Tuesday 26 June 2007
The Eponymous Eponym
Have always wondered, when Devonshireans consume Devonshire teas in Devonshire, do they just take "tea"? Does a Cornwallister in Cornwall eating a Cornish pastie just eat a "pastie"? Is Bolognese sauce in Bologne just "sauce"? A Yorkshire pudding in Yorkshire just "pudding"? Butterscotch in Scotland just "butter"? Is TexMex in Texas just "Mex"? And in Mexico just "Tex"? Are Alsatians in Alsace just "ians"?
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17 comments:
Whatever you're smoking, it's illegal and so's licking slugs.
Presumably TexMex eaten by a Texan in Mexico has no name at all, and thus is a linguistic paradox all to itself.
In years to come, scientists will learn to harness the power of these paradoxes for the betterment of Humankind.
Or say a certain person were to take up motorcycling. Would she just ride a Davidson?
Or would she be the only one who could lay claim to riding a true H-D?
Which means I've solved your question! Only in Devonshire is the Devonshire tea the real deal. Everywhere else it's a kind of spectral emanation of Devonshire tea. It's just like Plato's cave! Only in Devonshire does one enter the world of pure forms, with respect to Devonshire tea. For real TexMex, you have to straddle the border as you eat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jahteh. Don't lick slugs, don't smoke bay leaves, don't go outside without shoes on. I was a girl guide too.
Tim, Karen: with your powers combined, you could lay waste an entire semantic system. Go to it, comma-rades!
Cornish pasties hog all the glory. What about Cornish pasta? Won't someone think of the pasta?
with your powers combined
Like Captain Planet, no?
I don't know if Tim approves of this sort of thing, but, if he were able to overcome attacks of conscience as effectively as I know I can, we could certainly build the most monstrously obscurantist postmodern philosophy the world has ever seen. Fragile young minds, at their most vulnerable stage of development, would be toppled by our nonsense. It would certainly be the end of Western civilisation as we know it.
I think Rod has a point, only special people wear name tags on their camisetas. Earl Grey, Paul Newman, and Alan Jones f'rinstance.
Hamburgers are both people and meat sandwiches in Hamburg. But they mean the people when they say it.
Oh yes! And famously JFK got himself confused with the Berliners. "Simply the wurst", as Tina Turner might have sung.
Rodrigo, Rodrigo.
True, but 'ich bin ein Frankfurter' would have made him sound like a sausage. Kind of like Angela Merkel making a speech in Australia and saying, 'I am a Saveloy!'
For those of us who know a saveloy from a bar of soap ...
Ha!
'Singaporean noodles' aren't called that in Singapore...and I was told about a mysterious generic noodle dish being served up in a metropolitan Sydney food court that's simply called 'Asian' and would be deemed foreign in most, if not all, Asian countries.
(Incidentally, is there still an Early Grey? If so, what kind of tea does he drink?)
China in China is
Fine china in China is fine though.
And the same goes for Wellingtons in Wellington.
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