In the sense that “corrupt” means [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=corrupt]“change the original form of,” I agree, of course. I’m not sure it’s the best word to use here, due to its connotations.
I, however, am familiar with and respectful of the original usage, and I do not find this “corruption” to be annoying or ignorant. Instead, I find it to be a cool example of the ability of language to transform itself through the innovations of its speakers. The only thing I find annoying or ignorant, to be honest, is the idea that English speakers must hold to the rules of other languages when it mugs those languages for their vocabulary.
If you’re speaking French, it is. If you’re speaking English, it’s not: in English, “au” is not a preposition. This is not a nitpick: this is central to the argument I’m making.
Nitpick: the first isn’t a sentence fragment. It’s got a subject (I), a verb (would like), a direct object (a slice), an adjectival phrase (of pie), and another adjectival phrase (in the style). The last adjectival phrase is ambiguous, but it’s not grammatically incomplete.
I believe that “a la mode” is best considered in English as a single-word adjective, not (as it is in French) a prepositional phrase: you can’t break it apart and still have meaning. That is, I cannot order “a slice of pie a la berry” and have people understand that I’d like berries on my pie. If folks started using “a la mode” as a noun (“Hold the pie, please, and just give me the a la mode”), then I’d consider it to be a one-word noun.
I apply the same analysis to “au jus.” In English, it’s not a prepositional phrase: it’s a foreign phrase we’ve appropriated for our own use. As such, we treat it as one unit, and that unit can apparently be either an adjective or a noun. Granted, it’s an irregular adjective, inasmuch as it normally follows after the noun it modifies; but it still acts as an adjective, not as a prepositional phrase that may be divided into component pieces.
Then that means “I would like a beef dip au jus” is grammatically incorrect since it lacks an english preposition; you are effectively saying “I would like a beef dip juice.”
a la mode can not be broken down that way though. Your sentence is essentially asking for “a slice of pie in the berry.” Obviously this is nonsensical. Au jus can be used in this instance, however. Asking for something “a slice of pie aux baies” make perfectly good sense in the same way asking for a beef dip a la mode would. (The latter is disgusting, but at least it’s grammatically correct. :))
Not at all. “au jus” as an adjective means “served with thin beefy gravy.” The standard English construction would be to say, “I’d like an au jus beef sandwich,” but adjectives occasionally appear after the word they modify; I’d say this is one of those cases (although I can’t think of other adjectives that habitually follow their nouns–this may be a weakness in my analysis).
“Aux baies” means “with berries,” right? That’s a French phrase, not an English phrase. Asking for “a slice of pie aux baies” would be under most circumstances an indication of an incompetent speaker, because under most circumstances, the audience isn’t going to understand what you’re saying.
Incidentally, although you’re correct that “a” in French is usually translated as “in,” that’s not necessary. Look at “au jus,” the contraction of “a le jus,” which is not translated as “in the juice.”
I’m wondering whether anyone would mind if I served them some beef with au jus as an hors d’oeuvre. After all, “hors d’oeuvre” is French for “outside the work,” another prepositional phrase; the same objections to treating au jus as a noun ought to apply equally.
An adjective can follow a noun if the two are conjoined by an adverb. (“The sea so blue.”) I can’t think of any that don’t follow an adverb though.
However, this is a means of using au jus as an adjective, which sounds a bit more proper. I am not aware of anyone who actually uses it as an adjective, however; everyone orders “beef dip au jus” or “beef dip with au jus” depending on how it’s listed in the menu.
Because aux baies is not a commonly understood phrase like au jus or a la mode is. If ordering pie with berries as aux baies was just as common, the same rules would apply. This isn’t a perfect example because aux baies, like a la mode already has a perfectly good English phrase by which to refer to it, so there’s no good reason for anyone to order “Pie aux baies” when they could just say “Pie with berries.” Especially when few people would even know how to pronounce baies. On the other hand, if you created some kind of chunky coulis using berries, oranges, mangoes and pureed beef tripe, and simply referred to it as au boue (“with slime”) you’d have the same problem as au jus.
Technically, no. “au” (and the plural “aux”) means “with.” (the synonym would be “avec” though I’m not entirely sure the context in which one or the other would be used) “a le” (and the masculine “a la”) translate as “(it) has.” Thus, pâté a la mode transalates literally as “pie has the fashion.” I’m not sure if “in the fashion” is just a common mistranslation or if there is some commonly understood rule in French that changes the “has” to “in.” My french is comme-si, comme-ça.
Hors-d’oeuvre translates literally as “out of work.” Not that it makes a big difference.
I’d be interested in the etymology of Hors-d’oeuvre as it relates to an appetizer though. Seems a curious phrase to apply to little comestibles.
I think you’re wrong on this, but my own French isn’t good enough. Dictionary.com agrees with me:
My etymology was actually correct–you’re translating it overliterally. The work referred to by “hors d’oeuvre” is the main dish. The hors d’oeuvre is that which is served outside the main dish of the evening.
THe point I’m making, however, is that it’s a French prepositional phrase treated in English as a noun. If you’re going to object to treating au jus as a noun because of its meaning in French, I don’t understand how you can fail to object to hors d’oeuvre for precisely the same reason.
A better translation of “à la mode” would be “in style” even though that’s not the word-for-word translation. Like how we say, “In the stretch limo, he was riding in style.”
I don’t know the factual etymology but “outside of work” means, in this case, outside of the main meal (don’t even get me started on saying entrée to mean main course). I do not know how the French came to use the word oeuvre for this (my French dictionary is at home; maybe “main” is another meaning for ouevre).
Actually I didn’t read this carefully enough. You make a more basic mistake: “au” is simply a contraction of “à le.” You’ll never see “à le” in French, for essentially the same reason that you’ll never see “a apple” in English. (It’s a hard thing to google for a cite, unfortunately).
You bastards. You made me want a French Dip sub so bad, and there’s no Quizno’s around here.
FWIW, though, I tried Submarina across the street; I asked the guy working there if they had “a French Dip sub” and his reply was “What, you mean like an au jus? No.”
I’m in the same boat with you. I was the kind of kid who had more fun reading the dictionary than playing football. My diction has relaxed as I’ve pulled myself away from books and computers somewhat over the last couple of years (as well as living in Southern California); nobody calls my language stuffy anymore. But when I’m in what I perceive to be a formal situation I can really lay it on pretty thick without realizing it.
The thing is that it comes from another language. IMO, as such the way it comes into English is the correct way to speak it in English. I’ll give you another example from Spanish: “comprende”. Saying “Comprende?” to someone familiar, particularly if they’re younger than you or lower on the social ladder than you, would be incorrect. It would also be incorrect to ask the same to more than one person at a time, and anyway if you were speaking Spanish you would probably slap a “me” or at least a “lo” in front. (Not to mention that you’d probably be more likely to use entender than comprender, at least if you were in Mexico.) The way “comprende” is used in English is incorrect in Spanish, as is the way we spell “jalapeno” and “companero”. But that doesn’t matter because when you’re speaking English, they’re not Spanish words. Comprende?
I humbly submit Fransoise. (Rhymes with Detroit, the way NFL broadcasters say it.)
Well, first of all, i was making a general observation about descriptivism, not just about this particular case.
Second, until i heard the Quiznos ad, the only time i had ever heard “au jus” in English-speaking countries (Australia, UK, Canada, the US) was in the more proper sense, essentially the same way they use it in France. Not as a compound noun.
Shouldn’t that be ¿Comprende?
Anyway, i think it’s different, because “comprende” in generally used colloquially or somewhat ironically.
Also, i don’t know about you, but i spell it “jalapeño” and “compañero.” And, while not many people use the word “compañero” on a regular basis, i see the word “jalapeño” a lot, and it is, more often than not, spelled with the accent. And most people i know also pronounce it “-enyo.” YMMV.
