Orange (word)

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Orange is both a noun and an adjective in the English language. In both cases, it refers primarily to the orange fruit and the colour orange, but has many other derivative meanings.

Before the English-speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the colour was referred to as geoluhread in Old English, which translates roughly into Modern English as yellow-red.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Rhyme 3 References 4 See also

[edit] Etymology

Orange derives from a Dravidian language - possibly Telugu naarinja or Tamil nāram - via Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree", with borrowings through Persian nārang, Arabic nāranj, and Old French and Anglo-Norman orenge, in chronological order. (Compare Italian regional arancia, arancio narancia, naranz etc; Spanish naranja, Portuguese laranja and Medieval Greek νεράντζιον.) The first appearance in English dates from the 13th century. The name of the colour is largely derived from the fruit, first appearing in this sense in the 16th century.^[1]

The Emperor Baber, in his memoirs, mentions the "naranj" as one of the kinds of Citrus he found in India. ... He says little about the Indian oranges, but a good deal about those of Central Asia, and the N.W. frontier of India. He adds that in the latter part it is called narank. The kinds he alludes to are evidently sweet oranges of some sort (vide Baber's memoirs, Appendix No. 1(a)) Risso, in his monograph, gives "narandj" as the Arabic Synonym of the Citrus Bigaradia, the Seville orange, and Alphonse de Candolle credits the Arabs with having transported the bitter orange from Western India to Persia, Arabia, Syria, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Arab physicians are known to have used it in their pharmaceutical preparations. The Arab name naranj may or may not have been derived from nagrung, the supposed Sanskrit name for orange.

—Bonavia, 1888^[2]

There is disagreement as to whether the Old French borrowed the Italian melarancio (with mela "fruit", i.e. melarancio "fruit of the orange tree") as pume orenge (with pume "fruit"),^[3] or whether it borrowed Arabic nāranj, with no intermediate step.^[4] In any case, the initial n was lost before the word entered English.^[5][6]

[edit] Rhyme

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It is widely accepted that no single English word is a true rhyme for orange, though there are half rhymes such as hinge, lozenge, syringe, flange, Stonehenge, or porridge.^[7] A commonly referred to word on this subject, however controversial, is "door hinge". Although sporange, a variant of sporangium, is an eye rhyme for orange, it is not a true rhyme as its second syllable is pronounced with an unreduced vowel [-ændʒ], and often with stress.

However, there are proper nouns which are almost true rhymes, including Blorenge, a hill in Wales, and Gorringe, a surname. US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the USS Gettysburg who discovered Gorringe Ridge in 1875,^[8] led Arthur Guiterman to quip in "Local Note":

In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark

Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,

Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,

Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for "orange."

Compounds or sequences of words may give true or near rhymes in some accents. Examples include door-hinge, torn hinge, or inch, a wrench. An example of a compound solution is found in the limerick "Orange Rhyme" by Michael Gregorovich:

There once was this girl Angeline

Who knew how all things should have been

When they said "Get the door, Ang",

She said "It is orange

But should have been painted pine green"

Enjambment can also provide for rhymes. One example is Willard Espy's poem, "The Unrhymable Word: Orange":

The four eng-

ineers

Wore orange

brassieres.

Another example by Tom Lehrer relies on the way many Americans pronounce orange as /ɑrəndʒ/, as opposed to /orəndʒ/:

Eating an orange

While making love

Makes for bizarre enj-

oyment thereof.

Composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel contrived a rhyme in the song "Oranges Poranges". It was sung by the Witchiepoo character (played by Billie Hayes) on the show H.R. Pufnstuf.^[9]

Oranges poranges, who says,

oranges poranges, who says,

oranges poranges, who says?

there ain't no rhyme for oranges!

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• English words with uncommon properties