way OT: (was Re: House Call)

[David Auerbach auerbach@xxxxxxxx]

Yep.
 My food vocabulary represents kind a bulge in my overall vocabulary
profile.
 It didn't occur to me that "muddle" was that obscure. On the other
hand, I have sitting right here on the cookbook shelf *Stews, Bogs,
And Burgoos: Recipes from the Great American Stewpot* by James Villas.
In any case, it was, in the context of the original piece, a mere pun
en passant.


On Sep 3, at 12:38 PM, Patricia M. Godfrey wrote:
> David Auerbach wrote (a good while ago):
> > Not pithy, this sharp new saw. Just as there's nothing pithy about
> > the complicated muddle that we, the hopeful consumers of fresh
> > fish, face staring down at the fish-laden beds of crushed ice at
> > the local seafood counter.
> > What's the muddle?
>
> Sorry it took so long to track this down. Am I correct in
> assuming that you're referring to this meaning of muddle, sb., in
> the OED:
>
> U.S. A kind of chowder; a pottle made with crackers. (Cent. Dict.
> 1890)
> As for "Pottle," it would seem from this that the word had acquired
> the meaning "a dish made in a pottle" in the US, though not in the
> British Isles by that period.




David Auerbach
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Box 8103
NCSU
Raleigh, NC 27695-8103