Nothing says 'I love you' like high-fructose corn syrup

I wasn't going to do anything for Valentine's Day except suggest making dinner together or something (the idea of going to a restaurant as a couple and being surrounded by people having intense couple-time is kind of nauseating, especially because my boyfriend and I are kind of secretly like that anyway). But I went to Walgreen's on Friday and was wandering up and down the aisles with my Pepto-Bismol and large Walgreen's brand cola and started looking at the chocolates and edible undies and cardboard Power Rangers valentines. There was one other person in the store, and he was clearly preparing to make some kind of romantic overture, judging by his like ten packages of tea lights and other pink sparkly paraphernalia. He was kind of a dweeby-looking guy, and the idea of him covering some woman's bed in rose petals or whatever gave me pretty intense warm-fuzzies, so I began to consider doing something for my boyfriend.

The problem was that it couldn't be commercial, or expensive, or really anything that wasn't somehow creative. I was thinking about how we could maybe make sushi again, since sushi is kind of one of our "things" and also incredibly delicious. I then wandered into the normal non-seasonal candy aisle and saw a package of Swedish Fish. Light bulb!

The rice is Tic-Tacs, the fish are Swedish, the inside stuff is Starbursts I popped in the microwave for 20 seconds to make them pliable, and the nori (seaweed) is Airheads. I should have used Fruit Roll-Ups instead, because trying to keep it all together inside those Airheads kind of sucked. I was going to make six little makis and three sashimis, but I accidently melted my last Airhead to a plate and I ran out of Starbursts, so I just said fuck it.

The gift was (obviously) well-received because yeah, it was kind of adorable. I also gave him a six-dollar bottle of sake, the purchase of which was kind of an amusing time in itself. One of the liquor store employees tried to talk me out of buying the cheapest one by offering his expertise w/r/t sushi-wine pairings. I politely declined his help, but he was persistent, until I just had to say, "No, seriously, what kind of wine will appropriately complement Tic-Tacs and Starbursts?" Nice guy, though.

Unfortunately, the pictures I took aren't all that great, but you get the idea. Oh, and he actually ate them all, which sounds kind of unappealing. I did get to eat the extra Swedish Fish, though.

je suis l'avocat du diable

biggest damn avocado I've ever seen.

avocado


For some time, I labored under the delusion that this was Spanish for "lawyer." Made sense, being so close to advocate. But I wondered, often aloud and in company: What is it about the nice soft yellow-green chunks in my salad that suggests an attorney?

Then someone took me aside and informed me that the Spanish for "lawyer" is abogado.

Okay, okay, but hold on.

The first known word for the fruit was ahuacatl, which in the Aztec language, Nahuatl, also means "testicle." I suppose an avocado is shaped sort of like a testicle. (WIII [Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged] says the Aztecs used the avocado as an aphrodisiac, I don't know.) The Spanish rendered ahuacatl as aguacate. It's from that huac/guac that we get guacamole.

So what about the legal aspect? According to AHD [American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language], some Spanish speakers rejected aguacate in favor of the familiar avocado, which was indeed at that time Spanish for "lawyer." Why was it changed to abogado? Maybe because lawyers didn't want to be associated with those nice soft chunks.

If Spaniards couldn't be bothered to pronounce ahuacatl, you know English speakers couldn't-- they picked up the lawyer-resembling version. So did the French: avocat du diable means "devil's advocate," but it could also mean "devil's avocado." And I'll bet a lot of Francophones have wondered, down through the years, what these morceaux verts, gentils et mous have to do with les hommes de loi.

Another French word for the fruit is poire d'alligator. In English, but roughly the same token, the fruit is sometimes called "alligator pear." AHD says this derives from the notion that avocado trees grow in places infested with alligators. Doesn't it seem more likely that the leathery green rind of the avocado fruit makes it look like a pear-- or, all right, a testicle-- in alligator clothing?

I don't suppose I have to tell you that alligator comes from the Spanish el lagarto, the lizard. In English, it was alligarta or alligarto-- ending in a vowel-- until the First Folio version of Romeo and Juliet, where it swims into our ken spelled Alligater. (Romeo tells Juliet he knows where he can get some poison: from an apothecary whose shop is decorated with a stuffed alligator "and other skins of ill-shaped fishes.") This was like potato becoming tater; hollow, holler; and fellow, feller. But I guess it looked literary, at least once -er became -or, because even the French picked it up.

However (according to Harrap's Slang Dictionary, English-French/French-English), the French do not toss around "See you later, alligator" in literal translation. It's "À tout à l'heure, voltigeur." (As of 1984.) A voltigeur is an acrobat.


from Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory (pp. 30-31) by Roy Blount Jr.