Foods and fabrics ahead

Did you ever wonder why some things are named after places?

Image: Gower Brown

It should come as no surprise that some of the most common things we eat, drink, or wear are actually named after the places where they originated. After all, their success is something to be proud of. From foods like cheddar and hamburgers to fabrics like denim and cashmere, geography has left a lasting mark on our language. Did you know about these 12 famous cases?

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The word "denim" comes from the French phrase de Nîmes, meaning "from Nîmes." In the 17th century, the city of Nîmes produced a durable cotton fabric that became popular across Europe.

Later, when Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis used it to make sturdy work pants during the California Gold Rush, it became the basis of modern blue jeans, now worn worldwide.

Image: Alexander Naglestad

The people of Champagne are not just proud but also protective. This alcoholic drink takes its name from the French region where it is exclusively produced. By law, only sparkling wines made there, under strict methods, can be called Champagne.

The drink became a symbol of luxury, used in celebrations and toasts. Its association with royalty and glamour has helped cement Champagne’s reputation across the globe to this day.

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The sausage known as "bologna" takes its name from the Italian city of Bologna, where a rich tradition of cured meats exists. Italians call it mortadella, a seasoned pork sausage.

When German and Italian immigrants brought it to America, it evolved into a simpler version called "baloney," which became a staple of inexpensive sandwiches.

Image: Edoardo Cuoghi

Cologne gets its name from the German city of Köln, where an Italian perfumer created a light fragrance in 1709. It was originally called Eau de Cologne.

Unlike heavier perfumes, this refreshing scent became fashionable across Europe. The name "cologne" eventually came to mean any light men’s fragrance in English.

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The popular hamburger traces its name to Hamburg, Germany, where minced beef patties were popular in the 19th century. Immigrants brought the style to the U.S.

When placed between bread, the "Hamburg steak" evolved into today’s hamburger. It quickly became a symbol of American fast food, loved worldwide in countless variations.

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The frankfurter takes its name from Frankfurt, Germany, where long, thin sausages were popular street food. They were traditionally made from pork and beef.

In the U.S., German immigrants introduced them at fairs and ballparks. There, they became known as hot dogs, a snack closely linked with American culture.

Image: Zoshua Colah

A faithful companion to the previously mentioned hamburger, Cheddar cheese is named after the English village of Cheddar, where it has been produced for centuries. The region’s caves provided ideal conditions for aging.

Today, Cheddar is one of the world’s most popular cheeses, produced in many countries, though the name remains tied to its English origins.

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Port wine comes from Porto, Portugal, where fortified wines were historically shipped along the Douro River. Adding brandy during fermentation helped preserve the wine.

This process gave it a sweet, strong flavor that became especially popular in Britain. Today, Port remains a hallmark of Portuguese winemaking tradition.

Image: Louis Hansel

The stinky Roquefort cheese is named after Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in southern France. Legend says Charlemagne once praised its sharp, tangy taste, made from sheep’s milk.

The caves of the region, rich in natural mold, provide the unique conditions needed for its famous blue veins. Roquefort is still made under strict regulations.

Image: Divazus Fabric Store

The expensive fabric known as cashmere takes its name from the Kashmir region of India, where fine wool was first gathered from Himalayan goats. Soft, warm, and luxurious, it was highly prized.

Introduced to Europe in the 18th century, it became a symbol of elegance and wealth. Today, cashmere garments remain sought after worldwide.

Image: Mike Kenneally

The term "Java" for coffee comes from the Indonesian island where coffee cultivation thrived under Dutch colonial rule. Beans from Java were shipped around the world.

As coffee spread, "Java" became slang for the beverage itself in the U.S. The word still lingers as a casual nickname for a morning cup.

Image: Tyler Donaghy

The bird called "turkey" in English owes its name to a case of trade-related confusion. European merchants importing New World birds through Turkey linked them with the country.

In reality, the bird is native to the Americas, where Indigenous peoples domesticated it. Despite the mistake, the name "turkey" stuck in English.

Eastern influences

10 Asian words that are part of our daily vocabulary

English vocabulary is riddled with words borrowed from other languages, but we often think about those that come from French, Spanish, or other Romance languages, though we are aware of the influence of Germanic and Nordic languages. But how often do we think about the influence of Asian languages in our everyday words? Asian influence might not be as pervasive as that of some European languages, but it’s much more present than you would think. Here are 10 Asian words that everyone has used at least once.

Several different languages —such as Arabic, Persian, or Greek— have used words with the same roots as ‘typhoon’ to describe strong winds or storms, but the term adopted into English is of Chinese origin.

During the 16th century, Portuguese sailors traveling across China adopted the Mandarin táifēng (in Cantonese, daaihfùng), meaning ‘big wind’, to describe severe storms. They spelled it as tufão, although English adopted it as touffon. Down the line, Greek influences affected the spelling, rendering our modern ‘typhoon’.

