Words change, Stoid. And I’m glad they do because it reveals that human beings are adaptable and don’t get hung up on technicalities, like robots do. If it actually mattered to people that there is a real difference between the two styles beignets, restauranteurs would bother distinguishing them. The language is at the will of the people, not the isolated pedant. As it should be.
Nothing is stopping you from asking for specifics before you make your order. When I order BBQ here in Virginia, I always ask if the sauce is tomato-based or if it’s vinegar, because I consider one an abomination. Especially if cole slaw is involved.
Again: if you’re incapable of using the word effectively, but everyone else on the planet is using the word in a manner that works for them, this speaks not to a problem with the word, but to a peculiar incompetence on your part. It’s time to stop blaming the rest of the world for your own shortcomings, and to figure out how to achieve the results you want.
You’re asserting that everyone on the planet says beignet and everyone they say it to knows they mean one kind or the other, and I am the only person who ordered one but received the other? I don’t think so.
If it requires a question and answer session to know whats being offered by that name, then the name itself has been downgraded; it is a less precise, less effective, less useful, less reliable word than it once was. A word that can stand alone without modification and convey an exact meaning understood by all is better than a word which requires modification and discussion in order to know what the word means or refers to.
That is not merely different, it is less than.
(Regarding doughnuts: yes, you have heard people ask for yeast v. baking powder, they just used the terms “raised” vs “cake” although that wasn’t exactly what I was referring to. I was referring to the fact that donuts come in a wide variety of flavors and styles. Asking for a doughnut is impossibly generic unless you are someplace where they are only offering one single type and flavor. But most places that offer donuts offer at least two dozen different kinds.)
No, that’s not what I’m asserting. You’re continuing to parse words with the same level of skill that started this thread.
“Everyone else on the planet” is of course an exaggeration. I am certain that you’re not the world’s least competent wordsmith; certainly there are other people worse at using language than you, and certainly some of those people have run into the same difficulty as you have. When I talk about “everyone else on the planet,” that’s shorthand for “the overwhelming majority of people.” Everyone else on the planet who read that phrase knew what it meant. See what I did there?
It’s a more flexible word, adapted to a slightly different pastry because the people using the language at the time found the adaptation to be useful to them. You can whine and moan about that all you’d like, but THAT IS HOW LANGUAGE WORKS. It’s no more a downgrade than the fact that the sun sets at night is a downgrade, and it’s equally meaningful to try to stop both processes.
No, actually, I’ve never heard anyone ask for raised vs. cake doughnuts. I’ve certainly heard discussion of the terms, but never heard anyone ask the staff at Dunkin Donuts, “Are these doughnuts cake or raised?”
But you’re right, that’s not exactly what you were referring to. To make it analogous to your complaint, I’d have someone come in here and declare that raised doughnuts are the only kind of doughnut, that cake doughnuts aren’t doughnuts. That’s the level of foolishness to which you’ve sunk.
Only a handful, I’m sure. It’s a wonder that my feeble command permits me to participate in these forums, really.
Well, my “difficulty” has not been language-based. As previously noted, I am not complaining that I am not able to communicate effectively with purveyors of beignets of either type, my complaint is that the word beignet has been misused to the point of losing the precise and predictable meaning that it had for a century or two, thus making it necessary to communicate beyond “I’d like a beignet, please.”
Only if beignets are served on every other corner in dozens of permutations and it’s well known to everyone. That’s not happening, is it? :eek:
No, your difficulty IS language based. You’ve got a situation in which the word’s meaning has expanded, and now you can’t use the word in the way you want to, and instead of taking the extra five seconds to use the word the way it’d be effective, you spend hours complaining about it in the Internet. If you understood how language functioned, you wouldn’t have bothered.
Wow, so your complaint is even more ridiculous: you know how to solve the problem, you know that it takes five seconds to do so, and you STILL rant and rave about it and call other people wrong, even though you know there are “two types of beignets?” Again: wow.
Here’s my problem. People are assuming that the original meaning of beignet referred to it being made with choux. However, all the cites I can find (including the OED which has the first cite in 1835) refer to it as a fritter and of course a fritter is anything that is battered and fried. I see no references to choux at all. As far as I can tell, the original meaning of beignet, was any piece of fried dough. In fact, all of the sources I can find that reference it being made from choux pastry refer back to Wikipedia. I am willing to admit I am wrong. Can you provide a source that is not derived from Wikipedia that shows that the original French beignet referred to deep-fried choux-paste?
(Incidentally-if you choose to google dictionary and beignet, I would stay away from urban dictionary, unless you have a burning desire to know what a Columbian beignet is. Hint-that’s NOT powdered sugar!)
