That can be an issue here in Rochester. We have a local dish called a garbage plate. The traditional center of a garbage plate is a hot dog but there are also hamburger garbage plates.
The way to make a garbage plate is you take a big plate. You throw on some french fries or fried potatoes (or both), some baked beans, and some macaroni salad. You put a hot dog or two (or a hamburger) on top of that. You put some meat sauce and hot sauce on top of that. It usually comes with a couple of dinner rolls or slices of bread on the side but the hot dog or hamburger is served without the usual roll. A garbage plate.
People who aren’t familiar with the dish may see a “hamburger plate” listed on a menu and not realize that what they’re ordering is not going to be a hamburger they can pick up and eat like a sandwich. (And, yes, it happened to me.)
Another one that I see people complaining about is “ATM machine”, since of course the M already stands for machine. Except that, ATM is already redundant. You’d expect instead an automated teller person? Or maybe a manual teller machine?
What defines the modern hipster is taking the unhip and declaring it to be hip. Hence the huge glasses, the flea-market-inspired clothes, the hatred when things get “too popular,” “so bad it’s good” movies, and so on.
Trying to look and sound as dorky as possible is right up their alley. Though, admittedly, hipsterism is fading, just like any other fad.
Basically, some people think being redundant is a bad thing. But language is full of redundancies and they are essential to our understanding. Pointing them out is just showing off, not improving communications.
As a kid, when I heard “pizza pie,” I always thought it was “piece o’ pie.” And I just thought that pizza must have previosly been called “pie.”
I have to admit, this is one bit of redundancy that seems to be fading out of the language. It does sound quaint to me now, even from people in the area. Everyone just says “pizza.”
But it also does not mean dough baked with a topping of tomatoes, cheese and other ingredients. A pizza of any shape is not a pie. A pie involves not only pastry, but a pastry covering. If there’s a pastry base but no covering, what you have is a tart or a flan. If there’s a dough base baked with a topping of tomatoes, cheese, etc, what you have is neither a pie nor a tart nor a flan; it’s a pizza.
And, no, pizza is not the italian word for “pie”. *Pizza[/i[ is the Italian word for pizza, though in some parts of Italy pizza can be a flat bread flavoured with olive oil, salt or tomato, but with no topping. But it definitely can’t be a pie.
Italian lacks the pie/tart distinction, instead preferring a sweet/savoury distinction. What an English speaker would call a pie would in Italian be torta if the filling was, e.g. fruit, and pasticcio if it had a meat filling.
Yeah, if you want to get pretentious hipster wanker, than maybe “za” is more the word you’re looking for. I only use that word in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in certain local dialects it’s completely unremarkable . There is absolutely nothing odd about referring to pizza as “pie” around here (Chicago.) The first time I realized that it wasn’t universal was hearing some stand-up comedian do a skit about it and his confusion about asking what toppings he wanted on his “pie,” not realizing it referred to pizza.
That doesn’t match the way I use the word/have heard it used.
A hamburger is the sandwich. (“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”) Hamburger (without the article) is ground beef (the meat, as in “Hamburger Helper”). I’ve never heard a hamburger patty called anything but a hamburger patty. (As opposed to a “hot dog,” which can refer to just the meat or to the meat+bun.)
Also, it should be noted that the usage of “hamburger” to mean “ground beef” is somewhat regional and perhaps even generational, but the rules are as you put them. “A hamburger” = sandwich made with a hamburger patty. “Hamburger” (without an article) = “ground beef.” “Pick up some hamburgers on the way home” means “pick up some hamburger sandwiches on the way home.” “Pick up some hamburger on the way home” (note lack of “s”) means “pick up some ground beef on the way home.”
And the patty is, well, like you said, the patty. It’s not “a hamburger.” And “burger” is simply a shortened form of “hamburger.” There is no specific meaning to it that’s separate from the full version of the word. I guess the only difference is that I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use the shortened form to refer to the ground beef, but, otherwise, “hamburger” and “burger” are completely interchangeable.
ETA: Actually, I should add that sometimes both “hamburger” and “burger” can be used to refer to just the patty, as in “throw some hamburgers on the grill.”