Most people know that tofu is an ingredient of Asian origin, but have you ever wondered what this word means? Although English borrowed it from Japanese, its origins are rooted in China.

The Japanese tōfu is a phonetic copy of the Chinese dòufu, a combination of dòu (‘bean’) and fǔ (‘curdled’ or ‘fermented’). However, the Chinese character for fǔ is also related to the character for ‘meat’ or ‘flesh’, and some linguists interpret that its use in ‘tofu’ is also a reference to tofu’s texture.

If we tried the original ketchup, we might not find many similarities with the ketchup we know. Originating from the Fujian region of China, kê-chiap or kôe-chiap was used for a pickled fish brine, but neighboring regions adopted the term to refer to savory dark sauces in general.

English and Dutch merchants picked up the term in Malaysia as kicap or kecap, but spelled it such as catchup, catsup, or ketchup. Initial English recipes relied on mushrooms, walnuts, and oysters to replicate the umami flavor of the original ketchup, but it was the addition of tomato in the 19th century that shifted the term ketchup to its current meaning.

A fairly new word, the term emoji was coined in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, the creator of the first telephone emojis. The word is a combination of e (‘picture’) and moji (‘character’ or ‘letter’); this last term is related to words like kanji, the Chinese ideograms used in Japanese writing,

Despite what many people think, emoji is not related to the term ‘emoticon’, a portmanteau of ‘emotion’ + ‘icon’. The fact that emojis and emoticons have phonetic similarities and are used for the same purpose is just a coincidence.

We might not use the word ‘tycoon’ daily, but you might have heard it in reference to wealthy and influential businessmen or politicians. Although it can now carry a slightly negative connotation, it was not negative in its origin. In Japanese, taikun (meaning ‘great lord’) was a title given to the shogun, the Japanese military leader, often more powerful than the Emperor.

When Japan opened to foreign trade in the 19th century, the word was adopted by English-speaking diplomats to refer to the shogun and, later, to other powerful politicians. It was not until the early 20th century that its meaning shifted from politics and came to be used for wealthy and highly influential people.

The term ‘ginger’ comes from an Old French word, but this doesn’t mean its origins are not rooted in Asia. We can find them in the Sanskrit śṛṅgavera, meaning ‘horned shaped’, a description of the antler-like shape of the ginger root.

How did śṛṅgavera become ‘ginger’? It first evolved into siṅgabera, a term adopted into Greek as zingiberis and into Medieval Latin as gingiber. Gingiber became the Old French gingibre, from where Old English got gingifer, later shortened to ‘ginger’.

You might associate ‘curry’ with a specific spice mix, typically used for a dish also named curry. This is not wrong, but is also not exactly right. In the Tamil language, kaṟi means ‘sauce’, ‘relish’, or any spiced meat and vegetables that were eaten with rice.

The word was adopted as ‘curry’ by English and as ‘caril’ by Portuguese traders, who used it as an umbrella term for any Indian spiced stew. By association, they also used the term for a mix of spices, called masala (‘mixture’, ‘blend’) in Indian cuisine. This way, hundreds of dishes and several masalas were grouped under the name ‘curry’.

In Western mentality, the term ‘zen’ is associated with Eastern spiritual practices, or at least with meditation and balance, but its story and meaning are much more complex. ‘Zen’ is a transliteration of the Japanese zen, which in turn comes from the Chinese chán or chánnà, meaning ‘meditation’.

But the roots of zen go deeper. Chánnà is not an original Chinese word, but the phonetic transliteration of the Sanskrit dhyāna, meaning ‘meditation’, ‘contemplation’, or a ‘state of meditative absorption’, a term that originated in ancient India and then travelled to China and Japan as part of Buddhist spirituality.

Neither ‘brain’ nor ‘to wash’ are words of Chinese origin, so how can ‘brainwashing’ be a Chinese term? It is because ‘brainwashing’ is a calque, meaning a word-for-word translation, of the Chinese xǐnǎo, which means ‘to wash the brain’.

The term xǐnǎo became popular in Chinese to describe political re-education policies used by the Chinese Communist Party. How did it enter the English vocabulary? It was translated and adopted by American journalist Edward Hunter to explain the actions of some American prisoners during the Korean War, claiming that they had been ‘brainwashed’ into adopting their captors’ ideologies or into making false statements.

Most Americans will understand ‘chop chop’ as slang for ‘hurry up’, but did you know that it comes from Chinese? The phrase comes from 19th-century Guangzhou (also known as Canton), where English and Cantonese had mixed to form a pidgin or contact language between two distinct languages.

Chinese language often reduplicates words for emphasis; in this case, the word sù, meaning ‘fast’, is reduplicated to make sù sù, ‘hurry up’. American and British sailors heard this phrase in the Guangzhou ports, and adopted it as the pidgin ‘chop chop’.