I do hate a noisy eater.
You know, those generous souls who insist on munching there way through a rare steak/ plate of mashed potato/ macaroni cheese with their mouths open, exposing every sloppy gulp and slurp to their fellow diners. They love their food so much they want to share it with the world.
Now, being a bit of a history buff (that’s a fan of history, not a person who reads Philippa Gregory and C.J. Sansom in the nude) I could bang on about past influences on English, about successive invasions- those pesky Vikings, Romans and Normans for instance- who came to nick our land and take our women and left their languages behind to breed with our own.
We don’t police our vocabulary as the French do, so if we find a word that suits our purpose we’ll happily steal and cannibalise it (See last weeks Word Tangle.) This is part of the reason our language is SO DAMN HARD TO LEARN. But it’s also why we have so many words for the same thing.
So, back to our gluttonous friend. What word could we conjure for using our teeth and jaws to turn delicious, appetizing food into slop ready for our digestive juices?
Do I hear chew? I raise you crunch. How about a nibble? Gnaw? Chomp? Champ?
Lovely words, descriptive words, all with nuanced meaning, feel and sound.
But the worst synonym by far, the daddy of disgust, the sister of sickening, the reverend of revolting, the nun of nauseating is…
MASTICATE.
Urrgh. Now it could in part be my mind linking this to a very similar word and its very dissimilar meaning, but when I hear masticate, I hear the slurping, the jaw clicking, I see the spare food gathering at the corners of the mouth, the tongue exploring a molar for that tough old bit of sinew that’s got all caught up at the back.
So, there we are. A word that sends a shiver of revulsion up my spine whenever I hear it.
Now, please- pass the dental floss.
Word Shamble 