The Etymology And Drugs Of Parsley

My first language is a rough southern Italian dialect, scorned by many Northerners. But what I like about my mother tongue is the connection between some of its vocabulary and Linnaean taxonomy. Parsley for instance is known as  prezzemolo in standard Italian, but I grew up calling it petrosino. Interestingly parsley's genus, derived from Latin, is Petroselinum. The modern Italian word also originates from Petroselinum, but obviously the dialect-version of parsley is closer to its roots, pardon the pun. The English word seems to have been influenced by the Old French peresil and by the old English petersilie, which in turn is an offshoot of the Latin.read more

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