Mea Culpa: Oh no, who are these dreadful people who like food?
The language of restaurant reviews and other flat soufflés in this week’s Independent
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Your support makes all the difference.Last weekend an article began: “From now until Christmas, groups of foodies after something special can book themselves a table at Nuno Mendes’ laidback Portuguese restaurant Taberna do Mercado.”
Groups of foodies? Who are these dreadful people, and why do they have such a horrible name? They often appear on our pages, and I wish they wouldn’t. We did it again in a review of AA Gill’s favourite restaurants: “Riva is famed for its use of truffles and has become a serious foodie haunt.”
As my colleague Don Connigale says, “the word ‘foodie’ is lazy, dull, clichéd, infantile and ugly. I wouldn’t mind so much, but it is also patronising. Nobody ever refers to themselves as a foodie. It is used only to describe others. Yet what does it mean? Someone who likes food? Isn’t that most people? By using it in restaurant reviews we are distancing ourselves from the very people we are writing for.”
Get thee to a scoffery: And where do foodies eat? In eateries, of course. We mentioned them in a “Business News in Brief” item from Bloomberg in the Daily Edition on Saturday. “Refinancing risks are multiplying. Bank of America’s gauge of borrowing costs for high-yield retailers and eateries in pounds has increased 23 basis points since Brexit.” I think I am going to check in to a sickery.
Undersea buzz: We fell victim to the danger of short headlines again this week. While a news story itself was headlined, “China seizes US Navy underwater drone in international waters of South China Sea”, the short headline on the front page was: “China seizes unmanned US Navy drone in South China Sea.”
Double brickbat: a drone is by definition a pilotless craft, and we prefer pilotless to unmanned.
Planes and automobiles: On Thursday we wrote about Rolls-Royce plc, the aero engine and turbine company, and illustrated it with the photograph of a Rolls-Royce car radiator. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was separated from the parent company in 1973 and has been owned by BMW since 1998, as Richard Harvey pointed out.
The website version of the story now has a photo of a jet engine. I fear this confusion is going to persist. Neither successor company wants to change the name, because of its association with quality. At least we hyphenated it, which is the preferred style.
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