| Tuesday, March 11, 2003 |
15:15 - Dork fries
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/sprj.irq.fries/index.html
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I'm with Corsair: the House of Representatives changing "french fries" to "freedom fries" is tacky and juvenile in the extreme.
However, at least in this case we can have the comfort of historical precedent. In WWII, according to NPR, sauerkraut was renamed to liberty cabbage, "frankfurters" were solidified in their new identity as "hot dogs", and-- unbelievably-- German measles became known as liberty measles.
This doesn't, however, absolve today's newspeak perpetrators from their persistence in not realizing that the "french" in "french fries" refers to frenching, a preparation method. They didn't originate in France.
UPDATE: CapLion is considerably less put out by "freedom fries" than I am. (I'm trying to come up with a pun that involves "put out" and "put in" or perhaps "poutine", but failing.) But J Greely suggests a better name for them would be New York fries. It's not terribly inaccurate, considering that New York has always been such a hotbed of newly imported foods brought by immigrants or cultural exchange; and besides it's got plenty of WoT cachet. (Whoah-- perhaps I should avoid using French words like cachet... much as the British deliberately pronounced words like fillet and ballet with a hard T and the emphasis on the first syllable, so as to de-Francify such words.)
Well, either way, I like the sound of New York fries... pending legal clearance with the food-court restaurant of the same name. Somehow I doubt they'd mind much.
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