Thank you, and please tip the waitstaff.
We interrupt this culinary conversation for an important message from the Abteilung der Grammatik Durchsetzung.
In a heated argument in a different thread, it was pointed out to me that the Subject-Verb-Object construction is foundational to the English language. In an effort to show that I can dish it out as well as I can take it, I hereby point out the inevitability of the following parsing of “chicken eating people”:
(ROOT
(FRAG
(NP (NN chicken))
(S
(VP (VBG eating)
(NP (NNS people))))))
in which the important tags are the following:
NN = noun
S = declarative phrase
VBG = verb, gerund or present participle
NNS = plural noun
Thus, there is no escaping the fact that in the phrase “chicken eating people”, due to your omission of the crucially necessary hyphen, “eating” is unambiguously a verb and in no version of standard English would that phrase parse the way you would like. The exclamation mark at the end only adds to the horror! I know I was ninja’d on this but I don’t care. This is more proof that the English language is, like, literally going down the drain.
I don’t know what breed they were, but the chickens my grandma strangled when we visited the farm were the best I’ve ever eaten. Too bad we kids could never convince her to pot that asshole rooster.
I started this thread, with its missing hyphen, and I don’t know whether to apologize or say, “You’re welcome.” Some of you were irked, and some more enjoyed playing with it. I wanted to sorta link it to the Chicken People thread, but take it in another direction.
Anyway, TruCelt wrote:
I never figured out just what Cornish Game Hens were. A while back, I was in Columbia, South Carolina, and a sign said Columbia is the Squab Capital of America. I take that to mean they raised and processed a whole lot of squabs, which I gather is a pigeon or dove. That seems like a lot of trouble for a small amount of meat. I once read about mourning dove hunters, and they said the whole bird, dressed out, was a quarter pound of meat
One squab makes a nice lunch. I used to get it at a Chinese restaurant sometimes.
I care more about breed when I buy eggs, because I prefer brown. Which are laid by Rhode Island Reds. Chicken and egg farmers, feel free to correct me.
The farmer is more important to me than breed when buying eatin’ chickens. Bobo Farms in upstate NY is run by Chinese who raise according to Buddhist principles. Cage free, cruelty free, sold with the heads and feet on because they don’t like to butcher the corpse. So whole Chix only, I cut them in my own humble kitchen, and they fry and roast and braise up deleeechus.
They also raise an excellent “black chicken” which you can use to make broth with medicinal qualities. Cures the common cold, and cancer too!
(See the cute lil’ heads? You throw them along with the feet and other non-Occidental eating parts into the soup pot)