Restaurant/Bar Annoyances

[BarbaraY]

Spaghetti noodles!  

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Spaghetti are a variety of noodles, aren't they?

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Spaghetti is spaghetti and noodles are noodles.

[Pan]

Spaghetti noodles!  

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Spaghetti are a variety of noodles, aren't they?

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Spaghetti is spaghetti and noodles are noodles.

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Explain. Spaghetti are one of the varieties of pasta that are in a noodle shapes. I find "spaghetti noodles" redundant, but more or less in the same way I find "pumpernickel bread" redundant -- probably simply because I know what these things are in one word and don't need a more general term to follow. Spaghetti and linguine are two different types of noodles. Keep in mind, too, that Italian pasta is commonly used in non-Italian food, including Chinese noodle soups. Have you gone to Chou Zhou restaurants where you're asked if you want "rice noodles or spaghetti noodles"? Alright, I usually am asked "You want rice noodle or egg noodle?", but in neither case do I find the question in any way bothersome.

[jsolomon]

cafe au lait is half brewed coffee, half steamed milk

cafe latte is espresso with steamed milk

coffee with milk(hold the sugar) is exactly as it sounds

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What about black coffee? Something people can never figure out in Nebraska.

[ScorchedPalate]

A few weeks ago at one of Seattle's nicer new restaurants, the waiter very clearly informed my friends and me that the vegetables in a certain dish were prepared "al Dante" -- which made me wonder if they would be burned to a crisp or frozen solid....

~A

[jsolomon]

A few weeks ago at one of Seattle's nicer new restaurants, the waiter very clearly informed my friends and me that the vegetables in a certain dish were prepared "al Dante" -- which made me wonder if they would be burned to a crisp or frozen solid....

~A

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Nope, just damned...

[WhiteTruffleGirl]

One of my personal pet peeves is the pronounciation of aïoli. Most Americans pronounce it AOLI...it's proper pronounciation is IOLI...forgive my bad phonetic representation..

[cakewalk]

cafe au lait is half brewed coffee, half steamed milk

cafe latte is espresso with steamed milk

coffee with milk(hold the sugar) is exactly as it sounds

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What about black coffee? Something people can never figure out in Nebraska.

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A long time ago, I had a roommate from London. Her mother was visiting, and I was making coffee ("putting the kettle on") and asked if she'd like something to drink. She said she would love a cup of black tea. I had no idea what she was talking about. I thought it was a particular kind of tea, and said -I'm sorry, I don't think we have that, can I get you something else? She gave me this quizzical look, and then she understood the problem. -It's just regular tea without milk, she explained.

[jackal10]

Then there is Newts St George

Another confusion is "a wee dram of whisky" Dram means a small whisky..

[Milagai]

Ten years ago if you walked into a restaurant in the States and asked for a cup of chai, no one would have known what the hell you were talking about altogether. So now English has added a new word to its vernacular. Its meaning in English is less specific than its original meaning. That's because English is a different language than Hindi (assuming Hindi as the original language, I'm not sure about that so please correct me if I'm wrong.) It would be wrong in India. It is correct in the U.S. So we've created something new. Language lives. Long live language. Now say that ten times fast. 

Edit: misplaced apostrophe. Wrong thread for that.

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As for cultural appropriation, what is wrong with it? That is a big part of what we do around here. As a melting pot culture we find things we like, perhaps adapt them a bit to suit local tastes, and run with it. So maybe some words get changed, some ingredients shift, and the methods of preparation aren't authentic, who cares? The authentic stuff lives on where it originally came from, and we can enjoy our adopted and adapted version. If you want to order authentic masala chai I am sure there are a number of Indian restaurants in the US and even more in India and other points around the world where you can do so. Copying and playing with a concept doesn't diminish the original in any way, it adds to it by exposing more people to it. Calling it chai instead of just 'spiced tea' or 'Indian spiced tea' is a nod of respect to the original dish.

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well, you can dress the pig up and put lipstick on it, but it's still

what it is

i highly doubt that most consumers of "chai" (i.e. masala chai)

are paying any respect, nodding or otherwise, to the original concept.

that may be what a few elevated egulleters do....

on the part of most people it's still the product of unawareness....

as most of the posts on this thread suggest re other words...

and re cultural appropriation and language

evolution, it would carry more weight if allowed to work

both ways - i.e. if indian or caribbean english evolutions (e.g)

were accorded the same respect as north american varieties.....

milagai

ps: i better stop now before i drift even more off food...

[therese]

A long time ago, I had a roommate from London. Her mother was visiting, and I was making coffee ("putting the kettle on") and asked if she'd like something to drink. She said she would love a cup of black tea. I had no idea what she was talking about. I thought it was a particular kind of tea, and said -I'm sorry, I don't think we have that, can I get you something else? She gave me this quizzical look, and then she understood the problem. -It's just regular tea without milk, she explained. 

