Amuse-bouche:

Shield from sun, song, and scent.

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Today’s Wonderful Word: “lemonade.”

Definition: a drink made from lemon juice and water, sweetened with sugar.

Etymology: 1650s, nativized from French limonade, from Italian limonata or else a French formation from limon. The earlier English spelling was lemonado (c. 1640) with a false Spanish ending.

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It’s a hot day in the south of France. You sit in a wicker chair under the shade of a café umbrella.

You think to yourself, “I’ll have a lemonade.” So, you order “Une limonade, svp.”

And then the server brings you a Sprite.

“I think they forgot the lemons.” You don’t want to be a bother, so you swallow a bitter laugh.

You take a sip. It’s refreshing, and there’s a hint of artificial lemon-lime flavoring. It’s familiar. You take another sip.

It’s Sprite.

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If you order a limonade, you will get 7 Up or Sprite.

If you order a citronnade, you will get lemonade.

Why, France, why?! It doesn’t make any sense. The word lemon comes from old French. It’s fine if you wanted a different word for lemon later on. Citron. It’s cool. But why make a simple drink order so difficult?

Assuming lemonade was invented first, perhaps the problem lies in the creation of Sprite. Couldn’t you have chosen a different name for it, given that citronnade was already taken?

A lime-based name for the clear soda would have done just fine. Except maybe not. Because your word for lime is “green lemon.”

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Answer to Saturday’s riddle:

One solution is to turn 9 upside down to make 6.

Other answers include: putting the 1 on top of the 5, putting the 3 on the 9, or the 5 on the 7.