Eat Arkansas

LOL. Pehaps it is sacrilege. Never been a big fan of relish and slaw. My acid reflux is usually in check, but onions makes it go haywire. I did seem to clog my arteries enough for one day in spite of leaving those items off. Joanie at the Hop highly recommends the club sandwich and grilled chicken salad. Who knows? I may have another shot from there by the end of the week.

ARK. BLOG: I confess, hot dog condiments are a matter of highly personal taste. With me, as in all things -- pizza, hamburgers, baked potatoes -- I take the "throw everything you've got on it" approach. But, even then, I really like relish, slaw and onions.

Stoby's in Conway makes a pretty mean chili dog, too. Not foot long, but great tasting. I prefer chili, cheese, mustard, ketchup, and slaw. No onions (can't handle them raw) for me.

I've driven by The Hop a million times and never tried it. It may be next on the list of things to try. Thanks for the tip.

Ok, I'll bite, with everything please -- if someone will tell me where on Cantrell.
But David, assure me it's not a chicken dog or whatever they serve at Sonic now. They used to be soooo good . . .
Onions can go either way, again, depending on what kind they use. I prefer somewhere in the mid-range of hot, but definitely not the volcanic yellow onions I buy by mistake sometimes. Funny thing about those hot, hot mistakes. You can't eat 'em raw without taking on the attributes of a cartoon character -- eyes bulging and tearing, steam coming out of nose and ears and fire out of mouth. You think that hamburger with a thick slice of onion is gonna kill ya right there at the kitchen table. But put too much in spaghetti sauce and hubby swears I dumped a cup of sugar in it. The first time it happened I thought so too. Couldn't figure out what happened -- until I made a pot of chili the same week with the same batch of onions. Yuck.

Doigotta - it's between Mississippi and Pavillion in the Park on the North side of Cantrell. I believe it's next to the shopping center with the Quizno's.

For a chili dog, I beat it to Buffalo Grill in Riverdale. The chili contains beans, which took me aback at first, but I've grown to enjoy their smooth texture and flavor among all the other ingredients. And bring on the ingredients--nothing is bad on a chili dog (well, except maybe mayonnaise). Slaw, relish, and onions are welcome. Ketchup is my favorite additive to any chili dish, but salsa is even better on a chili dog.

Sometimes I even have a side of chili (with cheese and onions, natch) with my chili dog--I seldom touch the crackers, but some days why not?. Rest assured, I don't eat that way every day, but when I do, it's a celebration.

ARK. BLOG: I want to add, too, that I love the weirdly unique Chicago dog, which was available downstairs in my building until Pokey D's folded. It'a sesame seed bun with one of those snappy Vienna dogs, plus a pickle slice, sliced tomato, onions, electronic green relish and a sport pepper, sprinkled with celery salt. It's kind of hard to handle, but all those tastes and textures come together wonderfully.

Anyone know where to get a
good knackwurst -- either ready to eat or ready to cook?

ARK. BLOG: Boar's Head makes a good knackwurst and I've seen them in the deli case of their products in the Heights and Hillcrest Kroger stores. Bonus: Boar's Head appears on the Buy Blue list for its strong support of Democratic politicians.

Arkansas Burger Company makes a massive chili dog that's really worth trying.

"A chili dog without onions, relish and slaw? Sacrilege."

I should say so. I seem to recall a passage in the Old Testament about it, in fact.

It's the book of Gastronomicus 10:14, as well as I recall, which reads, "When you find the large sausage, surround it with a bun of finest wheat and gird up your loins and don a bib of snowy white.

Then avail yourselves of all the fruit of the land to adorn the holy meal. Lay thereunto silky rich chili, piquant slaw, sweet chopped onion, and pungent mustard.

Eat and give thanks unto the Lord for the bounty of the earth. Let Israel and all its kith and kin celebrate the footlong hot-dog feast each month as the moon waxes to full."

