Size Matters

A few years ago there was a definite wave of anti-French sentiment in the US; so not very different from the UK in that regard. In March of 2003, the chair of the relevant committee required the restaurants in the US House of Representatives to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom fries and Freedom toast. The menus reverted to normality in 2006.

However, there still seems to be instances here in the US which involve ignoring French contributions to language. I went to a newly opened Fentons creamery yesterday; this being a fancy word for an ice-cream parlour. I ordered a “petite” portion. I failed my French O-Level, twice, but I pretty certain that petite means small. However, what arrived was a mass of ice-cream, albeit rammed into and on top of a small cup. It was probably enough ice-cream to feed two European adults; I shudder to think how much ice-cream would have arrived in the regular, large or jumbo portions.

Published in: on 1 July, 2007 at 9:16 Comments (0)