CRUDIVORE
Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:10 am
• crudivore •
Pronunciation: kru-dê-vor • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: You have to watch the pronunciation of this word to avoid implying that someone is an eater of crud. That is not what a crudivore is: a crudivore is someone who eats only raw food.
Notes: Crudivorism is a term for a dietary fad that has been spreading around the world and the Web. It refers to the belief that humans were healthier and lived longer before the development of culture and civilization, when food was eaten raw. Some modern crudivores are also vegetarians (herbivores) but many are carnivorous. Following the pattern of similar words, if the belief is crudivorism, a person practicing it is a crudivore.
In Play: Although today's word is just creeping into the English language and even though it refers to a fringe eating fad, wider applications can be imagined: "Most species are crudivores, so what is the word for someone who eats cooked food?" Once we have made this leap of faith, metaphorical applications pop up all around us: "Barnaby eats his meat so rare we think of him as a borderline crudivore."
Word History: Today's very new word was concocted from Latin crudus "raw, unripe, undigested" + -vorus, from vorare, "to gobble up, devour". Believe it or not, Latin crudus and English raw started out as the same word, Proto-Indo-European *kreu- "raw flesh". The initial [k], quite regularly, became Latin C and English H, giving us Old English hreaw "raw", which lost a few letters on the trip to us. Latin added a suffix, -d, and its own endings and—crudus. Of course, we recognize vorus in English voracious. (Today's Good Word is a present from the Brazilian Dude, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, who found it originally in Portuguese.)
Pronunciation: kru-dê-vor • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: You have to watch the pronunciation of this word to avoid implying that someone is an eater of crud. That is not what a crudivore is: a crudivore is someone who eats only raw food.
Notes: Crudivorism is a term for a dietary fad that has been spreading around the world and the Web. It refers to the belief that humans were healthier and lived longer before the development of culture and civilization, when food was eaten raw. Some modern crudivores are also vegetarians (herbivores) but many are carnivorous. Following the pattern of similar words, if the belief is crudivorism, a person practicing it is a crudivore.
In Play: Although today's word is just creeping into the English language and even though it refers to a fringe eating fad, wider applications can be imagined: "Most species are crudivores, so what is the word for someone who eats cooked food?" Once we have made this leap of faith, metaphorical applications pop up all around us: "Barnaby eats his meat so rare we think of him as a borderline crudivore."
Word History: Today's very new word was concocted from Latin crudus "raw, unripe, undigested" + -vorus, from vorare, "to gobble up, devour". Believe it or not, Latin crudus and English raw started out as the same word, Proto-Indo-European *kreu- "raw flesh". The initial [k], quite regularly, became Latin C and English H, giving us Old English hreaw "raw", which lost a few letters on the trip to us. Latin added a suffix, -d, and its own endings and—crudus. Of course, we recognize vorus in English voracious. (Today's Good Word is a present from the Brazilian Dude, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, who found it originally in Portuguese.)