose foliage he caught full in the face before he was knocked off. He had to be airlifted to a hospital in a state of abject hysteria. No sympathy from me.
@Alon Lischinsky: Thank you! Yes, Machado used poetic license to the full.
And I remembered question 3:
Mi infancia son recuerdos de un patio de Sevilla,
y un huerto claro donde madura el limonero;
Is the lemon tree maturing or is its fruit ripening?
@Pancho: Thanks for the interesting comments on dialects. I should have understood that in the dialect you’re talking about, the defining quality of of a huerta is a wall. I certainly didn’t get that a fence would require a different word. (Whorf-Sapir test: Does anybody enclose a fruit and vegetable plot partly with a wall and partly with a fence, and if not, is it because they wouldn’t know what word to use? Just kidding.)
Certainly the culture of New Mexico is close to that of Mexico, and food is one the closest aspects. A restaurant I passed recently offers “Spanish food”, but rest assured the tortillas there don’t contain potatoes or eggs. A striking difference is that in the Matachines dances here, there’s a little girl dressed in virginal white who represents la Malinche. As far as language goes, I’m not in a position to say.