Gotta love the bible. It always yields just the answers we need right when we need them.... :-)

Funny, Muddling.

Traditionalists, of course, still prefer the cubit-long variety.

Ah ... I've seen the Boar's Head bratwursts at Kroger but not the knackwursts. I'll check again. The Buy Blue apect makes it all the better.

Thx

p.s., Let me be frank here ... you guys (Muddling, widj) are on a roll. Can you provide a link to the Gastronomicus passage? Sounds like one I would relish. I'll be sure to spread the word.

ARK. BLOG: Re knacks. It's hit or miss. The selection isn't the same every time I visit.

Re Muddling: The man can write about food.

Was Gatronomicus referring to kosher hot dogs, or is it in the New Testament?

Clever, Hugh. Your post is like those pictures they have for children in doctor's offices: see how many hidden animals you can spot in this picture!

Re: the link to Gastronomicus, I'm sure it's out there somewhere. And if not, some bible-toter will invent it to prove what he/she has always believed anyway.

That's the charm of the bible (and toting/quoting it at every turn): we can find a passage to justify just about anything we ever wanted to justify.

Now there's a challenge, come to think of it: what bible passages (in the real bible) would actually justify a cubit-long [love that suggestion, wjdj] hot dog with all the accompaniments?

Mordy, I think maybe the New Testament de-kosherized the foot-long hot dog?

I seem to recall that in that passage in Acts where all the non-kosher foods descend from heaven on a sheet for Peter to eat them, right square in the center is a foot-long hot dog.

Of course, given a good beef frank and lots of sauerkraut to replace the cheese, I'd relish a kosher foot-long as soon as I would a non-kosher one. That's the beauty of food traditions (and religious ones): there are never enough to go around to represent the amazing variety of the world, its cultures, and the people in it.

Crazee's Cool Cafe on Cantrell has a great chilidog. Also check Georgia's Gyros in North Little Rock. Both of them offer up a huge dawg with all the fixins. Good stuff.

Well, I'll swan. I believe they're right when they say it's all there in the bible, if you just know how to look hard enough, with the assistance of the Holy Ghost.

I believe I've found a hidden biblical approval for hot dogs with all the fixins.

The roll is a key component, and doesn't Amos tell us to let justice roll down like righteousness?

And who's to say the miracle of the loaves and fishes didn't involve hot dog buns.

I'm afraid most biblical texts I can find about dogs are not very flattering, though Proverbs seems to condemn pulling dogs' ears when it observes, "A passerby who meddles in a quarrel that's not his is like one who grabs a dog by the ears."

The bible does enjoin us to be frank, though, when it tells us to let our yea be yea and our nay be nay.

And the story of Noah may contain a hidden reference to weenies when it speaks about Ham uncovering his father's nakedness.

So the bible appears to approve of frankfurters and weenies, for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Cheese gets a good rap in the bible, when Isaiah tells us that we'll eat curds and honey when we know how to distinguish right from wrong.

Every Sunday school child knows that mustard's in the bible: the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed....

One can surely deduce that God approves of mustard, cheese, frankfurters, weenies, and hot dog buns on the basis of the preceding scriptures.

I doubt chili was invented when God made Adam and Eve in the Garden of evil, but I think we can safely assume that if has biblical roots--along with all other relishes--since we're enjoined by the psalms not to relish the misfortune of the righteous.

And I'm fairly sure cole slaw post-dates the fall of Adam and Eve, too, and doesn't have a starring role in any biblical book, though there's much slaugh-tering going on all through the bible. Again, for those with ears to hear....

I think we may safely conclude that eating a good foot-long hot dog with all the fixins we can add to it is both scripturally enjoined and biblically sound.

ARK. BLOG: Great post. I just had two-thirds of a yard from Buffalo Grill. Good, but not platonic. I don't hold with beans in the chili, for one thing. But the thing that really grabbed me here was "I swan."

My Aunt Luna, from Huttig, Ark., said "I swan" all the time. Were there ever better times for me than January visits to Huttig. It was always bone-chilling cld, compared with my Louisiana home. She had space heaters and a fireplace to huddle around. Every morning, she'd get the Ark. Gazette and Monroe paper so I could keep up with sports. I'd gather eggs in the hen house while she broiled toast, fried bacon and started work on lunch. Wonderful memories still, 50 years later.

The HOP is one of the greatest discoveries I've ever made in LR. Chili dog - killer. Frito pie - killer. Cheeseburger - killer. Just a wonderful place.

My vote for foot-long chili dogs goes to Leo's. And the staff there are, on ordinary days, among the nicest folks in any small restaurant in Little Rock--which definitely influences my slant on the food any restaurant serves.

Apologies for the LR-centrism: I'm referring to Leo's on Kavanaugh in LR in the post I just made.

Max, I know Huttig well, and we may share the distinction (?) of having combined AR-LA roots.

Both of my grandmothers swanned, declared, and pshawed frequently. I never quite figured out what "I swan" meant, except it seemed to be a polite euphemism for "I swear," which a lady wouldn't say.

Could it have ancient English roots and be a variation of the old exclamation "By his wounds"? I think that eventually became something like "zounds," and I could see that phrase morphing into, "Well, I'll swan."

My grandparents were always two-paper families, two. They took both the Gazette and the Democrat, the former for the news, and the latter for its obits and farm news. Though they were all the first generation off the farm, they still had a keen interest in farm news.

They also read both papers from the first page, upper left-hand corner to the last page, lower right-hand corner, all the way through. Three of my grandparents had "only" an 8th-grade education, but what an education it was. They could spell anything, define anything, and argue any point until you were convinced that the world had turned upside down. And they stayed educated, reading a paper that, in those years, actually provided decent news coverage.

To be such a sweet lady, my grandmother "swanned" alot, too.

At my name is a post about the possible origins of "swan" from the Oxford University Press USA blog (fifth entry from the top) -- but don't blame me if you spend an hour kicking around at other stuff in there.

It's funny what hot dog talk can turn into.

Hugh, fascinating! I had never read anything on the etymology of swanning.

Did your grandmother use the variation, "Well, I'll swannie"? Mine did. I think swannie was a bit more emphatic than swan. Oh, the intricate nuances of authentic South-speak....

And it is interesting, but not surprising, that hot dogs should lead to swanning. As Freud observed, sometimes a hot dog is just a hot dog--which means that sometimes it's not just a hot dog....

"Swan" and "swannie" flowed freely in my respective grandparental households, too, and it survived with my mother and aunts. I was always told it was a lady's euphemism for "swear", and I was discouraged from using it, as well as from swearing in general.

Similarly, I often heard them exclaim "Law!" when they clearly meant "Lord!", as well as "Laws-a-mercy!", which I understood as "Lord have mercy" ("Kyrie eleison").

I had the singular pleasure of discussing these matters years ago with Vance Randolph and his lovely wife Mary Parler on several occasions not long before his death. On at least one of those occasions, I'm pretty sure I was served franks and beans for supper. No footlongs, though, and no chili.

Widj, Law was one of the female exclamations I heard quite a bit, too. And I think you're right: it was a way of saying, "Lord have mercy."

My mother and her sisters used to talk about the different ways their aunts on the paternal and maternal side of their family said the phrase. Apparently, the maternal group said, "Law ha' massy," while the paternal clan were inclined to "Lawsie massy."

There were also intricate discussions of what each half of the family called a porch: the maternal set used the word "gallery," while the paternals said "verandah." They had differing pronunciations of the word "ear," too.

As a child, I was also fascinated by the different names for mother and father in each of my families. In my father's family, it was "mama" and "papa." My maternal grandmother spoke of her parents as Ma and Pa, while the male side of that family said mother and daddy.

