More food & drink from Costa Rica

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> > ALMUERCITA--stuffed cabbage.
>
>That word is troublingly strange.  "Almuerzo", commonly, is the second
>meal of the day ... "Almuercita" is strange because the "-ita" diminutive
>shifts the accent to the third syllable; normally, the ue of accented
>syllables would change to o in another syllable.  The word I would expect
>would be "almorcito". I'd also expect a masculine terminal -o, not feminine -a.

It seems to me that "almuercita" looks like a diminutive of "almuerza"
rather than "almuerzo".

"Almuerza" (= "almorzada", = "ambuesta") = "double handful", according to
the dictionary. This might give a reasonable word for stuffed cabbage.

As for the vowel change, "puerco" > "puerquito" = "piglet" (in
Winnie-the-Pooh, etc.), "pueblo" > "pueblito" = "village", etc. So can't
"almuerza" > "almuercita"?

-- Doug Wilson