Melon (pronounced mel-uhn)
(1) Any of various plants of two cucurbitaceous vines (the
gourd family) including the watermelon, muskmelon et al. Variations include Genus Cucumis (various
musk melons, including honeydew, cantaloupes, and horned melon); Genus
Citrullus (watermelons and others); Genus Benincasa (winter melon); Genus
Momordica (a bitter melon)
(2) The fruit of any of these plants.
(3) A color ranging between a medium crimson and a deep
pink, noted for the orange tinge.
(4) In zoology, the visible upper portion of the head of
a surfacing whale or dolphin, including the beak, eyes, and blowhole (a mass of
adipose tissue used to focus and modulate vocalizations).
(5) In the slang of (mostly North American) financial
markets, an especially large additional dividend (often in the form of stock) distributed
to stockholders (often as “cut a melon”).
(6) By extension, any windfall of money to be divided
among specified beneficiaries.
(7) In slang, the breasts of the human female (almost
always in the plural).
(8) In slang, the head; the skull.
(9) In slang, a derogatory term for members of a green political
party, or similar environmental groups (rare and mostly Australia & New
Zealand).
1350–1400: From the Middle English meloun & melon (herbaceous,
succulent trailing annual plant or its sweet, edible fruit), from the Old
Portuguese (via the thirteenth century Old French melon) melon, from the Late
Latin melonem & mēlōn- (stem of mēlō and a shortening of mēlopepō
(the “gourd apple”, a large apple-shaped melon)), from the Ancient Greek μηλοπέπων
(mēlopépōn) (large apple-shaped melon),
the construct being μηλο (mêlo(n)) (apple) + πέπων (pépōn) (ripe), from πέπτω (péptō) (to ripen). Confusingly for historians seeking to
reconstruct the recipes of Antiquity the Latin melopeponem was a kind of pumpkin while the Greek mēlopepon (gourd-apple) was applied to several
kinds of gourds bearing sweet fruit, the origin of that in the noun use of pépōn
(ripe) distinguishing the fruit on the vine ready for harvest from those yet to
ripen. As a modifier, melon is appended
as appropriate (based on color, shape, diet, environmental niche, habitat etc)
including melon beetle, melon cactus, Melon rugose mosaic virus, melon thistle
& melon-headed. The best known is
probably the watermelon, dating from the 1610s and so named for their high
content of water-like juice. The more
pleasing term in French is French melon
d'eau. Melon is a noun &
adjective; the noun plural is melons.
Being prolific and undemanding to grow, melons were among
the earliest plants domesticated and in Greek, “melon” was used in a generic
way for many foreign fruits, a fate which would also befall apple, thus the naming
of the pineapple and in some Old English texts, cucumbers are referred to as eorþæppla (literally
"earth-apples", the deductive process which produced the French pomme de terre (potato (literally “earth-apple”,
the French pomme from the Latin pomum (apple; fruit)). Apple was from the Old English æppel (apple; any kind of fruit; fruit
in general), from the from Proto-Germanic ap(a)laz (source also of the Old Saxon, Old
Frisian & Dutch appel, the Old
Norse eple, the Old High German apful & the German Apfel), from the primitive Indo-European
ab(e)l- (apple), (source
also of the Gaulish avallo (fruit),
the Old Irish ubull, the Lithuanian obuolys, & the Old Church Slavonic jabloko (apple)) by etymologists caution
original sense of these and their relationship(s) to which is now understood as
“an apple” is uncertain. In Middle
English, as late as the seventeenth century (even the earliest compliers of
recipe books aren’t always explicit so some reverse-engineering based on
supposition has been undertaken), it was a generic term for all fruit other
than berries but including nuts (such as Old English fingeræppla (dates (literally "finger-apples) and the late
fourteenth century Middle English appel
of paradis (banana (literally apple of paradise)).
The twenty-first century judgment of Paris: Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears & Paris Hilton reprise Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, New York City, 29 November 2006. The car was a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199).
