Wort

14C this morning. We are a week into his bubbling - he's definitely slowing down - and I need to start thinking about putting him into a barrel.

Wort is added to common English plant names - usually in relation to medicinal plants - so bladderwort may have been believed to assist bladder ailments. (What use Butterwort?). The word wort is of proto germanic origin meaning plant or herb (in Old Saxon it was wurt). This perhaps suggests that our ancient plant lore came with the Anglo-Saxons with little of this wisdom arriving with the Normans. (but then 'herb' comes from the old french, so maybe not). Presumably the Celtic wisdom had long since been obliterated. I can't think of a synonym for plant or herb that might have Celtic, or pre-norse/anglo-saxon, roots.

Wort is also thought to have origins in 'root' - (Gothic = Waurt = root). So why is wort applied to the liquor we use to brew beer? The nearest I can get to is that it's mashed plants. Mash is the precursor of wort in the brewing process and it seems this stage may have originally been called Mash Wort, and presumably the modern distinction was a subtlety that arose later.

Etymologists might want to play here. Unfortunately my OED etymology is in store so I can't cross reference what this website is saying (and I know there have been conflicts between this site and the OED book on words I've looked up before).

In the 19th century root was slang for penis. Norse ships used different woods, and different parts of trees - including roots - for different parts of the ship. Such was their understanding of the material properties of things they had around them.

My understanding of such materials amounts to, for example WOOD, usually burns and sometimes sticks together with the help of a nail or thirty. I seem to remember ash is good for making bows, and willow bark can cure headaches.

(That reference to ash is a bad but quite clever pun, as both ash and bows have two meanings. Just how bad the pun is is illustrated by the fact that I have to explain it to you).