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Photo: Confit de canard at Lusso. Those ‘in the know’ will say “kohn-feee-duh-kah-naaaarhrhrdh” but I like to call it Duck con-feet.

Robert Sietsema has compiled a list of the 43 Most Mispronounced Food Words. The pronunciation guide is for Americans, hence the “Eh” becomes “Aay” and “Rrrr” has to be stressed. I take issue with his pronunciation of chorizo—Chore-eetz-zo?! That’s just pretentious, it’s not Italian. Wait, if it’s Spanish there’s a lisp. Cho-ree-tho? Tho in Thpain I am Jethica Thafra?

Usually I don’t mind being corrected about my pronunciation, but it drives me nuts when the correction is wrong and I know I’m right. For instance when you order Salade Nicoise and pronounce the S, Neeshwaz because there’s an E after it, no, and the waiter snottily replies, “Neesh-WA.” Aaaaaa! Repeat after me: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. (Huwag mag-marunong.)

When people say “Fer-nay” Branca I want to start yelling “Fernet! Fernet!” (As friends will attest I am more combative when I hear people say “MTV” when they mean “music video” or “pictorial” when they mean “photo shoot”. “Pictorial?! Pictorial?!” is a running joke.) Some words are read as spelled, do not faux-Frenchify. Why are we so self-conscious about our French pronunciation, you think the French get this anxious about their English? I can’t find my photo of a Paris cafe menu where “charcuterie” was described as “assorted pigment”.

Recently I couldn’t sleep because I said “creme de cassis” with the final S and my friend said, “Isn’t it cassee?” Which ticked me off because it’s the one thing I know about mixing drinks (Ca-CEASE! Ca-CEASE!), but he’s frequently right so I checked first, and I ended up texting a counter-correction at 2am. Yes, it’s a neurosis.

Best policy, I think, is to leave people’s pronunciation alone. Try correcting your ancient aunt’s pronunciation of “mille feuille”, see if you don’t get bopped on the head. When it’s your turn to say the word, say it the right way and hope the correction sticks. Don’t be so snooty about food, we all know where it’ll end up tomorrow. (But don’t cut your pasta with a knife!)

The faster and easier technology makes our lives, the dumber people choose to be. Yes, they choose to be stupid. How hard is it to click the spellchecker in a word processing program?

The Oatmeal has a brilliant piece: 10 Words You Need To Stop Misspelling. (Especially ‘misspelling’ which has two s’s.)

Koosi: I do not need fillers. During lulls in the conversation I simply give the humans this look and they spend the next few minutes trying to figure out what I mean. That is why cats are called “enigmatic”.

Christopher Hitchens examines the unstoppable onslaught of “like”.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of “like” has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables. But it didn’t start off that way, and might possibly be worth saving in a modified form.

William Safire, who raked over words in his NYT column On Language, has died.

From 1979 until earlier this month, he wrote “On Language,” a New York Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars.

The columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like “the president’s populism” and “the first lady’s momulism,” written during the Carter presidency.

An archive of Safire’s column, On Language.

Chicken liver paté, foie gras mousse and fish paté at La Cuisine.

At a restaurant.
Ernie: Ano yung sandwich ninyo na may figs?
Waiter: Roast fork sandwich, Sir.
Ernie: Hindi vavoy, figs.

At a bookstore.
Me: Do you have Me Cheeta? (the acclaimed “autobiography” by Tarzan’s chimpanzee, longlisted for the Booker Prize)
Clerk: Yes, we have a copy.
Me: What’s the name of the author again?
Clerk: Cheeta.
Silence.
Me: The human author?
Silence.
Clerk: I’ll go get the book.

(By the way the author is James Lever.)

At dinner. Our friend The Count likes to describe events in cinematic terms. “Cut to Pilar! Close-up on Boy!” Here he is describing his crush emerging from a car.
The Count: Tumigil ang kotse. Bumukas ang pinto. Lumabas ang paa. Lumabas ang binti. Lumabas ang tuhod. Lumabas ang likod.
Ernie: At magkahiwa-hiwalay silang lahat!
End of story.

Robot, mutant, cyberspace, alternate history, anti-gravity—Science fiction has bequeathed many words to the English language. Science fiction’s vital contribution to the life of English by Sam Jordison in the Guardian.