Fair enough. I just don’t think that crudites or carafe (at least for wine) are out-of-the-ordinary terms; I wouldn’t think twice about using them. And I don’t think it’s fair to slag on people for pretentiousness when they use words they think are common. Which the coworker very well could have thought in this instance, annoying or not.
Perhaps you yourself don’t (although the energy you’ve expended on this argument would seem to indicate otherwise), but the word “pretentious” has been bandied about quite a bit in this thread. Apparently some people, at least, have an opinion.
American English. The rest of us still use entrée in its proper place.
Hey. I said, in my earlier post, that it wasn’t you who was rude. I was just answering why I might be getting a bit defensive. Was that really necessary?
Wow. And you know what- it did make me a bit sad. But I can live with you mocking me for that.
I really do appreciate it. Thank you, that’s cool.
It’s what it means, but not what it actually means? I’m sure that a lexicographer would have a problem with this statement.
Oh how I wish this were true! I’ve seen this misuse in the UK and elsewhere in Canada - PEI and Ontario for sure! It’s become rather common, I’m afraid!
I never claimed to be one! 
The word refers to one thing while people - and corporations, all over their menus - use it to mean something else. I grudgingly accept that there’s no recovering this one; the term has a new meaning. I still dislike it intensely and refuse to use it in that manner!
But you knew what I meant!
Ivory, I didn’t mock you, but I’m sorry you were sad. Who knew language could be such a mindfield, huh?
I’ve learned one thing. Don’t assume people are being pretentious based on a single word choice. Just because I don’t know a word doesn’t make it uncommon.
(Am I the only one reading this who didn’t know what a “carafe” was? Please don’t lemme be the only one!)
Thanks- you weren’t the one. You said early on that maybe you want to expand your vocab. You were fine. It was the heated rhetoric that even using the word made you some weird outlier. I’ll be ok. 
And FWIW, everything else you’ve described- your co-worker seems like an ass.
That seems to be what’s got most people up in arms (not specifically with you, but with others like you with the face) - the assumption that a word choice is made to be pretentious or dickish, when in fact it’s just an every day part of their lexicon.
As I said earlier, I don’t think you are an idiot for what happened, because it appears there’s a pattern of behaviour with this person a) being aware that food language is not something you’re overly invested in and b) continuing to use terms that are rather specialised, and then having an attitude when people around her don’t understand those terms.
Personally what’s irritating for me about this whole discussion is the absolute pig-headed determination that because someone uses a term like crudités or carafe, because it’s the first word that comes to mind, that they’re being a pretentious wanker and that they should be stressing out about “OMG what if Joe doesn’t understand what I mean?”. Sometimes a word is just a word, it’s the most apt one that comes to mind. If you’re not familiar with it, ask. If the person tuts and rolls their eyes and goes “It’s a vegetable platter”, then yeah, they’re being a pretentious douche. But otherwise, it may just be a useful single-word substitution for what can be an unweildy English-language concept.
Sorry, can’t help you there. Plus, I use it interchangeably with coffee pot the same as I would use crudites interchangeably with vegetable/veggie tray (I believe there was a recent pit about saying veggies was a childish term). But I’m just a pretentious NYer, so don’t mind me.
Oh for Christ’s sake, I never said this or anything like it. Go ahead and search the thread.
Exactly. I have no beef with the phrases ‘veggie platter’ or ‘wine jug’, or the people who use them.
But in my head, a carafe is it’s own thing: it’s not a bottle, or a jar, or a jug. So if I’m talking about a carafe, I’m going to say carafe because that’s the word that comes to mind and I’m not usually thinking that hard when I talk.
And still, when my friend asked me to wash out the coffee carafe, I looked around her kitchen in great confusion for a good 20 seconds before I realized she meant the coffee pot.
That bitch.
Oh please, you’re the one who’s making a great big fuss about “OMG what if other people don’t know this word I need to choose different words after all, I don’t want to make someone *uncomfortable *for not knowing a word!!!eleventy”
Show one post of mine to support this. I’m asking politely because I want to see this with my own eyes. Go on. You’ve had how many minutes to dig something up?