That generality of meaning saw “apple” named as the fruit
with which the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, creating the original
sin with which we’ve all since been damned, women especially since the Bible
says it was all her fault. However, the “fruit
of the forbidden tree” was unspecified in the original texts of the Book of Genesis
but despite the wishful thinking of a few, in biblical scholarship there’s no
support for the notion the fruit was even hinted at being an appel of paradis, however appropriate a
nice plump banana might seem, given the context. Nor is the forbidden fruit explicitly
mentioned in the Holy Quran but according to traditional Islamic commentaries
it was not an apple but wheat. The Prophet
may not have been concerned but in Greek mythology there was the μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος (Golden Apple of Discord) in the story of the Judgment
of Paris which the goddess Ἔρις (Eris) (Strife), tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the
wedding of Peleus and Thetis as a prize of beauty, thus sparking a
vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite which ultimately triggered
the Trojan War. Eris was the goddess of
chaos and discord who (perhaps unsurprisingly), having not received a wedding
invitation, was miffed and inscribed
kallisti (To the prettiest one) on her “wedding gift” handing it to Πάρις (Paris,
AKA Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros) (Alexander), the son of King
Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy) who was told to choose the goddess he found most beautiful. Judging what turned out to be
one of Greek mythology's more significant beauty contests, Paris chose Aphrodite,
offending Hera and Athena, the most famous consequence of their feud being
the Trojan War. Tragedy did thereafter
stalk the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; of their seven sons, the only one to
survive beyond infancy was Achilles.
Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit (circa 1620-1625), oil on canvas by Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627).
Beginning probably in Holland in the early seventeenth century and apparently first painted by Pieter Aertsen (circa 1533-circa 1573) "cookmaid and market scenes" was a genre in painting which combined representations of produce and kitchens with themes often borrowed from the New Testament. Two other of Sir Nathaniel's works in this vein are known still to exist: Cookmaid with Still Life of Game & Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds, both featuring healthy young ladies and there is obviously some artistic license in Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit given that although every piece of produce depicted was at the time grown somewhere in England, not all simultaneously would have been in season. Sir Nathaniel's lengthy title was too much for many and the painting has often been referred to as "Maid with Melons". This slang use of melons is listed by many dictionaries as “vulgar” or “mildly vulgar” but does travel with the vague respectability of a classical origin: In Antiquity the plural of the Greek melon (μῆλα) (mela) was used for “a girl's breasts”.
Juicy Melons, Euston Station, London.
A cantaloupe as one would appear in most of the world (left) and a rockmelon down under (right).
Globalization has to some extent standardized in the English
language spellings and meanings which once were disparate, sometimes reversing
the trend towards diversity which was noted as one of the linguistic effects of
the British Empire, especially in India under the Raj where the British pillaged
the local languages with only slightly less enthusiasm than they showed for
gold and diamonds. However, the names of
food seem often resistant to change, presumably most often where forms are
well-established and supplied by local production. Thus what is in some places eggplant is elsewhere
the aubergine. It’s also a melon matter
because in Australia, what most of the world knows as the cantaloupe (from the French
cantaloup, from the Italian place
name Cantalupo, a former Papal summer
estate near Rome, where the melons were first grown after being introduced to
Europe from the Middle East), is called the rockmelon (occasionally rock-melon)
and the antipodean quirkiness is not unique, the cantaloupe in some places call
the “sweet melon” or “Crenshaw melon” while in South Africa where it’s not uncommon
to see fruit-stalls side-by-side, one might be selling cantaloupes and the
other spanspeks (from the Afrikaans Spaanse spek (literally “Spanish bacon”)). The Australian use, once deconstructed, does
make sense in that a cantaloupe does resemble some rocks but the case seems not
compelling and cantaloupe is a wonderful word.
Visiting foodies will be gratified Australians follow the rest of the
world when it comes to the honeydew (or honey-dew) melon, the name from the
late sixteenth century honeydew (sticky sweet substance found in small drops on
trees and plants), a replication of the formations in the Dutch honigdaauw and the German Honigthau. The melon was first named in 1916 when
selective breeding produced a cross between the cantaloupe and a melon native
to southern African.
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