Room Rater Fruit Bowl Update: In a strategic and strong play @jheil has bananas, oranges, cantelope AND a pineapple, the orchid and a mixed arrangement in lovely blue vase. Additionally the @WuTangClan is back. 10/10. pic.twitter.com/8s1jqiw12q— Room Rater (@ratemyskyperoom) May 12, 2020
I love the Room Rater, and I don't blame him for misspelling "cantaloupe." You ever try to write "cantaloupe"? Any way you write it seems wrong. Wikipedia says:
The name cantaloupe was derived in the 18th century via French cantaloup from Italian Cantalupo, which was formerly a papal county seat near Rome, after the fruit was introduced there from Armenia. It was first mentioned in English literature in 1739... The South African English name spanspek is said to be derived from Afrikaans Spaanse spek ('Spanish bacon'); supposedly, Sir Harry Smith, a 19th-century governor of Cape Colony, ate bacon and eggs for breakfast, while his Spanish-born wife Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith preferred canteloupe, so South Africans nicknamed the eponymous fruit Spanish bacon. However, the name appears to predate the Smiths and date to 18th-century Dutch Suriname: J. van Donselaar wrote in 1770, "Spaansch-spek is the name for the form that grows in Suriname which, because of its thick skin and little flesh, is less consumed."That's more than you needed to know about South Africa! Yet, it's interesting. Spanish bacon. I guess that's like "Welsh rabbit."
You may want to know what was that first mention of cantaloupe in 1739, and I have the (unlinkable) OED at hand, so let me tell you:
1739 P. Miller Gardeners Dict. II. at Melo The Cantaleupt [sic] Melon:..the Flesh..is of a rich vinous Flavour.Spelling was crazy in the old days. I'm looking through these OED examples. In 1763, we get "Cantaleupe" ("The Cantaleupe..is held in the greatest esteem by all the curious in Europe"), 1777 brings "Cantalupe" ("The Melon is a Crimson Cantalupe"), 1786 gives us "Cantaleupe," 1808 has "the rock-cantelope," 1839 has "Cantaloup," in 1860 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "cantelopes," 1863 brings "cantalupe, 1883 has "cantelope," and only finally in 1890 do we get the "proper" spelling "cantaloupe." Why that one stuck, I don't know. I think "cantelope" was the best, sound-wise, and that was the one Room Rater picked, so kudos to Room Rater, for strategic "misspelling."
And speaking of Room Rater, I love this discussion he started yesterday about the comparative rating of the Canadian and the American room:
Fair is fair. Rate the raters. Canadian left. US right. pic.twitter.com/2X1jhqBp3q— Room Rater (@ratemyskyperoom) May 11, 2020
Posts
33 comments:
The OED has both "cantaloup" and "cantaloupe" as correct spellings.
My parents called it "muskmelon." Was that just a Wisconsin thing?
"Was that just a Wisconsin thing?"
Pre-Wisconsin. Goes all the way back when "Wisconsin" was still part of Indiana.
misspelling "cantaloupe."
cantelope
"variant spelling of cantaloupe"
It's probably the best version.
Can't elope.
"It's probably the best version."
It's the Ralph Waldo Emerson version.
Everybody on Scarborough's show ought to have bananas somewhere in the background, just to remind the viewers about the host.
What the pineapple symbolizes is less clear. Welcome? Or just rough abrasiveness outside and sourness within?
"Lord Cantaloupe" sounds like a character from a novel (as indeed it is, only not a very famous one, apparently). There was also a real-life Lord Cantelupe.
Meade said...Pre-Wisconsin. Goes all the way back when "Wisconsin" was still part of Indiana.
Whose's yer authority?
Cantelope = an antelope who couldn't.
My parents called it "muskmelon." Was that just a Wisconsin thing?
I should add that it was my dad who insisted on calling it muskmelon. He had Wisconsin farm roots that predated statehood. My mother preferred the term cantaloupe. So there was this dichotomy growing up for me: the older lower-sounding term and the loftier, foreign-sounding term -- both for the same thing. Happens a lot in English.
