Tortilla Soup/Aztec Soup

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Dec 3, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Joel Berson wrote:

> At 12/3/2007 03:41 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>> ...  (i see that "croque monsieur" and
>> "souvlaki" have made the cut.)
>
> But not "croque madame".  Is there still gender bias in the OED?  (As
> well as on the web: 77,000 Google hits -- including, he said
> arthrously,* The Wikipedia -- compared with 637,000 for "croque
> monsieur".)

well, "croque monsieur" came first, and "croque madame" was a play on
it.

>
> * Not in OED3, nor is "arthrous".  Do I have an antedating?

oh wow.  i hadn't thought to check.  i first recall reading this in
mike and bea hall's 1970 paper entitled "A problem in rule ordering:
Anarthrous locatives in Yiddish". [for bibliographers: R.M.R. &
Beatrice Hall; i first met them in, omigod, 1964.]

>> ... (the only google hit i got for "domozoic" was a website
>> claiming to
>> trace the Levitical prohibition against eating shellfish to the
>> possibility of poisoning by domozoic acid.  i am dubious.)
>
> "The reason is not explained in the Tora."  Alfred J. Kolatch, _The
> Jewish Book of Why_ (1981), p. 89.

people are forever trying to explain the levitical prohibitions
against certain foods on an entrely rational basis.  while i'm not
willing to go all the way on explanations that turn on rather high-
level cultural assumptions, i think there's a lot in them.  but of
course the Tora(h) isn't going to explain; unclean is unclean.

arnold

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