slang and HP was re Reckon

[eloise_herisson]

"Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:

(quoting Ali)
> > <<< pudding instead of desert, etc...>>>
> > 
> > That is a funny one, as I seem to remember most people 
> > calling "puddings", "desserts" when I was growing up. I do 
remember 
> > being told though that the "proper" word was "pudding". Certainly 
> > now "pudding" is the favourite.

Yes. As far as I am aware, "pudding" is U and "dessert" is non-U, 
although I can't find them listed in Nancy Mitford's original list.
I think the principle behind it is that it's one of those words of 
French origin which the nouveau rich with social aspirations started 
to use because they *thought* that it was the kind of thing the upper 
classes said.

Similarly, toilet for lavatory, serviette for dinner-napkin, lounge 
for a room in a house (as opposed to in an hotel).

> 
> bboy_mn:
> This is another word I find very confusing because there is 
something
> specifically called pudding which is a very thick creamy milk based
> desert that resembles custard but is made slightly different.

I think you mean what we call egg custard, or what with a thin, dark 
burned-sugary sauce, is called creme caramele.

It's an interesting point, as in Japan, the word "purin", whwich is 
derived from "pudding", means, IIRC exactly that. I never quite 
understood why, but perhaps it is a borrowing from US English.

I suspect the reason for the original confusion is that 
traditionally, British "puddings" have been of the heavy, stodgy 
variety, cooked,often suet-based recipes,like Christmas pudding or 
roly poly, or sponges, for instance treacle pudding (which as I 
expect you all know now is made with Golden Syrup - just to muddy the 
waters even further, we don't call Golden Syrup treacle, but we do 
call the sponge pudding and the tart made with it "treacle-"pudding 
and tart. Often these are made in pudding basins. They're the kind of 
traditional fare which the upper classes would have eaten.

My speculation is that the word "dessert" seemed more suitable for 
lighter, fancier puddings, French-style pastries and the like which 
were perceived as more sophisticated and therefore more "classy".

It would be really interesting to look up the history of the two 
words' usages in the full OED.

Incidentally, although JKR refers to the mound of whipped cream and 
sugared violets (which sounds revolting and is like nothing that I 
have ever come across)in CoS as a pudding, I'd bet my bottom dollar 
that Petunia would call it a "dessert".

> 
> I was reading at a website on British slang, although it was really
> about the differences between British and American, and it said that
> waffles would generally be referred to as pudding. That would imply
> that if you asked someone what the had for breakfast or lunch and 
they
> said 'pudding' it could be cake, ice cream, or anyone of a long list
> of other deserts, or it could indeed not even be a desert at all; it
> could be waffles (how about pancakes?). How can you understand what
> people are saying when a word is used in such an all encompassing 
way?

I'm not sure about that.
True, a while ago, when waffles were exotic, I suppose they might 
have been thought of as puddings. I remember a fabulous, minute 
waffle house I an my friends used to frequent in Cambridge. We'd go 
there for pudding after hall in the evening occasionally. They were 
definitely treated as puddings there. 

But these days, we've become quite cosmopolitan don't y'know? My 
local supermarket stocks different brands of at least two different 
types of waffle (American and Belgian), with the breakfast bakery 
stuff, not to mention a huge variety of bagels. 

On reflection, I think the site you refer to was viewing "pudding" in 
a functional way. The sweet thing you eat at the end of a meal *is* a 
pudding. So a waffle isn't a pudding, per se, but you could eat one 
for pudding.


> Biscuit is another one. A biscuit is a cookie or a cracker which are
> two very different foods used for very different purposed, although
> they do resemble each other in construction. So if someone had soup
> and buscuits for lunch, did they have crackers in their soup or did
> they have soup and then have cookies for their 'pudding'. ...so 
confusing.


If a Brit said they's had soup and biscuits, they'd almost certainly 
mean they'd had soup *with* some kind of cracker.

This cookie/biscuit/cracker thing is one of the things I find most 
confusing. I know what you mean by biscuit but the British biscuit 
doesn't seem to me to be an exact equivalent of the cookie.

At least.......Well, when we use "cookie" we mean a specific type of 
biscuit(the ones that are rather like home-baked ones, often moist).

Over here we have a *vast* range of biscuits. It's one of our 
weaknesses. I go to a huge supermarket where both sides of a long 
aisle are filled with shelves of nothing but (?)hundreds of varieties 
of biscuits and crackers (is it any wonder we're becoming obese?) 
Many of them, as far as I can tell have no direct US equivalent. In 
fact, when in the US and shopping for my kids, I've had problems 
finding any they would eat (other than horrendoulsy expensive imports 
and Oreos) as they don't like what I would refer to as cookies 
(especially the moist ones) for some strange reason. 

Many of our biscuits have a texture somewhat like the outside of an 
Oreo. Some are smoother (Rich Tea). Then there are wafer biscuits and 
digestive biscuits (which may be eaten either as sweet biscuits or 
with cheese, like a cracker)and all manner of chocolate-coated ones.

Muffin is another one. When we moved to Tokyo, I leaped on a display 
of "English muffins", wondering that such short-lived bakery items 
could get as far as Japan, only then to be mystified that they 
weren't made in England at all. So why were they labelled, "English"?
It was only later that I realised that what I would have 
called "American muffins" were simply labelled, "muffins".

These latter have also become very popular over here and although 
still frequently labelled "American style" (particularly to make them 
seem particularly authentic) I think we use the unqualified term for 
both.

But the difference is quite clear. Our muffins are toasted and eaten 
for breakfast or tea, where such an antiquated habit still exists, 
whereas your muffins definitely count as cakes and we wouldn't 
normally eat them for breakfast.


Here's another one. Brits as well. What's the difference between a 
tart and a pie?

There was an ideological split over this one in my family.

My mother would always refer to what she made for Sunday pudding as a 
pie. This was made in a shallow pie dish and had both a pastry case 
and a lid. It was a pie because it had a top. A pudding made in a 
deep pie dish, with no bottom, but simply a pastry lid, as her MIL 
made, would similarly be a pie, the definitional point being that 
pies have lids.

As far as my father was concerned, what my mother made was a tart, on 
the principle that it had a bottom. 

So do pies have tops, or do tarts have bottoms? (Stop sniggering!)

I don't know whether this is a regional thing (my mother was a 
northerner and my father a southerner).

I personally think that tarts should be open as it's clearly a word 
of French origin and French tartes are open.

Not that it is of any significance whatsoever.

~Eloise