12.13.2012

Mangled menus

It was recently brought to my attention that although I mention “ice tea” and “stain glass” windows in passing on my “Non-Errors” page, they probably deserve a separate entry. Indeed, when I wrote the book version of Common Errors in English Usage, I created entries for these two, but forgot to match them on the Web site. I’ve now fixed that.

The same correspondent pointed out that “scramble eggs” is a similar misspelling on many menus, so I added an entry for that one as well.

I used to joke to my wife that I should make a card to leave with the tip in restaurants on which I could check off the various spelling errors on the menu.

Some I have written up: “bullion,” “carmel,” “Ceasar salad,” “chai tea,” “ champaign,” “cold slaw,” “desert,” “expresso,” “French dip with au jus,” “grill cheese,” “mash potatoes,” “sherbert,” “Rueben sandwich,” “sconce,” “soup du jour of the day,” “tirimisù,” “vinegarette,” “weiner,” and “whip cream.”

1 comment:

Darin Ramsey said...

I'd buy those cards! Poorly edited menus are reason enough to avoid a restaurant, in my opinion. What else are they giving too little attention?