Boerek and Soujouk (1831); Don't Know Borsht

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 02/04/2002 7:58:10 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:

> NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE BALCAN,
>  BY THE TWO PASSES OF SELIMNO AND PRAVADI,
>  ALSO OF A VISIT TO AZANI
>  AND OTHER NEWLY DISCOVERED RUINS IN ASIA MINOR
>  IN THE YEARS 1829-1830
>  by Maj., Hon. George Keppel
>  (The NYPL has the author as "Albemarle, George Thomas"--ed.)
>  London:
> Pg. 128:  They comprised some excellent bouilli beef (for in this the Turk
> surpasses the French); a _boorek_, a very greasy description of slim cake,
> enclosing some savoury minced meat; and some roasted quinces.
>  Pg. 203:  ..._semavar_ (or the tea-kettle)...

"bully [beef]", etymology listed as "? f. BULL, or corruption of F. _
bouilli_ boiled meat", is in the OED2 ("bully" noun, definition 5) with
citations of 1753 for "bully", 1788 for "Beef Bully" and 1884 for "bully
beef."

"samovar" is dated in the OED2 as 1830 in a translation apparently from the
Russian.    Not too surprisingly, the word spread to the Turks before it
entered English.

A former boss of mine, who was from Russia (he once lived in Raskolnikov's
house in St. Petersburg) gave a rather free translation of "samovar" as
"self-service tea urn" and illustrated the meaning by pointing out "samizdat"
("self-published") versus "gosizdat" ("government-published"), which led the
office into an imaginative discussion of what might constitute a "gosovar".

After quasi-modal left, a man who had no arms applied to the bishop for the
job of bell-ringer at Notre Dame.  He demonstrated to the astonished bishop
that he was able to ring the bells by striking them with his face.  Then he
walked out and the bishop never saw him again.  Who was he?  "I don't know,"
said the bishop, "but his face rings a bell."
The next day a man (with hands) showed up, claiming to be the brother of the
would-be bell ringer of the day before, and demonstrated his competence by
performing on the bells.  But just as he reached the climax of the recital,
he dropped dead of a heart attack.  Who was he?  "I don't know," said the
bishop, "but he's a dead ringer for his brother."

Seriously, when looking up "Quasimodo" for the above irrelevancy, I
discovered that M-W 10th Collegiate had "the Sunday following Easter"
(presumably the Catholic/Protestant Easter) with a date of "ca. 1847", while
OED2 has only a surfing maneuver (in which the surfer is bent into a
hunchbacked shape) with a date of 1962.  Thank you RonButters and
laurence.horn.

I can't misss praising the inventiveness of headline writers, particularly
the usually humorless ones at CNN, who have been ringing the changes on the
name "Kenneth Lay" without once making an off-color pun.

     - Jim Landau