In article ,
Dave Poole writes:
| Nick Maclaren wrote:
|
| That's right. In the USA, the term pawpaw is used for something
| native to the Americas, and they tend to use papaya for the original
| pawpaw.
|
| Yup, I can't quite find out how the term "paw-paw" became applied to
| Papaya, because as I understand it, the name is almost always referred
| to Asimina in the US. Migration of common names for American natives
| tends to be from west to east, so I can only surmise that 'Papaya' and
| 'paw-paw' became confused on this side of the Atlantic.

You have it the wrong way round - my posting was correct. The OED
has the first use for Carica papaya in 1624, and the first for
Asimina triloba in 1709. It was the Yanks getting confused, not us!

My guess (going beyond the OED) is that pawpaw is a corruption of
papaya in some Far Eastern pidgin, and was picked up into British
English in the way that so many such words have been.

The original name was, indeed, papaya - but we have Spanish to
thank for introducing that.

However, I seem to have been misleading, in that Carica papaya is
also native to the Americas!

| Pawpaws, possibly, in a stove house - but I wouldn't bother. The
| plants are thoroughly undecorative
|
| Careful Nick, dyed-in-th-Wool exoticists rather like the terminal
| clusters of large, broad leaves and the cauliflorous style of
| flowering.

Interesting, yes, but it seems perverse to regard them as decorative!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.