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#68547 05/08/2002 1:03 PM
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curious-- i use both whole wheat and brown bread..

Whole wheat is store/bakery bread. brown bread is home made-- and for me, most often a quick bread--whole grain (wheat and oats) irish soda bread.

but every once in a while, i will buy a can of New England style brown bread-- which is a steamed bread. at home, you put the batter into a can, cover it, and put the can(a coffee can is about the right size) in steam to cook. the bread is moist, and dark (almost like a plum pudding--but not quite)
commercially, its sold in cans..(but smaller cans) and you reheat it, in the can, (steam it again!) and then uncan and slice.

NE brown bread is whole wheat, corn(maize) and molasses bread. it often has raisins, too, and some spices, (ginger) but it's not sweet, or cake like.


#68548 05/08/2002 1:42 PM
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To an "average" Canadian (not meaning any slight to any who disagree), "brown" bread is what USns probably call "whole wheat" bread. (Yes, that's what it says on the bag, but my mom always calls it brown.) Nothing special, not in a can, home made quick bread, just whole wheat bread, whether store bought or not. It is the word used when taking an order in a restaurant: "Do you want that on white or brown bread?"

Now, another oddity: I've noticed we usually spell "mom" the USn way, but you don't usually hear it pronounced that way. I say "mum".


#68549 05/08/2002 3:30 PM
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NE brown bread, the kind of troy describes, was a tradition chez nous, usually the home-made variety. Served only at Saturday night supper (never called dinner) along with home-baked beans and cole slaw. Oooh! It's making me hungry.


#68550 05/08/2002 3:40 PM
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i think we did dinner vs. supper.so this might be a yart.. so what!

dinner is the main meal of the day.. in the country, it is often the midday meal, but for city workers, it is often the evening or last meal.

supper is the evening meal (and lunch is midday meal)

so you can have your dinner at lunch or at supper..


#68551 05/08/2002 3:46 PM
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lunch is midday meal)

Oh yeah? When I was at boarding school*, lunch was a bedtime snack. How's THAT for confusing?

*run by Catholic nuns of German heritage


#68552 05/08/2002 5:24 PM
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Valet: pr val’it (and conversely Dr Bill, would you ever hear of a car vallaying service? – certainly not on this side of the pond I think!)

Fillet: pr fill’it (as already noted, a fish would never be described as other than fill’it’id)


I disagree on all counts.

I say val-lay, and it's a val-lay service, no -ing about it.
I say fil-lay, and a fish upon whom said operation has been carried out has been fil-lay'd. But I'd be in a bit of a fix if I had to actually spell that last one, in the formal writing-stuff-down-on-paper sense.

I'm from New England, but live in California, and I have even pronounced it this way when I've been in other countries, so this pronunciation must apply there too.


#68553 05/08/2002 6:53 PM
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I'm with Bingley, with one addition.

In picture framing, there is a thin ornamental strip that is often placed on the inside edge of matting or the frame itself called a fillet. Fill + et. However, I may be the only one who thinks "et" when I pronounce "et".


#68554 05/08/2002 11:59 PM
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That's the word!!



TEd
#68555 05/09/2002 1:36 AM
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I say "mum"
That's the word!!

Aw-ww, Ted, ya done gone and TOLD everybody!




#68556 05/09/2002 10:36 AM
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so you can have your dinner at lunch or at supper..
__________________________________________

you can confuse this one still further as in some parts of the UK (mostly northern) your supper/dinner would be referred to as 'tea'.

When I was at prep school (under 13) this was taken a step further because you had 'low tea' (afternoon tea) and 'high tea' (evening meal).




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Alrighty then.......so why is "ballet" universally "bal-ay"?

It's looking to me that Rafferty's Rules apply to this whole question.....

In Oz we eat "fillay minyon" in flash restaurants, but we "fil-et" the fish we catch. The few of us that are inclined to do so attend the "bal-ay". A batman in private service is known as a "val-ay" - just like the guy from the "val-aying" company that cleans your car.

Seems that only resident Poms and their near neighbours use "val-et" for the latter.

stales


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I was surprised the first time I heard someone pronounce ballet with the emphasis on the first syllable instead of the second (and she was a ballet dancer!). My ear has since learned to accept either pronunciation.


#68559 05/09/2002 1:32 PM
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I have to listen very carefully when Brits say "ballet." It can easily be mistaken for "belly" to my ear, and more than once I've been startled to learn about a "bellydancer" doing Swan Lake.


#68560 05/09/2002 3:12 PM
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How do you-all pronounce FLAN (the fruit/custard tart)?

