Monday, February 25, 2013

Nitpicky language

I've been watching BBC's the Great British Menu in bulk 5, episodes at a time. Amazing how much rubbish can be removed - I've turned 2.5 hrs into 1.5 by fast-forwarding through the "this is what we're doing this year"'s the "and these are all the ingredients I'll be using"'s and the "and this is how how chefs did something regarding this year's brief"'s. Oh and the format's still a mess given the supposed goal, but I'll stop digressing.

Last week we had the North East; or Nor Feast as it was called. I've no problem with accents switching "th" for "f" or droppin' end sounds, they're simply diverse sounds and one is really no 'better' than another, but the question that kept being asked was

"Do you think this is a dish what will make the judges laugh?"
Ouch. Try this "Do you know what is wrong with that sentence?". Both "Do" and "What" are questioning terms and I can split my query into "What is wrong with that sentence? Do you know?". Now try it with the chef's question "What will make the judges laugh? Do you think this is a dish?" Nonsensical. It could be saved by "What will make the judges laugh? Do you think this is such a dish?". But that's not really what the question was about. The chef was not asking what will make the judges laugh only if this was a dish that could cause them to do so. It wasn't two questions it was merely one presented in an inaccurate form.

Yes, yes regionalism, but it's sloppy, causes an upset to my English parsing, and is unnecessary.

Oh I suppose it could have been worse; he could have been asking "Do you think this is a dish what you could make perfect for a hundred guests?"

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