Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — An Amusing Derivation. [ARTICLE]

An Amusing Derivation.

Lexicographers of other days were notoriously at fault with their derivations, and an amusing instance is given as to how plausible etymologies may be concocted. It appears that the learned Porson was staying at one time with a well known Canon of Ely named Jeremiah King. One day at dinner, when they had got into a discussion upon questions of etymology, Porson gave a derivation which King considered so far-fetched as to be quite ridiculous. “You might as well say that my name is connected with cucumber,” said King. Possibly there was a cucumber on the dinner table. “And so it is,” said Porson. “How so?” asked King. “Why, thus—Jeremiah King, by contraction Jerry King; Jerry King, by contraction and metathesis, Gherkin; and gherkin, we know, is a cucumber pickled.” Parson’s definition of the meaning of the word gherkin is almost as erroneous, it will be observed, as his playful derivation, since gherkin is not a pickled cucumber, but a small cucumber of a particular variety commonly used for pickling.