Chinese Menu Malapropisms

[Gary Soup]

Following the theme of what you don't like seeing on a menu---- how about the word 'fresh'?

When I see 'fresh creamery butter' or 'fresh dairy milk' ---'fresh eggs' ---'fresh garden vegetables' , etc. I just laugh. These are just words, I know, but it annoys the heck out of me.

Kind of like those motels that advertise "Clean Rooms" on their signs.....

[Shiewie]

Pignuts anyone?

A friend bought them from her local market - it seems they're pretty tasty. I haven't opened the packet yet though.

[Gary Soup]

Not so much a malapropism as a euphemism:

I found a brand of Sichuan hot-pot soup base which has as its first-listed ingredient "Cattle Oil".

I didn't buy that one.

[Pan]

Cattle oil = tallow, I guess.

[BettyK]

Pignuts anyone?       

A friend bought them from her local market - it seems they're pretty tasty. I haven't opened the packet yet though.

Hope they aren't bitter

pignut (noun) -

1. an American hickory tree having bitter nuts

Synonyms: pignut hickory, brown hickory, black hickory, Carya glabra

[Katherine]

Pignuts anyone?       

A friend bought them from her local market - it seems they're pretty tasty. I haven't opened the packet yet though.

Hope they aren't bitter

pignut (noun) -

1. an American hickory tree having bitter nuts

Synonyms: pignut hickory, brown hickory, black hickory, Carya glabra

From the illustration on the package, you can see that they're peanuts.

Seriously, I once saw a package of dumplings in my Asian grocer freezer case labeled "wheat paste starch lump". Bad marketing move. Didn't buy it.

[BettyK]

From the illustration on the package, you can see that they're peanuts.

No doubt about that.

[Suzanne F]

In spite of this thread having engendered some bad feelings I had to bring it back because I recently found under my door a menu offering

Available Lunch Sushi . . . . . . . . . . Seasoning Price

A quick perusal turns up no other typos, so does this mean the sushi is free, but the soy sauce costs?

[ruthcooks]

Once I got a fortune cookie with this legend:

"You will have very good luck."

Unfortunately, the paper had a background of Chinese characters in almost the same color ink--one errant character stuck out of the third and last "l" making it look like an "f".

[Singapore]

is that on Buford Hwy by any chance? now i'm going to have to visit the place and see what the bothered chicken tastes like.

On Clairemont Rd. in Decatur.

I was in a brew pub in Shanghai back in 2000. My brother in law worked there, and the pub's owner, knowing I was a Chinese American, brought me her four page menu and asked me to correct any errors. I think I gave up at 148 spelling errors (Pissner instead of Pilsner, for example), and wound up spending an hour or two rewriting the entire thing.

Got free beer for the night, tho.

Edited June 21, 2004 by Singapore (log)

[Dignan]

There's a local sportsbar type joint here in Houston that has a menu with quite a few misspellings that would have yielded quickly to a spell check. The waitress shared an anecdote with me about one of them.

One item offered is a loaded baked potato with the usual toppings - sour cream, butter, bacon bits, etc. But when they got these new menus in, the cooks started stacking olives on top of the potato. It happened a few times before someone investigated, apparently, but it was eventually determined that the menu included "Clives" as one of the potato toppings rather than the rather more pedestrian "Chives." Because of the font, the cooks had read it to read "Olives" (squint your eyes a little bit and the "Clives" even looks like "Olives" on this page, and what the hell is a "Clive" anyway?) and adjusted their preparation accordingly.

[Pan]

Did the olives taste good in that context?

[Dignan]

Didn't get to try it, so I can't comment personally. The waitress raised the olive question once it was raised, because she just thought it was peculiar. And they returned to the intended "chives."

[Laksa]

but it was eventually determined that the menu included "Clives" as one of the potato toppings rather than the rather more pedestrian "Chives."

Am I the only one here who likes Englishmen as a potato topping? Put a few Clives on me spuds, guvner! chop! chop!

[Gary Soup]

Only tangentially related, but you cand find an amusing account on this blog which will explain what 芝士士的巻 means if you find it on your menu in Philadelphia.

There's even a picture for un-believers.

[petite tête de chou]

Chinese restaurant in Portland, Oregon "Hung Far Low." As a little girl I was very curious to know what they served there.

[liuzhou]

A selection from some of the restaurants here in south-west China.