Well here in SA we would say "flan" for the fruity dessert. I might say "flahn" to refer to the Spanish dessert (what most English speakers call creme caramel) but even that is bordering on the pretentious. Maybe your waitron (cringe) had heard someone speak of the latter and assumed that it was the sophisticated pronunciation of the former.

It is my experience that people waiting tables (especially in SA where it is not seen as a real job) are pathetically clueless about food and certainly not up to the challenges of the words on their menus.


#68561 05/09/2002 3:50 PM
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Perhaps we could hear from more non-USns?

I can't talk for the whole of South Africa but I certainly say "fillet". I would certainly never dream of saying "the fish should be fill-ay-ed before cooking" or "fill-ay-s of plaice".

But I am by no means in the majority. Waiters and I are engaged in a battle over this with neither side prepared to yield. The waiter will inform me that the special is "fill-ay in a pepper sauce" and I will obstinately and pointedly refer to the "fillet" even though I have no intention of ordering it.

In the SA context I think "fill-ay" is a case of misguided pretentiousness which actually exposes the speaker's lack of knowledge. Remembering that a large proportion of our population do not speak English (or the local variant!) as a first language and that there is a certain cachet (yes, I do say "cash-ay") to being fluent in it, it is understandable that some people get seduced into what sounds like the posh way of saying something. Especially when they hear it on all the imported TV shows.

And, I also believe that one says "sorbet" and not "sorb-ay".

As you can imagine, when I leave a restaurant most waiters believe that I live up to my AWAD username. As, no doubt, will the vast majority of AWADtalkers!


#68562 05/09/2002 7:49 PM
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...a case of misguided pretentiousness

As opposed to the _______ pretensiousness?




#68563 05/09/2002 7:57 PM
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and more than once I've been startled to learn about a "bellydancer" doing Swan Lake.

It's great when they do it well. The control they have over their stomach muscles is tremendous. I saw one dancer, Nerina Farouk el Chaicoph Sheikh, do the entire dance of the cygnets by herself and that included playing the clarinet with her belly-button and the bassoon with her cleavage! You know, pom-pom, pom-pom, pom-pom ...

Mind-blowing, truly mind-blowing.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#68564 05/09/2002 8:10 PM
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I was always impressed by her use of the slide trombone. (What kind of a bone was that?)


Which reminds me of the two rubes who were watching a Sousa symphony and noticed the trombonist. One turned to the other and said, "It's gotta be a trick. He ain't really swallowin' that."



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#68565 05/09/2002 8:56 PM
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Well here in SA we would say "flan" for the fruity dessert. I might say "flahn" to refer to the Spanish dessert

The right way to say the name of the custard desert is "flahn" - I rarely hear it pronounced any other way, and it sounds goofy to me to say it with the flatter "a" sound - but I spend a lot of my time speaking and working in Spanish, where you just couldn't say it "flan" - so maybe my ear just automatically hears it that way - or maybe I need to add another hyphen+clause to this sentence - or maybe not.

But what is the fruity dessert of the same name? Never done heard talk of sich a t'ing.


#68566 05/10/2002 12:01 PM
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> there is a certain cachet (yes, I do say "cash-ay")

Delicious humour P!!

R


#68567 05/10/2002 4:09 PM
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I am British. I say val-et.
Be warned however, accents across Britain vary {red}enormously{red}, especially across the north south divide. As a rule, there is no standard pronounciation


#68568 05/10/2002 7:02 PM
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Welcome! if you check the FAQ (frequently ask questions) you can learn how to do real red-- mostly its just by use of square[ brackets ] -- but tell me are you dody's kin or dody- skin?
if the former, who is the dody, if the later what's a dody?



#68569 05/11/2002 12:23 PM
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Greetings Dodyskin - and thanks for the input.

Did you have a relative that had a big blue Mercedes that didn't quite make it through an underpass a few years ago? My commiserations if so.

stales


#68570 05/11/2002 3:34 PM
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>there is no standard pronounciation

nor, it would appear, is there a standard spelling.

(trivially speaking, of course ;)

#68571 05/11/2002 5:10 PM
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Can we do a "Pointless Poll" on this please?
Let me know where you are and what you say, vall-ett or vall-ay.


As long as a century ago, vall-ay was the pronunciation in the USA (or at least in the eastern USA). It appears in a poem of that time, and the pronunciation is necessary to the rhyme scheme.

Aside: the poem is humorous, punny TEd, you'll love it, and well worth the reading -- but unfortunately too long to post here and unavailable by link. I'll transcibe it elsewhere, and then provide a link.



#68572 06/15/2002 1:31 PM
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wofa said: Well, it looks so far as though the poll is heavily in favor of "fil-lay" over "fil-let". BUT it also looks as if the poll is all US, has but limited representation from "British-English" speakers ... Perhaps we could hear from more non-USns?

