#569 Peristalsis

Eating and drinking have spawned a lot of mystifying words over the centuries. Did you know the scientific word for swallowing is peristalsis?
How about the word chugalug? You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it.
It’s defined in the Merriam Webster online dictionary as “to drink a container without stopping—to guzzle.”
To guzzle.
I love it when they define one semi-nonsense word with another one. Pardon me, old chap, would you like to stroll down to the pub and chugalug… or guzzle some liquid refreshment?
I’m still a little unsure as to its origins. Couldn’t find it in the online etymological dictionary. I think I get chug. It kind of sounds like drinking, especially the repeated swallowing noises one makes while drinking a container-load of something.
I’m chugging a beer sounds manly and muscular, in a throat muscle sort of way.
But lug? A lug of beer? When we were growing up, we sold apricots and grapes in wooden slat containers we called lugs. They were a little porous for beer.
Otherwise, lug means to pull or carry. He was lugging a heavy weight. So chugging a carry doesn’t make sense. But again, chugging can mean the sound a train makes when it’s struggling up a hill, and it may be struggling because it’s lugging a heavy load.
And, you know, drinking an entire pitcher of beer in one pull is a lot like that macho trainload pulling-up thing.
Train. Chugging up. Up chugging. Hmm...
Then there’s the word “mouthwatering.” I use it. Everyone uses it. And we use it to describe food that’s really tantalizing and delicious.
But really, what are we saying here? To say something is mouthwatering is to say it produces spit.
Yep, spit. Sputum. Spew.
My, that food is good. It made me produce a mouthful of sputum.
Thank you, ma’am, for a wonderful meal. You can tell the reverend his wife makes food that really makes me want to spit.
You haven’t lived till you’ve had McDonald’s spit-producing quarter-pounder.
That beer looks like it tastes so good, before I can drink it I’ll have to chugalug a mouthful of spit.
America ya gotta love it