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There we were, sniffing the blooms and watering the flowers, when we realized that we were casting aspersions on our nasturtiums. Literally, an aspersion is a "sprinkling upon". Until 1600, to asperse simply meant "to sprinkle" (from Latin ad- "to, at" + spargere "to sprinkle") but during the 17th century it acquired the metaphorical meaning of "to bespatter [with damaging remarks]".
Officinale (or officinalis) is often seen as part of an herb's botanical name. For instance, there's Angelica (Archangelica officinalis), ginger (Zingiber officinale), the Great or Common Burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) and the marsh-mallow (Althea officinalis). The literal meaning of the Latin officinalis is "shop", as in "workshop" or "factory". In the case of herbs, officinalis (or officinale) indicates an apothecary's shop and that these herbs were once used medicinally. The Latin name of Common Burnet (Sanguisorba) tells us that this plant was used to absorb blood from a wound. Comfrey (also called woundwort) was also considered good for wounds and, as one would expect, it is another apothecary herb: Symphytum officinale. It may surprise some to see
that marsh-mallow occurs naturally and is not that unholy amalgam of Just a few issues ago, we mentioned rose-noble as the name of a medieval English coin. Well, in addition to meaning "a noble with a rose on it" it also meant "a noble flower", specifically, the Hound's Tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) or the Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa). The broad leaves of Cynoglossum (Greek, cyno- "dog"+ glossum "tongue") do, indeed look like dogs' tongues but there is nothing about the Figwort which looks like a fig. Or is there? Fig was once the common word for hemorrhoids, which the bulbous, purplish-brown flowers of the Figwort were thought to resemble. Suddenly, sniffing the blooms has lost a lot of its charm. |
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