Interesting sub-variations in cooking styles and terms, too, between my Louisiana grandmother and my Arkansas one. The former cooked greens with cornmeal dumplings added to the pot at the very end--pot stickers, she called them. She also made fried pies that she called tarts, and rice was a staple of her table.

My Arkansas grandmother cooked rice only as a breakfast cereal or as rice pudding, and did not add dumplings to her greens. I have long thought that my paternal grandmother's Georgia roots (both of her parents were born there) had something to do with the pot stickers and the love of rice as an accompaniment to meat dishes.

I find it very interesting that a thread on chili dogs has evolved into a discussion of etymologies.

Doug Smith's article is one of my favorites in the AT every week. What about an AT blog specifically on etymology?

My dad said "Well, I declare to my time." Never got an "I'll swan," but I've heard it's from "I'll swear."

My dad also says "go on about your rat-killing." Anyone else heard that one?

"Lawsie me!", and "Land's sakes!" (or just "Land's!") are other good ones. I like Doug Smith's column, too, and agree that an etymology/colloquialism blog would be fun, especially if malapropisms could be included. (I almost said entomology just to bug widj).

Yes, L&P, I do plenty of rat-killing my own self.

No way! Someone else gets back to their own business by killing rats! I have never heard anyone else say that.

Ever heard "butt a rubber stump"? As in, "That's about as effective as butting a rubber stump."

Dad also says, "That beats all I have ever seen."

I actually keep a book listing all my dad's "pappyisms" so I'll have a record of them. (Pappy is his grandfather name.)

Max, think about the new blog idea! I think it might take off like Eat AR. ;)

I'd be all for the etymology blog.

Liberal and Proud, I somehow have the idea that swanning was a ladies' thing. I don't recall ever hearing the elderly men in my family say it, though they'd say, "I declare" or "my word" as exclamations of surprise.

One expression that has always puzzled me is one I heard often from one of my aunts: "Well, I'll be John Brown." I have no idea where it comes from, or what it meant, except that it was an exclamation of surprise.

Another that one of my grandmothers, in particular, used, and which long ago fell by the wayside, was, "Aw, pshaw!" That, too, was an exclamation of surprise, usually accompanied by a slightly dismissive hand gesture, a downward sweep of the hand with the palm held down.

Freud was right: sometimes a hot dog is only a hot dog, and sometimes it's not. Everything connects to everything else, including frankfurters and etymology.

And why hot dog, I wonder? My youngest brother refused to eat them for years, after he saw a three-legged dog on the school playground and deduced that the cafeteria was serving us, well, hot dogs.

Does anyone know what "dobber down" means?

Ditto re Doug Smith and the word blog. Maybe Doug could moderate/comment.

"Dobber down" - context, 1s&0s? It sounds familiar, but I can't connect it with anything.

"I'll be John Brown" - It must have some relation to "I'll be jiggered". Euphemism, probably, for something that starts with a J. "Jinxed", as in "bewitched"? Just guessing.

"Pshaw" - One quick reference only says, laconically, "Origin: 1665-75". There are similar mouths sounds in other languages that serve similar purposes. Germans often begin a statement with "Tja ... ", as a prolonged "Yes ... " ("Ja ... "), which can also stand alone as an exclamation equivalent to a strongly ironic "Ye-es" or "Ri-ight".

Yup, this kinda stuff is fun, to me at least.

Widj, thanks--enlightening. I have googled "I'll be John Brown," and there are queries out there noting it's a typically Southern exclamation, but no one seems to know how it originated or where it came from.

Fascinating about pshaw: I've heard Germans and German Americans use "ja" in that exclamatory way. In fact, I have a very clear recollection of trying to ask a German waitress a question when she was very busy, and having her respond, "Ja, ja!'

Which I knew meant, "Leave me the hell alone right now."

