Things you were shockingly old when you learned

In my experience very few North Americans are familiar with raclette, so I'd say it's pretty obscure.

I've never heard of it fwiw.

Reminds me of the Brit journalist who requested Beaufort for his fondue, whereupon he was denied by the Parisian cheese merchant (which is exactly as it should be, of course).

I'm famously clueless when it comes to food - famous amongst my confreres, that is.

i do now live in montreal, so i guess more people know it here, but it's reassuring to know this isn't an everyone-knows-it thing. the fact that two separate people looked at me like an alien from space had me shook.

I grew up in Montreal and only discovered raclette while living in France. I brought it up with both anglophone and franocphone friends upon returning and none of them had heard of it. Given the amount of French people who've settled there in recent years, I'm sure that's bound to change, though.

I have Swiss family so that skews what I consider general knowledge of Swiss things, but yes, I have eaten it. It's not my favorite, though.

I have a little raclette grill, it looks like this.

I think raclette has been having a bit of a moment but we're not talking food meme status

My wife only learned yesterday that Milkshake by Kelis is about boobs.

i almost got this when in switzerland but i couldn't get enough buy in from family companions. it looked good. otherwise, i've never even heard of it. Had plenty rosti though, which i also did not know prior.

lol xp.

kelis has always given one of those noncommittal "it means whatever you want it to mean" type answers as to the meaning of that particular metaphor

'"Milkshake" is just that thing that makes a woman stand out from everyone else. It's a thing that makes you sensual and warm and maternal. It could be about breasts but I don't have huge t*** so you gotta work with what you got.'

I saw a raclette food truck on Tuesday

For whatever reason, raclette has become pretty popular in the last decade or so in Quebec (it's good winter food, I guess). For me, both my parents were born in Switzerland so I've known about since I was a kid and enjoy it a lot.

you can get it in the pyrenees too, i guess it's kind of classic ski food. i like the little slo-melt grill thingies. but where would you put them??

https://vetstreet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f12dfd4/2147483647/crop/0x0%2B0%2B0/resize/645x380/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvetstreet-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F30%2F803710a75611e0a0d50050568d634f%2Ffile%2FGreat-Pyrenees-4-645mk062411.jpg

My wife only learned yesterday that Milkshake by Kelis is about boobs.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Friday, November 9, 2018 2:24 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whoa

Honestly always thought it was about ass

Were you weaned on a danish?

You're thinking of Frederick.

I was at a restaurant in Maryland some time ago where the chef was all officious and pedantic, like "rassalette is like fondue, but you drizzle cheese on top of things rather than dipping things into it," and I'm sitting there pretty sure he's mispronouncing it (should be a hard c, ra'klet" rather thatn how he said it, ras'a'let"). But I didn't say anything.

If it my quarrel with him were merely linguistic I would have let it go; as it happens the food was merely okay while the service was spotty best.

We sat with conspicuously empty wine glasses for half an hour while he effusively misinformed other tables; I eventually waved down the hostess with arm semaphore and suggested that we might benefit from some liquid refreshment while waiting for our upside-down fondue, n'est-ce pas?

Petty in the grand scheme of things but my one raclette memory is not a good one.

No one should ever be shamed for mispronouncing a foreign word… except when they're being a snooty dick about it. Then it's your duty to tell them off.

i’ve been “corrected” for pronouncing a foreign word correctly, by people (mostly in my family) who think an english hack job of the word is more appropriate.

also people (outside my family) almost always “correct” the pronunciation of my last name, which… why? why are people like this?

are you vvv sure youre saying it right

like

an awful lot of english ppl with irish last names are making a balls of it, i feel its a favour to tell em

Fwiw English people are probably better at it than most non-Irish people.

are you vvv sure youre saying it right

yeah, i've properly checked, it's definitely more accurate than the hordes of thumping bogans who think they're an expert at my name 1.5 seconds after hearing it

i mean i don't care how people say my name, they can pronounce it "underpants party" for all i care, it's more the attitude of people who think i'm saying my own name wrong and feel the need to correct me

Like when Cathal Coughlan of Microdisney changed his name to Blah Blah on their second album because he was so pissed off with English people not being able to pronounce his name.

nice

Fwiw English people are probably better at it than most non-Irish people.

