“If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?” goes the old joke. Hopefully those humanitarians are eating fruits and vegetables too as they are a great food for humans.
But this (bad) joke wants you to believe that the word vegetarian came out of the word vegetable when, in fact, it comes from the Latin word vegetus, meaning lively. “Vegetable” comes from the French and may have the same root but that’s debatable.
The word vegetarian was coined by the founders of the British Vegetarian Society in 1842. It was first formally used on 30 September 1847 at the inaugural meeting of the Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom. Not that there weren’t people with vegetarian diets before then; they just didn’t have this nice, handy word for it.
The word vegan was coined in 1944 by Donald Watson who was not pleased with the fact that “vegetarianism” had come to include the eating of dairy products, where historically it had not. And so the UK Vegan Society was formed.
According to Mr. Watson, the word vegan was formed by taking the first and last letters of the word vegetarian because it “starts with vegetarianism and carries it through to its logical conclusion.”
As a side note, you may also see “veg*n” here and there. This is commonly used to include both words vegetarian and vegan. Handy when referencing a group comprised of both vegetarians and vegans.
What would you like to know?
This has been day two of my Vegetarian Awareness Month blog-a-thon. Come back tommorrow for more. And if there’s anything you’re curious about on the subject, ask away!
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