Come to think of it, there are areas of German, especially in the Rhine region, where j's have a slushy "sh" sound. I can remember being parked in a no-parking space in a village in the Taunus mountains and being chided by a man who came up to the car, and who said several incomprehensible things to me--but I understood when he said "good morning" by saying "morje," rather than "morgen."

Words and food comprise a whole cultural history in miniature.

German just might be the answer to lots of things folks say around here. My dad has German roots, as well.

He doesn't say "I'll be John Brown" but does say "that beats a hen a-pecking."

He also says "pshaw" but it's more like "pee-shaw" with emphasis on the first syllable. Could that come from "pish" or "pish-posh"?

Having Doug Smith moderate a blog for us "wordies" (like foodies, but different . . .) would be great! Maybe we should suggest over on the Saturday night open line. Anything's better than discussion of the whooping the Hogs are getting. That game beats all I done ever seen.

" ... "pee-shaw" with emphasis on the first syllable. Could that come from "pish" or "pish-posh"?"

I think it's more likely that "pshaw" is just an early attempt to reduce the "raspberry" to orthography. "Pee-shaw" sounds like a mis-reading of the written word in the absence of having heard anyone actually use it, possibly continued and passed on as a punchline that had lost its joke.

Just guessing again.

Liberal and widj, if Doug Smith would moderate an etymology thread, I'd be all for that. I have always read his columns with great interest.

In my grandmother's pronunciation, "pshaw" had an unvocalized p. I'm away from OED, and feeling unhooked from a lifeline, so I can't look up the etymology or pronunciation given there.

From what I do find by a quick googling search, the word has been tracked back at least to 1673, so it's evidently one of those old carryover words that may have survived in the American South longer than in England itself.

But nothing on its origin. I could well imagine a connection with German "ja." Or could it just be an onomatopoeic kind of expression, a raspberry, as you say, widj?

There's a similar (in that it seems onomatopoeic) expression used by women in both German and Scandinavian countries, and brought by their descendants to America, which sounds something like "uftah."

Interesting how euphemisms or sound words have been considered acceptable--in "polite" society--for franker exclamations. I have always wondered why my aunts could say, "My foot!" or "Oh, foot" so freely, when they did know at least a few other of what my grandmother called "my little word."

In her philosophy of Southern ladyhood, a lady was permitted at least one "little word." Hers began with s and had four letters, and when she said it, you knew you were in for quite a scolding.

This is a grandmother who paid a high price for being a lady. Not too long after I was born, she was watering her ferns one Sunday morning and leaning on her porch banister.

The railing gave way and she pitched out into her nandina bed, dressed in her housecoat, breaking both of her wrists. Since a Southern lady 1) couldn't be seen lying in a flowerbed en deshabille or 2) be caught screaming for help from her flowerbed, she did the proper thing and crawled on her elbows up behind the nandinas, waiting to be found.

The problem was all the more acute since she lived halfway between Pulaski Heights Methodist and Pulaski Heights Presbyterian churches, and church people were out going to church.

She lay in the flowerbed with both wrists broken for quite a while before her eldest daughter, who lived at home with her, realized she had never come in from fern-watering. The price ladies paid for being ladies! Pshaw....

Good story, Muddling. Your relatives seem very similar to mine. I also heard the "foot" word, and more than one of my female relatives permitted herself the other "little word" only by omitting the central vowel, which made it a very explosive expression of displeasure.

Widj, glad to hear that non-institutionalized craziness was not confined only to my family. I've always loved that scene in Eudora Welty's "Ponder Heart" where Uncle Ponder is put into the MS state asylum for the mentally ill by his papa, to keep him from giving away all of his money.

When Papa visits, Uncle Ponder manages to slip away. The staff assume that Papa is the crazy one, and the louder he shouts and huffs and puffs, the more convinced they are they have the right one locked away. Welty slyly says (re: the huffing and puffing), "That's what crazy is!"

