What does ginger have to do with gingerly?
GINGERLY is an Old English word that sounds like it should have something to do with ginger, but in reality it has nothing to do with ginger. The English made this word up in the 16th century, and the speculation is that it comes from a French word “GENSOR” (delicate).
I don’t see how you get ‘gingerly’ from ‘gensor’, so here’s my hypothesis: is it possible that the person who came up with GINGERLY had actually ginger on their mind while thinking of GENSOR? Let’s say, is it possible that maybe they just had ginger in their sauce, and it tasted really good, and they were thinking: I really liked that sauce!! What was that spice in it? GINGER!!!! I LOVE GINGER!
To find out if my hypothesis stands up, I did some digging to see if the English knew about ginger in the 16th century. Ginger comes from India and China, so the question is, did the English know about ginger in the 16th century? Well, it turns out that the English knew about ginger since at least the 12th century. And what’s more, PEPPER, GINGER and CINNAMON were the main spices in those times. So it is possible that the person who came up with the word GINGERLY had just remembered that they had ginger for dinner and they loved it so much they couldn’t get it out of their head. After all, aren’t we often ruled by our stomachs?
And that is my thought of the day.
See you,
Misty
GINGERLY is an Old English word that sounds like it should have something to do with ginger, but in reality it has nothing to do with ginger. The English made this word up in the 16th century, and the speculation is that it comes from a French word “GENSOR” (delicate).
I don’t see how you get ‘gingerly’ from ‘gensor’, so here’s my hypothesis: is it possible that the person who came up with GINGERLY had actually ginger on their mind while thinking of GENSOR? Let’s say, is it possible that maybe they just had ginger in their sauce, and it tasted really good, and they were thinking: I really liked that sauce!! What was that spice in it? GINGER!!!! I LOVE GINGER!
To find out if my hypothesis stands up, I did some digging to see if the English knew about ginger in the 16th century. Ginger comes from India and China, so the question is, did the English know about ginger in the 16th century? Well, it turns out that the English knew about ginger since at least the 12th century. And what’s more, PEPPER, GINGER and CINNAMON were the main spices in those times. So it is possible that the person who came up with the word GINGERLY had just remembered that they had ginger for dinner and they loved it so much they couldn’t get it out of their head. After all, aren’t we often ruled by our stomachs?
And that is my thought of the day.
See you,
Misty
