Apácasóhaj, hangyaboly és egyéb süteménynevek

Absztrakt

Apácasóhaj ('nun's sigh'), hangyaboly ('ants' nest') and other names of cakes

The paper examines the possible motivations of giving names to cakes on the basis of names collected from five cookery books. Analysing the names provides us with a system whose two main pillars are metaphor and metonymy. The explanation of giving a metaphoric name usually lies in the shape or appearance of the cake, whilst metonymic names mostly refer to some conditions (e.g. time, place, manner) of preparing the cake. New names can be added freely to both groups. The earliest and the latest cookery book used for the analysis are separated by 120 years. During this period of time many new and highly creative names were born, but the system itself remained unchanged. Metonymic naming seems much more productive than metaphoric, but since the 20^th century the role of metaphor has been firmly established not only in literature and in linguistics, but also in naming cakes.