I don’t know if you know quite how repulsive the smell of curry can be to someone who doesn’t like it. I quicken my pace when I walk past the curry shop in the mall because the smell makes me feel quite ill. I don’t know how I’d go about dealing with it if I encountered that smell in my living space and couldn’t get away from it… and if it was frequently, I’d certainly be very upset. If it happened occasionally? In a shared living space I guess I’d just have to deal with it, but I might tell you to your face that it stinks if you caught me on the wrong day. I’m sorry but… to me, it does. It smells like something I want to move far away from with as much haste as possible, I certainly don’t want to stay near it and keep breathing it in.
I promise you that the smell of bacon can be equally repulsive, but I guarantee that view would get no traction from anyone (especially around here) because the vast majority of people think it’s the most delicious smell ever. A person who said otherwise would be ridiculed and dismissed. It’s also one of those pervasive smells that really travels. In a communal setting, you really have to consider putting up with stuff like that, lest one day you be the recipient of such intolerance.
You don’t think telling people their food stinks is rude? What if you were playing music that I could hear outside your room, that you really liked a whole lot, and I said as I walked by, “Hey, your music sucks!” Is that rude? Same thing.
I’m completely repulsed by the smell of tomato sauce, THE condiment of choice for many of my fellow Australians. I deal with it by: sitting further away. Now if I keep moving away and they keep bringing the smell into my space, I say something but I’d prefer to just put space between myself and the problem because I recognise that other people love it just as much as I hate it. So Rubystreak, don’t feel you need to tell me that communal spaces need to be shared and differences tolerated. I’m pretty good at considering others and wouldn’t speak up unless it got to be a real problem for me. Also, I would stop cooking bacon if someone told me the smell bothered them - I wouldn’t want to make my neighbours uncomfortable in their home. No matter how much I love bacon (and you’ve got to believe that I do!), my enjoyment of it would be spoiled knowing I was making a nuisance of myself by cooking it in a shared home. There are other places I can go to for bacon.
Well… how do I know if you don’t tell me? Co-worker at my old job said one day “I don’t know what you’re having for lunch, but it stinks!”. I laughed, said “Be glad you don’t have to eat it then!”, ate my lunch and didn’t bring in that variety of frozen microwave meal again.
Same job, different co-worker used to keep blue cheese in the communal fridge. We knew he liked it, he knew we hated the smell of it, we teased him that it stinks, he smugly told us we didn’t know what we were missing out on and… everyone stayed friends.
Same job, different co-worker walks in my office and says “WHAT are you listening to? I don’t know how you can stand that crap!”. I said “Well, if you don’t like it, feel free to leave!”, we both grinned and no one got their feelings hurt.
I don’t know if this is a cultural difference or if it is unique to me, but knowing that someone else dislikes something I like doesn’t send me into vapours. You think my food stinks? -shrug- Cook your own. You hate my music? -shrug- I can’t help that you have lousy taste. I don’t find it rude or hurtful to be spoken to plainly and I’d rather be told straight out than have someone dance around the subject trying not to offend me, or complain behind my back and never to my face. So no, I don’t find “Your music sucks!” or “Your food stinks!” to be rude if I’m permeating a common area with either of those things.
This seems to contradict this:
I guess it depends on your definition of “making a nuisance of yourself.” I don’t think Hippy Hollow was. Man was just trying to have curry once a month, and did his best not to offend.
It really depends on your relationship with the person. In a dorm of hundred of people, if someone who was not my friend initiated contact with me to tell me something I really loved sucked or stank, I wouldn’t so much “get the vapours” as think that person was an asshole. My feelings wouldn’t be hurt, I would just think maybe his mama didn’t raise him right. YMMV.
This seems to contradict this statement:
So either you’d just shrug and ignore them, or you’d actually change what you did in your own home to accomodate them. I think Hippy Hollow’s response was something in the middle: he did his best to mitigate his cooking smells, but did not stop cooking altogether.
Again with the permeating. Sigh. I don’t think people really know what that word means.
