sweetmeats are vegetarian and sweetbreads are made of meat
human language was a mistake and we are cowards for continuing to speak
sweetmeat: an item of confectionery or sweet food
sweetbread: culinary name for the thymus or pancreas of calf and lamb
humans shouldn’t be allowed to name anything
I’m a historical linguist! Have some explanation!
The word meat comes from Old English mete and originally just meant food in general. The word underwent semantic change (specifically: metonymy) so that eventually the word was used for a specific type of food, i.e., meat. So what did they call meat in OE if mete was food? Flæsc, which turned into ModE flesh (kind of like German Fleisch)(’Sup, West Germanic language family). So why do we have sweetmeat instead of, idk, sweet food? Idk. Compounds are weird, man, and the less often a word is used / more dialectal it is (never used “sweetmeat” where I came from), the less likely it is to undergo semantic change (Dr W actually talked about this in class Tuesday past).
So as to sweetbread. The -bread part in this is not etymologically related to bread. Bread, as in the stuff made from grain, came from OE… bread (which, funny story, actually use to mean “crumb” or “bit”; the original OE word was hlaf which then later turned into ModE loaf, and whose traces are in the words lord and lady [lord < hlaford < hlafweard “guardian of the loaf”; lady < hlæfdig, -dig < dæge “loaf maid; maker of the loaf”][these are some of my all-time favourite etymologies], but sometime in OE there was a meaning change and there you go). The -bread in sweetbread has kind of shaky etymology, coming (possibly) from OE bræd (æ could have possibly be written ae and then someone, probably a monk scribing somewhere, made a typo, and then people copied that typo, and then it became a thing due to analogy with bread [this is actually why the present tense and past tense of read are spelled the same way: past tense was ræd, with a long æ, but some monk made a typo and then the GVS happened and the rest is history]) which apparently also meant “meat”.
Why they decided to call it sweetbread as opposed to, idk, savourybread or somesuch is beyond me.
I’m sorry I’m such a huge nerd.
this is cool but am I still allowed to resent the outcome?
In the funeral scene, the parting shot of the old arc reactor, placed on top of the flower wreath, was beautiful. That device is technically the reason why the MCU exists — it saved Tony’s life all those years ago in Afghanistan (then in Los Angeles) and morphed into a symbol of his heart. Both literally and figuratively. As soon as Tony built himself a new arc reactor, he told Pepper to dispose it. Instead, she kept the reactor and had it inscribed (Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart). Long after Tony had the shrapnels removed, and built far more complicated arc reactors, I loved that the two of them had held onto the original one, despite everything they went through. Between 2008 and 2023, Pepperony survived a break-up; they were attacked in their own house; they lived through multiple world-ending catastrophes as well as the actual end of the world. The reactor became a symbol of their perseverance, their love for one another — it was a promise, it was a guide that led them back to each other. It was their North Star. In Iron Man 1, it was Pepper’s voice that pulled him back from the brink — of certain death — and inspired the idea of making an arc reactor. It was fitting that in Avengers: Endgame when she put the arc reactor on top of the flower wreath, she was finally letting him go.
Can you imagine what it must have been like growing up for George and Fred. Notice how I said George and Fred because we always call them ‘Fred and George’ as if they were one person – just like their mum. Their own family couldn’t tell them apart. They didn’t have perfect grades like Percy. They weren’t as cool as Bill or Charlie. They weren’t the youngest male like Ron and they obviously weren’t female like Ginny. So they created a niche for themselves – The Pranksters. Because if people weren’t even going to bother to tell them apart then they were going to make people pay attention by pranking people and acting out. Then some scruffy looking boy in their younger brother’s year (ickle Harrikins) can tell them apart.
There’s a reason George Weasley and Fred Weasley never pranked Harry Potter – because he’s the only one that bothered to try.
I SWEAR I WILL REBLOG THIS EVERY TIME BECAUSE OF THE TEARS WELLING UP IN MY SOUL
I like to thing that George and Fred thought of Harry as their little brother too way before Harry had any romantic interest in Ginny.
Harry was also the one who invested in their niche fully, rather than being annoyed by it, he celebrated them for it. That’s why they gave him the Marauders Map and then he gave them the Triwizard gold:
‘
‘Take it,’ he said, and he thrust the sack into George’s hands. ‘What?’ said Fred, looking flabbergasted. ‘Take it,’ Harry repeated firmly. ‘I don’t want it.’ ‘You’re mental,’ said George, trying to push it back at Harry. ‘No, I’m not,’ said Harry. ‘You take it, and get inventing. It’s for the joke-shop.’ ‘He is mental,’ Fred said, in an almost awed voice. … ‘Harry – thanks,’ George muttered, while Fred nodded fervently at his side’
It’s why they agreed to his request Ron get some new dress robes out of it. They’re clever not just funny ‘they always get really good marks’ but as OP says they’re not as good as Percy, Bill or Charlie. They helped Ron get him out of the Dursleys:
‘But you can’t magic me out either –’ ‘We don’t need to,’ said Ron, jerking his head towards the front seats and grinning. ‘You forget who I’ve got with me.’
They get him into Hogsmede , they (unknowingly) helped the trio break into Umbridge’s ministry office. They liked Harry for himself
‘This is all your fault,’ George said angrily to Wood. ’“Get the Snitch or die trying” – what a stupid thing to tell him!‘’
And cheered him up when things went wrong, such as Harry being accused of being the Heir of Slytherin
‘They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, ‘Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through …’ Percy was deeply disapproving of this behaviour. ‘It is not a laughing matter,’ he said coldly. ‘Oh, get out of the way, Percy,’ said Fred, ‘Harry’s in a hurry.’ ‘Yeah, he’s nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant,’ said George, chortling
‘
Or when Ron and Hermione were made Prefects and Harry felt left out:
‘Yeah,’ said Fred slowly. ‘Yeah, you’ve caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you’s got their priorities right.’ He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.
They tricked Dudley because they know how crappy Harry’s home is:
‘We didn’t give it to him because he was a Muggle!’ said Fred indignantly. ‘No, we gave it to him because he’s a great bullying git,’ said George
And of course:
‘Give her hell from us, Peeves.’ And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.
Harry frequently heard students saying things like, ‘Honestly, some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place,’ or else, ‘One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley.’
Harry’s relationships with George and Fred are some of my favourites