I went "off" cantaloupe's when I was in my 30s. For some reason, I couldn't tolerate them anymore. Too much fruity smell, too sweet. Switched to bacon and eggs or oatmeal. No more fruit for breakfast.
We just saw double indemnity last night, and brought back the memories of people having Grapefruit for breakfast. Does anyone do that anymore?
You ever try to write with a cantaloupe?
@ Chickelit
My parents called it "muskmelon." Was that just a Wisconsin thing?
Mine as well. both of my parents are from Wisconsin.
I don't like books on display.
I find it annoying at this point. I get it, you might want to display them for yourself, so you can access them. and that's cool. but if you are displaying books you never touch in order to give the impression you are well read. meh. Boring! and it's visual clutter.
Go Canada.
Isn't pineapple another word for beaver which is another word for pussy?
Ban the pineapple now! I feel... threatened! Having to watch a white man discuss something with an offensive pineapple in the background makes me feel raped.
Sometimes a banana is just a cigar
Grapefruit for breakfast. Does anyone do that anymore?
I think the wide use of statins and some other drugs that grapefruit potentiates did that tradition in. That was the case in my family, when my dad went on statins.
"When it’s cherry blossom time in Orange, New Jersey
We’ll make a peach of a pair. I know we cantaloupe
So honeydew be mine..."
Fragment of a routine by Danny Kaye. Lyrics by Sylvia Fine.
"Whose's yer authority?"
Exactly.
I only call them muskmelons if they're at a farm stand. In the grocery store? Cantaloupe.
Isn't pineapple another word for beaver which is another word for pussy?
**********
I'm gonna kiss your eyes. (gasp)
Then I'm gonna kiss your neck. (groan)
Then I'm gonna kiss your tummy. (oooh!)
Then I'm gonna kiss your PINEAPPLE! (shriek!)
Strobe Light, B-52s. Fun song!
I never liked all those messy seeds in cantaloupe. Or in watermelon either.
And I hated the hard bit in the middle of a sliced pineapple.
When I was a kid I always wanted to buy a pineapple or a coconut, though.
They were the exotic fruits (if a coconut is a fruit) in a world that did not yet know guanabana, rambutan, cherimoya and all the rest.
Being able to share all this at last finally makes me feel validated.
I first thought he said, "Additionally the @WuTangClan is black." I wondered why he was only figuring that out now.
"Isn't pineapple another word for beaver which is another word for pussy?"
My favorite player on the Milwaukee Brewers is Manny Piña. Teammates nicknamed him "Pineapple." He swings a strong bat. I would advise against calling him "Pussy."
South Africans call them Elon melons.
Good one, Char Bs
The telescope as indicator-of-intellectual-curiosity room prop is hugely douchey. Unless you’re using it for voyeuristic purposes. Then it’s an indicator of something else. OTOH, any science fiction paraphernalia, other than a first edition of Foundation, is also hugely douchey.
"Spaansch-spek is the name for the form that grows in Suriname which, because of its thick skin and little flesh, is less consumed."
If that's so, then the Suriname cantelope likely was called "Spanish bacon" for having the same kinds of defects as actual Spanish bacon, not for any analogous role it may have played in breakfast.
I don't know what the name of that literary form is (metalepsis?) It was more common in the 19th century than today, for example skunks were sometimes called "essence peddlers" after the traveling salesmen who sold cheap perfumes (think of people like the Duke and the King from Huckleberry Finn).
The flowers and fruit say nobody in the house has a talent for arrangements.
The Canada room is too cold, like I will be reprimanded for trying to take a pink canada mint from the candy dish.
I wonder what happened to Shaggy and Freddy? On second thought I don't want to know...
Heilemann is fruity enough, he needs no staged fruit.
Cantaloupe was called Musk Melon where I grew up. It has a distinct odor when freshly picked.
Post a Comment