Definitely not.

The IPA phonetic symbol (x) represents a voiceless velar fricative that does not occur in English, except for Scottish loch (lox), normally pronounced (lok) in Received Pronunciation or General American.

I think a raclette video went viral a couple of years ago in the US so it got a surge of popularity. I like to just grill slices of raclette in a frying pan and then pour it over eggs (because I don't have other methods).

What I meant to say is that English people are statistically likelier to know something about how Irish names are pronounced due to centuries of contact, whereas your average Eastern European, for instance, doesn't know the first thing about Ireland other than 'lol alcohol'.

Ah but getting names wrong because they can't be arsed trying and don't care anyway is a long standing tradition.

I believe you, though I'm also convinced that France is the worst offender in this regard.

I imagine it's similar!

Arsene Wenger was at Arsenal for 22 years and, after 22 years, football fans were still calling him Wenger in radio phone-ins - Arsenal fans, mind you.

xps
and as is finding "foreign" surnames much more pun-worthy or hilarious than any common Anglo-Saxon derived surnames are, but not in an intentionally racist/offensive way of course - just having a laugh etc.

You don't often hear English speakers say 'John Sebastian Bach', for instance, whereas in French it's almost systematically 'Jean-Sébastien Bach'. Likewise, Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Kafka's Metamorphosis, suddenly becomes Grégoire Samsa in earlier French translations (I don't recall any anglophone referring to him as 'Gregory'). There's a greater willingness to erase the unfamiliarity of foreign names in French culture. When you become a French citizen, you can even request that your name be 'francisé'.

Speaking of Wenger, Alsatian names are routinely butchered by the French: cf. 'Schlumberger', which becomes 'Schlyoumberzhé' or some such.

John Sebastian Bach

> that is like a portmanteau of John Sebastian (Lovin' Spoonful) and Sebastian Bach (Skid Row).

Lewis of the Beet Farms
John Golden Mouthed Wolf Path Friend of God Boggy
Francis Cobbler
John Broom
Peter Son of Elijah from Lapwing
Joseph Anthony Bridge Toll Collector

When you become a French citizen, you can even request that your name be 'francisé'.

This sounds like when you meet someone named 茉莉花, pronounced "Kimberly".

contact!

in the US, my other half had this conversation more than once - not his name but an equivalent example:

him: "hi, I'm Steven"
new acquaintance "oh, do you pronounce it 'Stefan'?"
him: "... no..?"

lmao

Lewis of the Beet Farms

Richard George Bouquet (or Richard George Ostrich if you prefer), John Henry Table-Leg

I do appreciate the French pronunciation of Greek names like Antigone in a completely French way (e.g.), though I admit English pronunciation of classical names and particularly scientific binomial names often follows a weird logic that is neither English nor Latin/Greek

and let's gloss over the old British boarding school pronunciation of Don Quixote, Don Juan as if they were just some English words - see University Challenge thread every time the presenter says either of these. (Quicksoat! This is thankfully p unusual these days, don't know why the presenter hasn't been told to knock it off by the BBC's pronunciation dept)

What I meant to say is that English people are statistically likelier to know something about how Irish names are pronounced due to centuries of contact

nah

No francophone ever pronounces it 'Don Huann', it's always 'Don Zhyou-an', like this. And Quixote sounds like Kishot.

Speaking of classical names, the bastardized English pronunciation is often closer to the original than its French variant. All I'm saying is that English (I'm anthropomorphizing here) is at least vaguely aware of the possibility that its pronunciations might be wrong, whereas French generally doesn't give a fuck.

Man, you guys are really taking self-flagellation (or flagellation, depending) to the next level. I'm just saying that it's not as bad as it could be, not that it's all a-OK.

oh the French are a terrible bunch of lads too. No argument there