{"id":3634,"date":"2010-10-01T11:30:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T10:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=3634"},"modified":"2010-10-01T11:30:54","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T10:30:54","slug":"word-of-the-day-spurtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=3634","title":{"rendered":"Word of the day – spurtle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Spurtle\"<\/p>\n

I came across today’s word, spurtle<\/strong>, in a book<\/a> I’m reading at the moment. It’s described as “a wooden utensil for stirring porridge” in the book, while according to Wikipedia it is:<\/p>\n

\na Scots kitchen tool, dating from at least the fifteenth century. It was originally a flat, wooden, spatula-like utensil, used for flipping oatcakes on a hot griddle. This terminology is now confined to Angus and Perthshire.<\/p>\n

Over time, the original implement changed shape and began being used specifically for stirring oatmeal and soups. The rod-like shape is designed for constant stirring which prevents the porridge from congealing and so becoming lumpy and unappetising. It looks like a fat wooden dowel, often with a contoured end to give the user a better grip.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Golden Spurtle is the first prize at the World Porridge Making Championships<\/a>, which take place in Carrbridge in Scotland.<\/p>\n

The Spurtle<\/a> is also the name of a Scottish Country dance.<\/p>\n

The etymology of spurtle is uncertain, however while searching for it, I found a possibly related word in A etymological dictionary of the Scottish language<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nSPURKLE, A sort of spattle. “Scutching spurkle<\/em>, a stick to beat flax.” “Thacking spurkle<\/em>, a broad-mouth’d stick for thatching with”. […] perhaps Spurkle<\/em> is merely a variety of Spurtle<\/em>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across today’s word, spurtle, in a book I’m reading at the moment. It’s described as “a wooden utensil for stirring porridge” in the book, while according to Wikipedia it is: a Scots kitchen tool, dating from at least the fifteenth century. It was originally a flat, wooden, spatula-like utensil, used for flipping oatcakes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,55,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-scots","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}