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addict
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addict
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pie a la mode for dessert
I am not trying to turn this into a food thread, HONEST. I know the phrase "a la mode" means "with ice-cream" in US, but why? Does the phrase have that meaning in other English speaking nations?
Rod
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Here's another set of words for the same thing: in our living room we have a couch, also called a sofa, or what my father would have called a davenport. There is also the recliner, but that's not quite the same thing.The very Canadian word for couch is chesterfield. Also, if you say couch, it has the Candian pronunciation of the 'ou' dipthong, that is, uh-oo instead of aah-oo! (Think Scottish accent.) We don't use "sofa" much. To Rod: I think we understand that "a la mode" is "with ice cream" but you only see it on menus. I would just say, pie and ice cream. Yum. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
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I can remember very vividly as an eight year old being told I must ask for "apple pie ala mode" to get my pie with ice cream on it. The serving person ignored my request for " apple pie with ice cream." Evidently snobs were so proud of knowing the French phrase that they ignored peasants who did not. My guess is that the phrase was intended to mean " in the fashionable manner ".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And there I was, imagining a pie shot full of holes by Mexicans... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear maverick: It took me just long enough to get that contrived pun, that I almost wished you had been riddled at the Alamo.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Dr. Bill  . I *had been blissfully unaware of what mav had been driving at.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
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I also have often wondered where the expression came from. When I first learned French, the question arose, pie a la mode de quoi? In the case of, e.g., tripes a la mode de Caen (tripe, Caen-style) you know what is what, but we don't know what style the ice cream is. I think your supposition is correct.
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veteran
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veteran
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Besides the sofa, there is also the smaller version known as a love seat, or settee (old fashioned term here). Thanks to one of my wife's strange notions of interior decoration we were, at one time, the only people I ever heard of who had a living room with a sofa and a love seat but no chairs.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Allegedly-- Ice cream-- is an american dessert-- there have been "cool" or Iced desserts going back to antiquity-- but none other than Dolly Madison is said to have "introduced" ice cream to the world-- and putting ice cream on pie was the "all american dessert" (so the missing word is a la mode american.) This, while the US government was still in Philadelphia. Philadelphia style ice cream is a custard (cream and milk* cooked with egg till it thickens, and then instead of being baked--it is chilled and frozen.) Most ice cream today does not have this "custard' base. (*more cream than milk in the mixture)
and thanks Bob for spigot-- i was beginning to think i was the only one who had ever used the word! I would say SPIG (like pig)ott.
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