So many of my pet peeves about word misuse and abuse come from restaurants.

My latest is:

How is everything tasting? I swear if I hear that one more time... The other night the waiter asked, and I replied that as far as I could tell my tongue was very healthy and performing its job just fine. Needless to say the dolt looked confused.

Of course, this follows on the heels of the same cretin inquiring as to how "we" are doing tonight... I told him I didn't know about him, but I was just fine and my husband seemed to be fairing pretty well though he was in the loo at the moment.

I know he can't help it. Everyone in the whole bloody place was going about inquiring how things were tasting. I wanted to scream. The worst part of it is this particular restaurant has just about the only decent tasting food in town.

In dictionary.com one of the descriptive sentences is: The stew tastes salty. How is that different from: How is everything (meaning food of course) tasting? I must be missing something.

No restaurant employee has ever asked me how everything is tasting, but most of them ask, midway through the meal, "How is everything?"

Although I have not yet done it, I have thought of replying, "Contrary to what you must believe, I am not an authority on everything, but the food's just fine, thank you."

It's that sort of behavior that has occasionally got me labelled "smartass."

Kalleh inquired as to why I am perturbed by the question, How is everything tasting?

I'm quibbling, is why. I would not particulary mind, "How does your steak taste?" But to me, the verb form "is tasting" is active, not passive. So while my steak might taste good to me, it is incapable of tasting.

Do you consider the sentence, "The stew tastes salty" wrong then, too, Jo? I mean, I suppose it could mean the stew is tasting something salty.

No. But I would cringe at "The soup is tasting salty." I would much prefer, "The soup tastes salty."

I don't know why, "How is the soup tasting" bothers me. "How does the soup taste" wouldn't bother me at all.

There's something niggling at my brain about transitive/intransitive rather than active/passive verbs.

My husband suggests that these questions, like the "how are we doing tonight?" bother me not because they are grammatically incorrect but because they are social noise rather than truly expressing any real involvement or concern.

I do agree with you about "how are we doing?" It sounds condescending to me.

My hubby's pet peeve in restaurants is when the waitress calls him "honey" or "sweetie". He find it VERY condescending.

When your husband comes to the Chicago area, we must remember not to take him to Ed Debevic's then. Those waitresses and waiters come to your table, sit down with you, call you sweetie, etc., and sometimes even dance on the counters!

It really is quite a fun restaurant. I don't know if there are any outside of the Chicago area.

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Although I have not yet done it, I have thought of replying, "Contrary to what you must believe, I am not an authority on _everything,_ but the food's just fine, thank you."


It's that sort of behavior that has occasionally got me labelled "smartass."

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Jerry, I HAVE done it! Do it!

Asa the other smartass

Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) and Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) as they are boarding an oceanliner in A Night at the Opera:

Mrs. Claypool: Otis, do you have everything?

Groucho: I've never had any complaints yet.

Kalleh, we've BEEN to Ed Debevic's, and we had fun! Simon was thoroughly embarrassed (hehehe) and we had a ball. We had a guy server, and I remember bantying with him quite a bit. Fun!

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bantying

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sounds brilliant.

Explain then. Is this like banter?

I think I made up a new word!

Turns out, Graham, I meant bandying. Don't you think bantying sounds better? Like a banty hen, I guess. From M-W, I found "b : EXCHANGE; especially : to exchange (words) argumentatively c : to discuss lightly or banteringly" so you can see my silly confusion!

I think you're on to something here. To 'bandy words' may mean to to pass a story or information from mouth to mouth and dates back to about 1600 but it can have an implied aggression to it as it also traditionally refers to 'beat to and fro' in a tennis match and dates from a similar time. It can therefore be concluded that if you 'bandy words' your verbal exchange is not particularly lighthearted.

Conversely, to 'banter' suggests an element of fun and I think this is what characterised your exchange with the waiter so it seems logical to conclude that the best way to describe what took place is a combination of the two, hence you were 'bantying' words with the waiter in a lighthearted verbal exchange.

Does any of that make sense or am I talking rubbish as usual?

It all makes perfect sense to me . . . but of course, I'm the one who said bantying in the first place.

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:
It all makes perfect sense to me . . . but of course, I'm the one who said bantying in the first place.

It makes sense to me, too. A banty (diminutive form of bantam) is just a small breed of chicken, though I just found out it can apply to ducks, too.

