Just Write

This week’s word of the week is: tripe.

While exploring the cuisine of Spain, Andrew Zimmern mentioned that everywhere he goes he gets offered tripe—as if a guy who’s hosted two seasons (so far) of a show called Bizarre Foods hasn’t yet had tripe. Tripe, derived from Old French where it meant simply “entrails of an animal” is the first and second stomach of a ruminant; the first stomach is simply “plain tripe” while the second is “honeycomb tripe”. Sounds almost pleasant, doesn’t it? As far as honeycombs go, though, I think I’ll stick with the kind bees make.

Because entrails are often considered “peasant food”, and are cheaper than more highly prized meats, “tripe” came to be associated with lower class or lower quality things. Therefore anything bad can be referred to as “tripe”, and it can even be used as an insult. The Oxford English Dictionary has this hilarious explanatory note: “Applied opprobriously or contemptuously to a person; also bag of tripe.” I love the addition of “opporobriouly of contemptuously”. If someone calls you a bag of tripe the editors of the OED want to make sure you know it’s an insult.

A second, and now obsolete meaning, is an imitation velvet; velveteen was sometimes called “tripe” as late as the Eighteenth Century. I’m not sure why it went out of usage. After all, sometimes we wear our hearts on our sleeves. Wouldn’t that be easier if our sleeves were made of tripe?