293 replies to this topic

[Nayan Gowda]

Sorry, there should have been a smiley emoticon after my tongue-in-cheek post

[Shalmanese]

Saying 'paninis' if you know it's incorrect is ridiculous (what's wrong with the words 'roll' or 'sandwich'?); so is 'with au jus'. There may be no way to get people to get their shit together about these things, but they're incorrect. It all makes me think of Miss Piggy using 'moi'. Absurd.

Panini doesn't mean roll or sandwich, it means a sandwich that's been toasted on a panini press and panini is the most succinct word for it. If I'm going to be ordering at an American restaurant, I'm going to say "give me one chicken panini and two ham paninis". I'm not going to say "give me one chicken panino and two ham panini" because I care more about the other person understanding me than trying to follow the grammar rules of a language that I'm not currently speaking.

[ChrisTaylor]

Indeed. 'Panini' is a loan word. Loan words tend to follow the grammatical pattern of the language they've been adopted into.

[mkayahara]

Indeed. 'Panini' is a loan word. Loan words tend to follow the grammatical pattern of the language they've been adopted into.

Indeed, hence why "on mange les sushis" in French. Pluralizing "sushi" always makes me cringe, but it is perfectly grammatically correct French!

[Mjx]

Saying 'paninis' if you know it's incorrect is ridiculous (what's wrong with the words 'roll' or 'sandwich'?); so is 'with au jus'. There may be no way to get people to get their shit together about these things, but they're incorrect. It all makes me think of Miss Piggy using 'moi'. Absurd.

Panini doesn't mean roll or sandwich, it means a sandwich that's been toasted on a panini press and panini is the most succinct word for it. If I'm going to be ordering at an American restaurant, I'm going to say "give me one chicken panini and two ham paninis". I'm not going to say "give me one chicken panino and two ham panini" because I care more about the other person understanding me than trying to follow the grammar rules of a language that I'm not currently speaking.

That's a 'toast'! (as I said, other nations muck about with foreign terms, too)

In Italian, a panino is a roll. The word is also used to describe a sandwich made with a roll. Not toasted.

If someone doesn't care what a word actually means, why even use it?

The things called 'paninis' in the US seldom resemple what you'd get in Italy, why not call it a toasted sandwich? Seriously, this makes no sense, unless it's just a question of thinking it sounds fancier if a foreign languge is used. Which is pretty silly.

Indeed. 'Panini' is a loan word. Loan words tend to follow the grammatical pattern of the language they've been adopted into.

Indeed, hence why "on mange les sushis" in French. Pluralizing "sushi" always makes me cringe, but it is perfectly grammatically correct French!

The 's' pronounced, then? I'm a little surprised, since there are French words that sound the same in plural form as they do in the singular, even if they're written differently.

[munchymom]

For better or for worse, the "panini" ship has sailed. When speaking English in the United States, a panini is a toasted sandwich cooked in a press, no matter what it means in Italian. Just as "martini" now means "that which is served in a martini glass", whether or not gin and vermouth are involved.

[Hassouni]

For what it's worth, I have seen panino, the proper singular, listed on several menus in the States

[Kouign Aman]

"farm egg".
Seen duck eggs, ostrich eggs, emu eggs, frog eggs, fish eggs, chicken eggs, even pullet eggs, but never a farm egg have I seen. ;)

[BadRabbit]

"farm egg".
Seen duck eggs, ostrich eggs, emu eggs, frog eggs, fish eggs, chicken eggs, even pullet eggs, but never a farm egg have I seen. ;)

In the south, we have "yard eggs" which are eggs that someone's "yard birds" have produced as opposed to eggs produced on commercial farms.

[Judy Wilson]

Hi Everyone!

I'm mostly a lurker around here, but I've been enjoying this thread so immensely, I couldn't stand it and had to chime in. I'm a total linguistic nerd.

I grew up in Southeast Michigan, where we add an "s" to most words. I might say, "anyways, where does your dad work?" and get a reply "he works at Fords." We shop at Nordstrom's and Kroger's. Now, I'm half Polish (my Mom's side)and so the pierogi question comes up a lot. My Grandma was born in Detroit in 1915. She went to a Catholic school where they spoke Polish in the morning and English in the afternoon (I may have that backwards) but my Mom and her siblings never spoke Polish and though she could pronounce things, she and my Grandfather had pretty much lost the language by the time I was a kid. So I did once ask her, knowing that peirogi is plural, though we always say pierogies, what the singular is in Polish. She shrugged and said she didn't know because nobody ever eats just one. (for the record, it's pierog).

