It is a well-known fact that using French in menus of restaurants outside France is the “crème de la crème”.
This can sometimes lead to rather amusing menus.
In Dublin, Ireland, I found a “salade de fromage de chèvre chaude” in the list of possible starters. Spelt like this it means “cheese salad of hot goat”. If that’s what you have for starters, I wonder what comes next…
It should have been “salade de fromage de chèvre chaud” (it’s the cheese that’s hot not the goat). This demonstrates how a single missing “e” can have rather funny consequences…
In Norway, more and more foreigners open a restaurant with the prospect of benefiting from a higher standard of living.
Norwegian spelling can be a bit tricky but in this case it was an Italian word that was misspelled.
In front of one of these foreign fast-food, there was a sign reading “vi har pissa i frysern“. (read in Dagbladet, a Norwegian newspaper)
This means “we have peed in the freezer” instead of “vi har pizza i fryseren” meaning “we have pizza in the freezer”.
I wonder if that fast-food got a lot of customers…
Related Posts
- Wednesday, 2nd September 2009 by Armelle Europe
- Category: Language Fun
- Tags: language
- Comments: ( 5 )
Herman on the 3rd of September 2009 @ 11:35
Funny
I do remember an Italian restaurant who wrote Mussolini sauce instead of mousseline sauce on their suggestions!
Marcelo on the 3rd of September 2009 @ 14:44
Nice ideia Language Fun! I loved the idea. I hope to read more soon!
Armelle Europe on the 3rd of September 2009 @ 18:20
Herman : the Mussolini sauce, excellent anecdote ! Thanks for sharing.
Marcelo : There’ll definitely be more soon !
Elusive Moose on the 11th of January 2010 @ 23:08
My favourite I think, seen on countless occasions in English restaurant reviews, is Brasssiere instead of Brasserie… Well, I’m sure that would draw a few extra customers :-)
Armelle Europe on the 13th of January 2010 @ 20:59
Elusive Moose : Brassière instead of Brasserie is surely a cunning marketing strategy :) Nice one and thanks for sharing !