From Cynthia:

As for "puke," I always still laugh at the line in the "All the world's a stage/Seven Ages of Man" speech in As You Like It, when Jacques describes "the infant, mewling and puking* in the nurse's arms." I just think the sound of "mewling and puking" is funny. But on a more serious note, the OED does not attribute the invention of the word "puke" to the bard, but rather inventing the use of it as referring to vomiting. The OED relates that "Previously the word had been used to mean a dignified dark brown colour. Not surprisingly, once the new meaning took hold, the previous meaning disappeared rapidly; its last recorded use was in 1615.

Actually -- it changed its form to PUCE which is defined in my abbreviated inept dictionary as "dark red or purplish brown"

SGFoxe wrote:Actually -- it changed its form to PUCE which is defined in my abbreviated inept dictionary as "dark red or purplish brown"

That's not an unreasonable conjecture, S, but actually puce has a separate history:

OED online wrote:[a. F. puce n.:{em}L. p{umac}lex, -icem a flea; couleur puce flea-colour (17th c.).]

a. attrib. or as adj. (orig. puce colour): Of a flea-colour; purple brown, or brownish purple.

And here is the etymology for the first entry for puke as a noun, in the now obsolete color sense. (boldface added by me):

OED online wrote:[Late ME. pewke, puke, a. MDu. puuc, puyck, name of the best sort of woollen cloth (1420 in Verdam); in mod.Du. puik the best, the most excellent, the choice of anything, also as adj. ‘excellent’; so LGer. pük (as in püke ware ware of superior quality, as cloth or linen), WFris. puwck, NFris. pük: ulterior origin unknown. Its use to designate a colour is found only in Eng. Not connected with F. puce.]

1. A superior kind of woollen cloth, of which gowns were made. Also attrib.

I'm going to stay out of the recent exchanges among philosophers and others, except to suggest to Geo that he review the use/mention distinction.

Amata

Amata,

Thanks for the background on "puke" -- it's surprising to me, as I'm sure it is to many, that it had such positive connotations.

I have taken it upon myself to introduce a new catch-phrase into the popular lexicon: "Ain't that the puke!" (meaning, of course, "Isn't that excellent!").

David "Look Ma, I invented something" Hammond

David Hammond wrote:Amata,

Thanks for the background on "puke" -- it's surprising to me, as I'm sure it is to many, that it had such positive connotations.

I have taken it upon myself to introduce a new catch-phrase into the popular lexicon: "Ain't that the puke!" (meaning, of course, "Isn't that excellent!").

David,

It's not that puke in the sense of 'to vomit' also had very positive connotations in some contexts. There were two different words with completely separate and unrelated histories that ended up side by side in the same language's lexicon with identical pronunciations -- the 'to vomit' word, in my view almost certainly natively developed from a common (West) Germanic and ultimately Indo-European root, as indicated in my post above, and the other a late Medieval borrowing from Dutch as the name of a kind of cloth. Just homonyms, like 'two' and 'to' and 'too', or more analogously 'sight' (a native Germanic word) and 'cite' (a borrowing ultimately from Latin).

And so far as I know, the borrowed 'puke' never had the sense of 'excellent' in English, only in Dutch (and thence Low German).

Antonius "always glad to rain on an etymologically unjustified parade" Volcinus

Antonius wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Amata,

Thanks for the background on "puke" -- it's surprising to me, as I'm sure it is to many, that it had such positive connotations.

I have taken it upon myself to introduce a new catch-phrase into the popular lexicon: "Ain't that the puke!" (meaning, of course, "Isn't that excellent!").

David,

It's not that puke in the sense of 'to vomit' also had very positive connotations in some contexts. There were two different words with completely separate and unrelated histories that ended up side by side in the same language's lexicon with identical pronunciations -- the 'to vomit' word, in my view almost certainly natively developed from a common (West) Germanic and ultimately Indo-European root, as indicated in my post above, and the other a late Medieval borrowing from Dutch as the name of a kind of cloth. Just homonyms, like 'two' and 'to' and 'too', or more analogously 'sight' (a native Germanic word) and 'cite' (a borrowing ultimately from Latin).

And so far as I know, the borrowed 'puke' never had the sense of 'excellent' in English, only in Dutch (and thence Low German).

Antonius "always glad to rain on an etymologically unjustified parade" Volcinus

Ain't that the puke!

I'm in love with transliterations (think Thai menus). They get the brain to spark a bit.

Thai menus used to be so much fun! For instance, it used to be "Pud Thai," then they wised up and now it's "Pad Thai." Reminds me of the "Foods of the World" cookbook I had 30 years ago, that had a Thai fried fish recipe in it called "Tra Pla Turd." "Turd" has now been changed to "Tord" on most menus.

Hi Akatonbo,

You may find this fun as well: Vital Information has long expressed a desire to have a dinner ordering only the mis-spelled items from Lao Sze Chuan.

Regards,