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Steve Taylore-Knowles

July 27, 2015 10:00

Word Stories: sirloin

Steve Taylore-Knowles looks at the stories behind the English language.

I was with friends in the north of England recently and we drove past a country pub called the Sirloin. One of my friends pointed out that it was in that area that King James I was served a joint of meat so good that he knighted it on the spot, hence the name Sir Loin. I found this interesting for two reasons: a) I was very hungry and b) it’s complete and utter nonsense.

This bit of folk etymology has a long pedigree. The OED has quotations repeating the idea from 1655 (referring to King Henry VIII), 1732 (James I) and 1822 (Charles II). While English history does contain monarchs who have done any number of strange things, sirloin actually has a perfectly normal etymology.

It is first recorded in 1554 in the form surloyn, which betrays its French origins. The first element, sur- (over, above) derives from Latin super- and has kept its original spelling in surname, amongst others, but has changed here to sir-, perhaps influenced by this piece of folk etymology. Surname also had the variant spelling sirname. While sur- was the ‘popular’ Old French form of Latin super-, there were also more ‘learned’ adoptions that kept super- in its original form, leading to English words like superlative and superstition.

The sirloin, then, is the upper part of a loin of beef, or loigne/longe in Old French. Loigne is derived from the Latin lumbus (that part of an animal or human between the ribs and the hips), from which we get the modern English adjective lumbar, used in medical phrases such as ‘lumbar vertebrae’. Another interesting way in which this word has survived is through the diminutive, numbles. Numbles (or umbles) were the edible bits inside an animal (particularly a deer), beneath the loin. These were made into numble or umble pie. While the wealthy would tuck into the sirloin, no doubt telling each other the ridiculous story of how it got its name, the poor were more likely to eat umble pie. While we no longer seem to eat umble pie literally, anyone who is put into a humiliating position can still be forced to ‘eat humble pie’ metaphorically.

Тема: Grammar & Vocabulary       Теги: Wordstory, Etymology

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