moon substance, green

[Joel S. Berson]

I should not have said Sewall liked "Cheshire" and brought some back
from England.  He did not specify the varieties he ate (except for
the sage cheese) nor what type he brought back from England.

Joel

At 3/9/2011 09:17 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>At 3/9/2011 04:04 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>>On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > "Green cheese" is the only version I'm familiar with.
>>
>>Me, too.
>>
>>FWIW, it was dekkids before I cottoned to to the fact that _green_ WRT
>>cheese was being used in opposition to _ripe_, WRT to cheese -
>>concepts with which I was long totally unfamiliar - and it was not the
>>stomach-turning, nonsensical assumption that there was some form of
>>cheese, a sickening green in color, out of which the clearly-white
>>moon was made.
>
>Not always so, Wilson, as I learned when reading Samuel Sewall's
>Diary -- he ate green cheese on an excursion to Dorchester.  And the
>OED thinks it knows which green cheese the moon is made of.
>
>"green cheese, n."
>
>"a. New or fresh cheese ..."
>
>"b. An inferior kind of cheese prepared from skim milk or
>whey."  [Sewall certainly would not eat such cheese -- he liked
>Cheshire, and brought some back from England for himself and as
>gifts; and the OED  has nary a quotation.]
>
>"c. Cheese coloured green (usually only in parts, with a pattern)
>with sage; also called sage cheese.The saying to believe that the
>moon is made of green cheese (for which see cheese n.1 2a) might
>belong to any of these senses; perh. sense c is the most likely, the
>reference being to the variegated surface of the moon."  [This is
>Sewall's cheese, found c1390 &ff, but he called it "sage cheese", not
>"green cheese".]
>
>Joel
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org