Word To Use Today: cabbage.

Apparently cabbage is going to be the next big thing. Particularly pickled cabbage, as in the Korean kimchi and the German sauerkraut.

Amazing health benefits in pickled cabbage, apparently, and anyone who's anyone is going to be scarfing barrels of the stuff - and as it is, between us we humans eat over seventy million tons of cabbage a year.

But then why should a fondness for cabbage be a surprise?  Cabbage has long been close to our hearts. I mean, if the French, so dedicated to elegance and haute cuisine, can refer to their loved ones as little cabbage (petit chou*) then who is to argue?

The cuteness of cabbage is also a matter of simple patriotism for any member of the Commonwealth, for it has the approval (presumably) of Her Majesty the Queen herself, cabbage being the Duke of Edinburgh's affectionate and intimate method of address to his wife (by which I mean that he is said to call her cabbage; he doesn't, as far as I know, go waving them about in her face in moments of high emotion).

If you really can't bear cabbage anywhere near you, then cabbaged can mean exhausted, and cabbage can be a slang term for either tobacco or cash - though neither of these products is nearly as lavish with the vitamins and minerals as the original thing.

So let's hear it for cabbage. 

After all, a billion slugs and caterpillars can't be wrong, can they?

Word To Use Today: cabbage. A lot of European and Asian words for cabbage come from the Celto-Slavic cap, meaning head. Our English word has come directly from the Old French caboce.


*Okay, chou in this case is probably more to do with its cream puff meaning than actual cabbages (though French baby boys are found in cabbages, so, um...no, perhaps best not to think too much about that) but hey...