Potato (word)

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Potato, which is the English term for Solanum tuberosum, is a Carib loanword. It was first "borrowed" by the Spanish, who used the word patata to describe the root crop Ipomoea batatas, or sweet potato, which was introduced to Spain by Columbus in 1492. The sweet potato was known to the English herbalist Gerard as "the common Potatoes" more than a century later, in 1597. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (Montdidier August 12, 1737 – December 13, 1813) and Sir Walter G. Raleigh are both remembered as vocal promoters of cultivating the potato as a food source (for humans) in Ireland, England, France, and throughout the rest of Europe.

The term was subsequently applied to other New World root and tuber crops, specifically to Solanum tuberosum, called papa by Francisco Pizarro and Fernandez de Oviedo, mistakenly referred to by Gerard as "Virginia Potatoes". In early references in English, the spelling with p introduced from the Spanish co-exists with a spelling with b closer to the original batata: The indigenæ batatas appellant of Peter Martyr of Angleria (Decades of Newe Worlde 2.9) is rendered as "whiche they caule Botatas" by his translator Richard Eden in 1555. John Frampton in 1577 has The Batatas [...] a common frute in those countries [...] a victaill of much substaunce, while Benjamin Hawkins in 1565 has These potatoes be the most delicate rootes that may be eaten.

In the 16th and 17th century, aphrodisiac qualities were ascribed to the root. Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (1623) has Let the skie raine Potatoes.

1 Dialect terms
2 Spelling
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Dialect terms

Dialect words derived from potato include Scots pitatie, pirtie, pirta, purta, purty, pitter, porie, Hiberno-English pratie, praitie, prae, prata, prater, pritta, pritty, pruta, poota, tater, tattie, totie, Irish Spud, Scots pitatie, tattie, tottie, Norfolk and southern American English tater. (Concise Ulster Dictionary)

[edit] Spelling

The singular spelling variants "potato" vs. "potatoe" co-existed into the 19th century. In the 20th century "potato" came to be considered the correct singular, and "potatoe" considered a misspelling. The plural remains "potatoes'".

Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle became notoriously associated with this misspelling in a June 15, 1992 incident. Quayle went to a photo op at Munoz Rivera School in Trenton, New Jersey, where he was to officiate a spelling bee by drawing flash cards and asking students to write the words on the blackboard. Twelve-year-old William Figueroa wrote potato, but Quayle prompted him to append an "e" which, according to Quayle's 1995 autobiography Standing Firm, was the spelling on the flash card.^[1] The incident briefly made national news in the United States and became a source of entertainment for the tabloid newspapers in the United Kingdom. For the June 25, 1992 rerun of The Simpsons episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish", Bart Simpson's opening chalkboard gag was hastily changed to read, "It's potato, not potatoe." This was also the cause of a Saturday Night Live episode "Mr. Casual Sex", in which Rob Schneider launches into a tirade against Quayle by saying that he is not qualified to discuss family values as he cannot properly spell potato.