“Dandelion. noun… ORIGIN late middle English: from French dent-de-lion, translation of medieval Latin dens leonis ‘lion’s tooth’ (because of the jagged shape of the leaves)”

Actually I thought it was called dent-de-lion, not after the leaves but the flowers, whose petals are not only many, long and pointed (like the teeth in a lion’s mouth) but also because during the late middle ages up until the time of Shakespeare, lions teeth were thought to be yellow due to their monstrously carnivorous diet.

I’ve just been searching all over the place for some evidence of this and in particular through the play: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ because I could have sworn there was a line in it that backed up this theory, but there isn’t.

I am now really irritated and I have to ask myself: why have I wasted several hours trying to prove the Oxford English Dictionary is wrong?

I still think my version is better.