In searching for a quotation on another matter, I stumbled across something possibly relevant here. So forgive me for bringing up a somewhat stale thread.

Cranch's traslation of the Aeneid uses the word "fillet" and clearly is pronouncing it fill-it, to fit the iambic pentameter:

..................................and Discord wild
Her viper-locks with bloody fillets bound.

#68573 06/15/2002 2:15 PM
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sorry, quote of a quote, and i don't know who originally said, >there is no standard pronounciation

my american M-W10th says the general rule in US is, as piece of food or flesh(a, a fillet of fish, chicken), it usually fill-ay, but when use as noun for bookbinding, architecture, or as band to hold ones hair in place, or as a vt, to debone meat or fish, it is fill et.

while the poll here hasn't been 100% in agreement, it is in close agreement. i fill et a fish, to have fish fill ays, and to hold my hair out of the way during food preperation, i hold it back with a fill et.
(actually, i have never used the word fillet to describe a hair band, or ribbons woven into braids, but i knew the word, and would have read it aloud as fill et.


#68574 06/15/2002 10:35 PM
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Wait! you're going too fast! Can we go back a bit please?

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'sorb-et' - I've only ever heard 'sorb-ay', here in Aus... what do other people say?


#68575 06/15/2002 10:44 PM
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#68576 06/15/2002 11:01 PM
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This is something I've been dancing around for years, never sure. A LIU shows that there are two separate words, sherbet and sorbet, the former having the variant sherbert. Each traces back to the turkish word sherbet.

Says bartleby at http://www.bartleby.com/61/75/S0337500.html:
sherbet NOUN: 1. also sher·bert ... A frozen dessert [etc.]
... Sherbet came into English from Ottoman Turkish sherbet or Persian sharbat, ... Because the original Middle Eastern drink contained fruit and was often cooled with snow, sherbet was applied to a frozen dessert (first recorded in 1891). It is distinguished slightly from sorbet, which can also mean "a fruit-flavored ice served between courses of a meal." Sorbet ... goes back through French (sorbet) and then Italian (sorbetto) to the same Turkish sherbet that gave us sherbet.


PS: I'm hungry. Durn these food-discussions.

#68577 06/16/2002 12:04 AM
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"Shut up, shut up, I am working Cape Race."
- The Titanic, cutting off an ice warning the Californian was trying to send

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#68578 06/16/2002 12:17 AM
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point of information
the person know as Keiva, who recently posted on this thread, was banned, for flaming. he forced his way back into this forum by implied threats to Anu Garg, the founder of AWAD. this same person has also been know, for certain, to post under the names AphonicRants and KeivaCarpal.


#68579 06/16/2002 1:05 AM
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point of information:
The persons posting as of-troy and snoot have in the last several hours interrupted several threads with points which, however interesting, have nothing to to with the matters being discussed. They are interfering with ordinary discussion.

Of-troy's interruptions often return to a single theme. However, she does not seem to wish a coherent discussion thereof (she has not accepted milum's invitation); instead she simply interjects the same sour note to interrupt ongoing discussions.


#68580 06/16/2002 1:08 AM
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the person know as Keiva, who recently posted on this thread, was banned, for flaming. he forced his way back into this forum by implied threats to Anu Garg, the founder of AWAD. this same person has also been know, for certain, to post under the names AphonicRants and KeivaCarpal.


#68581 06/16/2002 1:25 AM
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Of-troy, your last post proves what I said in my previous one. You won't let anyone talk about anything else, will you? You're hogging the discussion, hijacking thread after thread.

#68582 06/16/2002 1:28 AM
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Keiva, go away. You are not welcome here.


#68583 06/16/2002 2:22 AM
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I know that sherbert (has anyone seen Austin Powers II? "here's your sherrrrrrrrrberrrrrrrrrt") is a dessert, but my preferred sherbert is a powder which fizzes in the mouth... or the lollies known as Sherbies... it's interesting, this progression of the word. There must at some stage have been some connection between the two, unless it was a spontaneous transferal of name...


#68584 06/16/2002 2:27 AM
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Let's not forget that sweet treat called "Italian Ice" in these parts. It's a consistency that is harder than sherbet, but not as hard as a "freezie pop" which itself is nothing more than colored and flavored sugar water.

I'm hungry!


#68585 06/16/2002 1:13 PM
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Go away, Keiva. You are not wanted here.

You raped my identity with your faux handle 'AphonicRants.'


#68586 06/16/2002 1:30 PM
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Dear Angel: your "Italian ices" reminded me of "spumoni" which does have some cream
in it,; and is sort of halfway between sherbert and ice cream. Delicious.


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