AFTER HAVING UNDERSTOOD AFTERS ETIMOLOGY: "AFTER EIGHT MINT"

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

I'm back again... for this new post I have been thinking what to write about. And as in my first post I will continue talking about sweets. But in this post I will play with the etymology.

To start with... what do we know about the word "after"? It could be a preposition, an adverb and a conjunction. Although this blog could be an excuse to talk about language and food... at the first sight this word is not so related with food. But this word could change its grammatical meaning if we add an extra -s in the final position. Instead of "after" we will obtain "afters" and in this sense the new noun is intimately related with meals. For British English "afters" is the synonym of "dessert".
Now is when I will go to start to speak about the etymology of the word "dessert". This term comes from French "desservir" which means: to clean the table and to serve. The term was introduced in England in the mid of 1600. While "dessert" is use in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, "afters" is the correct term used in the United Kingdom and some other commonwealth’s countries as India. The word "afters" is found in Modern English.

Certainly, everybody knows that British English has words and expressions different from the rest of English variations. But why did British countries decide to call to dessert "afters"? The thing is that British manners are known to everybody in the world and they are also related with meals. They could be divided into three: breakfast (7.00-9.00), lunch (12.00-13.30) and dinner (18.30-20.00). Well, dessert or afters are a part of dinner. They are a sweet food eaten at the end of it. For this reason British decided to change the term dessert to afters. It was reasonable to do that because it makes allusion to food after dinner. But there is another theory which says that they take their name from their inventor, Sir George After, the Fat Bastard of Brighton.

Now, is when everything is connected with the beginning of the post, the etymology is already explained but what I was referring to is one of my favourite’s sweets: "After Eight Mint". It is easy to know now why they are so called like this. After eight is the meal that we eat after dinner, and it has already stopped at eight. And Mint is because their Flavour.

"After Eight Mint" was introduced in 1962 and they were created by Rowntrees and they appeared in York, England. Later, in 1988 Nestlé started to produce them.

 They are recognize after-dinner chocolate throughout Europe. "After Eight’s" symbol of a clock set the appropriate time, this is linked with sophisticated dinner parties. The dark cartoon conveyed the image of elegance and luxury and it was associated with a style of living which might seek or advice by many.

Nowadays "After Eight Mint" has become a symbol of England and millions of tourists each year try to look for one souvenir box of it when they go to England.

                                                                                                             by Esperanza Reyes