# "gratis" vs. "au gratis" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 16, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152 "2008-06-16T21:08:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/1 "2008-06-16T21:08:34Z")
Sis called me up just now: “Argument with boyfriend: He said something was _‘au gratis’_. I said he was saying it wrong. He’s confusing _‘gratis’_ with _‘au gratin’_. Who’s, right?” Well, I thought she was, but a quick Google search shows just over 4,000 entries that use the phrase _“au gratis”_. Then I realized that 4,000 was a very small number on Google, particularly when you consider that there are 677,000,000 entries for _“gratis”_. Hmmm, I thought. Who would know the answer? DOPERS, THAT’S WHO! I’m still inclined to think that this guy is confusing “free” with “crunchy topping”, but now I’m slightly less positive. What say you, Dopers? ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/2 "2008-06-16T21:14:48Z")
Maybe he wants some free potatoes with crunchy topping. Otherwise, he’s full of merde. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/3 "2008-06-16T21:14:54Z")
Personally, I think you’re right, but thanks for a neat malaprop that I intend to whenever possible. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/4 "2008-06-16T21:16:45Z")
“Gratis” is Latin; “au” is French. How could it possibly be right?! Worse than that is “with au jus”: “With with juice”. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/5 "2008-06-16T21:17:49Z")
[QUOTE=Girl Next Door] Well, I thought she was … [/QUOTE] You are right. > [@](#): > > … a quick Google search shows just over 4,000 entries that use the phrase _“au gratis”_. Google isn’t amazing useful for this - many thousands of errors find their way onto the web each hour. When asked, Google will reliably find and report them, just as if they were valid. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/6 "2008-06-16T21:18:37Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] “Gratis” is Latin; “au” is French. How could it possibly be right?! [/QUOTE] OK…now maybe this is where it’s solved… what’s the French word for free? _Compris?_ ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/7 "2008-06-16T21:21:07Z")
Gratuit. But you wouldn’t say “au gratuit”, just “gratuit”. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/8 "2008-06-16T21:22:15Z")
Yay! You guys are so smart. Thank you! ---
**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:** [June 16, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/9 "2008-06-16T21:39:56Z")
Checking Google was okay for a start, but given the results you got, a follow-through was called for. You need to keep in mind that anyone can post anything on the internet and plenty of idiots will copy it. For follow-through, look them up in a dictionary. You’ll find “gratis.” You’ll find “au gratin.” You won’t find “au gratis,” because it doesn’t exist other than in than in the confusion generated in some folks’ minds. And in the repitition of that confusion that the net provides. “Au gratis” is clearly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/10 "2008-06-16T21:45:31Z")
I often forget that one can find phrases in the dictionary as well as single words. Thank you for the reminder. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/11 "2008-06-16T21:55:13Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] “Gratis” is Latin; “au” is French. How could it possibly be right?! Worse than that is “with au jus”: “With with juice”. [/QUOTE] Or the even more egregious: “comes with salsa sauce.” My wife told me of a restaurant in her past that advertised “chicken with poulet sauce”. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/12 "2008-06-16T22:48:38Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Worse than that is “with au jus”: “With with juice”. [/QUOTE] It is indeed wrong in French. It also isn’t pronounced /awjew’/ in French. Given that we’re all speaking English, how is either wrong for us? ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/13 "2008-06-16T23:05:25Z")
The restaurant we were at this past weekend proudly announced that they served their steaks with “Blue Cheese Fromage”. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/14 "2008-06-17T00:01:39Z")
[QUOTE=Girl Next Door] OK…now maybe this is where it’s solved… what’s the French word for free? _Compris?_ [/QUOTE] \*Compris \* means _included_ which is almost but not quite the same as _free_. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/15 "2008-06-17T00:05:37Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] It also isn’t pronounced /awjew’/ in French. [/QUOTE] And it _definitely_ isn’t pronounced “aw jaw”, which is how some old man asked for it once when I worked at Arby’s lo these many years ago. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/16 "2008-06-17T00:07:37Z")
[QUOTE=Girl Next Door] Sis called me up just now: “Argument with boyfriend: He said something was _‘au gratis’_. I said he was saying it wrong. He’s confusing _‘gratis’_ with _‘au gratin’_. Who’s, right?” Well, I thought she was, but a quick Google search shows just over 4,000 entries that use the phrase _“au gratis”_. [/QUOTE] Well, I tried this, and sure enough I got about 4000 hits. So I started looking at the hits themselves. Not one of them is a usage that I’d trust! Most of them were clearly malapropisms. This demonstrates that if you’re wrong, and 4000 other people agree with you, than 4001 people are still wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/17 "2008-06-17T01:20:39Z")
In the pork belt this recipe is affectionately known as _Potatoes Hog Rotten_. (Excellent with chops, btw.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/18 "2008-06-17T06:42:41Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] It is indeed wrong in French. It also isn’t pronounced /awjew’/ in French. Given that we’re all speaking English, how is either wrong for us? [/QUOTE] Because it’s a French phrase. I don’t think it’s been assimilated fully into English - and even if it had, surely it should keep its original grammatical integrity - same as how we deem “and et cetera” to be incorrect. (The bit that gets me on French menus is when they say stuff like “poulet avec ses pommes de terre” - “chicken with its potatoes”. Like the chicken owned them before it was killed.) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/19 "2008-06-17T07:21:17Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Because it’s a French phrase. I don’t think it’s been assimilated fully into English [/quote] In my part of the world it has. The words ‘beef’, ‘mutton’, ‘pork’, and ‘venison’ all had similar paths into the language: All were from French, and all changed their sense (from an animal to meat from that animal) when they were assimilated into English. > [@](#): > > - and even if it had, surely it should keep its original grammatical integrity - same as how we deem “and et cetera” to be incorrect. But that isn’t what’s happening. ‘Au jus’ is, or is becoming, a noun describing a specific kind of sauce, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually became a single word ‘aujus’, pronounced /awjew’/ or similar, and not taking a plural, much like ‘mustard’ or ‘ketchup’. > [@](#): > > (The bit that gets me on French menus is when they say stuff like “poulet avec ses pommes de terre” - “chicken with its potatoes”. Like the chicken owned them before it was killed.) This is wrong: French is a different language and when non-F1s butcher it they are merely reflecting their own ignorance, as opposed to a larger trend. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152/20 "2008-06-17T08:39:38Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] (The bit that gets me on French menus is when they say stuff like “poulet avec ses pommes de terre” - “chicken with its potatoes”. Like the chicken owned them before it was killed.) [/QUOTE] That may be annoying (I actually think it’s kind of charming) but it is at least authentically French. Menus in France are full of that particular construction. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gratis-vs-au-gratis/453152.md?page=2)