# Au jus: Usage in English **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660 "2014-04-08T18:38:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/42 "2014-04-09T04:37:11Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Now I am really wanting a french dip roast beast sandwich … with extra horseradish. _sob_ You misspelled “au jus” there. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/43 "2014-04-09T10:18:48Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Jesus! What the Pope do you think happens at a _bris_? It’s where _brisket_ comes from. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/44 "2014-04-09T13:55:32Z")
I’ve heard people order both au jus sauce and “more salsa sauce”. I remember a menu that had “chicken with poulet sauce”. When I asked what that was, I was told “It’s French”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/45 "2014-04-09T14:33:12Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’ve heard people order both au jus sauce and “more salsa sauce”. I remember a menu that had “chicken with poulet sauce”. When I asked what that was, I was told “It’s French”. Ooo…“with au jus sauce.” We’re getting into “the La Brea tar pits” territory with that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/46 "2014-04-09T14:41:52Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Au jus makes as much sense as a la mode, just go with it. Related question: how did _a la mode_ come to mean “with ice cream on it” in American? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/47 "2014-04-09T14:51:28Z")
We don’t know for sure why and how it developed that sense. It was definitely commonplace by [1903, though](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-la-mode.html). I imagine someone wanted to make their pie seem fancy so they plopped a scoop of ice cream on it and called it pie a la mode and people who didn’t speak french didn’t stop to look it up but simply ran with the meaning that they gleaned from the context. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/48 "2014-04-09T15:53:19Z")
> [@Dr.Woo](#): > > I don’t care what people call it, but boy, restaurants had better know its actual meaning and convey that in their wording on the menu. A restaurant is probably mixing it from a pre made package of “Beef Au Jus Mix”. From their point of view they are correct in calling the product au jus. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/49 "2014-04-11T09:49:14Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Au jus makes as much sense as a la mode, just go with it. I’m surprised people don’t say “I’d like a pie with some a la mode on it.” BTW, I just learned that _mode_ doesn’t mean “garden.” It came from learning a non-literal translation of “Savez-vous Planter les Choux” where the repeated “a la mode” was translated “in the garden.” Now that I know it means “in the fashion,” I wonder if it originally had another phrase following it. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/50 "2014-04-13T02:07:34Z")
> [@Dr.Woo](#): > > I don’t care what people call it, but boy, restaurants had better know its actual meaning and convey that in their wording on the menu. Sheesh. If I wanted French food, I wouldn’t go to an American restaurant. You don’t expect Chinese food from a ‘chinese restaurant’ do you? ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/51 "2014-04-13T16:34:11Z")
A bit of annoying know-all-type sidetracking: I gather that French conscripts and other reluctant armed-forces members have / had a slang expression in respect of their “demobilisation calendars” – _“x jours au jus”_ – “x days till they let me go”. Possibly a metaphor for the broth (_jus_) coming to perfect and finished condition… ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/52 "2014-04-13T16:36:04Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > A bit of annoying know-all-type sidetracking: I gather that French conscripts and other reluctant armed-forces members have / had a slang expression in respect of their “demobilisation calendars” – _“x jours au jus”_ – “x days till they let me go”. Possibly a metaphor for the broth (_jus_) coming to perfect and finished condition… Is it soup yet? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/53 "2014-04-13T18:31:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I’m surprised people don’t say “I’d like a pie with some a la mode on it.” > > BTW, I just learned that _mode_ doesn’t mean “garden.” It came from learning a non-literal translation of “Savez-vous Planter les Choux” where the repeated “a la mode” was translated “in the garden.” > > Now that I know it means “in the fashion,” I wonder if it originally had another phrase following it. “Savez-vous planter les choux / À la mode de chez nous?” Means “Do you know the way we plant cabbages at our place?” It goes on the say "We plant the with the finger / with the foot / with the elbow… you get the idea, in each subsequent verse. It’s basically the French version of the Hokey-Pokey. Anyway, the ice cream thing may have well be “À la mode de chez nous,” at some restaurant at some point, one time, but I think it comes from the fact that prior to the popularity of ice cream, “a la mode” already mean “fashionable,” or “up-to-date” in the US. The first hand-crank ice cream maker was patented in 1843. Ice cream became really faddish around the 1890s. I don’t know if it was a World’s Fair thing (the 1893 Chicago fair started a lot of trends), or if electric ice cream makers came around then-- maybe both, but ice cream was “a la mode”-- the thing, fashionable and trendy, up-to-date. It’s interesting that now that ice cream parlors are quaint and old-fashioned, “a la mode” no longer means fashionable (although it might be the source of the word “mod” in the 1960s), “a la mode” still indicates ice cream. If “a la mode” still meant “fashionable,” so your tablet with the detachable keyboard was “a la mode,” it would probably not mean ice cream. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/54 "2014-04-13T18:45:01Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > A bit of annoying know-all-type sidetracking: I gather that French conscripts and other reluctant armed-forces members have / had a slang expression in respect of their “demobilisation calendars” – _“x jours au jus”_ – “x days till they let me go”. Possibly a metaphor for the broth (_jus_) coming to perfect and finished condition… I’ll take your word on it, but “broth coming to perfect and finished condition” is in fact a perfect description of “consommé,” the concept/naming of which is consummation. Of broth. Jesus, if He were soup, would say “consummatum est” (when quoted by some guy in Latin). I wonder if the words “Jesus, if He were soup,” have ever been written or thought before. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660/55 "2014-04-13T20:16:58Z")
Since you mentioned it, the phrase “opus perfectum et absolutum,” from Nikolas Listenius (Wittenburg, 1533) is key in the history of music theory–the idea of a finished work, or what it is relative to its (mere?) notation, and, in conjunction with his delineation of _musica poetica_, a humanist aesthetic position to challenge and add to the Greek/Latin division of music as _musica theoretica_ and _musica practica_, making use an Aristotelion position to do so. Just thought of it, since you were so clear in your choice of words. Thread drifts are funny, aren’t they? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/au-jus-usage-in-english/685660.md?page=2)