What is the name of the kitchen utensil used to serve ice cream in the form of balls? It sounds familiar to everyone but no one comes to specify. Some have simply ended up referring to it as a “ball scoop” or “ball scoop” or “dispenser”, but the truth is that there is no official term. Until now. The RAE has put an end to the debate by communicating in a Twitter post recently that you are considering including a term in your dictionary for this object: “funderelele”.
¿¿¿¿funderelelequé???
It is not a song by Rosalía or a tweet from MALACARA. It is the latest controversial linguistic maneuver of the Royal Spanish Academy, which is trying to leave behind its other and more controversial debate around the tilde of ‘only’ from a few days ago.
In his post this weekend, the institution’s Twitter accountwhich accumulates more than two million followers and surprises us from time to time, pointed: “To refer to the object of the image, used to serve ice cream in the shape of a ball, sometimes “funderelele” is used (a word whose incorporation into the academic dictionary is under study). What do you call it?
To refer to the object of the image, used to serve ball-shaped ice cream, “funderelele” is sometimes used (a word whose incorporation into the academic dictionary is under study).
What do you call it? pic.twitter.com/6EI9WkTEw5
– RAE (@RAEinforma) March 18, 2023
It is not the first time that in our language we call things in different ways. Mainly because there is not always an official and unified term to refer to them. In fact, in hundreds of comments on the post, many users have taken the opportunity to raise a cloud of words that could be applied to the object or that they have ever used to refer to it: “Ball scoop, spoon, dispenser, dispenser, portioner…”. Although the one that wins is “scoop for ice cream”since it is the most popular term according to Google.
Others have focused more on humor. “Funderelele sounds like cast since you had a stroke pronouncing the word,” says one user. Another has joked with the Catalan artist: “I’m gambling 2 salaries for @rosalia to release a song with that name.” Some have proposed alternatives: “It could be called “bolatrón” or “bolatrón”, but “funderelele” seems much better to me, it’s to shout it with a little bubble in your hand. great because imagine Paco the ice cream man telling his assistant Martín to pass him the ‘lerele ese'”.
Where does it come from then? From Wikipedia
As Carmen García, a doctor from the Complutense University of Madrid with a thesis on Greek paleography and codicology, comments in this blog entry, the term, although it is not part of the RAE dictionary, does appear on Wikipedia. Apparently, someone invented “funderelele” one day out of nowhere more absolute and now could be changing the Spanish language forever.
Before 2008, when it was added to Wikipedia, there was no record of it on the entire Internet. All its external uses are after that date. It seems that for many years this invention stayed there and went unnoticed. By the time they realized there were already people using it because of course, Wikipedia says so. The word even appeared in a book, so there were already references.
“Wikipedia collects it, so it exists, it exists. Between 2007 and 2008 three results came out, one of them the one we already had and the other from Wikipedia. Between 2008 and 2009 six results appeared, some of the ones we already had and others related with things in the kitchen. Between 2009 and 2010, 10 results came out. From 2011 it seems that for some strange reason people discovered the name of this pot and the results skyrocketed to 40. Only in 2012 there are already 60 mentions. In 2013 it increases the level with 70 more and between 2013 and 2014 another 40 or 50 more”, says García.
“The important thing about this analysis is that it is like from 2010 or 2011 when this word becomes more popular, at least on the Internet. And that Wikipedia is to blame in spreading the name”.
Anyway, Wikipedia itself sees it as a hopeless case. pic.twitter.com/NGj58k9hIF
— David Navarrete 💐 (@navarretedf) March 18, 2023
In 2014, the debate reached the same encyclopedia on-line. In a discussion, one editor noted: “They left a bug report today stating that “funderelele” could be a hoax. I have moved the article and removed the references to funderelele. If someone wants to explain with sources that it is about a possible hoax and include the term of yore, green light on my part. I have put “ice cream balls” as a compromise solution. If someone has another better option, green light too.”
Neither the RAE nor the María Moliner collect this word, so we cannot go there (at the moment). However, the Online Etymology Dictionary of Chile indicates that the word “funderelele” derives from the verb “to melt”, with the meaning of giving shape in molds, like objects made of cast iron. For its part, the expressive ending -lele is thought to be influenced by the word “ice cream” (melt the ice cream -melt the hel… -> “funderelele”). Long live the language.
Image: Unsplash
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