[Fictionary] salep winner

[Nora Munoz]

I was intrigued by this because I had not heard of avocado meaning "testicle."  It turns out that "avocado" itself does not mean testicle, but comes from the obsolete Spanish word for "lawyer."  The older word was related to advocate and is today spelled "abogado."  The Spanish word for avocado is "aguacate" which apparently comes from Nahuatl, the Mexican Indian language, and that word also means testicle.  I guess the original English speakers who entered Mexico got confused by the Spanish and Nahuatl words.  Maybe they should have stuck with the very English words "butter fruit" which they use in India and Sri Lanka to signify a large and creamy avocado that is best served with sugar.
-Nora  :)


--- On Fri, 9/19/08, Pierre Abbat <phma at phma.optus.nu> wrote:

> From: Pierre Abbat <phma at phma.optus.nu>
> Subject: Re: [Fictionary] salep winner
> To: fictionary at swarpa.net
> Date: Friday, September 19, 2008, 10:18 AM
> >  Sometimes you play to win, sometimes you just run out
> of time and play to
> > be weird.  This is a lame joke that would be
> understood only by someone
> > familiar with an obscure (and largely obsolete)
> computer language.
> 
> I don't think people write AI programs (where
> you're likely to find the "-p" 
> convention) in AutoLisp, but Lisp is still used for
> programming AutoCAD.
> 
> I have seen this word long ago, as I remembered when I saw
> the etymology. It's 
> from Arabic "khasyu ath-tha`lab", which means
> "the fox's testicles". "Orchid" 
> also means testicle, as does "avocado", which is
> quite unrelated.
> 
> Pierre