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Another interesting possible point of confusion, as I'd have assumed that somebody asking for black tea was specifying that she wanted neither green nor herbal tea, not that she wanted it without milk.

[cakewalk]

A long time ago, I had a roommate from London. Her mother was visiting, and I was making coffee ("putting the kettle on") and asked if she'd like something to drink. She said she would love a cup of black tea. I had no idea what she was talking about. I thought it was a particular kind of tea, and said -I'm sorry, I don't think we have that, can I get you something else? She gave me this quizzical look, and then she understood the problem. -It's just regular tea without milk, she explained. 

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Another interesting possible point of confusion, as I'd have assumed that somebody asking for black tea was specifying that she wanted neither green nor herbal tea, not that she wanted it without milk.

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I guess everything depends on where you're from (and when you're from it!) Most Americans wouldn't even consider "black tea" as being parallel to "black coffee," because we generally don't put milk in tea. In fact, since the Boston Tea Party, tea has sort of steadily lost favor (not to mention flavor) in these here parts altogether. The whole thing is interesting. Green tea and herbal tea refer to types of teas. Black tea refers basically to the style in which it is consumed, not the type of tea it is (which is a given -- "regular" tea.) Me, I'd rather have coffee.

[JayBassin]

What about "Boston Cream Pie"? It's not from Boston (not if I make it), has no cream (milk maybe), and it's not a pie.

[Almass]

I think it is good to bring back to the top afn33282 post who nails it on the head.

Now, if the menu is entirely in the foreign language perhaps it is different, but when it is just an add on to an english language menu item, whats the big deal?

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Well, my generally incoherent thoughts on this are as follows:

Words are nothing but tools. This idea behind this thread was not the romantization or beauty of words, which you can usually enjoy in an appropriate context. It has more to do with clean versus sloppy thinking to me. There are those who prefer working in a chaotic environment. They might let their dishes pile up when they cook, and then clean it all at the end of the night, or more likely or often, get somebody else to do it for them. (Though I am sure you are a true dish dog [a complement, where I am from], NulloModo). Not me. I prefer to clean as I go--keeping my tools clean, and I prefer to use my tools well, as they were designed to be used. Sure, you can use the butt of your Wusthof as a pestle, but me, I'll get the pestle out of the drawer. This subject at hand has less to do for me with using a French word as the French would use it because, well oooh, how French of me, but because I get a particular, if grim, joy out of precision in application of technique, and out of efficiency. Why make up another prononciation when there is already a perfectly good one? To me, somebody who says they want their French Dip "with au jus," is either a) ignorant of the word's original origin, meaning, or usage (most likely), or b) intimidated by the idea of using a foreign word and is responding to an instinct to Americanize it, or c) plain lazy. I think the reastaurant manager (a dubious category if I ever heard of one) who boasted about his chef's "verblanc" probably has never picked up a book on French cooking, but was jazzed by the idea of being associated with French food somehow. That to me is laziness combined with ignorance.

When one misuses words taken from another language, it also shows I think just a bit of disrespect for the language that gave us the word in the first place. Now I am no linguist, but I suspect that either we borrowed it because we didn't have an acceptable substitute in the first place, or the word came in organically through cultural mixing, or the foreign word just sounded so much cooler than ours did. Misusing the term I think lends to a sort of cultural isolationism for which we Americans are often reviled. I like the idea of paying a bit of respect to the language from which the word came by using it correctly. It makes me feel mindful of the influence that that particular culture contributed to my vocabulary and what it contributed to the subject at hand. I enjoy the concommitant feelings of gratitude and connectedness to that culture, in such a case, not because I want to sound or be French, but because I like the idea of different cultures/cuisines being linked in many ways and contributing to each other.

I do believe that once a word's usage has become firmly entrenched, it is often a waste of energy to struggle against the common tide. My mother has constantly reminded me since my childhood that the proper prononciation of forte is "fort," but as 99% of the people I have ever met say "for-TAY," and I am really not interested in getting in a discussion on prononciation with 99% of the people I meet I don't bother to say anything. At this point, too, "for-TAY" has been so much accepted, that nothing I or any number of "grammar nazis" say is going to change much. See the following entry for forte at Webster's Online for some enlightening commentary. I have long heard that a new word often gains permanent credibility when it is used in a publication such as the New York Times. Perhaps an editorial in the Times or some other similar media source might change the direction of things with regards to the usage of any give word, but it would take a true wordsmith with uncanny powers of argument and a knack for the popular voice to really start any momentum, I think. What I am saying is that past a certain point there is often no going back. Also, you have to choose your battles, and forte is a word that is so seldom used that its fate doesn't matter too much to me.

