The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu Read Online Free
Author: Dan Jurafsky
carrots and bell peppers
I counted at least 13: delicious (three times), flavorful (twice), colorful , crispy , juicy , warm , golden , sweet , savory , and freshly .
These filler words tell us something else about the restaurant. Consider the restaurants that have very long, wordy menus with lots of filler words. You might think these could be the very expensiverestaurants with the high-powered menu-writing marketing consultants. Or it could be the very cheap restaurants, using filler words to make up for not-very-fancy food.
In fact, it’s neither: long, wordy menus with lots of filler words occur in the middle-priced restaurants, chains like Ruby Tuesday, T.G.I Friday’s, Cheesecake Factory, or California Pizza Kitchen or local places.
Descriptive adjectives like fresh , rich , spicy , crispy , crunchy , tangy , juicy , zesty , chunky , smoky , salty , cheesy , fluffy , flaky , and buttery appear significantly more often in menus from these middle-priced restaurants:
Crisp Golden Brown Belgian Waffle with Fresh Fruit
Mushroom Omelette: Our fluffy omelette filled with fresh mushrooms and topped with a rich mushroom sherry sauce
Chicken Marsala: Tender chicken breast in a rich marsala wine sauce with fresh mushrooms
Rustic Apple Galette: Hand crafted tart in five inches of butter flaky french puff pastry. We layer fresh ripe apples and bake to a golden brown
Why would it be middle-priced and not expensive restaurants that use more of these adjectives?
To understand the answer to this we have to consider the function of these adjectives. The literal meaning of “delicious” is that the food tastes good. The literal meaning of “ripe” is that the apple wasn’t picked when it was still sour and green. But why would a restaurant serve unripe apples or cook bad-tasting food? Doesn’t it go without saying that the food will taste good and the apples be ripe?
One of the most important language philosophers of the twentiethcentury, H. Paul Grice, gave an answer to this problem. Grice pointed out that when we are trying to understand a speaker, we assume that they are acting rationally. If they say something is fresh, there must be some reason to say it’s fresh; speakers don’t just add in random words. (Grice called this the “maxim of quantity”; there is also a related “maxim of relevance” that says that speakers try to say relevant things.) So if I hear someone say that something is fresh (or ripe, or fluffy, or golden brown), I immediately consider why it would be relevant to mention ripeness. We generally mention ripeness because there is an implicit comparison with unripeness. It’s something like saying, You might worry that this fruit is unripe, but don’t worry, I hereby reassure you that it’s ripe. That is, just the mention of ripeness brings up the possibility that there might be some people that might not think it’s ripe, and I’m mentioning this to convince them.
Linguist Mark Liberman suggests that we think of this overmentioning as a symptom of “status anxiety.” Expensive restaurants don’t use the word ripe (or fresh or crispy ) because we assume that food that should be ripe is ripe, and everything is fresh. Middle-priced restaurants are worried that you won’t assume that because they aren’t fancy enough, so they go out of their way to reassure you. Protesting too much.
We can see a similar implication of Grice’s idea in the use of the word real on menus. You’ll find the word on lots of menus, but exactly which foods the restaurants claim are “real” depends sharply on the price. Cheap restaurants promise you real whipped cream, real mashed potatoes, and real bacon:
Chocolate Chip Pancakes: served with real whipped cream.
Home Made Meatloaf: Served with Real Mashed Potatoes, Vege tables, and Gravy.
Chicken Cutlet: Melted Swiss Cheese on a Roll with Lettuce, Tomato, Russian Dress ing and Real Bacon Bits.
In slightly more expensive ($$) restaurants, real is
I counted at least 13: delicious (three times), flavorful (twice), colorful , crispy , juicy , warm , golden , sweet , savory , and freshly .
These filler words tell us something else about the restaurant. Consider the restaurants that have very long, wordy menus with lots of filler words. You might think these could be the very expensiverestaurants with the high-powered menu-writing marketing consultants. Or it could be the very cheap restaurants, using filler words to make up for not-very-fancy food.
In fact, it’s neither: long, wordy menus with lots of filler words occur in the middle-priced restaurants, chains like Ruby Tuesday, T.G.I Friday’s, Cheesecake Factory, or California Pizza Kitchen or local places.
Descriptive adjectives like fresh , rich , spicy , crispy , crunchy , tangy , juicy , zesty , chunky , smoky , salty , cheesy , fluffy , flaky , and buttery appear significantly more often in menus from these middle-priced restaurants:
Crisp Golden Brown Belgian Waffle with Fresh Fruit
Mushroom Omelette: Our fluffy omelette filled with fresh mushrooms and topped with a rich mushroom sherry sauce
Chicken Marsala: Tender chicken breast in a rich marsala wine sauce with fresh mushrooms
Rustic Apple Galette: Hand crafted tart in five inches of butter flaky french puff pastry. We layer fresh ripe apples and bake to a golden brown
Why would it be middle-priced and not expensive restaurants that use more of these adjectives?
To understand the answer to this we have to consider the function of these adjectives. The literal meaning of “delicious” is that the food tastes good. The literal meaning of “ripe” is that the apple wasn’t picked when it was still sour and green. But why would a restaurant serve unripe apples or cook bad-tasting food? Doesn’t it go without saying that the food will taste good and the apples be ripe?
One of the most important language philosophers of the twentiethcentury, H. Paul Grice, gave an answer to this problem. Grice pointed out that when we are trying to understand a speaker, we assume that they are acting rationally. If they say something is fresh, there must be some reason to say it’s fresh; speakers don’t just add in random words. (Grice called this the “maxim of quantity”; there is also a related “maxim of relevance” that says that speakers try to say relevant things.) So if I hear someone say that something is fresh (or ripe, or fluffy, or golden brown), I immediately consider why it would be relevant to mention ripeness. We generally mention ripeness because there is an implicit comparison with unripeness. It’s something like saying, You might worry that this fruit is unripe, but don’t worry, I hereby reassure you that it’s ripe. That is, just the mention of ripeness brings up the possibility that there might be some people that might not think it’s ripe, and I’m mentioning this to convince them.
Linguist Mark Liberman suggests that we think of this overmentioning as a symptom of “status anxiety.” Expensive restaurants don’t use the word ripe (or fresh or crispy ) because we assume that food that should be ripe is ripe, and everything is fresh. Middle-priced restaurants are worried that you won’t assume that because they aren’t fancy enough, so they go out of their way to reassure you. Protesting too much.
We can see a similar implication of Grice’s idea in the use of the word real on menus. You’ll find the word on lots of menus, but exactly which foods the restaurants claim are “real” depends sharply on the price. Cheap restaurants promise you real whipped cream, real mashed potatoes, and real bacon:
Chocolate Chip Pancakes: served with real whipped cream.
Home Made Meatloaf: Served with Real Mashed Potatoes, Vege tables, and Gravy.
Chicken Cutlet: Melted Swiss Cheese on a Roll with Lettuce, Tomato, Russian Dress ing and Real Bacon Bits.
In slightly more expensive ($$) restaurants, real is
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