I pronounce it per-oh-gee (with a hard "g"), and so do most of my relatives, but she pronounced it more like pee-ro-gee, with a bit of softer "r" sound. We also say "kuh-ba-sa" whereas she would say "kee-ba-sa" so that follows the general trend of the vowel shift. Actually though, we mostly call it Polish Sausage (probably at least 75% of the time). Side note, my Grandmother's step-mother worked at a hotel in Detroit as a cook and therefore mostly used the English terms for words at home, so that may be why.

O.K., but now for what I want to really lay out: My culturo-linguistico-geographic theory on Pączkis (again, with a superfluous "s" on the end).

I love pączkis (jelly doughnut eaten on Fat Tuesday) because I took Polish dance lessons when I was a kid. The first week of Lent or the week before, someone would bring in pączkis for the class. However, my Mom says it is all marketing and that they never ate them when she was a kid. Don't get me wrong, she didn't grow up eating only American food, but none of her aunts made or bought them.

I've concluded that pączkis are a regional Polish treat. Here is why:

1. My family comes from Southern Poland, not very far east of Krakow.
2. My Grandparents grew up in Southwest Detroit (specifically, the St. Hedwig's Parish--and yes, St. Hedwig's and not Swa. Jadwiga's).
3. Everyone in their neighborhood/Parish was from the same area of Poland. I know this because:
a. I once asked my Grandma why she didn't know anyone from Hamtramck and she said that all of their people lived in Southwest Detroit. When asked why she said probably because people came at different times from different areas to different areas.
b. This makes sense because before WWI Poland was not a country and was divided up and ruled by three different nations.
c. I did a paper on St. Hedwig's in college and there is a story that they ran the first priest assigned there off because they claimed they couldn't understand his Prussian-Polish accent (that is to say, he spoke a Prussian dialect of Polish). Whether this was the reason they didn't like him is anyone's guess, but that's the reason they gave. Ergo, no Prussian Poles in that neighborhood.
4. Hamtramck is what everyone thinks of when they think of Polish people in Detroit, but clearly there were many different Polish neighborhoods.
5. My mother said that nobody in her family ever ate pączkis.
6. My Grandmother's maiden name is Swiatek (pronounced Swy-teck) or Swiątek (pronounced Svyunh-teck, with both the y and the n having a very light sound).
7. Pączki is pronounced Poonch-kee.
8. The vowel "ą" is pronounced differently by pączki-eating Poles than by Poles from Southwest Detroit who come from the Krakow area, or just 30 or 40 miles East of there.
9. Therefore, pączkis are a regional dish. Probably the part of Poland from which the Hamtramck Poles came from.


So sorry that was so long. I don't get to tell my theory often! I've never actually looked into the validity of it though.

[danielito]

here is a combination "Mispronunciation and Misnomer"

pilaf.

for starters, it is pronounced pee-lav, NOT pee-laf

second, the translation of pilaf is rice.

so when a menu lists "rice pilaf", it literally means "rice rice".

STOP IT! IT'S STUPID!

call it rice, or call it pilaf, but stop calling it rice pilaf, it makes no sense.

No need to shout!! Especially when you may be wrong.
According to Merriam-Webster it is pronounced pi-ˈläf
Also according to Merriam-Webster pilaf is "a dish made of seasoned rice and often meat"
The Oxford Companion to Food describes pilaf as "a Middle Eastern method of cooking rice so that every grain remains separate, and the name of the resulting dish".

[heidih]

One of the funniest misnomers for me is Der Wienerschnitzel. A hot dog fast food place! Wrong on so many levels. My dad's packing plant was supplying them in the early days and I know he mentioned it to the principal in a joking way. We just kind of shook our heads. Dad had been a butcher for years in Austria near Wien (Vienna - the Wiener in the Schnitzel) plus the article is wrong. Anyway as with all of this transplanted terminology, I take it with humor unless it becomes ridiculous ignorance based snobbery as others have noted.

[Heartsurgeon]

"No need to shout!! Especially when you may be wrong.
According to Merriam-Webster it is pronounced pi-ˈläf
Also according to Merriam-Webster pilaf is "a dish made of seasoned rice and often meat"
The Oxford Companion to Food describes pilaf as "a Middle Eastern method of cooking rice so that every grain remains separate, and the name of the resulting dish". "

I'm not wrong (truthfully, I'm never wrong).
Pilaf is derivative from the Turkish word pilav, which means....rice.

But please feel free to continue calling it rice rice!

Edited by Heartsurgeon, 30 March 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[Hassouni]

Which is in turn derived from Persian polo/polow, which doesn't mean rice in general, but rather a category of preparations of rice. That being sad, nobody in Persian would say rice polo.... Just as nobody says rice risotto.

