No julienned carrots, or souffle, or omelette, or hollandaise sauce? You call it little strips, puffy thing, eggs cooked with things inside, and that yellow stuff?
What’s really snobby is assuming the person you are talking to is too dumb to understand relatively common words.
I’ve never heard of it and I watch cooking shows all the time. Where I come from we call vegetable trays “vegetable trays”. It’s apparent from the op that this person does it all the time.
If I’m trying to be helpful and they don’t understand a term I explain the term. If you asked me the correct name for hardware that I work with on home projects I’d be hard pressed to tell you. While I’m sure an electrician knows what a “C” box is I’d describe it as a 2" inline connection box about 10" long with one side open.
Quick crudité poll at my workplace: about 1/3 don’t know the word. 1/3 know it’s an appetizer of some kind, and 1/3 know exactly what it means.
I was in the middle third. I knew from context that it’s some kind of appetizer (now, thanks to The Dope, I know exactly what it means). Tapas, on the other hand, is much more commonly known here. We have tapas restaurants. And I know ramekin because I am a nut for flan and my friends and I try to make perfect flan. But I wouldn’t expect a non-foodie to know ramekin. It’s jargon you would only know if you were interested in food preparation and/or custard-type desserts.
Coworker: “How about a few crudités?”
monstro: “Kiss my ass, bitch. … What? Wasn’t that crude enough? I thought that’s what crudities were.”
FWIW, before this thread, I’d heard the word, but I couldn’t for the life of me have told you what it means. It sure doesn’t sound like it ought to mean vegetable trays.
I agree that those words you listed aren’t snobby (though I’d probably let out a sigh if someone asked if I wanted my carrots “julienned”). But surely you can see from this thread that “crudité” is not in the same ballpark as “omelette.” Right?
I can’t think of a replacement word for “omelette”. But I can think of a couple of more accessible, perfectly fine replacements for “crudité”. I’m not saying it’s inherently snobby, but it definitely seemed forced in the context of the OP.
That said, I’m going to have to expose myself to more words. Maybe I should go back to reading a different library book each week, just to keep my vocab in check.
I think you’re overthinking this one word. It’s not all that uncommon in the United States. You just happen to not have known it. There’s no problem with that.
What the key here is the context. If this co-worker had only ever said “crudité,” that would be one thing. But it looks like the totality of her behaviour is douchy.
What I wanted to say was, “I gotcho crudité right here!” And then punch her in her face, southwest Atlanta style.
Yes, I’m evil and immature.
The reason Crudité has so many hits is because people are looking up the word to see what the hell it is. You can tell that because “Crudité” would be a cut and paste word because it can’t be typed directly using an English keyboard. People don’t have to look up vegetable tray because it’s self explanatory.
I can type “crudité” using my English keyboard. It’s pretty easy to type on any Mac.
It’s not as though I had an epiphany on learning the word; it’s just something I picked up over the years. Don’t most people continue to learn throughout their lives?
The OP has a PhD & the lady does not. But there’s a lot of knowledge out there & he shouldn’t be “bothered” (his word) because somebody dare have a larger vocabulary than he. There are sports fans, old car buffs, gardeners, Doctor Who fans & and, yes “foodies” who’ve spent time learning about their hobbies. (Not that crudités is exactly “advanced foodie”–he could have gotten an earful about sous-vide cooking. Sounds like the lady was trying to keep it simple.)
Of course, many people consider cooking “women’s work.” Is that part of the OP’s problem? Doesn’t he know that many chefs–& many FoodTV “celebrities” are men? Hey, he could spend a little time with Alton Brown & learn something himself! Or he could have posted a query about “Tapas” at Cafe Society & been flooded with suggestions from fellow Dopers. We’ve got some real chefs over there & lots more people who enjoy eating & cooking.
I only knew that, ramekin, because my friend wanted a creme brulee set.
It’s not forced if that is what you call it. Everyone I know calls it that and would be confused if I said vegetable tray, just like I was confused when someone from the mid-west asked me to bring a pickle tray.
It may not be a universal word, but it is certainly common. It’s not even particularly faddish as it’s been around for years and years.
Bon voyage, I’m off to make a fondue and work on my resume’.
First off, I’m a “she” not a “he”. So inherent in your posts are a lot of stupid assumptions. How does it feel to make an ass out of yourself?
“Crudité” is simple? Alright, now we’ve gone into bizarro world. I can buy that it’s more common that I thought it was. Ignorance fought. I can even believe that it is “not uncommon”. But “simple”? The very fact that I have to cut and paste the word from google is evidence that, at least in the English lexicon, it is not a “simple” word.
And you know what? Everyone I work with has hobbies. Most of the guys are into fishing and they talk about all the shad, snapper, and large-mouth bass they caught over the weekend. Sometimes they use words that I don’t know and if I’m in the mood, I’ll ask them to clarify. But usually I don’t have to because they recognize something this co-worker does not: that I’m not hip to the fishing lingo. So if they want to communicate with me about it, it’s best to assume that I won’t know certain words.
Believe it or not, I have my own areas of interest. Even more esoteric and narrow than my co-worker’s. I don’t have a burning desire to talk about them with her or anyone else, but if I did, you best believe I wouldn’t just drop a reference to something like the Dirac equation or call trees out by their specific epithets without expecting people to go “What the hell?” And if I continued to do this, then I would expect people not to like me after a while. Not because I’m smarter than they are, but because it would be clear I’d be talking just to hear myself talk.
In my world, no one would get offended if someone said “vegetable trays”. They wouldn’t feel condescended to anymore than if someone said “vehicle” instead of “mode of conveyance”.
I don’t see it on this keyboard. Beyond that, Macs represent less than 10% of today’s computers. My point stands. The number of hits for “crudité” are cut and paste and most likely is being used to looked up to find out what it means.
I have a reasonably large vocabulary, and other than having seen “crudites” in print a few times in some magazine articles, and surmising (based on the context) it was probably some sort of appetizer or hors d’oeuvres I really had no specific idea what it was. If you are single, are not a foodie, and do really entertain all that often, or do not attend functions all that often, your chances of hearing “crudites” in general conversation are pretty slim.
This coworker was born and raised in the ghetto, tarnished further with an inferior education (she even besmirches her undergrad institution as not being a “real school” when it actually is a well-respected university). These are her own words, not mine. Her life story is a littany in the break room. Sometimes it’s so over-the-top ridiculous that I’ve actually complained to the boss about it.
No one I know from the ghetto uses the word “crudité”. They use “vegetable tray”.
Kudos to her for having a vast vocabulary. I just wish it didn’t seem so fake to me.
It’s not forced if that is what you call it. Everyone I know calls it that and would be confused if I said vegetable tray, just like I was confused when someone from the mid-west asked me to bring a pickle tray.
It may not be a universal word, but it is certainly common. It’s not even particularly faddish as it’s been around for years and years.
Bon voyage, I’m off to make a fondue and work on my resume’.
Just remember to type it “resumé” (or the correct version “résumé”). It’s asci code 130 to produce the accented é and in many programs is triggered with the Alt key.
I would know it but my husband wouldn’t, and even though we live in central Illinois, neither of us would know what a pickle tray was. However, I am still confused about eating noodles on mashed potatoes which is extremely common here. Anyhow, your coworker could still be a jerk.
Isn’t it now a Curriculum Vitae? 