KETCHUP: Also catchup, Catsup. A condiment consisting of a thick,
smooth-textured, spicy sauce usually made from tomatoes.[Probably
Malay kechap, fish sauce possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) ke-tsiap]
Notes: The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that
can take place in the borrowing process, both in the borrowing of a
word and in the borrowing of a substance. The source of our word
ketchup may be the Malay word kechap, possibly taken into Malay from
the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kechap, like our word, referred to
a kind of sauce, but a sauce without tomatoes; rather, it contained
fish brine, herbs, and spices. The sauce seems to have emigrated to
Europe by way of sailors, where it was made with locally available
ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some point,
when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was
born. However, it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th
centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common
ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690
in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the
form catsup. These three spelling variants of a foreign borrowing
remain current.
Source: American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition 1992 MM by Dorothy
Flatman 1997 From: Dorothy Flatman Date: 06 Mar 97