Edited by Hassouni, 30 March 2012 - 12:52 PM.

[Nich]

Structurally, a pecan pie and a Chicago deep dish sausage pizza have a lot in common with each other.

I'm a lot happier with a pizza being a tart than a pie.

Unless we're going to start referring to sandwiches as pies, and then all bets are off.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Sandwiches aren't pie - they're a completely separate food group....

(For the record, the food groups I'm referring to are: sandwiches, fried things, pies/tarts, and malt beverages. Everything else is extraneous. )

---
Nich - Going back to what you're saying, though, a pizza is a tart because it has no upper crust, yes? By the same logic, is a pecan pie also a tart then?

Hassouni - how do you react to people who use the term "quinua risotto" then? I thought that risotto, unlike pilaf, was a cooking technique rather than the rice itself (which is riso).

[Mjx]

. . . . I thought that risotto, unlike pilaf, was a cooking technique rather than the rice itself (which is riso).

Although risotto does involve a basic technique – keeping the starch (rather than rinsing it off) and long cooking in liquid, so the starch gelatinizes, making for a creamy consistency – if it doesn't involve rice, it isn't risotto, but 'risotto' (in Italy, anyway).

[Panaderia Canadiense]

So what would you call other grains or starches prepared using the same technique (I mean, other than using the air quotes)? Creamy quinua?

[ambra]

In Italy, they call it farrotto.

[Mjx]

So what would you call other grains or starches prepared using the same technique (I mean, other than using the air quotes)? Creamy quinua?

Quinua... something. Or 'something' quinua. The 'something' providing the appropriate descriptor (I wouldn't imagine you could get that consistency from quinua and liquid alone, though, since you have to rinse it, and there goes any external starch, too). But if rice isn't the predominant ingredient, it wouldn't be regarded as risotto by most Italians.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

au jus isn't a French word any more, it's an English word with French origins. I think we've all pretty much given up on "paninis" and au jus is about at the same point.

It's at times like this I wish you Americans would find another word for the language you use and abuse. "Au jus" is not an English word (or even a word) it's a phrase...

Well, to be fair, the tendency to misuse/mispronounce foreign lanaguage terms isn't unique, or even most pronounced in the US, it's prevalent the world over (e.g. upthread, I mentioned the use of the word 'grape' for 'grapefruit' in Denmark; I could also mention 'expresso' pronounced as 'exPRAHso', and heaps of other misuses and mispronunciations... and don't get me started on the things that happen to foreign language terms in Italy). But for better or worse, the American language is still English.

I'm in total agreement with MJX. Anybody who's ever travelled or lived in Latin America will be astounded when they discover that a SAN-doo-che (spelt Sanduche) is not a sandwich they're familiar with (those would be tostados mixtos), and that they can get a BOOR-gwair (burguer, properly an hamburguesa but even that term is disappearing!) There are many other charming things happening to English down here (I'll see if I can find a picture of our local Soon Burguer, House Chicken, or the Sunglass Hat). For better or worse, our language down here is Castellano (sort of), the same way that the American language is English (sort of.) It's the nature of language to change, shift, and appropriate terms - heck, English wouldn't even be a language without the appropriations.... Feh, mucho ruido, pocas nueces.

Even so, and even if the dictionaries list it as a correct plural, I still think it sounds like nails on a chalkboard when somebody says "shrimps" and isn't referring to verb for the process of fishing said critters (ie "Manolo shrimps for a living," but never "Manolo is eating shrimps for dinner.")

[mkayahara]

"Hi, Domino's? Yes, I'd like to order two pizze..."

[Jaymes]

au jus isn't a French word any more, it's an English word with French origins. I think we've all pretty much given up on "paninis" and au jus is about at the same point.

It's at times like this I wish you Americans would find another word for the language you use and abuse. "Au jus" is not an English word (or even a word) it's a phrase...

Well, to be fair, the tendency to misuse/mispronounce foreign lanaguage terms isn't unique, or even most pronounced in the US, it's prevalent the world over...

I'm in total agreement with MJX. ...

Even so, and even if the dictionaries list it as a correct plural, I still think it sounds like nails on a chalkboard when somebody says "shrimps" and isn't referring to verb for the process of fishing said critters (ie "Manolo shrimps for a living," but never "Manolo is eating shrimps for dinner.")

Well, anytime you have over seven-billion human beings using something, in this case language, there are going to be a few anomalies.

I'll confess I'm a "shrimps" offender. Having lived several places where "shrimps" is the norm, at first I repeated it a time or two because I thought it was cute, but then it sorta crawled into my lexicon and got stuck.