Like… on the day when it got to be a real problem for me? How is that a contradiction? On a good day when you keep waving your curry or your meat-pie-with-tomato-sauce around, I’ll probably just keep moving away from you, but if you keep on getting right under my nose with it until I feel I have to say something, I’ll probably go with “Sorry, I don’t like curry/pie-with-sauce and I can smell it when you get close with it”. On a day when I’m already feeling a bit nauseated, I’m more likely to blurt “Please… can you take that away? I can’t stand the smell of curry/pie-with-sauce and it really stinks”. There’s nothing quite like the stench of curry(slash pie-with-sauce) on a turbulent stomach to really knock the edges off my manners.
I’m with you and not with you on this. Hippy Hollow has detailed his steps to minimise the impact on others and that all seems reasonable, yet at the same time seems determinedly clueless about the effect he was having on others. He notes the comments he got were that the food “stinks”, yet he seems to think “smells interesting” could be substituted, and that the dislike of the smell was due to some sort of cultural imperialism without any apparent sense that curry, to people who don’t like curry, doesn’t simply smell like food they aren’t used it… it smells absolutely repulsive. How he can say that the smell of tea, coffee and bagels mingling made him gag and yet not have a problem creating a smell that, to others, is equally as gag-worthy and in their residence to boot is puzzling to me. Would Hippy Hollow not mind if he came home to tea, coffee and bagels once a month? He’s also quite adamant that only 5 people ever complained… is it all that likely that the ONLY five people bothered by it all spoke up? Isn’t it possible that there were more who said nothing out of politeness (perhaps lacking the words to express “Your food stinks” without trampling all over his culture).
My mama didn’t raise me right. Once, I’d say nothing. Twice, three times I’d start grumbling to everyone else. I couldn’t put a point on it after that where I’d say enough’s enough, but it would come and I would probably use words like “Look, that stuff you’re cooking… it really stinks. I can smell it all the way up the hallway.” Why? “Look, that stuff you’re cooking… it really smells interesting. I can smell it all the way up the hallway” doesn’t convey my message.
It’s not a contradiction. I’m not offended to be told my food stinks, couldn’t care less that someone else doesn’t like it - but the idea of continuing to annoy people with it after I’ve been made aware would just horrify me. I don’t need you to like what I like, but that doesn’t mean I won’t feel guilty about making smells that make you gag, especially in your home. I certainly wouldn’t daydream about punching someone in the mouth for telling me that bacon stinks.
I would change what I was doing in my own home if it affected people outside my space. I didn’t change my music at work because I already played it so low that it couldn’t be heard outside my office, which I didn’t share with anyone, and my co-worker didn’t have to hear it unless he chose to come into the room (it wouldn’t have hampered either of us if he’d paged me on the phone, emailed me or asked me to come to his office instead). If I was told that it could be heard from the hallway and people hated it, I’d have changed it, or turned it down further, or off. At home, I used to go for a drive in my car if I wanted to listen to loud music because I was conscious that I had neighbours who might be bothered by it even though we didn’t have shared walls. I stopped taking the food to work that bothered my co-worker because the lunch room was a shared space; I ignored the co-worker who thought my sandwiches were strange - they weren’t stinky or bothering her in any real way, she just found the combination odd and would comment about it whenever she saw me eating them.
If someone doesn’t notice the smell of Hippy’s dinner until they walk into his room then they have no business complaining about it. If they can smell it in the common areas - that’s different story. Once a month seems reasonable to Hippy… other people have different tolerance levels for unpleasant odours and might think that too frequent. Who’s to say who is right?
Well, you got me. thefreedictionary.com says “To spread or flow throughout; pervade” and “to penetrate or spread throughout (something)”; dictionary.com says “to pass into or through every part of: Bright sunshine permeated the room.” How was my usage wrong?
Yes, but he in no way was waving anything around. You read the OP, right?
I’m sure a college student could find words other than “your food stinks” if they were inclined to be polite instead of jerkish.
At least you can admit it, but that’s hardly an excuse to be rude.