"Live oyster that carbon roasts"

"Bake the French spiral shell"

"Fresh shrimps crab flirtatious salad"

"The bone marrow thick soup of ox of raw oyster"

and my all time favourite

"Shims vegetables salad of cigarette"

[liuzhou]

Gary Soup

re: Chinese Philadelpia

The picture may be interesting, but the article itself is nonsense.

The writer says that if you read the Chinese in Cantonese, then it must be Cantonese! Circular logic!

If you read it in Mandarin it is zhi shi shi de.

The 'translation" he gives is also wide of the mark. The first character does not mean grass or lawn. The only translation I know of for the character in isolation is a type of fungus! The second and third are better translated as 'priest' and the fourth is a grammatical particle which can't really be translated but is similar to the -'s- ending in English which gives the possessive.

He claims Cantonese as the real Chinese! Cantonese is spoken by about 4.5% of Chinese, as opposed to Mandarin which is spoken by 70%

About the only thing he gets right is that it is a phonetic transcription.

It originated in Taiwan.

[markk]

In the 80's I worked with a guy who told me that there is NO Chinese menu in America that doesn't have a typo. It wasn't a derogatory comment, just an observation of his, and collecting menus to find the typos was his hobby - he'd go into every restaurant he passed, and never had found one that was clean.

At that time I looked at the menu from a very upscale place near me, and sure enough, one of the appetizers was "Hadded Chicken", which turned out to be "hacked". And 20 years later, I realize he was right.

But this isn't limited to Chinese restaurants by any means. I used to stay in hotel in Italy whose owner prided himself on his English, and whose beautiful color brochure stated, "The hotel is located in the most panoramic and spot." Years later when they got (presumably) the first frigo-bars in Italy, the slips on the foods said, "Please handle this slip to the concierge upon your demise."

When I travel, I speak to people in several foreign languages, and I e-mail as well in French and Italian. I am sure that I have given many side-spittting moments myself to the speakers of those languages.

[Gary Soup]

The writer says that if you read the Chinese in Cantonese, then it must be Cantonese! Circular logic!

I think his point was that if pronounced as a Cantonese would render the characters, it sounds a lot more like "cheese steak" than if a Mandarin speaker read the words aloud.

He claims Cantonese as the real Chinese! Cantonese is spoken by about 4.5% of Chinese, as opposed to Mandarin which is spoken by 70%

I agree, that was a ridiculous assertion. In my household we know that the real Chinese is Shanghainese

He reminded me of a "Gamblers' Special" bus trip I one took from San Francisco Chinatown to Reno. The tour guide would periodically get up and address the group in Mandarin, though some of the older members only understood Cantonese. Finally, one younger man who understood both admonished him:

"This is America. You should learn a little Cantonese!"

It originated in Taiwan.

Philadelphia Cheese Steak originated in Taiwan?

[Gary Soup]

In the 80's I worked with a guy who told me that there is NO Chinese menu in America that doesn't have a typo.  It wasn't a derogatory comment, just an observation of his, and collecting menus to find the typos was his hobby - he'd go into every restaurant he passed, and never had found one that was clean.

There's a Shanghainese delicacy (hong shao tipang) found on Chinese restaurant menus all over the Los Angeles area as "Pork Pump" in English. It started as a typo for "pork rump" on a single restaurant's menu. The dish caught on (who doesn't like a rich, fatty dish?) and so did the name, and it became widely copied.

But then, my late Uncle Walter used to often remark, "Many people can spell and many people can paint signs, but very few people can do both."

[esperanza]

My all-time favorite fortune cookie fortune--it's been 20 years and I still have the little strip of paper--reads "Guide yourself accordingly".

You betcha.

[Mabelline]

My almost favorite was going into a decidedly redneck place in Atlanta, and a sign in the restroom cautioning me to "Not flush tarpons in the toilet."

[naguere]

In a large emporium named 'CHina Products' in Hong Kong I turned over the contents of a freezer compartment, there , frosty and large was a bundle marked 'Bears Trotter' and that's what it was. Claws and alll

[Yuki]

He reminded me of a "Gamblers' Special" bus trip I one took from San Francisco Chinatown to Reno. The tour guide would periodically get up and address the group in Mandarin, though some of the older members only understood Cantonese. Finally, one younger man who understood both admonished him:

My driver safety class was taught in 3 languages at once.(English, Mandarin, and Cantonese) I always assumed that people that know Cantonese would understand Mandarin and vice versa. I can not speak Mandarin but hearing is no problem.