Dental Work and Chinese Food

This is a true story from a good many years ago. The guy was very nice, but a little ... well, let me just say, this story tells how he was, and such things were not uncommon for him. He was quite a talker and once he started, you were not likely to get away easily. Sadly he has since passed away, but I still can't help but laugh every time I think of this story.

I was on the elevator when it stopped and this guy got on. He proceeded to tell me that he'd had some kind of dental work done and that his gums were very sore, he couldn't chew properly and that he felt awful. He then said that he was going to the lobby to wait for a food delivery, since he didn't feel like fixing anything for himself. That prompted me to ask, "What are you getting?" He answered, "Chinese." So I said, "Well, that's always good. What are you getting?" He answered, "Cashew Chicken." How I ever kept from bursting out laughing is a mystery to me to this day, but when I got away from him, I let loose and I couldn't stop. I told others who knew him and they laughed just as hard, and all agreed it was just something like what you'd expect him to say. (NOTE: Because I have a number of non-native English speakers who read this blog, I'll explain this further. The man said how sore his gums were, yet he ordered cashew chicken ... cashews aren't the easiest thing to chew; in fact, they are like one of the opposite foods you'd order if you had difficulty chewing.)

WORD HISTORY:
Food-This word, closely related to "fodder," goes back to the Indo European root "pa/pi," which had the notion of "to tend to, to watch over," providing the further idea from these of "to feed." This gave its Old Germanic offspring the noun "fodo," which meant "food." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "foda," which then became "fode," before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German has "Futter," which is actually the same word as English "fodder," and indeed, the German word means "food/feed  for animals," and German uses other words for "food;" Low German Saxon has "Födels" (nourishment, food); Dutch has "voedsel" (food, nourishment); West Frisian "fiedsel" (food/feed); Danish "føde" (food/feed); Icelandic has "faeða" (the "ð" basically equals "th", word means "food/feed); Norwegian has "føde" (nourishment); Swedish has "föda" (food, nourishment).