WINE BERRIES

When somebody makes a fart noise with their mouth, it's called a raspberry. This has always been interesting to me: why? Turns out the phrase raspberry tart was used in the late nineteenth century as children's rhyming slang for the word fart, and that's where we got the association. Now, the word raspberry itself is also pretty neat. The berry part is obvious to eliminate (and it comes from Proto-Germanic basjom, an of unknown etymology), but rasp comes from the Middle English word raspise, which described a kind of sweet purplish wine- hence the connection, through both taste and looks. This comes from Old French raspe, and, although we're not sure, it's entirely possible that it could trace from the verb rasp, implying roughness, but we're really not sure about that anymore.