Artichoke

My husband has been growling: ‘You cross-legged hartichoak.’ He tries it on obstructive pedestrians hypnotised by their mobile phones. He thus hopes, optimistically, to utter insults while avoiding any ism that could get him into trouble.

This imprecation hartichoak he took from the mouth of Young Tom Strowd, a Norfolk man, in The Blind-Beggar of Bednal Green, a play from 1600 by John Day (a Norfolk man) and Henry Chettle (in and out of debtors’ prison). The artichoke jokes went down so well that two sequels were performed, though their text, sadly or not, does not survive. Artichoke displays a modest degree of folk etymology. It came into English in the 16th century from words already obscure in their derivation. We borrowed it from the northern Italian form articiocco, in which ciocco was taken to mean ‘stump’. In reality the word had come, via Spanish alcachofa, from the Spanish Arabic al-karsufa.