Ever lived in a dormitory? It’s impossible to listen to music without headphones and not have it be heard. It’s impossible to cook in the communal kitchens without it being smelled. There is no real privacy for things like sound and smell in such a situation. It’s not like living in an apartment. That’s why people have to be more flexible and tolerant than they would be in other situations.
My dictionary says:
- to pass into or through every part of
- to penetrate through the pores, interstices, etc., of
- to be diffused through; pervade; saturate
It implies that the smell penetrated every part of an area, was so strong, unavoidable, and pervasive that it was overwhelming and long-lasting. I have seen no evidence that Hippy Hollow’s curry smell was permeating anything.
We were talking about situations in which I would say something, not Hippy. You accused me of contradicting myself, that’s what I quoted and that’s what I responded to. Sorry if this somehow confused you.
But… they didn’t. I repeat: I do not believe that 100% of the people bothered by the smell actually sought him out and told him so. People don’t work like that.
I don’t think I’m the one being rude. I think the person extending their boundaries into other people’s space after being told it’s an intrusion is rude.
No
I doubt that it is impossible, but once again, I was talking about my workspace and even in that quiet building I still managed to listen to music without bothering anyone who wasn’t standing beside me. If it takes headphones, then use headphones.
Hippy had a private kitchen in his apartment.
Sure, but people weren’t complaining about the other things he cooked, just the curry. I infer from that that it was a particularly strong odour. I may never have lived in shared housing, but I simply assume curry is an inappropriate dish to cook in a communal living situation because of how strong the smell is and how much it lingers.
…except for the five random strangers who were so bothered by it that they sought him out expressly to tell him it stinks. I mean, I’ve seen nits picked on this board before, but this is champion level nit-picking. I’m going to define “stink” for you.
So, we have a smell so bad that people described it as stinking, that is “a strong, foul odor; a strong offensive odor; a stench” smelt not “in this kitchen” or “outside your room” or “in this part of the hallway” but, from post #6 in this thread, was summed up as “this hallway stinks”. From the same post, the OP acknowledges “curry does linger”.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the phrase “permeating the common area” when people are complaining of a stink that lingers in the hallway. If sunlight can permeate a room (as per dictionary.com), then stink can permeate a hall.
To finish this rather ridiculous exchange, I will define “rude” for you and leave it at that:
- discourteous or impolite, esp. in a deliberate way: a rude reply.
- without culture, learning, or refinement: rude, illiterate peasants.
- rough in manners or behavior; unmannerly; uncouth.
You’re not going to redefine it to mean something more than your own dictionary cite says it does? How disappointing.
Haven’t done it yet in this thread, so why start now? Sorry to disappoint. Distorting the meaning of words to suit your rhetoric is your gig, not mine, anyway. But your snideness was really permeating your post… 
Cazzle, I’d recommend that you not live in communal housing like a dorm. You have to realize that being repulsed by tomato sauce (what we Americans call ketchup, right?) is a rather unique situation. And it would be completely unreasonable to expect others to not use it around you. You’d have to either live with it or find somewhere else to live, 'cos you’d be miserable.
“I think your postings in this thread suck.” That doesn’t bother you?
Have you followed this thread, seriously? We have a handful of rudely delivered “complaints” - again, saying something “reeks” doesn’t really help as far as pinpointing the issue - and I’ve counted about 20 people who responded positively and/or asked for a taste. By your logic concerning those who remained silent, there’s just as likely people in that group who didn’t care one way or the other, or liked it.
“Smells interesting/different/not what I’m used to” is a better mannered way of potentially raising an objection. We do have other ways of expressing our dislike of smells than saying “reeks” or “stinks.” Shit stinks. Intense body odor reeks. I submit to you, I would not tell anybody that their food stinks (even if I think it does). I’d find a more sensitive way to express that thought.
The analogy to the restaurant smells is ridiculous. I can assure you, one person making curry doesn’t smell like a curry restaurant. I can totally deal with the smell of bagels, tea, and coffee in people’s rooms - I dealt with it all the time. I also dealt with the occasional smell of burnt toast, or a new unfamiliar blend of coffee. I dealt with the smell of cigarettes and stale liquor on weekends as well. And you know what? It was a minor inconvenience and part of living in the halls with people that have different lifestyles than I do.
