chocolate

[Victor Steinbok]

Something has been bothering me about the word "chocolate", but I can't
really put a finger on it. It's not the etymology--or, at least, I don't
think it's the etymology, although several descriptions of it seem to be
a bit confused. OK, let me clarify--I am not concerned with the
aboriginal (Aztec) names and whether they were confused, misinterpreted
or some such. OED can handle that and I know nothing about it. But one
of the Oxford references (The Insect that Stole Butter) makes an
interesting sequential claim:

> The word comes from French /chocolat /or Spanish /chocolate/, from
> Nahuatl (the language spoken by the Aztecs of Mexico) chocolatl 'food
> made from cacao seeds'.

That makes about as much sense to me as privatizing Social Security in
the wake of the Wall Street meltdown. Specifically, the OED citations
simply don't support it (I am going to leave aside the issue of
antedating them, for the moment). The earliest reference (1604)
identifies a drink called "chocolate". This is followed by a number of
1659-1684 references that refer both to the chocolate paste/confection
(1659), as well as both the paste and drink under a variety of other
spellings, including a number that have j- instead of initial ch-. Does
this make sense for something that was borrowed as described above? And,
if this is the case, why do we have a Latin reference--in fact, an
entire book on the subject--referring to Chocolata?

http://books.google.com/books?id=uSk7AAAAcAAJ

I'll let you figure it out, while I do some searching... I'd be very
curious to see an explanation. At least, the OED proper does not jump to
such conclusions.

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