I want you to know that Turkey the country probably has little to do with the food. I suspect this because, in Hebrew, Hodu is the same word for Turkey the food and India the country. And in when in French, when you eat Turkey, you are eating Dinde, which probably has no relation to "D'Inde" (India). extra note for Hebrew speakers: (Hodu l'adonai ki tov)
Pomegranate means "apple (pomme) full of seeds" which means grenade is probably something to do with full of seeds (except the deadly kind). In Hebrew, Rimon is both the word for grenade and pomegranate.
My grandfather used to tell me to count my change at the green grocer cuz the "chinese would gyp you". I didn't catch wind of the double slur till much later. In fact I did not fully understand that gypped came from gypsy, probably until the time someone said he'd been "jewed" in front of me, then turned pale when he remembered the "Goldman" part of my name.
But he was no Indian giver, so he could not take back that insult.
The other day I became concered that parsimonious came from parsi and was some ethnic slur implicating the persians as cheap. Fortunately for me, I caught the tiger by the toe and took out my etymological dictionary.
No need to get hysterical. It is no slant against our Iranian peeps. It comes from a Celtic word meaning to divide or separate. Can you have a meaning without knowing the root?
