Arnold Zwicky's Blog

We start with wine, a drink whose enthusiasts, knowledgable fans, aficionados, connoisseurs, and the like are legion, so not surprisingly we have a name for them, with alternative spellings: oenophiles / enophiles. Beer is equally appreciated and enjoyed by many, but there are relatively few beer connoisseurs. But, even if there are few of them, they presumably have a name — maybe an obscure one, but a name nevertheless. What’s the solution to this proportional equation?

wine : oenophile :: beer : X

It turns out that there are (at least) two solutions for X, one Latin-based (like vinophile for wine, which is so rare that it doesn’t make it even into the OED), the other Greek-based like oenophile (Greek to accord with the Greek second element –phile). You’re unlikely to have come across either of them, but the second, Greek-based one, is especially delicious for me, because it’s a Z -word (like Zwicky), and because it came to me through a Facebook friend, Martyn Cornell.

From the Latin. This one provided by a number of writers about beer, though not in standard lexicographic sources.

For example, on the Kings of Brewing site (“We are lovers of craft beer and home brewing! Our number one mission: Help homebrewers make great beer”), staffer Dan writes [lightly edited by AMZ]:

There are plenty of words and phrases that can be used to describe a beer lover. But my personal favorite is cerevisaphile.  Coming from the root word cerevisia which is Latin for beer and the suffix phile which [means] ‘lover’. It matches the definition, it sounds important and sophisticated, and also just proud and dignified.

The pronunciation might look tricky, but it isn’t bad once you understand it. The way to pronounce it is “Sara- Viz- A- File.”

Latin cerevisia ‘beer’ is legit; you might recognize it in Spanish cerveza ‘beer’.

Now, the English learnèd noun cerevisaphile has a couple strokes against it, aside from being learnèd (why not just say beer lover?): it’s mingled Latin and Greek, which gives some people the willies; and it’s 5 syllables long, which is a considerable mouthful.

But do not despair. You can do it all in Greek, in only 3 syllables, and you can do it with a Z.

Yes, zythophile ‘beer lover’. The zyth– part represents a legitimate Greek stem meaning ‘beer’ (well, originally something like ‘from barley’, conveying ‘brewed from barley’, also ‘something brewed from barley’ — hence, beer).

(Note: The ordinary word for beer in Modern Greek is in fact the borrowed term pronounced [bíra]. Word-initial [b] in MGk is spelled, you’ll be astonished to hear, μπ — that is, mp (voicing from the μ, bilabial stop from the π). Don’t ask.)

This entry was posted on September 26, 2023 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Compounds, Greek, Language and food, Spelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.