"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 09/08/17 (luncheon, rarebit)

I'm going to talk today about words that have changed for no other reasone in English other than through snobbery. And I'm going to start with lunch and luncheon, because, like most people, including myself, you'd probably think that lunch was a shortening of the word luncheon. But, in fact, lunch, we've pretty sure, came first. And it first referred to a hunk or a thick slice of food, such as bread or cheese. And the evidence suggests that lunch evolved from lump, just as hump and hunch and bump and bunch are very closely connected. Luncheon then became a posher alternative, if you like. So people extended it, thinking it sounded a little bit better. Lunch almost completely disappeared, and then when it popped up again, people just assumed it was a shortening of luncheon. But there is another one which is one of my favourites, and that's Welsh rarebit. Now, I was always brought up to say Welch rarebit rather than rabbit and that rarebit was the correct version. In fact, it wasn't. It was always Welsh rabbit. And in a 17th and 18th century, Welsh was used, very unfairly, as a slightly patronising epithet for anything of inferior quality or inferior grade. So, to use a Welsh comb, for example, was to comb your hair with your fingers, rather than with a comb. Welsh rabbit became the nickname for a dish that you resorted to when no meat was available, so they called it the rabbit that the Welsh eat - in other words, they couldn't afford meat, they woud simply have cheese on toast. But over time, Welsh rabbit sounded perhaps a little bit vulgar again, and so people thought rarebit sounded much more refined, and rarebit crept in. Rabbit was the original, the true version, and one that I think we should use today.