You’re giving an awful lot of credence to a random, ill-delivered “complaint.” By citing the definition of “stink,” you’ve likened something that is important to me, a part of my heritage to being akin to garbage. And you don’t see the cultural slight there?
Had a few other thoughts I wanted to add. First, the restaurant smells - I wasn’t generating anywhere near that level of food. I submit you’d have to make a lot of those things to make me gag in your room. Anyway, as motorgirl suggested, there’s also brewing yeast mixed in that I didn’t account for.
Second, I have a number of students in the program I supervise who have strong cultural ties outside of the US - Mexico, Ireland, Korea, and India, specifically. If they choose to take a job in residence life, it sounds like I should let them know that the instant someone complains to them about their cooking in their apartment (having used good judgment to minimize the impact on others), they should stop, and poll everyone around them regarding what’s acceptable for them to eat. Sound reasonable?
I, for one, understand completely, because that’s how I feel about the smell of coffee. Roasting or brewing coffee produces a horrible, terrible smell that everyone else seems to love. It’s everywhere. But I don’t think anyone’s rude for making or drinking coffee (unless someone complains about what I’m eating or drinking while they’re drinking coffee, in which case they’re hypocrites).
You trying to tell the whole world they can’t prepare curry within 100 yards of you will be just as successful as I’d be telling the world they can’t make coffee within 100 yards of me. Won’t happen.
People just need to live and let live a bit more. And if you’re really repulsed by such things, don’t live in communal housing.
I do not nor am I ever likely to live in communal housing so it’s a non-issue. Tomato sauce is not an intrusive odour like curry - it doesn’t drift far from the source. I don’t flip out about other people using it in the same room, I just find some people use it to excess or sit too close while they are eating it and I try put space between us because the smell is overpowering to me. On some occasions, people have been oblivious to my predicament and have kept closing the gap between us (generally while conversing) until I’ve had to ask them if they could keep it back a bit because it’s bothering me. I don’t know if that means that I could never live in a dorm.
Nope 
Seriously… why would it? I don’t even know you. I don’t need your approval. And if you don’t like my favourite meal in the whole world, my mother’s signature dish, even after I tell you that it’s part of my culture to eat it… nope, still nothing. Possibly I’m desensitised by the millions of people who loathe Vegemite, a foodstuff that I love and that is very, very popular in my culture.
Sorry, I keep forgetting about your 20-strong cheer squad because they showed up so late. My point was that if 5 people you lived with told you they didn’t like it, then there were more who didn’t like it and said nothing. You speak as though they were the only, only, only ones because no one else spoke up - I find that unlikely.
And is neither accurate nor conveys the message “I don’t like what I’m smelling” which (to the speaker) was the important part of the message. Curry doesn’t smell interesting… interesting would be something I want to know/learn/experience more of. Curry is something I want to stop smelling with all haste. Curry doesn’t smell different - it smells like freaking curry. I don’t hate it because I don’t know what it is, I hate it because of how it smells. If someone told me “What you’re cooking smells interesting”, I wouldn’t walk away from that conversation with an understanding that they disliked it and were trying to find a way to ask me not to do it anymore. Say what you will about “it stinks” being rude, it conveys several shades of meaning efficiently:
- It’s a strong smell
- It’s an unpleasant smell
- It’s a smell I desire to stop smelling as quickly as possible.
What the…? I mentioned that because I could swear you said
Five complaints, I hear. Give or take.
You love to go to that, don’t you! Everything’s a personal attack. It couldn’t be that curry is just such a strong, repulsive smell that people don’t want to be around it. Oh no! It’s an attack on your history, your upbringing and your way of life, dammit, and you are the victim here! I’d like you to look again and see that I quoted a dictionary definition of “stink”, a word that you introduced to the conversation, and the definition happened to use the word garbage as an example of something that stinks. I did not ever liken the smell of curry to the smell of garbage, nor would I. They are very different smells.
