Marrow-headed

[muckefuck]

Despite the low participation of international bears at Bear Pride (we did meet a Belgian and a Frenchman in line at Sidetrack, a Berliner inside, and heard rumours of a Hamburger), I do have one linguistic anecdote to report. As I've complained to several people already, Sidetrack on Monday made me aware of just how uniform bear fashion has become. 90%+ of the men there had a full bear and a buzzed or shaved head and were wearing baggy shorts with a printed t-shirt of some sort or another--all in fairly muted colours. Some of the t-shirts were amusing, and at least one had katakana. The one that I stumbled into a discussion of, however, said this on the back:

кабачок одинокая
звезда
Сан Франциско

I've come across this a couple times before. It's merch from the Lone Star Saloon in San Francisco. So I knew immediately what it said. Now, normally, I'd jump right in and explain this to everyone. But as I told monshu, I'm trying hard these days not to be That Guy, so instead I just mentioned this knowledge in passing to the one guy I was actually trying to impress.

Apparently, the reason for the discussion was that someone had come by earlier and told the wearer of the shirt (the boyfriend of the guy I was talking to--rats!) that it meant "zucchini". "Sounds like he was pulling his leg," I joked. But he wasn't. The first word, кабачок, corresponds to "saloon" in the English and is, in origin, a diminutive of кабак "tavern, pub". (A bit ironic if you've ever seen the size of the Lone Star.) But there's another кабачок which translates as "marrow/squash" or "courgette/zucchini".

Near as I can tell, this is also a diminutive from another кабак, a borrowing of the Turkic kapak which in modern Anatolian Turkish means "bald" or "baldy" as well as "courgette/zucchini". Kap has many meanings in Turkic, among them "pot" or "vessel". So it's possible that the two meanings are ultimately related. The metonymic use of "drinking vessel" or "pouring vessel" for "wineshop" or "tavern" can also be found in dialectal German Krug (cf. Dutch kroeg "pub"). And the resemblance between certain marrows/squashes and pots or other vessels is motive enough to explain that semantic extension. Sadly, though, all the good etymological dictionaries here are inaccessible at the moment, so for now this remains a hunch.

In any case, it was a good reminder that, when it comes to most things, I really only know enough to know how little I really know.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The metonymic use of "drinking vessel" or "pouring vessel" for "wineshop" or "tavern" can also be found in dialectal German Krug (cf. Dutch kroeg "pub").

And English "canteen"? (Or are the two meanings false friends?)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Not false friends, but the development is reversed: the sense of "cafeteria at a military establishment" is the first one attested in English with "water bottle" deriving from that via "case for carrying wine, liquor, etc." or "chest for carrying utensils, etc."

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I remember when they sold those T-shirts at the Lone Star Saloon fifteen years ago. it must have been somewhat faded by now. As is the Lone Star itself.

Chuck

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Apparently, that's all the rage, though. I saw a friend with a new t-shirt that was so pre-faded it looked like he was wearing it inside-out.