Robert Klute said:Bob (this one) said:Robert Klute said:On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:51:39 -0400, "Bob (this one)"
<[email hidden]> wrote:
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> nakedwhiz.comspatchdef.htmOpen ↗
Since the term appears to be of Irish origin, an obvious
question would be "is the term an English corruption of
a Gaelic word?".
*One* story imputes that it's of Irish origin. Another
one I've heard is that it's a corruption of "spaccato" -
"chopped" or "split" in Italian. No proof for any of it.
If the Brits can make "Ypres" (EE-pr in French) into
"wipers," anything can be posited. <g> You like Gaelic?
Gaelic it is...
Quoted message said:I like Italian, too. The oldest reference to spatchcock in
the above website is "A classical of the vulgar tongue",
1785. It refers to "Spatch [censored], abbreviation of dispatch
[censored], an Irish dish ..."
Such sources are notoriously inaccurate. As are too many
modern ones.
Quoted message said:It might be a corruption of dispatched [censored], meaning a
bird quickly killed and quickly prepared.
The reference says "dispatch [censored]" - no "ed" on the end.
"Dispatched" (adjective) simply means "killed" with no
reference to speed. To dispatch can mean to send or it can
mean to kill.
"Dispatch" (noun) can mean speedy activity. As in to perform
something with dispatch.
It would make more sense if the bird were completely
dismembered. That way it would cook the fastest.
Quoted message said:It might be a play on the noun dispatch - a quickly sent
communication - referring to the bird being opened like a
book and quickly send to it's destination - your plate.
Feels a bit of a stretch to me.
Quoted message said:Then I like spaccato, losing the ending 'O' and becoming
spatch-cot, and then spatch [censored]. It is just the sort of
corruption the English would do to an Italian word.
Still, the reference to Irish origin still begs the
question of whether there might be a Gaelic word it could
be corrupted from.
There's folklore and there's *fakelore*...
I'll bet the choices in Gaelic are going to be at least as
far-fetched as the "dispatch" one.
Pastorio