Beyond the spelling, the name of the Artichoke has no connection either with art or with choking, although the latter was at one time seriously suggested.
Actually the name has been highly corrupted through various European versions of the original Arabic name, al-kharshuf.
Italians eventually made that into articiocco, and through some four centuries of struggling with a score or more of various spellings we have, at least temporarily, settled upon artichoke.
