# Eytmology of Sherbert/Sherbet **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916 "2002-12-02T07:17:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![quicken78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/919ad9/32.png) [@quicken78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quicken78)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/1 "2002-12-02T07:17:36Z")
Could somebody please explain this one to me. I am a Brit - Sherbert implies a “Basset’s Sherbert Fountain”. For you yanks, this is a white, powdery, sugary substance that one eats with a liquorice ‘straw’. In America, Sherbet (notice the spelling) means something close to sorbet. An argument occured recently whereby the protaganist (an American) said that the US spelling of ‘sherbert’ was thus. However, the contender won when doing a practical survey of US ice cream vendors. It is quite clear that the US uses the spelling ‘sherbet’ more than ‘sherbert’. My questions are really about where these words come from, how they are connected and why there is a difference. Anyone have an idea? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/2 "2002-12-02T07:20:33Z")
Only the spelling _sherbet_ is used in the United States, although it is pronounced _sherbert_. ---
**Author:** ![quicken78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/919ad9/32.png) [@quicken78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quicken78)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/3 "2002-12-02T07:24:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by quicken78 \* > \*\* My questions are really about where these words come from, how they are connected and why there is a difference. Anyone have an idea? \*\* Sorry **Waloon** , but that didn’t really answer the questions. ---
**Author:** ![andy\_fl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@andy\_fl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andy_fl)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/4 "2002-12-02T07:25:42Z")
‘sherbet’ comes from the arabic word ‘sharbah’ meaning ‘a drink’ ---
**Author:** ![quicken78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/919ad9/32.png) [@quicken78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quicken78)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/5 "2002-12-02T07:28:50Z")
Andy, I have heard that ‘Sherbet’ comes from Arabic. How is it connected to ‘Sherbert’ and why do they describe such different foodstuffs? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/6 "2002-12-02T07:37:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by quicken78 \* > \*\*Sorry **Waloon** , but that didn’t really answer the questions. \*\* What are you apologizing for? BTW, it’s Wa_ll_oon. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/7 "2002-12-02T07:40:14Z")
“Sherbert” originally did refer to a sweet fruit drink. While the turks used it generically to mean “drink,” to the europeans, the association was with sweetness and fruit. (The word “syrup” shares the same etymological roots.) So while sorbetto was originally a sweetened fruit drink, when you’ve got this new icey treat, sweetened and flavoured with fruit, what would you call it except an iced sorbetto? It’ll always be _sorbet_ to me, though – “Sherbert” just sounds like your creepy uncle who never leaves his apartment. You wacky Americans. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/8 "2002-12-02T07:46:18Z")
Sherbet contains dairy product, while sorbet does not. ---
**Author:** ![quicken78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/919ad9/32.png) [@quicken78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quicken78)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/9 "2002-12-02T07:53:13Z")
Don’t want to incite a ‘wacky american’ discussion too much (they are a little too easy). Nobody has actually ANSWERED the questions yet…sorry to be so difficult but this really is a very contentious subject where I am. Larry - I don’t think that this should become a discussion about your lecherous uncle. There are plenty of other great sites for that. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/10 "2002-12-02T07:56:59Z")
Sherbet is also Australian slang for beer: "\*The evolution of a drinking species By Andrew Masterson March 12 2002 News in The Age last week revealed that a mob of vervet monkeys in the Caribbean have developed a taste for alcohol. Research indicates that most are social drinkers, liking a wee tipple now and then, although others hit it hard and often, while a few abstain with supercilious looks on their hairy little faces. Given that the vervets share 96 per cent of their DNA with human beings, it might be asked why they haven’t been hitting the slosh for millennia. After all, they have opposable thumbs and ready access to rotting fruit. As our species proves, given such a combination it should be only a matter of time before they concoct a Midori Illusion, or at least a passable chablis. Such speculation, however, rests upon the assumption that we humans have “always” liked a **sherbet** or two. Certainly, alcohol use can be verified as far back as 3000 BCE, but some anthropologists believe that for several thousand years before that, at least in Europe, we were resolutely and unavoidably sober…\*" That was from the _Melbourne Age_. I have no idea why sherbet is used this way. If I can work it out I’ll let you know. My Macquarie Dictionary just says colloq., which is unhelpful. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/11 "2002-12-02T08:15:09Z")
If the question is “where [do] these words come from, how they are connected and why there is a difference,” I think we can make some inferences. From [Dictionary.com:](http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=sherbert) > [@](#): > > Although the word sherbet has been in the English language for several centuries (it was first recorded in 1603), it has not always referred to what one normally thinks of as sherbet. Sherbet came into English from Ottoman Turkish sherbet or Persian sharbat, both going back to Arabic arba, “drink.” The Turkish and Persian words referred to a beverage of sweetened, diluted fruit juice that was popular in the Middle East and imitated in Europe. In Europe sherbet eventually came to refer to a carbonated drink. Because the original Middle Eastern drink contained fruit and was often cooled with snow, sherbet was applied to a frozen dessert (first recorded in 1891). It is distinguished slightly from sorbet, which can also mean “a fruit-flavored ice served between courses of a meal.” Sorbet (first recorded in English in 1585) goes back through French (sorbet) and then Italian (sorbetto) to the same Turkish sherbet that gave us sherbet. There’s a commonality in all the things that the word and its variants are applied to. If you are asking if there’s a distinction between “sherbet” and “sherbert”, the answer seems to be “no”, in any practical sense. It’s just a word that has more than one accepted spelling. It would be nice, since there are multiple spellings and multiple meanings, if we could agree to distribute them sensibly, and say, for instance, “From this day forward ‘sherbert’ will refer to a fizzy drink, while ‘sherbet’ will be reserved for fruity ices,” but unfortunately, ANSI dropped the ball on this one. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/12 "2002-12-02T08:18:17Z")
If **Larry Mudd** didn’t answer the question, I’m not sure what you’re looking for. If you want to know exactly _why_ the language developed this way, you’ll find that unanswerable. Here’s [the entry](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sherbert) from the American Heritage Dictionary: > [@](#): > > **sherbet** > > 1. also **sherbert** A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin. > 2. _Chiefly British_. A beverage made of sweetened diluted fruit juice. > 3. also **sherbert** _Australian_. An alcoholic beverage, especially beer. > > [Ottoman Turkish, _sweet fruit drink_, from Persian sharbat, from Arabic sarba, _drink_, from sariba, _to drink_. See srb in Semitic Roots.] > **Word History** : Although the word _sherbet_ has been in the English language for several centuries (it was first recorded in 1603), it has not always referred to what one normally thinks of as sherbet. _Sherbet_ came into English from Ottoman Turkish _sherbet_ or Persian _sharbat_, both going back to Arabic _sarba_, “drink.” The Turkish and Persian words referred to a beverage of sweetened, diluted fruit juice that was popular in the Middle East and imitated in Europe. In Europe _sherbet_ eventually came to refer to a carbonated drink. Because the original Middle Eastern drink contained fruit and was often cooled with snow, _sherbet_ was applied to a frozen dessert (first recorded in 1891). It is distinguished slightly from _sorbet_, which can also mean “a fruit-flavored ice served between courses of a meal.” _Sorbet_ (first recorded in English in 1585) goes back through French (_sorbet_) and then Italian (_sorbetto_) to the same Turkish _sherbet_ that gave us _sherbet_. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/13 "2002-12-02T08:23:16Z")
In the first line, I was referring to **LM** previous post - I didn’t purposely post the same thing. I would have been the first to post it too, if I hadn’t been possessed to include the formatting. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/14 "2002-12-02T11:58:56Z")
> [@](#): > > _Desmostylus_ > I have no idea why sherbet is used this way. [to mean beer] If you dump your Basset’s Sherbert Fountain or Wizz Fizz in water it foams up and briefly produces a beer-like head. That was my WAG as posted recently (in a thread I can’t find) at [G’Dope](http://www4.tpgi.com.au/brownlee/). The OED (which is subscription only unfortunately) is interesting on this. The word is found under “sherbet”, with > [@](#): > > zer-, cer-, sar-, serbet, servet, shurbet, shirbet(t, sherbett(e, -bert, -becke, -pet, 9 sherbat, sharbut as other spellings. The primary definition is > [@](#): > > 1. a. A cooling drink of the East, made of fruit juice and water sweetened, often cooled with snow. b. An European imitation of this; now esp. an effervescing drink made of sherbet powder If you’re lucky enough to have access to the OED, have a look. The sorbet-like meaning was new to me, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/15 "2002-12-02T12:08:38Z")
**hawthorne:** Ta. I do have access to the OED (I know where the library is, and go there regularly). But, no, I don’t have online access. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/16 "2002-12-02T12:18:17Z")
The intrusive -r- in the nonstandard form _sherbert_ is from a phonological process called “assimilation.” The r in the 1st syllable produced an echo of itself in the 2nd syllable, maybe because both syllables had similar vowels. There’s also the opposite process of “dissimilation,” in which the same sounds repeated in a word become different. The Arabic root sh-r-b also gave us the words _syrup_ and _shrub_ from the word _sharâb_ (that’s shrub in the sense of a drink, not the sense of “little Bush” which is of a different origin). ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eytmology-of-sherbert-sherbet/139916/17 "2002-12-02T13:14:48Z")
It tastes like burning.