For tonight's supper, I attempted to reproduce a Thai dish which I enjoyed in a local restaurant. On the English language menu, it is called "Heavenly Beef." I have no idea what its Thai name might be. The sauce relies heavily (and expensively) on the ground spice cardamon. The powder is made from the dried seeds of Elettaria cardamomum. So why isn't the spice called "cardamom" instead of cardamon? I think, in some parts of the world, it IS called cardamom. Why not here in the US of A?

Steve

I have lived in India and the UK, and I have never seen it spelled anything but cardamom. Perhaps it is a Statesian peculiarity?

My own spice peeve (Pet Spice?) concerns turmeric. I have heard too many English people pronounce it tyu-merr-ic, ignoring the first 'r' altogether, and the fact that even the dictionary says it is terr-merr-ic.

they not only mispronounce turmeric, they also misspell it -- just try a search for tumeric! my theory is that in many fonts "rm" looks like just another 'm' to the careless reader. this is even more of a problem with "rn". that was two (2) letters just then within that last ""!

And how about Garam Marsala?

The fortified wine and the spicy mixture are not really compatible!

Oh dear (drying tears from eyes!) I enjoyed that too much to berate you for not starting a new thread on spicy puns...!

In reply to:

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in many fonts "rm" looks like just another 'm' to the careless reader. this is even more of a problem with "rn". that was two (2) letters just then within that last ""!

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There is a similar problem in mediaeval manuscripts referred to as the minim problem. Apparently i was undotted at that time (and this was part of the reason it acquired a dot) and this made combinations of i, m, n, and u very difficult to tell apart (not to mention the fact that v and w had not been completely differentiated from u as yet). One way of getting round the problem was to write u as o when it came before an m, hence the irregular spellings of come and some.

I'm summarising this from having looked it up in David Crystal's "Encyclopaedia of the English Language" last night. I would have copied a direct quote but my computer at home is unwell, and it would be hard to follow his remarks without the pictures anyway.



Bingley