Canadian town drops 'land of rape and honey' slogan
www.theguardian.com
Tisdale announces decades-old slogan, which refers to ‘rapeseed’, is being changed after years of complaints
  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    34·
    3 days ago

    As others mentioned it was rape as “rapeseed”. Unfortunate homophone of another word referring to non-consensual sex.

    Middle English borrowed the word “rape” (for the seed) straight from Latin, rapum, rapa. The Latin word actually refers to turnips, but they’re relatives and their flowers look really similar:


    Top is turnip (Latin rapa), bottom is rape. Latin inherited it from Proto-Indo-European *[s]rā́p- “wild cabbage, turnip”; it’s a really weird word, that *ā shows it was borrowed into Late PIE from some pre-IE language.

    Then the word referring to non-consensual sex was from Norman French “rap” instead. It’s ultimately from Latin “rapere” (to seize, capture, rape), in turn inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rep- “to snatch”.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
        7·
        3 days ago

        Canola is rapeseed.

        Apparently it’s etymology is from 70’s from “Canada” +“oleum” (from latin).

        So I guess someone just thought to rebrand “rapeseed”.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
          4·
          3 days ago

          Most rapeseed oil at the time wasn’t used for food, too much linoleic(?) acid; canola was rebranding a low-acid cultivar that was more suitable for cooking.

          We produce a shitload of the stuff

          • Dasus@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 days ago

            Oh. Yeah never knew about the cultivar thing. It was before I knew about such things. It’s just called rapsiöljy in Finland and there’s fields of it. Always used that for cooking, only started using olive oil like last year.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
                3·
                3 days ago

                Depends on what you’re making. You don’t want to fry with it, no, but it’s excellent for marinara and pasta etc etc

      • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
        4·
        3 days ago

        As other users highlighted, canola is a specific cultivar of rapeseed. The name is for Canadian oil, low acidity. It was originally a brand.

        Wiktionary also lists “colza”, ultimately from Dutch koolzaad (cabbage seed). I never saw it in English, only in Portuguese (and even then it was an “ackshyually” moment).