• Flying Squid
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    2910 months ago

    The weird thing about the origin of the word sandwich is that everyone had been eating them for centuries, but one day the Earl of Sandwich orders one and they say, “it takes too long to say bread-and-meat, let’s just call it a sandwich.”

    By the way, no one knows for sure the etymology of ‘squid.’

    • Dr. Bob
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      510 months ago

      There are a bunch of animal names like that. Notably “dog” and “chicken” just showed up without any real source. In middle English we have hounds, and fowls/cocks/hens. It’s strange for domestic animals that have been around forever to get renamed afor no apparent reason.

      • Flying Squid
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        710 months ago

        I don’t know what “squyrde” is, but it doesn’t show up in any etymological source I’ve ever seen.

        For example:

        squid (n.)

        “ten-armed marine mollusk, cuttlefish,” 1610s, a word of unknown origin. Klein’s sources suggest it is a sailors’ variant of squirt and so called for the “ink” it jets.

        https://www.etymonline.com/word/squid