Wednesday, February 8, 2012

ANSWER: Food

Pumpernickel

The philologist Johann Christoph Adelung states that the word has an origin in the Germanic vernacular where Pumpen was a New High German synonym for being flatulent, and Nickel was a form of the name Nicholas, commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g. "Old Nick", a familiar name for Satan), or more generally for a malevolent spirit or demon. (See also the metal nickel, probably named for a demon that would "change" or contaminate valuable copper with this strange metal that was much harder to work.) Hence, pumpernickel is described as the "devil's fart," a definition accepted by the Stopes International Language Database, the publisher Random House, and by some English language dictionaries, including the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Matt: --
Record: 443-384

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