Crudite is not common out here - 36 years and I don’t recall ever hearing it. Had to google it when I opened this thread.
And anyone who uses “Anthony” instead of “Anthony Bourdain” but doesn’t know him in real life is a gormless something-or-other.
I guess I just don’t understand the need to say a fancy French word for a plate of cut up carrots and celery that you bought at the grocery store to be served at a work pot luck.
I would have no problem with “crudite” on a menu at a nice restaurant, however.
Apologies if this was covered already and I missed it, but what did she say when you asked what a crudité is? Did she say “Wow, you don’t know what a crudité is? I thought you had a PhD…” or was it more “Oh I mean vegetable tray.” If it was more the latter, she gave some matter of fact reply, then I think that’s a fairly minor thing to spend time thinking about. Or better said, if it bothers you then just accept that everything this woman does bothers you. If she said something like the former (shock that you don’t know the word), then I would say the annoying statement is how she followed up, not that she used the word crudité.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Most people have ordered desserts at restaurants–not even fancy ones–and seen “a la mode”. I’ve never been to a restaurant and seen “crudite”. And Krogers does not market their vegetable trays as “crudites” either. They are simply called “vegetable trays” or “platters”.
I feel like I have to set up the scene in defense of myself. Don’t know why I’m bothering. I guess I’m just bored:
Generic Everybody: Hey, monstro! You’re the new floor rep. You know next month is your event, right?"
monstro: (gulps) It is? What’s the event?
Other floor rep: Tapas!
monstro: (taking another gulp) What are those?
Other floor rep: Just a fancy name for appetizers.
monstro: Oh, okay. I guess we need to hand out assignments or something, because ya’ll know I can’t cook! (laughing)
Other floor rep: Don’t worry. There are lots of recipes on-line we can use.
A bunch of coworkers: We’ll also help. It’ll be fine.
Annoying Co-worker: You can get a few crudites.
Now, even in this isolated scene it seems obvious that monstro doesn’t know squat about food and that everyone one in the room knows it. That’s why the “crudites” thing seems so gratitutious. Now I grant you it might not have sounded that way coming from a couple of other people, who actually are known for sophisticated cooking and dinner-party throwing. So I’m admitting to some bias here. But if you look at the exchange, where there’s an obvious clueless, blind-sided monstro, and then throw in background knowlege that monstro is generally clueless about foods, fancy or non-fancy, then it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that Annoying Co-Worker knew exactly what she was doing.
I have conceded that perhaps I shouldn’t be so bothered by this singular instance, since apparently the word has more traction that I originally thought. But when coupled with a three year long history of me always going “What?” when Annoying Co-worker talks about sommeliers or Muscadelles or gruyère like they’re everyday words that everyone should know–then I don’t think it’s so wrong for me to just be exhausted by this person and begin to feel that either she’s socially dumb or trying to show off.
I don’t hate on people who have expansive vocabs. I have one too. I just think that it’s only polite and intelligent to be aware of how you come across when you open your mouth. This co-worker has been repeatedly been told to her face, by her own boss, that she’s a snob. Of course she doesn’t believe him. Snobs never do. But at least I know I’m not the only one who thinks she needs to take it down a peg.
Rather than her trying to make you look stupid, I think she is insecure and trying to make herself look better. I know others have pointed this out already, but I wanted to emphasize it.
When people try to make themselves seem more “worldly” by using fancy words, they just come across douchey, in most cases.
monstro, you should just imagine it as a scene being played out in the Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, and laugh it off. Because it’s funny. Your co-worker belongs in that show.
She said, looking at me stony-faced, “It’s a vegetable and fruit tray.” It’s not a fruit tray, as my google-fu has shown me. But that’s neither here nor there.
She was polite enough about it. But of course she would be polite. She had an audience. If her motive was to embarrass me (not saying that was her deliberate intention, but it could have been), of course she wouldn’t want to come across as anything but helpful to the poor, ignorant monstro.
There HAVE been times, however, when she has let out a sigh because I didn’t know something (like the time I didn’t know that Munster has an orange rind.) And in those cases, I usually give her the invisible finger and tune her out. Like I said, I don’t care that I don’t know her lingo. I just wish that, if she’s going to talk my ear off about shit I don’t care about, that she wouldn’t bend over backwards reaching for the culinary terms. At least give me that courtesy.
