Most meat pies must have a closed pastry top, and ideally a pastry bottom. This does not apply to cornish pasties and sausage rolls.
But then, there are pies that have only a pastry top, or even just a lattice of strips of pastry. Pies may even be made without pastry, eg, key lime pie, which is techically a tart.
Meat pies are not as adventurous, and while we have slight abberations like Cornish Pasties (and sausage rolls), simiilar meat pies tend to being fully encased in pastry.
That said, just the roof of a pie usually needed to be made of pastry to be called a pie, so basically a stew under a pastry hat is still a pie.
But, a pizza is not a pie. Not sure how that rumour spread.
I think this is Wittgenstein’s “family resemblance” theory of language. I won’t remotely claim to have read the original, this summary seems fairly readable:
It is here that Wittgenstein’s rejection of general explanations, and definitions based on sufficient and necessary conditions, is best pronounced. Instead of these symptoms of the philosopher’s “craving for generality,” he points to ‘family resemblance’ as the more suitable analogy for the means of connecting particular uses of the same word. There is no reason to look, as we have done traditionally—and dogmatically—for one, essential core in which the meaning of a word is located and which is, therefore, common to all uses of that word. We should, instead, travel with the word’s uses through “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing” (PI 66).
Amazing, thank you! I have wondered for more than a quarter of a century if what that guy told me had anything to do with what Wittgenstein actually sad.
I don’t know from Wittgenstein, but that particular “define a chair” argument is a pretty common rebuttal when transphobes try the “define a woman” gambit.
Interesting–as I was remembering this conversation earlier today, I thought, “Hey, this would be a great thing to say to some fool who says ‘define a woman!’” and fantasized about congressional hearings.
If the rhetorical goal is entrapment, the anti-trans moron will simply reject any definition except heterosexual human born w typical female genitals. All other humans are defective women or non-women. Who don’t count for this purpose.
Here we come to another common attribute of arguments of definition - they are really commonly just about excluding something that someone doesn’t like - which might seem an obvious thing to say but it’s not always the definition that precedes the exclusion - in many cases the definition is constructed after the decision to exclude.
Are you suggesting that e.g. There is somebody who likes fruit pies only with top crusts. And if / when they’re faced with somebody else making a yummy fruit pie without a top crust they’ll loudly insist that topless fruit baked goods are tarts, not pies. Mostly to assuage their cognitive dissonance that they don’t want to admit they a) like this pie, and b) it lacks a top crust and is hence anathema.
My wife taught elementary school for over 20 years, and sees herself as well-taught on “proper” English. She absolutely hates the idea that language evolves, and what was considered “improper” usage when she, herself, was taught, 40+ years ago, is now accepted. She understands that usage changes, but in her heart of hearts, she just can’t accept it.
A big one for her is when “less” gets used to modify a plural noun, instead of “fewer.” Every time she hears that, she can’t help but audibly say “fewer,” in correction, even if she’s watching TV, and trying to correct the people on TV. She’s done this for as long as I’ve known her.
Saying a top crust only pie is a cobbler, and a no top crust pie is usually a tart- is fine. But insisting that you are RIGHT, and that is the ONLY possible word than can be used otherwise the other guy is WRONG- that i think is what we are talking about.
Like words with alternate definitions or spellings. Yes, use the one your prefer. Dont insist your way is the right way and the other way is wrong.
I’m not sure the thing I’m talking about (where people backfill an existing prejudice with cherry-picked logic and rationale) is very clearly manifest in the domain of pies, but I think it probably is a manifestation of a similar mindset - where people have a highly fixed idea for no particularly good reason and leap to defend that idea when it’s not even under attack.
Not sure if this would bolster or infuriate her, but up until the start of the 20th century, people would more commonly say ‘less many’. ‘Fewer’ grew in usage as ‘less many’ declined.
The intent of my sentence was to say that “top crusts are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for something to be a pie. The absence of a top crust is disqualifying. I make no condition about bottom crust.”
But the way you all read it is “top crusts are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for something to be a pie. Further, the absence of bottom crusts are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for something to be a pie. The absence of a top crust or the presence of a bottom crust is disqualifying.”
I’m not suggesting all your readings are unreasonable. But it just goes to show how hard it is to be unambiguous in less than lawyerly amounts of words applied with lawyerly diligence.
Of course in keeping with the point of this thread and argumentative I gotta be right people …
If any of us were the argumentative sort, we could have quite a row about what exactly my “only” meant. With lots of accusations of ignorance, stupidity, or both on each side. And some dictionary cites. Fortunately we’re not in the Pit.
In the spirit of the season, how about “Daylight Saving Time”? You can take a poll (and many have) asking whether DST should be abolished, or one asking whether DST should be made permanent - and your results will be meaningless, since half the population seems to think it means either “the time we’re on between early November and early March” or “the process of changing the clocks twice a year.”
(IMO, the real pedants are the ones who correct those who call it “Daylight Savings Time.”)
It’s close enough that I don’t like supposedly light hearted banter about food definitions. Specifically those arguments in which people take extremist and judgmental views against people who hold definitions different from their own, or even like foods that they don’t like.
There’s enough real drama about definitions without adding fake drama to the mix. I don’t care for people who say they hate people who put pineapple on pizza even if they don’t mean it. Same thing goes for people who argue that “an X is really a Y with Z on it!” I don’t actually care enough to engage with the bait anymore.
Although I do engage in arguments of the sort as long as they recognize shades of grey.
