Cinderella

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Did you ever realize that the "cinder" part of her name was meant to invoke cinders? Well, I never did, until I saw her name in Italian: Cenerentola. Which is basically "Ash-tola."

Next I'm going to discover that the Ashmolean was at first a museum devoted to ashes.

Comments

  1. Anonymous9:01 PM

    Hey, people still name their children Ralph. Don't ask me why, but for some reason that name strikes me as absolutely bizarre.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pedro9:46 AM

    I realized this when I read "The Cinder Buggy". Before that, I didn't know the word "cinder" existed (English is not my native language, in case you haven't noticed). However, in Spanish, "Cinderella" is "Cenicienta", and I've known this was because of "ceniza" (ash or cinder) since childhood. Interestingly, in Portuguese, the name is "Cinderela", and "cinder" is "cinza". They probably just adopted the English or otherwise international name, so it has no relation to the Portuguese word for "cinder". In German it's "Aschenputtel". Pretty obvious, isn't it?

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