I really wish they would create a character like her. Then the show would be off the chain as I get my hate on!
You could always start talking incessantly to her about something you are expert on and she knows squat about. And of course use highly technical terms whenever possibly. Give her a taste of her own medicine.
And I don’t see why using a fairly common word is “obnoxious and pretentious”. I would use veggie tray and crudités interchangeably in the same way I would use pasta and macaroni. If I’m actively shooting for obnoxious and pretentious, I have a lot of other true $27 words I can drop seamlessly in conversation. At the same time, there are no doubt a plethora of $13.50 words that will throw me for a loop. I don’t consider just the use of a word I don’t know obnoxious and pretentious.
monstro, I know neither your co-worker nor the dynamic and I’m not going to try to figure it out over a message board. You’ve no reason to defend yourself.
I think this thread shows it’s not that common of a word.
And I know the meaning of the word. I still think using it, particularly for a $10 cheap-ass tray of cucumbers, celery, and, carrots, to be pretty damn pretentious.
God damn, this thread is depressing for me. I don’t suppose it’s possible that ‘crudite’ was just the first word that came to mind for Annoying Coworker?
Sometimes I use a word that I think is the right one for my purpose, and I get a blank look, because I used some kind of non-standard vocabulary. It’s not that I’m trying to show off or bolster my self-image, it’s just the word that comes to mind.
I guess that makes me a condescending, snobby jerk who should never try to speak at all. 
Well, I’ve never heard of a ‘vegetable tray’ until today and would have assumed anyone using the term was a knuckle-dragging savage or trying to be funny.
Live and learn.
They did it for the same reason that other coworker used crudités or my latest ex-boss uses the English words for “call”, “email” or “check in”: it sounds more posh to use a foreign word than to speak “normal”.
And for some reason and not intending to offend anybody, ISTM that the % of Americans who can’t write a definition or explain a word without a lot of previous thought is very high. According to some American coworkers, “learning how to define things” (not how to look up a definition, but how to come up with one), which was something my Spanish Language classes spent many hours on, was never part of their own classes; “register” was another word which had never come up in their grammar classes (only in Lit and only for some of them). If your coworker is used to saying “crudités” with her family and friends (the people with whom she normally talks about food), she didn’t even realize that the different context called for a different term.
After seeing the exchange, yeah, she was trying to show off, Monstro. I would have been a bit annoyed by that, too - my inner dialogue aimed at her would have been something like, “Oh, ferfuck’ssake, can’t you just be a normal person for once?”
You know that is totally not what I’m saying. I’ve said multiple times that not knowing the word doesn’t mean anything negative.
Huh. In my mind tapas is a million times more common than crudites. Maybe that’s because there are tapas restaurants in any sizable city, but no crudites restaurants. Plus, there’s the added distinction of tapas meaning Spanish appetizers, rather than just appetizers. Do crudites have a French cuisine meaning, or is it perfectly substituted with veggie platter?
That is seriously douchey. (The sighing, not the not knowing.)
It’s just a term that means cut up veggies, often with a vinaigrette or other dip. Like saying a la mode or au jus.
Tapas is familiar to me, but one I don’t consider as common as it refers to a particular cuisine (Spanish food). I wouldn’t interchange tapas with appetizers, but I would interchange hors d’oerves with appetizers, entree with main dish and cruidites with veggie platter without thinking twice. Tapas and appetizers would be a bigger stretch for me, as it is so specifically Spanish in my mind.
I have a tendency to use words that many people don’t understand. Last week, in a private meeting, I told my highly educated department director that I felt the new V.P.'s disciplinary measures were needlessly draconian. She asked me what that meant. She’s not a stupid person.
I think this tendency tends to irk people. I’ve been called “condescending” more than once even though that’s never been my intention.
I also tend to feel that our culture as a whole has been sizing down its vocabulary. It’s not out of laziness or stupidity, I don’t think, but more out of a sense of efficiency in our increasingy fast-paced society. Why use “thrice” when you can say “three times”?
I guess I’m just old fashioned when it comes to language.
What is this woman’s tone when she uses words you don’t know? Does it sound like she’s teasing you?
- Agent Foxtrot, who uses “thrice” regularly