Tuesday’s ad is for Carling’s Red Cap Ale, from 1960. In this ad, showing an iron gate with a red cap, along with a mug of beer and a bottle of Red Cap Ale. But it’s again the tagline that stands out: “How to Win Friends and Affluent People.” I’m not even quite sure what they mean by that. It’s similar to Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” but changes the last part to “affluent.” The text offers no answers, so it’s not really clear what they were after.
Archives for June 27, 2017
Yest Or Yeast?
While searching for something else this morning, I came across some word nerdery about the word “yeast.” In “Sharpe’s Diamond dictionary of the English Language,” by John Sharpe, John Thompson, and William Harvey, which was published in 1841, they list the following:
Yest, or Yeast, s. the froth in the working of ale or beer
Yest’y, Yea’sty, a. frothy; smeared with yest
I confess to not often paging though old brewing books the way I imagine Martyn and Ron do, so I had not seen this spelling before.
Merrian-Webster states simply that “yest” is an “archaic variant of yeast.” And Webster’s 1913 Dictionary just refers you to Yeast: “n. 1. See Yeast.” And my 1971 O.E.D. states that it’s an obselete form of yeast.
That same O.E.D. gives a number of different forms of the word yeat, most of which I was unfamiliar with.
Forms 1. zist, zyst, 3. zest(e, zeest, yeest 6-9 yest, 7 eyst (?) 8-9 dial. east, dial. yist, 7- yeast.
From what I can tell, the first evidence of “yest” in print is from 1530: “Yest or barme for ale” whereas our modern spelling, “yeast” doesn’t show up until 1600.