Making a big fuss over what to call a tray of raw veggies would constitute grounds for locking me up in insane asylum, so I need to know if it’s time to pick up the phone and call the officials. Kind of doubt it, because all I remember doing is posting a few opinions about word choice.
Your implication here is that if someone wants to use a word like crudités or carafe and doesn’t sit back and mull over the percentages of whether people will understand them or not, then they’re being a pretentious jerk who wants to show off instead of be understood.
Most people don’t think this long or hard about what they say, not in a casual conversation. They use the common words that come to mind. Which may include terms like crudités, carafe, hors d’oeuvres or so on.
I have not been arguing that in this situation, given monstro’s history with the person in question, that she was not being pretentious and show-offy, possibly to try and show monstro up, or put her in her place or whatever.
I’ve been arguing that just because someone uses a word like that doesn’t automatically make them a pretentious git. That most people don’t think so hard about whether the percentages of people who understand that one word are under or over a particular arbitrary limit before they choose another word to use. It’s their response after the fact, or their ongoing pattern of behaviour that makes them an arrogant prick.
You’re not making a big fuss over what to call the tray of veggies. You’re making a big fuss over the mental processes of the people who refer to the tray of veggies using a particular term.
Well, you with the face, you did say: “if the word has other more, commonly understood synonyms, stay away from the foreign substitutions.” And you haven’t acknowledged anywhere what I and others have said: that sometimes really does use a word like crudites or carafe because they think it’s the commonly-used term, with no malice or snobbery intended. Because I’ve said something like that a couple of times, and you haven’t really responded.
No, the obvious (and perfectly noncontroversial) implication is that if you use a foreign substitution for something that goes by other, more accessible terms you run the risk of being misunderstood. I have not called anyone a pretentious jerk at all; that’s your own mind jumping to conclusions.
And if that excerpt is the best example of me making a big fuss over what to call some goddamn cutup vegetables, I rest my case. It would have been easier for you to just own up to your carelessness and retract your earlier remark. (I find it bizarre that you have even bothered to strain such gnats from my posts, when other posters in here have been a lot more explicit in their disdain for “cridites”.)
You parsed “ywtf is calling people pretentious jerks” from that little paragraph, and yet I’m the one making a big fuss over what to call some cutup vegetables? Okay, dude, whatever.
Since I’ve never argued that people always use unfamiliar words with malice and snobbery, I’m not sure what you need or want me to say to this. But I acknowledge it. It is true; people often unintentionally use words that aren’t as widely recognized as they’d assumed. Doing so doesn’t make them asshats. They are still good people on the inside.
Not even sure why I feel compelled to add to this, but here goes:
From Post 18… Talking about “crudités” in an office where people analyze numbers and test results all day is stupid.
I work in an office where people analyze numbers and test results all day. I have used the term crudités for over 40 years and it never crossed my mind that everyone else hasn’t. I’m 99% sure I could use the term with my co-workers and most if not all would know what I was talking about. The few who may not would most likely just ask rather than be offended.
From Post 177… No one, not even the most pretentious among us, call that a carafe in the lands that I’ve inhabited. <snip> How sheltered are you that don’t know that most folks call that thing a coffee pot and will rightly be confused if you call it a carafe?
I did a quick Google search on Mr. Coffee Parts, and found the Mr. Coffee site and one of the categories in their replacement parts is “Carafes/Decanters.” There are no replacement parts called coffee pots or even just pots. I have always known it as a carafe and a coffee pot brings up a totally different image to me… it is the metal thing that sits on a stove top that you use to brew the coffee in (a percolator?). Maybe this is because I grew up in a time before coffee makers were the norm and the coffee pot sat on the stove. Later when coffee makers/machines came along, one of the “parts” was the carafe.
I’m not sure why you feel you should call me “stupid”, “pretentious”, or “sheltered” because I would use words that are perfectly normal considering the life I have lived just because you don’t use these words yourself.
No, see, if she describes your behavior as stupid but doesn’t directly call you out by name, it doesn’t count as an insult. :rolleyes: