692: flavor Oct 30, 2016

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A fairly straightforward, albeit superficial, question one might get asked would be, "what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?", though certainly far fewer people would ask, "what is your favorite flavor of flower?". This would not always have been the case; back in Middle English, the word, 'flavor' meant, 'fragrance', or 'aroma', which comes from the Old French 'flaor'. Some have suggested that 'flavor was created as a an alteration of the Latin, 'flatus' meaning ‘blowing’ or as a combination with 'foetor' meaning ‘stench’. Either way, 'flatus' not only gave English, 'flavor' denoting strong scents, but also the word 'flatulent'. Where, I hear you asking, did the V comes from then? It seems to have entered the word by association with the word 'savor' around the time when the word changed, connoting taste instead of olfactory.

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