Interesting that that one doesn't bother me so much. I guess because it's primarily a natural conclusion reached by people for whom English is a difficult challenge, and they've learned that, in English, most plurals are created by adding an "s" to the singular. So "shrimps" makes sense. At least they're trying.

The "broo-SHETTA" thing in the US, though, puzzles me. I mean, we manage to get right that hard Italian "ch" in so many other words: mocha, zucchini, gnocchi, Chianti, just to name a few.

How did bruschetta get so screwed up?

ETA: And none of this pronunciation thing bothers me so much as the abuse of the apostrophe. Just a few days ago, I was reading a menu that listed the various categories: Appetizers, Soups, Salads, etc.

And then it got to: Steak's.

Speaking of the possessive, which we suddenly are, what on Earth could have possessed them to inexplicably throw in that apostrophe when they hadn't talked about "Appetizer's, Soup's, Salad's"?

And one of the "Steak's" was "served in it's own juice."

Nobody's perfect, and the exact rules of grammar can be argued endlessly by scholars, but really, how hard is it to distinguish between "it's" and "its"? I posit that it's not difficult at all. One is a contraction. So, would they have meant the above to read, as it properly would, "served in it is own juice"? Of course not.

This menu looked to be professionally printed. Couldn't someone somewhere along the line do a little proofreading? If the owner/manager/whomever isn't really good with grammar and punctuation, is it asking too much to have someone else read it over before investing your money in a final product that would be difficult and expensive to change?

Hardly Earth-shattering issues. Minor irritants. Minor, but just irritating enough to keep us all chattering.

Right?

And so interesting that one person's complaint-worthy irritant is always somebody else's no big deal.

Edited by Jaymes, 13 April 2012 - 09:01 AM.

[mkayahara]

While we're at it, we should also eliminate "sautéed" from the lexicon, since "sauté" is already a past participle.

[Hassouni]

Hassouni - how do you react to people who use the term "quinua risotto" then? I thought that risotto, unlike pilaf, was a cooking technique rather than the rice itself (which is riso).

Well, that's OK by me since it's unusual and specifying the deviation.

[Hassouni]

au jus isn't a French word any more, it's an English word with French origins. I think we've all pretty much given up on "paninis" and au jus is about at the same point.

It's at times like this I wish you Americans would find another word for the language you use and abuse. "Au jus" is not an English word (or even a word) it's a phrase...

Well, to be fair, the tendency to misuse/mispronounce foreign lanaguage terms isn't unique, or even most pronounced in the US, it's prevalent the world over...

I'm in total agreement with MJX. ...

Even so, and even if the dictionaries list it as a correct plural, I still think it sounds like nails on a chalkboard when somebody says "shrimps" and isn't referring to verb for the process of fishing said critters (ie "Manolo shrimps for a living," but never "Manolo is eating shrimps for dinner.")

Well, anytime you have over seven-billion human beings using something, in this case language, there are going to be a few anomalies.

I'll confess I'm a "shrimps" offender. Having lived several places where "shrimps" is the norm, at first I repeated it a time or two because I thought it was cute, but then it sorta crawled into my lexicon and got stuck.

Interesting that that one doesn't bother me so much. I guess because it's primarily a natural conclusion reached by people for whom English is a difficult challenge, and they've learned that, in English, most plurals are created by adding an "s" to the singular. So "shrimps" makes sense. At least they're trying.

The "broo-SHETTA" thing in the US, though, puzzles me. I mean, we manage to get right that hard Italian "ch" in so many other words: mocha, zucchini, gnocchi, Chianti, just to name a few.

How did bruschetta get so screwed up?

ETA: And none of this pronunciation thing bothers me so much as the abuse of the apostrophe. Just a few days ago, I was reading a menu that listed the various categories: Appetizers, Soups, Salads, etc.

And then it got to: Steak's.

Speaking of the possessive, which we suddenly are, what on Earth could have possessed them to inexplicably throw in that apostrophe when they hadn't talked about "Appetizer's, Soup's, Salad's"?

And one of the "Steak's" was "served in it's own juice."

Nobody's perfect, and the exact rules of grammar can be argued endlessly by scholars, but really, how hard is it to distinguish between "it's" and "its"? I posit that it's not difficult at all. One is a contraction. So, would they have meant the above to read, as it properly would, "served in it is own juice"? Of course not.

This menu looked to be professionally printed. Couldn't someone somewhere along the line do a little proofreading? If the owner/manager/whomever isn't really good with grammar and punctuation, is it asking too much to have someone else read it over before investing your money in a final product that would be difficult and expensive to change?

