It's the Word of the Day podcast for November 28th.
Today's word is vitals, spelled V-I-C-T-U-A-L-S.
Vitals is a plural noun.
It's a word with an old-fashioned feel that refers to food and sometimes to both food and drink.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
May in Atlanta brings refreshing cocktails, meals on the patio, and Cinco de Mayo festivities.
The holiday, which celebrates the Mexican Army's victory over France at the 1862 Battle of Puebla,
offers the perfect occasion to appreciate Mexican-American culture and all the great vitals associated with it.
In the introduction to her 2016 cookbooks, entitled Vittles, writer Ronnie Lundy remarks on the,
to some, unusual divergence between how her book's title is spelled and how it's pronounced.
Say it the way my people have for centuries, Vittles.
Maybe you thought saying it that way was wrong, but look up that word in your dictionary.
It turns out that my people, the people of southern Appalachian mountains,
have been right about vitals all along.
Indeed, they have.
Vitals refers to supplies of usually prepared foods rather than raw ingredients,
and comes from the late Latin word victualia,
meaning provisions, and ultimately from the Latin word vivere, meaning to live.
It went through French before it came into English,
and the pronunciation Vittles was presumably established based on the French spelling VITAYE before the spelling was changed to better reflect the Latin root of the word.