Sht: I'm trying to say that, but not too successfully. One of my nieces has decided to try the euphemism "sugar" when I'm not around, though I'm not fooled about how she talks when the old dinosaur is away from the scene.

My grandmother did have a sister, Fannie, the good one, who wouldn't dream of saying anything bad about anybody, or a bad word of any kind. An older sister, Delilah, whose talk was peppered with quite a few more savory expressions, used to say about Fannie, "Fannie wouldn't say sh-t if her mouth were full of it."

In her old age, my grandmother used to lament how she treated Fannie on Fannie's the evening before wedding night. Since the family was large, the two shared a bed up to Fannie's marriage.

My grandmother resented Fannie for marrying and leaving home, and also because (I suspect) she had her cap set for Fannie's brother, but was too young yet to marry. So all night before the wedding, my grandmother raked her toenails up and down Fannie's legs.

Fannie never said a word. And she married with big red welts running up and down her legs.

widj --

The context for me was a friend calling to say, "I just wanted to make sure you didn't have your dobber down." (After a disappointment)

Ah. Well, many possibilities leapt to mind with your clarification, 1s&0s, but none seems quite appropriate to a disappointment, so I'm not even going to venture a guess.

This number of comments might be a record for Eat Arkansas, even if there was a stray from the topic. But if a mission of the AT is to reveal and discuss Arkansas culture, the stuff of this tangent paves a nice avenue.

Poor Doug certainly didn't ask to moderate a new blog, but I get the feeling he could glean some interesting fodder for his column from such an endeavor -- not that he's ever been short of interesting topics.

In the meantime, what better place is there to discuss this aspect of our culture? We like to talk while we eat, right? Might as well throw in the speech habits and tales of our grandmothers when we discuss what and how they cooked. It might otherwise be lost with us.

Not that Mee Maw was known for her chili dogs.

Whoops! Big boo-boo in my last posting.

It seems to imply my grandmother had her cap set for her own brother! Now some of them were right nice fellows, but I don't think she ever had a hankering for ary one of her own brothers.

No, it was the brother of her sister Fannie's new husband for whom she had her cap set.

A footlong hot dog discussion can get a body into a heap of verbal confusion, it appears.

I don't know about dobber down, but I used to hear "get your dauber up." I assumed it had something to do with dirt daubers and getting your dauber or stinger up meant you were in a high dudgeon, whatever that is. I think it means you're ready to fight or up to and eager to meet the challenge, and you're angry.

I'm sure Doug is already using this blog, or set of blogs, or maybe it's the Briefing Notebook, because he answered a question last week that I sent to one or the other. It was about contranyms, those words like cleave and sanction that can have opposite meanings.

I agree that we've probably set a record here on Eat AR! Way to go foodies!

I did not know the term "contranyms" but mentioned them out loud to the family when reading the article. Told them what they were and gave the examples from the article.

Everyone, including my family, thinks I'm a nerd, but that's okay with me. :)

Man, I love words almost as much as I love food!

Yeah, but "contranym" has been bothering me all week. I was taught that Latin and Greet roots were not to be joined to make a word. I was shocked that "grammarians" pulled such a gaffe as to invent "contranym". I'd suggest "disonym" or at the very least "dianym".

Widj, I was taught not to join Latin and Greek words, too, but we may be fighting a losing battle there. I remember my 9th-grade English teacher constantly saying, "When folks ask you to lower your standards, why not invite them up to your standards?"

Noble sentiment, but it hasn't always seemed to work in the real world--at least not for me. Despite all I was taught most passionately to believe, people will still wear brown and black together, silver and gold together, plaids and stripes together.

And don't even get me started on manners, on men not wearing hats inside, or on "you guys" or the horrible "y'all guys" I heard last week in Tennessee.

So the Greek-Latin thing may be as lost a cause as the prohibition against split infinitives. As an example: the word "homophobia" is now common parlance, and a very useful word.

It combines a Latin preface with a Greek follow-up.

