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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Blet
I've recently learned the word "blet"--learned it in the WWF sense. That's not World Wildlife Federation, nor is it the World Wresting Federation. It's Words With Friends, the online Scrabble knockoff, one of whose distinctive features is that you can try an unlikely word with no fear of consequences: the software will tell you if it's on the approved list, and if it isn't then it's still your turn and your opponent doesn't even have to know what stupid-ass combination of letters you just tried to get away with. I'm somewhat addicted to this game, as are my wife, my son, and various friends of ours.
Tesi recently told me that she had the word "blet" played against her by our friend Katherine. I was glad to hear it: I happened to be in a game with Asa in which that word might be very useful. He had played "lets" in such a way that someone with a "b" could add to it and maybe get another word on a triple word score. About a week later I finally got my "b" and took advantage. (The outcome of the game is still in doubt; he had a bit of a lead, but now it's a close one.)
Here's the great thing: "blet" seems to be a word worth knowing for other reasons. Possibly neither Katherine nor Tesi bothered to look the word up. Neither did I, I admit. Asa (a true intellectual) did, at the Wordnik site.
So you know that thing that pears do? When you buy some pears, and they're not ripe yet, but then before you notice that they're ready to eat they suddenly go from underripe to soft/brown/yucky? I think that that's called "bletting". Apparently an English botanist called Lindley adapted the French verb blettir. What I haven't got straight is precisely which kinds of pears-going-bad the word applies to: the OED (my old paper version) quibbles as to whether some other dictionary has misinterpreted Lindley: maybe if there are brown spots then it's just plain rot, not bletting.
I'm very interested in this thing that pears do, because it's so disappointing. But I'm even more interested in using words correctly.
Also I don't know whether "blet" is related to "blight". (This was Tesi's suggestion.) Can anyone tell me?
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7 comments:
whether "blet" is related to "blight"
It could be the case, but it is rather unlikely. Blet comes the verb blecier (old form), i.e. blesser, "to injure, to wound". Blight is said to be of an obscure origin, the Collins dictionary saying "perhaps related to Old English blǣce rash".
So in the end, who knows?
blet
Indeed this is a French adjective, which I did not know was used in English. The feminine form is blette, or blèche in some regions. I have heard (and used) it most often about pears, when they are overripe and the centre has turned into a soft brown mass. I am not familiar with blettir but that seems to be the correct verb meaning 'to become blet(te)'. As for the relationship with English blight, I don't know specifically, but bl- initial French words are usually of Germanic origin (dating from the Frankish period).
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Theoretically, I believe in the area of genuine medlars (but not loquats, I think, you want them to be bletted. They're better - er - rotted than ripe.
At least that's the context I learnt the word in; but then I was told my medlars aren't really medlars (nespres? in Catalan, I think) but loquats.
Still, I spent some time contemplating the overripe brown, soft fruit which I didn't find appealing.
oops. another lost ( with no )
sorry
I didn't know about medlars or loquats, although I guess I had heard of them. I see that they are in the same family as apples (so also raspberries and roses). I like that fruits as a category seem to have particularly good names with particularly juicy etymologies. They are often named for places: both the English word "damson" and the German word "Zwetschge (for another kind of plum) originally referred to Damascus; and see Languagehat's recent crosslinguistic fruit post; I know there are others. The Online Etymological Dictionary says:
medlar (n.) "small fruit-bearing tree," mid-14c. (in reference to the fruit itself), from Old French medler, variant of mesple, from Latin mespila "fruit of the medlar," from Greek mespilion, a foreign word of unknown origin. The Old English name was openærs, literally "open-arse."
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