Entries tagged with 'language'
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"...donuts are too awesome to be accompanied by an 'ugh.'" —@thebookpolice...
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For newspaper reporters and editors, the Associated Press Stylebook is ... well ... if not the Bible, then Leviticus at least. It lays out all the rules and regulations that ink-stained wretches are supposed to follow when faced with sticky situations regarding spelling, grammar, and punctuation. While Serious Eats leans closer to the Chicago Manual of Style (go, serial comma!), I cut my teeth on AP and tend to pick up the latest version every couple of years. I'll definitely grab the 2009 edition, which has a few new food words in it, according to the AP Stylebook Twitter account. They include baba ghanoush, chipotle, Key lime, and Parmesan. [via @Atlantic_Food]...
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Congrats to Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas (my hometown, yay!) on her victory in the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee yesterday. Eat Me Daily has a list of food words from the spelling bee, including geusioleptic, blancmange, Neufchâtel, trattoria, sommelier, tagliatelle, fedelini, and perciatelli....
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By many definitions, a house doesn't have quite the cozy appeal as a home. House sweet house just doesn't have the same ring to it. But more menus are advertising "housemade" this or that, instead of the generic homemade. As Newsweek points out, the artisanal adjective has yet to appear in Merriam-Webster (so technically, it should be house-made until baptized a real word), but homemade will no longer suffice. "The word has lost its meaning," said Brian Bistrong of Braeburn in Manhattan, who argues that it sounds either amateurish (Aunt Edna's homemade pie) or hokey (Chevy's homemade ranch dressing). "Housemade has more cachet," he says. When you read "housemade" does it fill you with rustic backyard porch warmth and...
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Stephen Richter/insatiablecritic.com Foodie is a loaded word. Every few months someone starts a Talk topic here on Serious Eats to grouse about it (here, here, and here, for starters). I'm ambivalent about it, finding it useful at times when you've exhausted all other synonyms. If you're wondering whom to thank or blame for its coinage, look no further. According to etymologist Barry Popik, former New York magazine food critic Gael Greene appears to have used it in print first in 1980: Gael Greene of New York magazine used the word “foodie” in a story on June 2, 1980, and then used “foodie” several times in 1982 and 1983. There were several London-based citations of “foodie” in 1982 and 1983....
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Photograph from katebornstein Your favorite cheese snack multiplied by your favorite nerdy wordy board game. Kellogg launched Cheez-It Scrabble Junior in January, and it's supposedly hitting shelves nationally. No clue why it refers to the munchkin version of the game, but it's still a good day to be a wordsmith with the munchies. [via Endless Simmer] Related Sudoku Pizza Do You Use Food-Related Words When You Scrabble? [Talk] Chocolate Scrabble...
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©iStockPhoto.com/kzenon The Splendid Table, the national food show produced and distributed by American Public Media, has launched a “Gastrosexual of the Month” contest. According to Urban Dictionary, a gastrosexual "may often dress like a metrosexual, and isn't afraid to explore his artistic side and even feminine side through cooking." It makes sense that a lot of girls would be into that. The guy is so confident in his manliness, he doesn't care about the frilly apron-wearing stereotypes. According to a study performed by the food company PurAsia, 48% of those surveyed said slick cooking skills make a person more attractive, and 23% of men aged 18 to 34 years said they cook to potentially seduce a partner. Alright, gastrosexuals....
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Seattle-based blogger Jessie Oleson of CakeSpy planned a menu of sweets for Foodbuzz's 24, 24, 24 event, and like a good Seattleite, she got music involved. Some examples: James Brownies, Red Velvet Underground Cake, and Rolling Scones. Every punster is just dying right now. These really are too good. Recipes are included for each. Related How to Make Fake Cupcakes Cupcakes inspired by Cakespy Art [Photograzing] Lettuce Eat at Pun Restaurants Only...
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The word "butyraceous" has not appeared on Serious Eats...until now. I first saw this word last weekend while playing Cranium with some friends—it's probably the only new thing I learned from the game. My friend and I guessed the correct definition: "like butter." God knows comparisons to butter frequently come up on Serious Eats and in my daily conversations (really, it does); I ought to use this word more often. As should you. Related Food-Related Fake Words in 'Addictionary' New to the Serious Eats Lexicon: 'hautenuts' New Food Words in Latest Merriam-Webster's Dictionary Update...
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How timely. We were just arguing in the office yesterday about the word restaurateur and that "doesn't it have an n in it?" Dave Cook of Eating in Translation must have read our minds, as he posted a link to an explanation of where the n went: Restaurateur is the noun created from the verb restaurer by replacing the -er ending of the verb with the -ateur ending for for a man (its female equivalent, restauratrice, only appeared in 1767) who carries out the action. Hence, no n. At first, he was an artisan who restored or repaired objects. In the seventeenth century, he was an assistant who set broken bones for a surgeon. In the 1770s he became...
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