Actually, it doesn't. The "homo-" is from the Greek word for "same" (as in "homonym"), not from the Latin word for "man". But you're right, it's probably a lost cause.

I like food and words, but I've been officially declared a master of science. Early on in my studies I was surprised to find out that a whole bunch of science words blend Greek and Latin roots.

Widj, you're exactly right--and how embarrassing for me, who spoke with such confidence.

It's the word "homosexual" that combines Greek and Latin, isn't it? "Homo" for same, from the Greek root, with "sexual" from a Latin root. Right?

Which tends to bear out your point, Whoscrumdown, about science words combining Greek and Latin.

I'm lost without my OED at hand, but have been racking my brain today to think of other examples. Is hydrocephalic a combination of Latin and Greek? I seem to recall fairly clearly that hydros is the Greek word for water, and kephalos may well be the word for head.

But if I remember correctly, there's a Latin cognate, cephalus? From which we must ultimately get words like cap--or Germans must get their word for head, Kopf.

There certainly is something foods and words share: start tracking the roots of a word or a food or a way of cooking, and you encounter a whole cultural history linking diverse regions of the world.

First chili dogs, then grandma-sayings, now etymology. Not sure any blog could cover all bases.

Yes "cephalus" is a superfluously Latinized Greek word, as Latin already had "caput", ultimately derived from the same *Indo-European root. Greek has been routinely Latinized over recent centuries, especially by the medical profession.

And yes, "Kopf" is also from the same *I-E root, but not at all via Greek or Latin. Oh, for a time machine.

Since we all love words so much, I was wondering if you all heard this piece on NPR today? (click blue name)

I've had that time-machine fantasy, too, widj, though if I went back to my own Ur origins, I supposed I'd find my family speaking some form of what became a Celtic language at later points in history. Still, I suppose it, too, would have Indo-European roots?

I once read a fascinating book, title long forgotten, that claimed it could teach you to learn practically all European languages in a day or so, by showing you how an Indo-European root transmogrified into different incarnations in each language.

The book failed for me, but it did sensitize me to one thing: I now see cognates where I didn't before, so that I can latch onto the root meaning to remember what the word means in the language at hand.

Example: it recently struck me that German heute must be Latin hodie. I haven't looked this up to confirm, but makes sense in my own lame brain. There must be some Indo-European root sounding something like "hod" that means "today."

Liberal and Proud, many thanks for the link. Haven't had a chance yet to listen to the link, but it sounds like it help fulfill the time-travel fantasy.

I did hear the NPR piece, L&P. I love that kind of stuff.

Muddling, I think I ran across the same book years ago in a school library. I'm sure it made a great impression on me, as well. Interesting theory on heute/hodie, but hodie is from hic (haec, hoc) meaning "this" and the word for day, dies. I'm pretty sure the Teutons and Saxons must have had their own word for "today" long before they met the Romans. Either way, it will certainly have an Indo-European root.

Widj, I agree with you about the origin of hodie--a combination of hic/haec/hoc and dies. My supposition about some Indo-European root like "hod" was way off-base.

Still, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that German borrowed hodie and turned it into heute.

Quite a few German words do come directly from Latin, or so it seems to me, looking at them. Two examples that spring to mind are Uhr (hora) and Familie (familia).

I've always found it interesting that "borrow words" in German that have Latin roots tend to refer to things like how time is allocated and to social structures like the family.

But the words for everyday objects tend to be solidly Teutonic. To the extent that I can decipher Irish, I notice there, too, quite a few Latin borrow words for structures/organizations/concepts that were probably not part of pre-Christian (pre-Latinate) Irish culture.

For instance, there's kill/cella for a monastic foundation or church, and mull/molinum for a mill. The Roman Empire seems to have had the same ability to spread words across its part of the globe that the American Empire has had with English. Even where people don't speak or understand English freely, there will be the occasional borrow-word from English cropping up unexpectedly in the language.