My Mother raised banty chickens when I was a kid. They were scrappy, independent little chickens. You didn't have to feed them; they would scratch for their food, living on seeds and insects. It's just a short jump to refer to small, scrappy people as banties or bantams. Bantam, or bantamweight is, in fact, a classification in boxing and some other sports.

It seems logical that banty could be used to refer to "verbal sparring."

I'm surprised that I couldn't find banty in any dictionary. It's just the diminutive form of bantam, which is found in many dictionaries. The OED Online says a bantam is

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"A small variety of the domestic fowl, most breeds of which have feathered legs: the cocks are spirited fighters."

I like this definition from Brewer's Phrase & Fable (1898):

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Bantam.

A little bantam cock. A little plucky fellow that will not be bullied by a person bigger than himself. The bantam cock will encounter a dunghill cock five times his own weight, and is therefore said to “have a great soul in a little body.” The bantam originally came from Bantam, in Java.

Tinman

PS The OED Online defines a dunghill cock as "a man who is not ‘game’, a coward or spiritless fellow."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Well, if there is an implied aggression to bandying words about, I am not familiar with it. When I read the online AHD about bandying, it says, "To discuss in a casual or frivolous manner: bandy an idea about," and that's how I have always used it. Do others think of "bandying" as sometimes implying aggression?

However, it is strange to have 2 such similar words as "banter" and "bandy" with definitions that are fairly similar. However, "banter" seems to have more of a teasing or wit to it than "bandy" has.

Tinman, my grandfather used to raise banty hens too (as well as all kinds of birds, including peacocks and peahens).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

So can we all settle on bantying as being an OK word?

Like you Kalleh, I had never thought of the word 'bandy' as having an implied aggression until I considered it's interpretation 'to beat back and forth' and its associatuion with tennis. It seemed to me that perhaps there was originally a subtle distinction between 'bandy' and 'banter' that has been lost over time otherwise, as you say, why have two such similar words?

My understanding of the distinction between the 2 words is that "banter" has more of a teasing or wit to it.

Often when I look up one thing, I find out something else that I hadn't known. I had thought "witty" to mean "humorous." However, it means much more than that. It means "ingenuity," "acumen," "having a superior intellect." It comes from the Old English word witan, meaning "to know." The next time someone calls you "witty," take it as a huge compliment!

As far as I can make out the original usage of the word 'witty' dates from 1588 when it was 'smartly facetious or jocular' and developed from there;

1590 - speaking or writing in an amusing way.
1611 - Having wisdom.
1686 - Skillfully devised for an evil purpose.
1700 - Subtle in conception or expression.
1706 - Crafty, cunning, wily, artful.
1748 - Sharply critical, censorious, sarcastic.

Certainly some different meanings but I find it interesting that you can follow a thread through its development.

And then there is my own definition:

1980 (or sometime there-abouts) - Really fun and charming (and sexy, when done right!)

The dictionary I used was last printed in 1968 so I of course apologise for the omission of this valuable and important definition.

Your post of the development of "wit" is so interesting, Doad. I agree that it is enlightening to follow the evolution of words. I find the 1700 definition the most different from the current definition: "Subtle in conception or expression."

Thank you. I too found the 1700 definition to be very good as it seemed to capture the essence of wit nicely regardless of period. What I particularly enjoy about this site is the way that threads often seem to develop in surprising and unusual ways. It's great fun.

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Doad because you are good at explaining things how come americans have jelly and we have jam and we have jelly and they have jello .

can you also tell me how to put picture under your name because i am new here

The tempting answer to your question is 'because Americans are wierd' but as this board has a number of American members we need to be tactful and make allowances.

As for the picture, I'll show you in your next 'detention'. Please learn to spell this word, you have it wrong on your profile.

Sheesh, Mr. White - you're so stern when you're in teacher mode.

Make allowances, eh?

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ow come americans have jelly and we have jam and we have jelly and they have jello .

So they can rhyme "jello" with words like "mellow" and "yellow" in Broadway musical numbers.

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So they can rhyme "jello" with words like "mellow" and "yellow" in Broadway musical numbers.

When you think about all we hear in this country about the level of obesity in America, you'd think they would stick to 'jelly' so they could rhyme it with 'belly'!

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you're so stern when you're in teacher mode.

Yes - you're turning my legs to jello!

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

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Originally posted by Cat:

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you're so stern when you're in teacher mode.

Yes - you're turning my legs to jello!

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Gelatinous thighs? EWWWWWWWWWWW!!! And you're not even an American!