Plumcot (1903)

[J. Eulenberg]

We had one of those trees, when we had a house -- those are also called
Italian plums . . . and it is too bad they aren't stocked somewhere.  They
were a special part of autumn, from October on.  Not to mention the number
of raccoons and squirrels who thought they were pretty good too.

Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Plumcot (1903)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Saturday, August 30, 2003, at 07:24 PM, Anne Gilbert wrote:
>
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought prunes *were* dried plums.
>
> well, yes they are.  but there's a particular variety of plum that's
> usually
> used for prune-making, and those plums are called "prune plums", or
> just "prunes" for short.  they're small, elongated rather than round,
> and
> intense in flavor.  i think they're especially wonderful, but
> supermarkets
> tend not to feature them, since they're not big and juicy and
> extra-sweet.
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>