Editing Asparagus (section)

=== Etymology ===
The English word ''asparagus'' derives from classical [[Latin language|Latin]] but the plant was once known in English as ''sperage'', from the [[Medieval Latin]] ''sparagus''.<ref name="anno1000" group="Note">
In the eleventh century AD the word "sparagus" appeared in an English text. See Brunning (June 2010), p. 6.&nbsp;– Brunning uses the term "in print", though no printing technique was used in England at the time. In the same sentence, she states that ''peasants'' often called it "sparrow grass", and further on mentions a 1667 diary in which Samuel Pepys bought a bundle of "sparrow grass" in Fenchurch Street, London.</ref> This term itself derives from the {{langx|grc|ἀσπάραγος}} - ''aspáragos'', a variant of {{langx|grc|ἀσφάραγος}} - ''aspháragos''. The Greek terms are of uncertain provenance; the former form admits the possibility of a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to jerk, scatter," directly or via a [[Persian language|Persian]] descendant meaning "twig, branch"; but the Ancient Greek word itself, meaning "gully, chasm," seems to be of [[Pre-Greek]] origin instead.

In English, ''A. officinalis'' is widely known simply as "asparagus", or sometimes "garden asparagus".

Asparagus was [[folk etymology|corrupted]] by folk etymology in some places to "sparrow grass";<ref>{{Cite OED|title=sparrowgrass|url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/sparrowgrass_n?tab=factsheet#21603219|quote=OED's earliest evidence for sparrowgrass is from 1652, in the writing of [[Walter Blith]], writer on husbandry}}</ref> indeed, [[John Walker (naturalist)|John Walker]] wrote in 1791 that "''Sparrowgrass'' is so general that ''asparagus'' has an air of stiffness and pedantry".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Walker |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MGAJAAAAQAAJ&q=an+air+of+stiffness+and+pedantry%22+%5BJohn+Walker&pg=PA169 |title=A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language |year=1806 |access-date=18 November 2016}}</ref>
The name 'sparrow grass' was still in common use in rural East Anglia, England well into the twentieth century.<ref>Ewart Evans, George "Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay"</ref>