A few more thoughts on the French, while I should be writing up lecture notes.
Scott Martens has a more informed post on the history of the phrase French toast. He doesn’t buy the Albany story, and has some evidence to back him up. Since all the reports of the story I’ve seen included at least one dramatic factual error – that the concept was original to upstate NY – there’s little evidence for the other side. Scott has a good blog, which when I get time to edit the blogroll I will hopefully add.
Many people have commented that the French probably don’t care whether we changing the names of foods to remove a suggestion of a French connection. Since the foods in question are not particularly connected to France, one might think they really don’t care. But in fact that’s not obviously the way the data point. Until recently there were around the world many foods (especially wines and cheeses) that were named after parts of France but are no longer so named. So it is much harder to find Champagne so called than it used to be, and a little harder to find camembert. Were these changes made because we hated the French so much? No, it was because the French threatened us with multi-lateral trade sanctions unless we changed them. My impression is that they have had more success with wine labelling than with cheese labelling. If House Republicans helped them finish the job, well that would be pleasantly amusing.
A few native American speakers have agreed that there is an asymmetry between (1) and (2), repeated here. (Why am I repeating them when they are just a couple of posts down? Well, its the best idea I had for the day, and philosophers get nowhere if they dont repeat what good ideas they have.)
(1) Sophie likes to have French wine and cheese for lunch.
(2) Sophie likes to have French wine and toast for lunch.
In (2) French cannot modify wine and toast, it has to attach to wine, though in (1) it can attach to wine and cheese. So it looks like even in American English that the French in French cheese is not synonymous with its homonym in French toast.
Meanwhile, for those looking for more philosophy blogs, Stoic news should be a blessing, or at least something to help get you through the night. It will go onto the blogroll too, but not until some lectures are out of the way.
UPDATE: This patriotic brothel menu looks like a fake, but its still pretty funny. It seems we will drop the French from everything. Id be more impressed if they dropped the options named after the perfidious French than just renamed them (isnt everything covered by something else on the menu?) but it is still a sign of, well something. Link via Long Story, Short Pier.