And they make great names! I once knew a guy. His parents, Mrs. And Mrs. Knack, named him Nicholas. Yup – he was Nick Knack. And my college roommate whose playful parents baptized him Christopher, giving him a lifetime of charming pickup lines revolving around his name, Chris Cross.
These words are just fun to say. Think mishmash, riffraff, shilly-shally, ship-shape, tip-top…
and there’s chit-chat, wishy-washy, doo-dad, klip-klop, knock-knock…
and sing-song, ding-dong, ping pong, King Kong…
and flim-flam, hip-hop, fiddle-faddle...
even cuscus, deadhead, bed-head…
Often there is something about these words that seems to give some indication of what they mean. Zig-zag just seems to describe what it means - to go one direction, then sharply switch directions by a sharp angle. In this political season we will hear way too much about flip-flops.
Today’s hosta name is a reduplicative that was based on the appearance of what it names. Back in the 1800’s a kind of clothing ornamentation became popular. It was a kind of zig-zag decoration tediously crocheted with hooks and threads. By the 1880s it was possible to make this product by machine and the popularity of “ric rac” boomed.
In the 1950s, when American homemakers were expected to clean, cook, and sew, with a sewing machine in every home, sewing “notions” had a place of honor in every five-and-dime store in the country. Among the most popular products were the 15 cent packages of the flat, braded, waving decorative edging called rick rack. It went on everything - towels, aprons, blankets, pillows, and the hems of skirts, shirt sleeves… Brightly colored, wavy, zig-zagging – what could be cooler than rick rack?!
Of course, familiarity breeds contempt. Overuse made rick rack a cliché… one might even say it became ticky-tacky.
Words can be tricky… and compound words can be really tricky-dicky… so in 1999, when it came time to name her small, green, ripple-edged hosta, Eleanor Lachman obviously thought about the decorative edging trim – but she used the non-standard spelling and it became H. Rickrack. Nice hosta, nice name… why don’t I see it in more gardens?
(Scene: Hospital Obstetrics Department
Dr: “Mrs. Rache… are you sure you want to name your son Richard?)
I'd have Rickrack in my garden if I'd ever found it for sale anywhere. I always loved the look. Yours looks to be the nicest I've ever seen in pics. I've heard that it can be slow to develop. Did you find that to be true? About how long have you had your plant?