On the other hand, when one becomes personally invested in any realm of human endeavor to a certain degree, one often begins to appreciate specificity. Describing something accurately is part of appreciating it well, and the further you wade into a subject and the broader and deeper and more complex it becomes in your sights, the greater the need for explicit and exact terms to sort out all the phenomina that you are presented with. The better your word for something, the better you can think about it, I say, and the better you can engage in what the word refers to. I generally regard eGullet as a community of such dedicated folks, who care about perpetuating and advancing the notion of integrity in all things culinary. I mean, goodness' sake, they made me write an essay to get on here! If there were ever a community which would be interested in promoting quality of thought when it comes to food, it might be something like this one. And part of high quality thinking is living by high standards when it comes to expression. While it may be a waste of time to expect everybody to go around correcting perfect strangers on their use of "au jus," I think people like us are perfect canidates for standing against this rising wave of ignorance that will likely add one more element of ambiguity in the already often unclear realm of communication. I mean, I don't care enough about politics (sheepish grin) to get into it with anybody on who our next presidential canidates should be. My supply of resources is not great enough and personal scope of interests is not wide enough to devote myself to complete rigor and richness of knowledge in all subjects. But I care about food, and as best I can I will try to be an example of clarity in expression and faithfulness to meaning when it comes to discussing it.

After all this, I must concede that every language has its own rythms and often-unconciously-felt natural aesthetic lines. It is no surprise to me that words morph when they have been in the context of a different language's aethetic for long enough. I think that it is part of the give-and-take involved in the growth of any culture. I think, though, that it is more on the "take" side. The "give" side has to do with, I would say, staying connected to the history of the features of any given culture, and that includes its terminology.

Chris, word nazi, who had to look up how to spell "rhythm."

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[cakewalk]

I think it is good to bring back to the top afn33282 post who nails it on the head.

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Actually the expression is, "hits the nail on the head." But I guess that's for another website altogether. (By the way, I think he misses. The nail, that is.)

[kellycolorado]

Well... maybe except if you were in the San Francisco bay area for sure. I was introduced to it here about 10 years ago from a girlfriend who went to UC Santa Cruz and I had no idea it wasn't available elsewhere. (It was often made a concentrate from a small company in Santa Cruz and available at several coffee shops or sold with spices and black tea separately packaged as a "mix" at Whole Foods market). And at Indian restaurants of course.

-Kelly

Ten years ago if you walked into a restaurant in the States and asked for a cup of chai, no one would have known what the hell you were talking about altogether.

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[Almass]

I think it is good to bring back to the top afn33282 post who nails it on the head.

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Actually the expression is, "hits the nail on the head." But I guess that's for another website altogether. (By the way, I think he misses. The nail, that is.)

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LoL, of course, it is: hits the nail on the head.

[bleachboy]

How about "cheese quesadilla"?

or "Beef carne asada"?

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I especially love this in the Taco Bell advertisements that refer to it as "all-beef carne asada steak"!

[ruthcooks]

Are you going to have a little "hamburger meat" with those "spaghetti noodles"? Redundant in both cases.

I don't like what Americans do to foreign words (crepes, au jus, scones, bruschetta), but find I'm much less likely to be judgmental if I learn the correct pronunciation after I've been accustomed to the bastard version.

[*Deborah*]

Are you going to have a little "hamburger meat" with those "spaghetti noodles"?  Redundant in both cases.

I don't like what Americans do to foreign words (crepes, au jus, scones, bruschetta), but find I'm much less likely to be judgmental if I learn the correct pronunciation after I've been accustomed to the bastard version.

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"Hamburger meat" is ground beef, no? whereas "a Hamburger" is a ground beef patty, usually served in a bun...or a chap from Hamburg, of course.

This *is* the place to quibble...

[afn33282]

"Hamburger meat" is ground beef, no? whereas "a Hamburger" is a ground beef patty, usually served in a bun...or a chap from Hamburg, of course.

This *is* the place to quibble...

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Good girl. I was scratching my head on this one. Thanks for bringing us back to earth. And yes it is that place, thank God.

Edited July 4, 2005 by afn33282 (log)

[Stigand]

Perhaps more of a typo than a malapropism, but today's menu at St John Bread and Wine features

Braised Rabbi, Onion & Bacon

I guess this is about as treif as a dish can be.

[M.X.Hassett]

Ok, to start with it is WAGYU not Kobe beef in the US, unless you know of someone getting smuggled blackmarket Kobe(let me know ). I see this at nine out of ten rest. am I a snob for letting this bother me?

Also Ahi Tuna is redundent if it is bigeye or yellowfin it is AHI, when you say "ahi tuna" you are saying "tuna tuna" so do not do it unless you are going for a cute Little Ceasers "Pizza!, Pizza!" style ad.

Hate to break it to you but Uni is not roe.

There are plenty of others out there, I just can not think of them right now(starting to turn red).

So what are your pet peeves when it comes to misnamed, redundent, misused words(just because there is soy s. in it does not make it "Asian"), etc... related to food and restaurants.

[KatieLoeb]

Wouldn't Toro Tuna be equally redundant?

[kitchenmage]

not to mention the ubiquitous tuna fish! as differentiated from the tuna-cat, which should not be confused with the cat-fish...

[SuzySushi]

Also pizza pie...