:wink:

Heya.

@MattЭллен What is a biscuit to you?

Crisp? Soft?

You're all crazy.

Thank you.

Uhm hello Mitch?

@Cerberus depends

Right.

I call "jaffa cakes" biscuits

So it can be softish, yes?

they're soft

Jaffa...

@Cerberus yeah

Ahh those.

We call them Pims, a brand.

So those are definitely not biscuits or biscuitjes here, no.

ah

I think Jaffa Cakes are a dividing line here. some people call them biscuits others do not

Biscuit

no

Also biscuit:

yes!

Though I'd call those "cookies" first.

we have a type of biscuit called a cookie

it is usually represented by the thing in the top left or your assortment

Those are all cookies to me

Cookies can be soft or hard, even approximating flat cakes.

the line between a cookie and a cake can be blurry

then there are crackers: they're like cookies, only not sweet.

Again, sometimes it's not a clear line

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah yes, that is no biscuit. That's bread.

@Cerberus Well, it's called a biscuit.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Close, but not quite. More like cookies.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not here.

@Cerberus biscuit is like a seldom-used synonym for cookie

Not here: it is a kind of cookie, I think.

Less fatty.

Dry and hard.

Sweet, but not very sweet.

@Cerberus Those are cookies

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but also biscuits.

Anyway, wikipedia seems to sum it up pretty much accurately: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit

That's no fun.

These are typical biscuits.

So @Cerb, for you a biscuit is a kind of cookie, and for Matt, a cookie is a kind of biscuit?

Biscuits are a kind of cookies.

And around here, people rarely say "biscuit", but when they do, they usually mean the thing that resembles a scone.

So weird.

Biscuitje has a certain stuffy connotation around it.

it's not weird. It's just language evolution for you.

like the word "muffin".

I guess in cooking certain desserts you would often use biscuit.

@Matt: what is a muffin?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is too!

well, there's the muffin:

and there's the breakfast muffin

That's a muffin. But muffins are decidedly foreign.

@MattЭллен We call these "English Muffins":

yeah, we call those breakfast muffins

Ah yes. I have only heard of those in legends.

We don't call those muffins.

Those are the original muffins

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And what are "ordinary" muffins?

@Cerberus The cupcake-like ones

Huh.

They are the newer variant

What the difference?

I see a cup and a cake.

People were making muffins but adapted their recipes according to availability of local ingredients and eventually "muffins" and "cupcakes" converged

(in north america)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How were/are they ever different?

It's just cake in a cup.

@Cerberus Well.... sorta. not really.

Cake is butter/sugar/flour 1:1:1 + 1 egg per, what, 50 grams of each?

Muffins are usually made with different grains. like bran.

Nobody makes a "bran cake".

Huh.

No all-purpose white flour?

I don't know what to call that.

Some "muffins" these days are indistinguishable from cupcakes. But that's because of evolution. Originally they were made differently.

in the UK at least cupcakes and muffins have very different texture. cup cakes are spongier, muffins are doughier

@tchrist looks like a scone

@MattЭллен Lies.

Muffin.

Corn muffin.

Those are scones.

Not muffins.

Nice blog post by Barrie.

that's wird bread nougat, not scones

@MattЭллен typo alert. Last paragraph, " thaty".

:D

Nugget?

And soup alert here, so AFK.

@tchrist Huh, looks more like tortilla...

That’s a cilantro, poblano, and cheddar scone.

I have never seen scones like that.

@tchrist hmm?

@Cerberus Those are biscuits.

@tchrist No, scones.

That’s a toffee-coffee pecan scone with a Kahlua glaze.

They're fairly bread-like, but the outside may be a bit crispy.

@Cerberus Couldn’t sell them under that name here.

Those are biscuits.

They are typically shaped like flattened balls to me.

That shape you post looks atypical to me.

But the dough may be the same.

Scones are normally very plain, maybe some raisins?

You clearly need to look at Pastry Chicago’s delicious scone competition to understand what scones are.

That fancy stuff you post is no doubt delicious, but it looks like milieu-to-haute cuisine.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That wasn't my question, but it's too hard to explain what I meant.

Not simple tea scones.

That looks like...some kind of caramel tart?

Don’t make me take my camera down the bakery on the corner.

But with sconish dough?

Tart?

That’s a scone.

Tarts are way different.

I would never ever think of "scone" seeing that.

Of course tarts are very different. Please do not go into that.

