Wiki Spud's ?

[Ponster]

Someone on another forum asked me if I knew why In Ireland we refered to potatoes as spuds so I thought I’d drop by wiki to get the answer.

“Spud” is a common nickname for the potato in English-speaking countries. The term spud has been traced to a 19th century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself The Society for the Prevention of an Unwholesome Diet.

I’m one of the people that has come to distrust all such explainations as above for words such as S.H.I.T and P.O.S.H.
Is S.P.U.D to be believed then?

[vision80]

Spud

This word for potato comes from the digging implement used to uproot them. The word is of unknown origin and was originally (c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger. It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845 it transferred over to the tuber itself. The original origin is unknown.

An avid reader emailed me with a supposed acronymic origin of spud. The reader rightly was skeptical, but had found the reference in Mario Pei’s 1949 The Story of Language. Pei writes, “the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words in this title gave rise to spud.” Like all other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this one is false. This just goes to show you, that even language professionals can get taken in sometimes.

No cite, but SPUD as an acronym sounds BS.

[Ponster]

Hahaha, just noticed you updated the wiki page vision80

[RealityChuck]

The OED makes no mention of an acronym. First cite is from 1845, which pretty much rules out an acronym: people did not coin words that way until WWII. (There is one exception: “hep”). Further, the OED makes no mention of any such society.

A more likely origin is that it derives for “spud,” meaning a digging tool. That dates back to 1667, and it’s possible that a spud was used to dig potatoes. The transfer from tool to vegetable would seem a simple step.

[Wendell_Wagner]

RealityChuck writes:

> The OED makes no mention of an acronym. First cite is from 1845, which pretty
> much rules out an acronym: people did not coin words that way until WWII.
> (There is one exception: “hep”). Further, the OED makes no mention of any
> such society.

Do you have a cite for “hep” coming from an acronym? That’s not what all the dictionaries I’ve checked say. Also, a better limit on the formation of acronyms is about 1910. There were some in World War I.