WALE
Wild Word Friday!
When anyone talks about WALE, I think about cloth, like corduroy, with raised ridges that are called WALEs, but I recently discovered a “new to me” meaning.
In Scotland the noun WALE means a choosing or a choice or something chosen as best. As a verb WALE means to select. This meaning comes into the English language from the very ancient (6,000 years old) Indo-European language, that mother of most European and some Asian and Middle Eastern languages. WALE comes from the same Indo-European base word as the English word will.
Our daughter just visited us for a few weeks. She lives in Europe, and we hadn’t seen her for more than a year. For one of our celebrations my WALE for dessert was an old (100 years old) Harrison family recipe. See if you like it:
Aunt Carrie Harrison’s Apple Delight
5 medium apples, cored, peeled, sliced and arranged in a greased pie tin. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup butter (not oleo) until crumbly. Sprinkle over apples. Bake at 400 degrees F. until apples are soft. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or lemon sauce.
(Cinnamon to taste is optional, but 100 years ago cinnamon was not easily obtained in this part of the US, so it is not a part of the traditional recipe.)
What’s your WALE for dessert tonight?
Blessings!
Sue
(Photo from Wikipedia.)
Larry makes the best banana pudding! We served it to our Sand Lake Michigan families and, while most had never tasted it, they cleaned the dish!
Side note–corduroy means cloth for royalty; it had wales, so it was the best!
Down south we call corduroy jeans “whistle britches”! Don’t you love word history!
Awww………my Grandma’s recipe……….this makes me smile 🙂
Your Grandma had great recipes, Lynn!
Karen, thank you for sharing “whistle britches”. They do whistle, don’t they!
I love learning new word meanings and derivations. This may come in handy – thanks! Have a great weekend!
Where are you from Karen? I’m from San Antonio, TX and have never heard corduroy referred to as “whistle britches.” But then Texas isn’t really considered part of the South. My (always funny) dad called me “Whistle Britches” many times when I was a little girl! It was usually a little while after I had eaten a healthy portion of my mother’s good pinto beans! For the life of me, I’ve never been able to figure out why he called me that! (Yeah, right)
Thank you, Donna!