Cycling

The seventh entry is o alforge, and the two languages arrived at the same object by roads that never crossed. The thing itself is a bag hung at the side of whatever carries it, and English named it after what such bags were once filled with: « pannier » came through Old French from Latin panarium, a bread basket, built on panis, bread. Portuguese named it instead after the animal it hung on. O alforge is Arabic: al-khurj was the double bag thrown across the back of a mule, one pouch falling on each flank, and it crossed into the language with the article al- already fused to the front, exactly as happened in a alfândega, a almofada and o azeite. That history is still doing work on a bicycle, because it explains a shape rather than a sound. An alforge is by origin one bag in two halves, balanced over a back, which is precisely how a pannier sits on a rear rack — and why a rider will as often say os alforges as o alforge. Reading it as a single pouch is the one mistake the word invites.