Well I’m a children’s librarian. Ever tried to get kids to eat their crudités?
Well God forbid that children be encouraged to expand their vocabulary. Nothing says pretentious like a love of learning.
And it’s also working in the reverse, right? People who know the word assuming that it’s common just because they know it and all their friends know it, so the rest of us are just slack-jowl yokels?
I’m more more appreciative of the people in the middle. People who have heard the word and know what it means but still do not think it is common enough to drop in “regular” speech. I think many words intelligent people use probably fall in this category. No, I don’t think they should dumb their speech down to the hoi-polloi. But if people look at you with a blank face when you use certain words, it’s always not their fault. They aren’t inherently stupid or uncultured. This thread is evidence of this.
I don’t really know what the solution is. A lot of people get their panties in bunch if you dare to suggest they interchange a word for another depending on the context, so it seems we’ve reached an impasse. One suggestion might be, as alluded to the other thread, is that when using the word with an unfamiliar audience is to say “We could get prepare crudites. I personally like veggies and dip myself.” Add something to the word that the unintiated could grasp onto.
This is well said, and bears repeating. Often. 
As an aside, I have always viewed the word crudites as an invitation for dispute, even before this thread. Not because it’s been my experience people weren’t familiar with the word, but because the various pronunciations of the word by English speakers can be so varied, and in any group there always seems to be some person gripped by an evangelical fervor to correct the pronunciation of all those around them.
See post #151 in this thread. It’s not what you say; it’s how you react to people not understanding the word you use.
Well it might, except not one single person in this thread has said that anyone is a slack jawed yokel for not knowing the term, yet lots of people have said that people are pretentious for using the term.
The irony in the above post is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Well, in all fairness he didn’t actually use the term “slack-jawed yokel.”
Big whoosh right over your head.
Try reading the sequence of posts again. sh1bu1 and myself were responding to BigT’s statement that one should dumb down their language to fit the audience.
In other words, don’t assume someone is educated, speak to them like they are morons or they won’t understand all that there fancy learnin.’
(And the references to “hicks” and such is because **BigT **has listed “Hicksville,” Arkansas as his locaton.)
Seriously, what’s wrong with you? I wasn’t drawing any conclusions, only demonstrating that ‘not in Southern Ontario’ wasn’t necessarily true. I was not casting aspersions at them, I even apologized for having contradicting data to report.
People who don’t use it, in regular speech, are not less pretentious than those who do. Those with larger vocabularies are not responsible for your insecurities. If you’re too weak or intimidated to speak up and say, “I’ve never heard that before, what does it mean?” then you’re missing an opportunity to learn, grow and expand your vocabulary, and that’s on you.
Maybe the difference between those familiar and those not, is less about exposure, and more about being open and questioning, instead of judgmental and insecure, assuming anyone using a word you’re unfamiliar with is pretentious, and should be going out of their way to accommodate your insecurities is just silly, to my mind.
Virginia. Never heard the word. I wouldn’t expect it to mean “Vegetable Tray” if I had heard it, nor would I expect it to be appetizing if offered me a “crudite”.
So not that I don’t find it complimentary in a weird way, but why do you feel it necessary to restate what I’m saying? And/or, why did you call it pretentious (in 151) if you don’t (I guess?) believe it’s actually pretentious?
If you say so.
It actually doesn’t sound as bad as it looks on the page.
Have we establised a proper pronunciation? Do we need a poll? I’ve heard both crrroo - di - TAY and cru - DEET(S). Although the vowel sound in the ‘di’ syllable can range anywhere fom d’ to duh and back to nearly dee.
England. It’s a common word here. I use it almost daily because I frequently give my daughter crudites as a snack or as a side to her main meal.
‘Veggie tray’ doesn’t even make sense.
Sweet raw veggies like carrots and peppers alongside dips like hummus or tzatziki tend to be quite popular with kids. Not as much as burgers or chocolate, of course, but few foods are.
The words are straightforward. It’s a tray full of cut-up veggies. How can anyone hear the phrase “veggie tray” and fail to make the connection to a tray of veggies?
eta:
Time for a google fight. Both phrases bring up images of the same exact thing, but “veggie tray” wins by a margin of 30:1 on google image search.
Oops, not exactly the exact same images. There’s a borderline NSFW image on the image search for crudités that just might have won me over to their side. What a dirty trick 
I hope we can all agree that tzatziki is not a common word!
But they’re not always on a tray, at least not here. They’re on a plate, in a bowl, etc. Of course, it’s not like language always has to make sense - I’m not saying people are wrong for using the term veggie tray - but it’s not anything like as obvious as some people in that other tread seem to think.
Google fights don’t work if you’re in different countries; ‘veggie tray’ here brings up images of roast vegetables almost as much as images of crudites.
I did wonder, as I used it, if it’d be considered unusual by some of you; it’s an ordinary word in England, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were uncommon elsewhere.
I’ve lost track of whether I mentioned it in this thread or in the other nearly identical one (really, who knew this topic was so fascinating) but like SciFiSam says, the French word “crudités” refers to the vegetables themselves, regardless of whether they are on a tray or in a ziploc baggie.
It doesn’t surprise me that this is the meaning used in England as well, nor does it surprise me that in some areas it has come to mean the vegetables on a tray or platter. Like signs that say “with au jus” It’s technically incorrect since the “with” is redundant with the “au” but so common as to be barely worth the mention anymore (which doesn’t actually stop me from complaining about it, but that’s just me! :))
ETA: tzatziki and a pita are my usual lunch! Love tzatziki!