Word Origins

 

*CHOP SUEY

The chop is English, in the sense of “chipped” or “cut,” but the suey is Chinese sui, “bits.” Like the term itself, the concoction is of mixed origin. It was first devised over one hundred twenty years ago by Chinese operating a restaurant in Brooklyn, who composed it of bits of fried or stewed chicken or pork, rice, noodles, and sesame seeds or oil, and served steamy in its own juice. Author Herbert Asbury stated in 1928 it was the invention of a dishwasher in San Francisco about 1860. 

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)

Word Origins

 

*SLOWPOKE

Of the many different meanings for the word poke, one, an Americanism dating to about 1860, is “a lazy person, a dawdler.” The origin of this meaning is easily traced to the British use of the verb to poke, “to potter.” But there is no indication of the reason for Jane Austen’s use of the verb with this sense, for it was she, in Sense and Sensibility, who is the earliest on record with this meaning. But it must have been an American who first became discouraged with the extreme laziness of some poke of his acquaintance, and who coined the term to describe one who was the epitome of dawdlers—a slowpoke. 

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)