It's always entertaining to learn some brand new linguistic content.
Historically, the Japanese adjective for spicy -- karai (辛い) -- didn't mean spicy as we understand it now.
It referred to the burn of raw alcohol as it went down your throat. By extension to pain in general and hence to the relatively modern concept of spicy.
Both mustard and horseradish are 辛い because they have that "burn".
A smooth alcohol without that raw burn wouldn't be characterized as such.
Such linguistic terms are interesting. The CC referred to the conceptual category of "smooth" which only makes sense in English but in Japanese it would be "sweet".
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