Hardly Earth-shattering issues. Minor irritants. Minor, but just irritating enough to keep us all chattering.

Right?

And so interesting that one person's complaint-worthy irritant is always somebody else's no big deal.

I think bruschetta got so woefully mispronounced thanks to the s and c in Italian being a sh, and maybe an unconscious influence from German where the sch is also a sh.

As for the apostrophe plurals, almost nothing drives me more crazy, especially when it's inconsistent!

[ruthcooks]

Re: the apostrophe thing...
The worst case I've seen was right here on eG: pea's

[Jaymes]

Re: the apostrophe thing...
The worst case I've seen was right here on eG: pea's

That's pretty egregious, all right. And kind of funny for some reason.

But I give folks on eG a pass. We have people posting here from all over the world and, for many, English is a second language. I'd hate to miss out on a great recipe for ceviche or stifado or harissa or something because someone was uncertain about their limited English skills and was afraid to post.

For that matter, even a native English speaker with a limited education might be able to whip up a sublime Grits & Red Eye Gravy and be happy to tell me how to do it but be hesitant to post because of embarrassment regarding his or her language skills.

But a mistake that egregious on a printed menu in the US? Sorry, no pass.

That's inexcusable.

And, back to the hard Italian "ch" in bruschetta and our collective failure to get it right...

I thought of another Italian "ch" word that we've all been pronouncing correctly since childhood.

Pinocchio.

Edited by Jaymes, 14 April 2012 - 08:43 AM.

[Karri]

I am working in Spain at the moment, and we serve quite a bit of Carpaccio. Now the Spaniards here don't pronounce it in the italian way, but as "carpassio". As you would in Spanish. Regional variants...

Panaderia Canadiense, do people really speak Castellano in South America?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I am working in Spain at the moment, and we serve quite a bit of Carpaccio. Now the Spaniards here don't pronounce it in the italian way, but as "carpassio". As you would in Spanish. Regional variants...

Panaderia Canadiense, do people really speak Castellano in South America?

Sort of. The same way that Americans sort of speak English and Quebecois sort of speak French. (Which is why that's bracketed in my earlier post.) What South Americans speak is sort of a somewhat corrupted form of Castellano from about 100 years before the distinción (soft C pronounced as TH) was introduced to the language. Hence, while somebody from Castille would say "thervesa" we say "servesa" for cerveza (the first example of the distinción that occurs to me at this late hour), and the words casa and caza are homophones. This is particularly evident in the Ecuadorian province of Loja, where the language has been preserved almost exactly as the conquistadores are thought to have spoken it - the Real Academia has actually done studies on this.

In addition to the ceceo, most forms of Latin American Castellano also incorporate words from the precolumbian languages of their areas; hence, Ecuadorian Castellano is distinct from, say, Colombian in that Ecuadorian includes a great number of Quichua and Shuara words into the general lexicon, while Colombian tends more towards Muisca and Tairona words, and the Peruvian and Bolivian Castellano that also include Quichua will include different words from those of Ecuador, simply because the Quichua spoken in Peru and Bolivia is quite different from that spoken in Ecuador. And so on.

If that's confusing, consider that only an Ecuadorian will use the word "Chuchaqui" to describe being hung over - the rest of Latin America uses "resacado." Also consider that in Ecuador and Colombia, an avocado is an Aguacate, while in Peru and Bolivia it's a Palta. Also consider the regional differences in the pronunciation of the letter LL - in some countries, most notably in Chile and Argentina, it's arrastrado (pronounced sort of like sh or zh), while in others, like Ecuador and parts of northern Peru, it's elido (pronounced l'y) and still others it's pronounced more like z (Colombia and Venezuela are like this). So, it's sort of Castellano. It's got the same grammar and structure, and shares a basic vocabulary. But really it has as much in common as Quebecois does to Parisian.

Oh, and it's also worth noting that Latin Americans make merciless fun of Spaniards for the perception of lisping that goes with the distinción. Nobody down here would be caught dead ordering a thervesa - it's considered to be a very effeminate way to speak and if you're a Latino man that's the last thing you want anybody to think of you....

ETA - and when it comes to Carpaccio, most Latin Americans will look at it and pronounce it "Carpaxio" with the x sound being closest to ks. Those who have a bit more culinary education will pronounce it "Carpachio" (and it's often spelt this way on menus in places that offer it.) The changed spelling is actually quite common with words that would have an awkward pronunciaiton otherwise - focaccia becomes focachia, etc.

Edited by Panaderia Canadiense, 14 April 2012 - 08:14 PM.