Talk:gravy

Countable or uncountable?

"An unexpected piece of good fortune." - is this countable or uncountable? — Paul G 11:37, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 Done Countable. Equinox ◑ 05:20, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

grané or gravé?

We give the etymology of English gravy as being “from Old French grave, apparently a misspelling of grané (“stew, spice”), from grain (“spice”)”. The wording is copied almost verbatim from The Online Etymology Dictionary,^[1] but the adverb “apparently” is apparently too strong. The theory comes from the OED, which writes:

[Of obscure origin.
     The receipts quoted under sense 1 below are substantially identical with receipts in OF. cookery books, in which the word is grané. For the OF. word the reading grané seems certain (though in printed texts gravé usually appears); it is prob. cogn. with OF. grain ‘anything used in cooking’ (Godef.), and with Grenade; Grenadine; cf. also faus grenon = ‘gravy bastard’. But in the Eng. MSS. the word has nearly always either a v or a letter which looks more like u than n (the only exception being in the ‘table’ to Liber Cocorum, which has thrice grane, while the text has graue), As the ME. word was therefore identical in form with the modern word, it seems difficult, in spite of the difference in sense, to regard them as unconnected. In the present state of the evidence, the most probable conclusion is that the OF. grané was early misread as gravé, and in that form became current as a term of English cookery.]

Literally the same text appeared already in 1901 in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, the precursor of the OED, in a volume (Vol. IV. F and G.) edited by Henry Bradley.^[2] So the theory is that a misreading of “n” for “u” (an alternative typographical rendering of the letter “v”) in Old French “grané ” resulted in “graué ” = “gravé ”. “Godefr.” refers to Frédéric-Eugène Godefroy, who compiled an extensive Old French dictionary, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française du IXe siècle au XVe siècle (1881).

This theory is disputed in: Leo Spitzer (1944) “Anglo-French Etymologies”, in Modern Language Notes, volume 59, number 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, →DOI, pages 223–250. Spitzer writes:

     As regards the form of the OF. word, however, the NED has trusted Godefroy over much in assuming the existence of an OF. grané; and this assumption has led them to make the further suggestion, which must be suspect, that we have to do with a misreading, on the part of the English, of the French cookery term—and consequently of a ‘spelling pronunciation’ (or rather ‘ misspelling pronunciation’). This is a hypothesis of despair: why assume that a term used by cooks was a word of the cookery books and not a part of the living speech used by members of this profession?
     Actually it is an OF. gravé alone which can be the origin of Eng. gravy. And the fact that out of the six passages cited by Godefroy, he has corrected in three of them a printed gravé into a grané which he thought to have found in the other three—this should have aroused the suspicions of the editors of the NED. [...] According both to the older edition of Wright and to the careful re-edition by a pupil of Mario Roques, Miss Annie Owen (“Le traité de W. de B. sur la langue francaise,” Paris 1929), not one of the mss. of this text has the form grané; Miss Owen not only has gravé in the critical text but also includes it in her glossary, with the translation ‘sorte de ragout.’ This, the first attestation of gravé is in perfect harmony with the English gloss gravy—a harmony which it would be unthinkable to destroy.

He further assaults the plausibility that a term grané with the sense of a sauce arose from grain in the sense of “any stuff [used in cooking]”.

I started this investigation because my suspicion was aroused by the implausibility, in a profession where one should expect terminology to be passed on orally, of a textual misreading corrupting the pronunciation of something so basic as the concept of a sauce. Therefore I may be prejudiced in finding Spitzer’s arguments convincing, but they go well beyond this specific implausibility. And, as to the latter, he actually quotes a 14th-century cookbook recommending that chefs memorize their recipes.  --Lambiam 12:23, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Maybe a connection to Latin gravis > Mod.Fr. grave, i.e. a heavy or thick sauce? airy—zero (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

And if it is to do with greaves like the etymology section suggests, then there seems to be a good Germanic etymology. Semantically it lines up pretty well. airy—zero (talk) 14:16, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I think our Etymology section should include both hypotheses. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually I think it currently conflates the two. It reads like it's suggesting greaves/graves is a French borrowing, not gravy. airy—zero (talk) 17:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)