Under your rules, what can I say? Can I say Parmesan cheese stinks (and, incidentally, is delicious!) unless there’s a passing Italian, at which point the smell becomes merely interesting? Or do all foodstuffs that have strong, unpleasant odours need to be called “different” instead of stinky in case someone from a culture that eats that food is offended? Do you really think the language is improved by dropping a succinct, five-letter letter word that conveys a depth of meaning for substitute words that aren’t even synonyms, masking the true message of the speaker? If you ask a friend to check your breath for you before your date, are you at all the wiser for being told it smells “interesting” and “different” than “it stinks - dude, grab a mint!”? Are we so precious these days that we can’t be told truths unless they are framed as non-statements that don’t directly address the point? Would someone who considered nothing less than a petition to be an actual request that he stop whatever was causing the smell really be responsive to a complaint that was framed as “Dude, your cooking smells are interesting and different, and I’m not used to the sort of smells that are in the hallway. Is there a cultural reason you’re making that food?”.
OK, great. Your attitude as expressed in this thread sucks. It’s as inconsistent and self-indulgent as it is rude. I’m sure you like me exactly the same amount as you did before you read that, right? Good.
Why do you feel you just HAVE to convey that message? Why can’t you, I don’t know, just… walk away? 10’ down the hall, I’m sure you could smell some dude’s incense, or dirty sweat socks, or pot smoke, and that would be infinitely better, unless they happen to be eating ketchup. You don’t have to express every feeling that you have about what everyone else is doing. I’m sure it’s a big building and if you take a bunch of steps in any direction, hey presto! No more curry smell. What FORCES you to tell someone their food reeks, besides an entitled sense of rudeness?
Then you walk away, because the time it takes you to inhale that curry odor and exhale the words “Dude, that reeeeeks!” is not “all haste.”
It’s not a repulsive smell, any more than ketchup is, or bacon is. It’s in the nose of the beholder, not some objective truth that Hippy Hollow needs to just wake up to and realize, deluded as he is. And in a big ass building like a dorm, you can seek refuge in your own room, or some other area, and not be around it. I find that to be a more constructive solution to the unimaginable hell of smelling curry than taking it upon yourself to tell the chef his food stinks.
I know this is a crazy, novel idea, but how about you keep your snotty opinions to yourself, unless they are directly solicited? Or unless the smell is unavoidable to you in your own personal living space, or affecting your health? How about those for rules? If you are walking past someone’s door, for that 10 seconds that you are in that affected air space, you could hold your breath and walk faster. I know, it’s wild, to imagine a world when you don’t express every single thought that you have the moment you have it, in the rudest way possible. I know, you are the victim here because you are being CENSORED! Oh, the humanity!
Yes, curry and bad breath, an excellent analogy! :rolleyes:
Are we such special little hothouse flowers that our widdle noses cannot tolerate the smell of weird food for a dozen seconds? Are we such boundless free spirits that our every thought and preference must be given utterance, immediately? See how your rationale can be turned right back around?
Really, think before you speak, and try to resolve your problems for yourself before you complain to people. Sometimes, it’s much easier to walk away than it is to get in someone’s face and insult them, when you live in the same building. Hard to believe, but I’ve found that it works, especially when one is in a large, communal setting. Since you haven’t experienced this, Cazzle, you’ll just have to take my word on it.
What I find so sad about this is that, years after the event, Hippy didn’t start a thread about the twenty-plus friends he made through his cooking, but about the five individuals who each made one negative remark about the smell of it. The repeated visits by the people who enjoyed his food and their enthusiastic compliments didn’t even make rate a mention until the thirteenth post in this thread.
Cazzle, to take the analogy further, it’s not enough that I’ve told you that your posts suck, but you now should stop posting to the thread, by that logic. (I certainly don’t think you shouldn’t but to be consistent with this line of reasoning that states if someone doesn’t like what you’re doing for whatever reason, you’re supposed to cease altogether.)
I think Vegemite = Marmite, right? Not my favorite thing in the world but it’s not that I have to like it, nor does anyone have to like curry. But telling you that Vegemite sucks or reeks is just rude. If you think I, a grown-ass man, was somehow decimated and reduced to tears because of what some tool said to me in a hallway, you’re mistaken. It was still rude, but I’m fine, trust me. 
