Pear-shaped
As pear-shaped , pear-shaped or piriform refers to things like a pear ( latin pirum ) formed are so upwardly tapered and rounded bottom. This metaphor has recently gained more abstract meanings.
development
The Greek term ἀπιο-ειδής apio-eidḗs (from ἄπιον ápion , German 'pear' , and εἶδος eîdos , German 'shape, form' ) was already known in ancient times for pear-shaped . With the English term pear-shaped , the fruits of the cashew and avocado are described in a horticultural dictionary from 1731 .
In Zedler's Universal Lexicon in 1739 the tarsus muscle is called the plantar muscle pear-shaped .
People with broad hips are referred to as pear-shaped . This meaning is found in Nathaniel Parker Willis , 1845 : Dashes at Life with Free Pencil , IV.
Also since the middle of the 19th century, certain objects and products of industrial engineering have been called pears , such as the containers for steel production with the Bessemer process and later also with the Thomas process and light bulbs .
A rich, soft and sonorous tone in music and language has also been referred to as pear-shaped since 1925 , especially in connection with theater and film scenes.
Colloquial language
The word pear is colloquially a synonym for head. In the graphic and figurative representation of a clever or "bright" head, the light bulb, the popular name for a light bulb, is preferred . A mud pear is more likely to characterize the condition after a fight or drinking session .
In France, on the other hand, poire (pear) is generally a derogatory term for a phlegmatic, dull and overweight person. In the case of the Renault 14, an advertising campaign that addressed the similarity of the vehicle to a pear therefore failed. At first, potential customers were more likely to feel repulsed, and because of the lack of quality and the sensitivity of the model to rust, the term pear was used similar to the German lemon . The similarly shaped VW Golf , on the other hand, benefited from being marketed abroad as a Rabbit .
From the vernacular in the Royal Air Force , the term "things go is coming since 1983 pear-shaped ", "the thing goes pear-shaped " proved to mean that a plan or company fails catastrophically.
Cartoons
In the 19th century, the French "citizen king" Louis Philippe was referred to as a pear and caricatured.
Since the 1970s, the then CDU chairman Helmut Kohl has been compared to a pear. The satirical representation goes back to a cover picture of the Spiegel in 1976. The French illustrator Jean Mulatier drew four cover picture caricatures of Kohl, Helmut Schmidt , Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Franz Josef Strauss before the federal election campaign of the year . During a visit to the Spiegel editorial office, the then Federal Chancellor Schmidt noticed that cabbage looked like a bergamot pear in the picture . From 1980, Bernd Eilert used the term "pear-shaped" for cabbage in the satirical magazine Titanic . In 1982 a cover picture appeared with the headline “Pear must remain Chancellor”. In 1983 the cartoonist Hans Traxler and the satirist Pit Knorr published the illustrated book Pear - Das Buch zum Chanzler . "Pear" became a nickname for Helmut Kohl.
Web links
- Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ): pear-shaped, a. ( Memento of May 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (May 4, 2010), March 2003 version
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary : pear-shaped, a.
- ^ Wilhelm Pape , Gustav Eduard Benseler : Concise Dictionary of the Greek Language , Volume 1, Vieweg, 1866, page 253
- ↑ Muscles of the tarsus or the forefoot. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 22, Leipzig 1739, column 1150.
- ↑ Date: Sept. 20, 1976 Subject: Mulatier presentation - DER SPIEGEL 39/1976. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Hans Saalfeld: Letters to the readers: a thousand letters from the "Titanic", two thousand and one 1986, p. 366.
- ↑ Christoph Gunkel, DER SPIEGEL: Helmut Kohl in caricatures: The revenge of the pear - DER SPIEGEL - history. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .