One further note: You seem to be classing me with the kind of thinker we learn about in Linguistics 101, the kind I’ll call the “naive prescriptivist.” The kind that thinks like one of Pinker’s “Language Mavens.”
If you care to go back and read the arguments I’ve given, you’ll see that I’m not oen of of these, and I’m not talking, arguing, or thinking like one.
I don’t mean to say you are obligated to actually go back and reread everything… you’ve got a life, I’m sure :). You can just take my word for it, or withhold judgment, or whatever you prefer.
You mean get-go. The prescriptiveness is weak with this one!
How is this different? It was never incorrect to use “au jus” as a noun in English, either. It’s far enough along that I’m sure anyone I ask would use it that way. Like I said before, the sandwich-shop guy used it that way when I hadn’t even used the words “au jus” in my question.
As I said in my previous post, you may be right–the usage may be further along than I thought. This would suprise me, since I first heard it only last year and no one I’ve asked has been untroubled by the usage when I asked them about it. Still, its entirely possible.
I don’t know what to say to your remark that “it was never incorrect to use ‘au jus’ as a noun in English.” If the original uses of “au jus” as a noun were constituted by people who believed they were taking the word out of uses like “roast beef au jus” and using it in a way that was based on the same model, then those original usages were incorrect. I presume this is exactly how the noun usage came into being. (Does anyone seriously doubt this?) And so I conclude that for a time, at least, the usage was incorrect.
I think that time has not passed. I think people in general are still either:
A. Thinking “with au jus” is a usage based on the same model from which “roast beef au jus” is derived
B. Not thinking about it at all, but are such that if you stopped them and jogged their brain a bit, they would think about it and say “say, you’re right!”
If I thought neither of these were the case, I would say the usage is fine. In fact, it looks like you and LHoD and other “anti-prescriptivists” on this thread do in fact believe that neither A nor B is the case. I do not disagree with any argument you might make that since these aren’t the case, there’s not a good way to talk in terms of the use being “correct” or “incorrect” except by standards of communicative usefulness. Where we disagree is over the question of whether A or B holds.
Unfortunately, this forum is such that only anecdotal evidence can be adduced in favor of or against either point.
It is interesting to ask, though, whether you guys agree with me that if either A or B is the cse, then there’s a sensible way to talk about the “correctness” or "incorrectness " of the usage which is not just a way to say the usage is “useful?”
Actually, all respect, but your French is horrible. Almost everything you’ve said here is completely incorrect.
This is General Questions; above all the other forums, this is where we’re supposed to fight ignorance, not increase it. I am not a mod, so this is intended to carry only the weight of an individual plea, not an instruction. But please, people, if you’re not sure of your answer, at least include a disclaimer saying so.
“Out of work” is an English idiom. As such, translating it literally, word for word, into French, it will not have the same meaning. In the French phrase hors d’oeuvre, the “oeuvre” is not the work of “labor” or “job,” it’s the work of “a work,” as in “a work of art.” In fact, the word *oeuvre *is perfectly acceptable as an English word meaning the same thing. Thus *hors d’oeuvre *means “outside of the work,” or, a course of a meal that is not a part of the meal “proper.”
Isn’t “French-dip sauce” perfectly cromulent, especially since what you are really getting 90% of the time is not ‘beef drippings’ but “watery brown stuff made from a powdered packet with which I hope to make this mediocre sandwich soggy”? “May I have more hydrated beef boullion cube?”
I have a hard time comprehending, but not because of language. I just realized how much I despise that stuff.
I guess you forgot that I make a distinction between the measurement of “competence” and the measurement of “correct use.” It is possible to be competent and correct, competent and incorrect, incompetent and correct (very rarely, though), and incompetent and incorrect.
It would be foolish of me to claim that knowledge etymology has anything to do with competent use. I’ve made it very clear in this thread that that is not something I would claim. I’ve made it clear that I wholeheartedly agree with you that the claim is an incorrect one.
In my last post, and in this entire thread, I wasn’t asking about competence, but rather I was asking about correctness. Not even that–I was asking whether under the circumstances I named you would agree that there is a way to talk about “correctness” that doesn’t just boil down to usefulness-for-communication.
I don’t believe there is; in fact, I think these questions ought to be moved to IMHO, since there’s no factual answer to them. It’s as if you’re asking, “In this jazz song, there’s a chord progression from E Minor to an A Major. Is this correct?”
There are ways in which the question is GQ material:
-Does this usage appear in any major dictionary?
-Does this usage involve a shift in meaning from the original language?
-How far back can this usage be traced?
-Would this usage be accepted under a specific style guide?
All of these have factual answers. The question as asked–“is this correct?”–is meaningless.
I believe that I have rejected the meaning you’ve suggested as betraying a misunderstanding of how language works. If you feel that I’ve not addressed a particular argument of yours, could you restate it?
Since there is no good noun for it, if I ever need to ask for more stuff to dip my sandwich au ju in, I’ll probably ask for some more “au jus sauce”. I can think of “au jus” as an attributive adjective far easier than I can as a noun. If someone asks me if I want something with Au Jus, I’m never just going to say yes.
“Incorrect” usage works the other way, too. People are familiar with “jalapeño,” so they’ve improperly modified the name of that small, super-hot orange pepper that’s exploded in popularity in the last few years: habanero. Most people, I wager, will pronounce it “hobbin-yero,” while the actual correct pronunciation is more like “ahba-narrow.” For now, anyway, until the new version has swamped the old one.
I’m a bit puzzled by the “so what should we call it? ‘Juice’ sounds ridiculous!” argument. Why not ‘jus’ (pronounced as per the French: ‘zhoo’)? That’s the way it’s used in BE, and no-one hears it as ‘juice’, looks bewildered and points to the drinks.
‘Jus’ as a loan-word is fine, and could be absorbed like countless others; the problem is entirely with the ‘au’. If somebody French heard an English speaker ordering their hot chocolate “with marshmallows”, then went back to France and started having their chocolat chaud avec ‘with marshmallows’, English speakers would naturally correct them, and it wouldn’t be misplaced pedantry or snobbish prescriptivism.
We don’t have our coffee in an ‘in a cup’, we have it in a cup. We don’t have our meat and potatoes with ‘with gravy’, we have them with gravy. Same with ‘au jus’. It’s just ‘jus’.
Welcome to the Dope Yorkshire Pudding. You’re replying to a thread that is 11 years old and the previous participants have all been reduced to gibbering idiots from the exposure to language usage and development since then, but maybe you will find some more current conversations to participate in next time.
Ha! Hiya. Yes, I know, I’m remarkably late to the party. I only encountered this discussion by Googling the seemingly rather clumsy usage of “au jus”, so thought I’d stick my oar in, see what might happen.
It was late, drink had been taken…
I shall explore the boards, and try to articulate my opinions in a more timely fashion.
I’m with you, Yorkshire Pudding, what is wrong with “jus”? I wanted to ask all through this reading, but wondered who could have woken an eleven year old zombie, and would any of the original posters read it?
I think it’s another difference between AmE and Brit or Commonwealth English.
Whenever I read au jus, my mind parses it as “with gravy” as that’s how I’ve always considered the resulting dish of food with its little jug of meaty sauce. Basically unthickened gravy.
I’d ask for more jus (said zhoo) if I wanted a top up.