Why does your logic work in one direction - if five complained you postulate more must have been bothered. So doesn’t that mean that if 20 had a positive response, more must have liked it as well? If that’s not the case, what knowledge do you have that the former is true, but not the latter?
All well and good, but that would be your opinion. Now if you want your opinion to have an effect beyond your own headspace, it might require a conversation. In said conversation, if you’d like to influence someone to act in your interest, it might make sense to approach the issue with some regard of respect for the other person. In your points 1-3, only point 3 is valid because you state that it is your opinion. People can disagree with the first two points.
And yes, I analogized the smell of curry to an Indian restaurant for those who may think they’ve never smelled it. I would think it stands to reason that I’m not cooking the volume of a restaurant, nor am I doing it every day.
Settle down, dude. You’re the one labeling curry as a “strong, repulsive smell.” I think that’s a bit much. And yes, your definition of “stink” invokes garbage. As others have noted, curry is food, like tomato sauce, bacon, boiled eggs, etc. You may personally dislike it but do you see the problem now about using terms like “reek” and “stink?”
How about this? How about not saying a damn thing, unless it’s truly inconveniencing you to a point that your lifestyle is seriously compromised?
I didn’t ask anyone’s opinion about how the curry smelled, so no, I’m not really expecting comments about it. Had I done so I think your bad breath analogy might make some sense. Furthermore, with breath on a date, you’re not looking for “not bad,” or “not my cup of tea but acceptable.” You want “pleasant smelling.”
Most amusingly, how do you liken your white-hot hate-on for curry with “truth?”
The petition was a serious attempt to determine the impact on others. Again, if I was bothered so much by a smell, I’d take that approach. That way I’d find out if it really was an annoyance held by many, or if it was just me being hypersensitive.
Finally, I’d like a response to this: I’ve mentioned some of the not-so-pleasant to me smells I dealt with on a weekly basis. Stale beer/alcohol, usually because it was spilled on clothes and/or carpeting. Stale cigarettes from party people. So am I entitled to have these smells absent from my living environment? Is it justifiable for me to tell these folks that they stink, and expect them to stop frequenting the bars of their choice because I don’t like it?
I’d wager no, it’s my problem - it’s a part of living in a communal situation, and if the problem affects me this greatly I should either get additional support from my fellow residents (as in the form of a petition) or move somewhere else. That’s why I live in a house nowadays.
He didn’t need help or advice or opinions on how to deal with making new friends.
With all appreciation to the folks who reacted positively, I was just trying to make my dinner. I really didn’t particularly want reactions one way or the other. However, I thought it was neighborly to share or expose people to the food if they wanted some - it is college, and I’m in favor of supporting people who want to expand their horizons (or enjoy a dish they already like). Keep in mind I’m about 10 years older than most of the people in the building, so it really wasn’t about making friends. It was about being a good neighbor and educator.
Don’t get me wrong, a positive comment is much better than a negative one, any day.
Let’s make an analogy using another sense.
I am living in a culture that is not my own. But I still generally wear the clothes from my culture. They are what I grew up with, and they are what I find comfortable and attractive. I make sure my clothes are not grossly violating any cultural norms, keep clean and well groomed and do make nods now and then to my host culture. But for day to day life I stick to what I’m used to.
I get told, quite often, that my clothes are “ugly.” I get told that I dress like a man, that my clothes are extremely unflattering, that I will never find a husband dressed like that, etc. I get told pretty often that I should not go out in public looking like I do because it looks so ugly.
To me, this is pretty much the same situation. Hippy Hollow is doing something that is quite normal- and indeed appreciated- in his culture, and being told in quite rude terms that other people don’t like being exposed to it.
As for my situation, I am an America living in small town China. I wear simple. classic, professional American clothes. Gap stuff and sturdy shoes. My co-workers prefer pink frilly dresses, stiletto heels,. manicured nails with glitter, etc. They find my refusal to wear heels to be an absolute outrage. I really don’t care. Sometimes you have to just learn to live with other people’s cultures, even in public.