Revisiting this delicious word today. Originally published August 27, 2018.
The heat of summer is fully upon us, and we all know nothing tastes as good on those hot summer days as cool treats. Ice cream, Popsicles, frozen coffees and yogurts and you-name-it.
My assistant’s little boy asked where the word Popsicle comes from, so this Word of the Week is for Judah!
And it’s a pretty simple one. =) Despite becoming the only word really used for icy pops these days, Popsicle is, in fact, a trademarked name (so should always be written with a capital P). It was registered in 1923 by a fellow in California, and while he didn’t explain the name, it was assumed that it was a simple mash-up:
(lolly)pop + (ice)cicle = Popsicle
Interestingly, that was the same time period in which lollypop came to mean “candy on a stick.” Before the 1920s, the word was definitely in use for sweets, but it was “a soft candy made of treacle and sugar” when it was created in 1784. By the 1840s, it came to means “something sweet but insubstantial.” And then in the 1920s, we get that “on a stick” meaning that we all identify with today.
My family has become obsessed this summer with Outshine fruit pops. We love that they’re real fruit and SO GOOD. What’s your favorite frozen treat for a hot summer day?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
Here in the UK, we call a Popsicle an ‘ice lolly’. One of my American nephew’s favourite memories is hearing my daughter ask me very politely, ‘Mummy, can I please have an ice lolly?’ 😀 He said she just sounded so… ‘English’ (surprise, surprise!) and I guess she had a bit of a posh accent! But he remembers that to this day (it’s been more than 20 years now!) and he still attempts to mimic her – he does his best, but with that Southern drawl, I think it’s a bit of a challenge, lol! 😀
That’s so interesting. I should take the time to read the word of the week more often.