The English words we have to describe food rarely makes sense. The names we have for barnyard animals come from Anglo-Saxon terms, but the names for their meat come from French. Chickpeas have nothing to do with chickens or peas. Vegans are not from the star Vega. And into this slurry of languages, customs, and jargon must wade the weary food writers, who sometimes are forced to admit they can’t spell hors d’oeuvres either.
The host of The Splendid Table, cookbook editor, and New York Times alumus Francis Lam, took to Twitter to admit that exact French term had thrown him for years:
I've been a food writer for 15 years and I have literally never spelled hors d'oeuvres right on the first try.
— Francis Lam (@Francis_Lam) February 8, 2018
Quickly more confessions (and corrections) came:
Good thing I'm not one of them pedantic editorial types, because if I were, I'd tell you that you still haven't. Strictly speaking, hors d'oeuvre should always be singular, even when there's more than one. https://t.co/WnHJRvmjoD
— Colman Andrews (@Colmanandrews) February 9, 2018
https://twitter.com/chaneykwak/status/961742001749213184
https://twitter.com/annemcbride/status/962076338936049664
Accommodations. Did I mention I write guidebooks?
— Alison Bing (@AlisonBing) February 8, 2018
Frittata. And I was in the damn National Spelling Bee.
— Kat Kinsman (@kittenwithawhip) February 8, 2018
(also if anyone claims they spell Txakoli correctly first shot, they're lying.)
— Jon Bonné (@jbonne) February 8, 2018
And then it turned against, as it always does, the French:
Woah woah woah, we’re going to ditch ‘hors d’oeuvres’ before ditching ‘entree’?
— Loyal Nine (@TheLoyalNine) February 9, 2018
Yes because it's perfectly normal to use a word that means "to enter / to begin" in the middle of the goddamn meal because it sounds classy because it's French https://t.co/VwHk7yvNoz
— Francis Lam (@Francis_Lam) February 9, 2018
And it is true, the fact that 1) we highly esteem French cooking, and 2) the French are loathe to communicate in any language other than their own, means American tongues have had to adapt not just to French seasoning styles, but also trying not to poorly butcher French syllables. Still, we can’t entirely blame the French. English sucks up words from other languages and then acts indignant they don’t fit into their rules, and it’s not the vocabulary’s fault. So, take heart all you misspellers out there, it’s not just you.
We’ll just have to learn these words, someday. Or at least, teach them to autocorrect.
(via Grub Street
