Cleopatra Commeaud
Written Communications I
Professor McKee
October 10, 2001
There is more than one way to deal with a ramp. In short, you can drive or walk on it, or you can eat it. Also, to ramp (v.) means to act menacingly or to assume a threatening stance. The English language has many same-spelling words with unrelated meanings. For instance there is frog, which in a sadistic sense can also be driven over or eaten. But when you say, "Hey, did you see that big frog just jump in the pond?" you are referring to a different thing than that indicated by, "My frog just snapped open and my Swiss army knife fell down the bank and into the river." The frog of the first instance is the amphibian known for its noisy mating calls, its strong hind legs, and hence its legendary leaping ability. In the latter case, frog is a loop fastened to a belt which is supposed to hold a tool or a weapon (American Heritage Dictionary). And in American slang frog is used contemptously to denote a French person (Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang).
Ramp, in English, is defined also in surprisingly contrasting senses. The most common definition is, "An inclined surface or roadway connecting different levels" (AHD). The entrance and exit arteries of interstate highways, and other types of roadways, are called ramps. These ramps often provide access to or from roads running under or above another. They may be single or multiple-lane connections, and for safety reasons speed limits on ramps are often much lower that that of main highways. Exit ramps often end at stop signs or traffic signals, and entrance ramps usually require drivers to yield to oncoming traffic on the main highway (Funkhausen 23).
Similarly, handicapped persons, especially those confined to wheelchairs, use ramps to access public facilities ranging from shopping malls to office buildings to sporting events. The United States government has established laws, codes, and enforcement apparatus to ensure equal access for handicapped individuals to most buildings and institutions. The ramp is a common aspect of modern architecture now (Allgrotten 98). But ramps are nothing new when it comes to building and architecture. Builders and engineers of many ancient civilizations used crude ramps of heavy wood to move construction materials from lower to higher levels. Peoples such as the Egyptians or Mayans, who built pyramids, would not have been able to raise such impressive structures without simple ramps to move equipment to higher and higher levels (Walls 147).
In its modern English sense, ramp comes from the French rampe, which comes from the verb ramper, to slope, rise up. However, ramper in Old French means to rear, to rise up. This is how ramp as a verb comes to denote acting in a violent or threatening way, a rage; knights of yore were known to stand in the rampant position (part of the code of heraldry) just before battle. And coats of arms often feature a lion, or some other fearsome creature, in an aggressive, ramping position, a threatening stance also assumed by dragons and crabs when angry or harrassed (Schrapnel). From the French verb, English also gets its words rampage--a course of violent, frenzied action or behavior-- and rampant--an adjective referring to something that extends unrestrained or unchecked, as in a rampant growth of weeds in an unattended yard (AHD).
Related to all of this battle terminology is the word rampart. A rampart is a fortified embankment that is topped by a small protective wall. It is a feature of forts and castles. However, rampart is derived from the Old French verb remparer, to defend again. The English verb to prepare comes from the Old French via Vulgar Latin (Encarta).
Then there is ramp in its older and more colloquial senses, meaning a wanton or a whore, or lascivious horseplay (from as early as 1548) as in the lines from Halle's Henry VI, "Ione ... was a rampe of such boldnesse, that she would ... do thynges that other young maidens both abhorred and wer ashamed to do" (quoted in Farmer 368).
By tasty contrast, though, ramp also denotes "a wild leek with edible leaves and roots. Found in the woods of upper elevations, it's eaten raw or fried. . . . when eaten in quantity, a strong odor emanates from the skin of the ramp gourmand" (Appalachian Traveller). A native of the North American east, ramps still range from Iowa and Minnesota, down to theCarolinas, and northward through Appalachia, New England and into southern Quebec. The ramp (Allium tricoccum) is a relative of onions, chives, and garlic and has leaves similar to lily-of-the-valley (McCormick).
Etymologically, ramp (as in wild leek) is likely from rampion, which comes from the Old Latin word for turnip, rapum, an alteration of the Old French word raiponce, from Old Italian, raponzo. This family of words is also believed to be the source of the English rape, which originally meant "plant" (Schrapnel).
Another word origins theory suggests that ramps get their name from the English folk name "ramson," or son of Ram, because ramps appear during the zodiac sign of Aries, the Ram (March 20 to April 20). "Another sourse indicates that the English folk name was 'ramsen,' the plural form of an Old English word for garlic, 'hramsa.' The similarity between A. ursinum [the European bear leek] and A. tricoccum in taste, appearance and growth habit led early English settlers of Appalachia to call the latter by the English folk name, which later was shortened to 'ramp'" (McCormick).
The ramp's status as an important Spring culinary delight with early American settlers, and Native Americans before them, has reasons supported by modern science. Aside from being a welcomed change from the usual winter meals of dried meats and fruits, and pickled vegetables, ramps are known to be very high in Vitamin C, a nutrient often absent from those winter diets. And ramps contain a fatty acid, prostagladin A1, that is a proven treatment for hypertension (McCormick). Also, ramps were so popular, and perhaps notorious, among Native Americans that the plant is credited for suggesting the name of one of America's greatest cities, Chicago. Chicagou is Algonquian for "place of the wild onion," and the land where Chicago now sits on the southern shore of Lake Michigan once was home to many many ramp patches (Schrapnel).
The smell of ramps is legendary. This plant produces such a powerful odor in the eater that in some social settings it is forbidden. Ramps are not just a source of halitosis. When eaten by the dozen their odor permeates one's entire body chemistry, so that when the eater perspires, his/her sweat reeks of ramps as well. The public schools of some rural communities in West Virginia have rules that allow teachers to send students home who smell strongly of ramps (Schrapnel). Apparently, though many people are fond of the plant's taste, some are not so fond of its side effects.
However, the ramp is not as common in the wild as it once was. Habitat destruction has reduced its numbers, and over-harvesting has also contributed to the plant's decline, particularly in Quebec (Biodome de Montreal). Nowadays, the best and most enjoyable way to find ramps is to trek about the woods in early Spring, searching for their broad green leaves shooting up through the almost bare forest floor. Ramps are harvested in some areas, but generally it is not a cultivated crop. It is the object of Spring festivals in, most notably, West Virginia and the Carolinas (New Crop Resource). To get to one of these rural ramp festivals one will, at some point in the journey, have to use an exit ramp off of a major highway.