“Au” doesn’t actually mean “with,” not the same way that “avec” means “with.” “Au” or “aux” or “à la” when used to describe food or methods of cooking mean “in the style of” or “in the fashion of.” I guess you could shortcut it to sometimes mean “with” but that’s a colloquialism.
It’s not a mistranslation in French, but you are translating it incorrectly into English. The phrase “à la mode” doesn’t mean “has” anything - the “à” is the article “to,” not the third-person singular conjugation of avoir. And neither “a le” nor “a la” means “it has.” Not sure if you made a typo or really think this, but in no way is “a la” masculine. Anyway, there’s no rule that changes the “has” to “in” because the “a” (sic - it’s à not a) doesn’t mean “has” at all.
Someone earlier said that “à la mode” means “in the popular fashionable style.” He is exactly right: “à la mode” in French, in that context, means “pie in the way that is fashionable right now.”
Sure, everyone knows to throw the “y” sound in there, but I’d wager that a survey of common American English in areas with low Hispanic populations would turn up a lot of “jalapeno” and “companero” spelled like so. But you’re right–mileage does vary.
These ads also bothered my sense of “prescriptiveness” from the git-go, but I thought it too mundane (or “prescriptive”) to bring to this fine medium. Glad I renewed, but I have broken the habit. I now only get here about every couple of weeks.
By the way, the first Quiznos ads I saw actually said, “with au jus sauce”!!!
Please understand what I’ve been trying to explain–I do not claim there are fixed unchanging rules for the language, but rather, that at any given time, there are certain judgments speakers will tend to make about their language as to what sort of new usages “feel right” and which ones “feel wrong” given knowledge of the facts as to their origins. In general, if our use of a phrase is based on a mistake, we want to correct that mistake–because we like to correct mistakes in general. If the best way to correct some particular mistake is to stop using the phrase in the way that was based on that mistake, then we will think of that usage as one of those which don’t, so to speak, “feel right.”
Tell a person “you know, au jus means with juice,” and there’s a good chance he’ll come to see his usages of phrases like “with au jus” as based in a mistake.
Tell him “you know, hors doeuvres means outside the main,” though, and he’s not likely to see his use of the term as based in a mistake–because he’s using it as a longstanding, normal English word. Not so with “with au jus.” There he’s using a newish phrase, and probably knows it. Enough people know this at the present that there is so to speak a “community standard” by virtue of which it is right to say that “with au jus” is incorrect–not that the community actually judges it so, but that in general, the community would judge it so were they in posession of the facts and were they to think about it for a while.
Give it another 10 or 20 years or so, though and au jus will probably become just like hors deouvres, and you won’t find me complaining though you will find me laughing in fond memory of myself complaining about it 10 or 20 years ago.
I just don’t see how this is correct. I asked my wife to use “au jus” in a sentence, and she used it as a noun. She knows what it means in French, but she doesn’t see why that should matter to her when she uses it in English. I suspect that the judgment she makes on this matter will be at least as common as the judgment you’re making; your jugment seems to me to be based on faulty logic, the same faulty logic that leads to people thinking split infinitives are unacceptable in English.
The ability folks have to use language in the most useful manner is very cool, is a feature of language in general but especially of English, which borrows so heavily from other languages.
If you’re assimilating what you’re calling my “logic” to the “logic” that leads to people thinking split infinitives are unacceptable in English, then its hard for me to believe you’ve understood my reasoning at all.
I don’t think there was ever a time when it was appropriate to call split infinitives “incorrect.” That notion was just basically made up.
I’m curious what you think my reasoning is.
Here’s what you may be right about: “with au jus” may be further along as an established usage than I thought. This would suprise me. I first heard the usage this year and no one I know personally thinks it sounds right.
I don’t know why you keep telling me this feature of language is “cool.” I don’t see the relevance of this judgment. (A judgment I tend to agree with, though with reservation since I don’t think it’s true that language always gets used in “the most useful manner.” Still, I do feel that the ways and means of language change are, in general, “cool.” But so what? This has nothing to do with anything I’ve been saying.)