Oh, nor are you the person to whom I asked it. People to whom I don't ask questions shouldn't go round not answering them.

That is a tart.

That looks like a lemon tart with strawberries on top.

And pistachios?

Right.

Exactly.

Hmm what is the Italian plural of pistachio?

Pistachi?

Somehow it doesn't sound right.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I always thought "cupcake" was the American word for muffin.

@Cerberus The Italian is pistacchio. So I guess the plural is pistacchi.

I think the American word for muffin is "large muffin".

@DavidWallace Oh, double c?

Pistacchi...somehow that looks better than pistachi.

@Cerberus Usually the American word for "large" anything is "regular".

But -io => -i?

@DavidWallace Oh, right, right.

So "small muffin", then?

Pistacchi, yes.

I wonder why I pronounce it with a ch sound, instead of a k sound. Does everybody do that? (Apart from Italians, obviously).

> Zone di coltivazione a rilevanza internazionale sono in Iran, in Grecia, in Turchia e California. In Italia è una coltivazione di nicchia, rinomati sono i pistacchi di Bronte ed Adrano alle pendici dell'Etna, tutelati dal marchio DOP "Pistacchio Verde di Bronte". In Grecia, invece, si coltiva un tipo di pistacchio diverso.

@DavidWallace I was confused there, for a second.

No, I was confused. It seems you said the same thing a long time ago. I am not having a good day for original thoughts.

The English pronunciation is of course /pɪˈstæʃɪoʊ/.

Some people use /ɑ/ there, but it sounds a bit pretentious.

> The α forms a. OFr. pistace (13th c.) and Fr. pistache /pistaʃ/; the β forms ad. Ital. pistacchio /pisˈtakkjo/, some affected by L. pistacia, or by Spanish; the γ form a. Sp. pistacho /pisˈtatʃo/; all from L. pistācium (med.L. pistāquium), a. Gr. πιστάκιον pistachio nut, f. πιστάκη pistacia-tree, from OPers.: cf. Pers. pistah.

@tchrist Hmm, not how I pronounce it, but it's good to know what English people do.

@DavidWallace In Dutch, it is pistache, pronounced as in French. So we win the weirdness contest.

@tchrist I have heard it with /k/ in English.

No, the English say / pɪˈstarʃɪəʊr/.

Probably in some chef video.

@Cerberus Best tell the OED then, as they have not.

Of course.

It may have been in Posh Nosh.

@tchrist That sounds like a /'pɪ:steɪk/.

You know how snobbish chefs are.

> Forms: ɑ. 5-7 pistace, 6 pystace, 7-8 pistach, 7- pistache. β. 6 pistaccio, 7 -acio, 7- pistachio, (9 -acchio); also (6 pistinachie), 7 pistachie, -acie, 8 -achee, 7- pistachia. ɣ. 7-8 pistacho.

But I have always said /pə'sta:tʃiəʊ/.

Take two, they’re small.

Well, if you want to sound Mexican, sure.

Yes, I have heard it pronounced like /tʃ/ too.

ANyone have a thought on this sentence (not mine) ...

People ignorant of how languages borrow words from other languages sell the non sense that one should pronounce words the way they are pronounced in the source language!!

Nonsense, for starters.

This comes from a discussion about how to say people's names.

Exactly.

And one exclamation mark will do, thank you.

I mean its content, not its grammar.

And the point is moot unless he means "all words".

Noöne pronounces all borrowed words as they are in the source language.

So I smell a strawman.

So long as you don’t mind being called Dayweed Vayachee, then the content is fine. The contrapositive is also true.

Umm, I'd be Dahweed Vayachay, I think.

Although I'm not quite sure why the V and the W would get swapped.

That is a foreign pronunciation. We only have daytime weeds here.

Actually, "Dayweed" is very close to how my ex-wife says my name.

By the way, most borrowed words were pronounced in different ways during their time in the source language, so which pronunciation to pick?

The one used at the time of borrowing?

Or the one the source language has evolved into now?

Just use whatever they would have called it in ancient rome.

Or the way it was pronounced at the moment of borrowing?

OK, but this is about names. If some foreigner uses the wrong sounds in my name, I will correct them, unless the sounds are close enough.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 When, exactly?

Pronunciation changed a lot in the course of history, during Antiquity.

@Cerberus Midnight, 1/1/1

@Cerberus Those people who changed the pronunciation were just wrong and unedumacated.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And by whom exactly?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Of course.

@Cerberus The ones who spoke properly.