To hate the word "pudding?"

[Misswrite89]

I hate it when people use the word pudding instead of dessert. AIBU?

Pudding all the way here! Dessert is very common. Along with net curtains and saying 'toilet' instead of 'loo'!

Jilly Cooper said so- it must be true!

My Df calls me Pudding. Or sausage. I am almost 50.

(Misses point of thread...)

Pudding and loo are quite probably no more "English" in origin than dessert and toilet, and whilst pudding is an old word (though its meaning has changed) loo is very modern...

Arguing that dessert and toilet are pretentious because they are from French is totally hypocritical, given the fact pudding and loo quite likely are also from French...

pudding

"c. 1300, "a kind of sausage: the stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, etc., stuffed with minced meat, suet, seasoning, boiled and kept till needed," perhaps from a West Germanic stem *pud- "to swell" (cognates: Old English puduc "a wen," Westphalian dialect puddek "lump, pudding," Low German pudde-wurst "black pudding," English dialectal pod "belly;" also see pudgy).

Other possibility is the traditional one that it is from Old French boudin "sausage," from Vulgar Latin *botellinus, from Latin botellus "sausage" (change of French b- to English p- presents difficulties, but compare purse (n.)). The modern sense had emerged by 1670, from extension to other foods boiled or steamed in a bag or sack (16c.). German pudding, French pouding, Swedish pudding, Irish putog are from English. Pudding-pie attested from 1590s."

loo "loo (n.1)
"lavatory," 1940, but perhaps 1922, probably from French lieux d'aisances , "lavatory," literally "place of ease," picked up by British servicemen in France during World War I. Or possibly a pun on Waterloo, based on water closet."

See I think of pudding and toilet as the down-to-earth, normal-person words while "desert" and "loo" are what posh people say - especially kind of aspirational trying-to-be-posher-than-they-are middle-class.

When I hear "loo" it's like the person is saying "Take note, I'm too refained to say toilet!!!"

"Supper" though is proper posh. It reminds me of incredibly posh & entitled people I used to work with in London, yelling "Sweetie! Let's do SAPPAH!" down the phone at the desk next to me so I couldn't hear myself think.

"When I hear "loo" it's like the person is saying "Take note, I'm too refained to say toilet!!!"

Proper posh have an utter horror of the "refained"! Just like the proper not posh. That's why so many groups can laugh at poor old Hyacinth Bucket.

So you keep saying Bertrand - but there is nothing refined about the word toilet, in fact a lot of people who object to it do so because it is too vulgar and direct to refer to the bit of equipment you are going to sit on to do your business... Nobody would take the argument that saying "toilet" is refined seriously... "loo" is generally considered less vulgar and more refined than toilet by the middle classes...

Ahhh-there's what Jilly Cooper was trying to point out. The upper class and aristos offen spoke/speak in a very similar way to the lower classes-loo/pudding etc They say it how it is.

It's those pesky ones in the middle-especially the nouveau riche who get all confused with their net curtains and serviettes!

This is tongue in cheek from my PoV, I hasten to add!

It really is just the lower middle that have all the angst, isn't it?!

Most people use the words they're comfortable with and pay no attention to what other people say (unless it's sweet, afters or pud obviously ).

To say pudding is 'common' or babyish does just seem affected to me.

Wrt dessert or pudding, it does seem to be more of a feeling for most people nowadays, rather than what the actual definition is: Dessert has a light, cakey sound whereas pudding has a heavier, hot sound.

Or was it the lower-middles with the net curtains and desserts ?!

I'll leave now!!

to me dessert is the course - so I would say, what's for dessert?

pudding is a type of dessert - ie sticky toffee pudding.

You were missing the spelling.

"Refained" and "refined" are different words.

Honestly, it is ridiculous. And it doesn't matter. But if you are interested and are doing something like writing dialogue and want to get it "right" then I am absolutely, categorically "right" about this stuff.

I helped out at school yesterday. There is a laminated sign reminding DC of manners, say please and thank you etc all good.

Until the gem - "If you haven't heard someone say "pardon". Do not say "what" or "sorry". Bet you wouldn't get that in a private school!

"Refained" is not a word at all Bertrand - it is a spelling mistake or a MN spelling like "Naice" instead of "nice" isn't it?

Spectacular fail there, SmartArse Bertrand

The nuance between refained / refined and naice / nice is that one is mocking those desperately trying to be 'posh' and the other is the actual word.

So Bertrand saying 'refained' was taking the piss out of the Hyacinth types, not saying they were actually refined.

That nuance is at best internal to MN - the logic is self contradictory and circular, but I'm bored of it now and off to make lunch (not mid day dinner)... we won't be having desert or pudding as we rarely do, but the kids can have fruit or yoghurt afterwards if they are still hungry, I have an apple cake for this afternoon, which we will eat with cake forks because my children are too German to eat cake with their hands, not because it is a class indicator... I will put the forks directly onto the plates as I serve and not lay them on the table either alongside other cutlery or above it...

"Spectacular fail there, SmartArse Bertrand"

Really? Where? Did I do a typo?

"That nuance is at best internal to MN "

It really isn't. English society really is that stupid!

Noooooo, not cake forks!!!!!!!!!!

All of you who insist on saying 'pudding' instead of 'dessert', because the latter word originates from lower class people trying to sound 'posh'... Are you all sitting in your country estates writing this, or are you in fact doing the exact same thing -appropriating the 'posh'-sounding words in order to come across as more upper class than you actually are?

16 years in the UK, and I will never understand this obsession with subtle class markers.

Nope- I'm not. I'm proper posh, me. That's why I know there is no link between "posh" and "rich"!

Are you all sitting in your country estates writing this

No, I'm sitting in my townhouse, getting ready to go to the country house.

I'm dictating this post to my butler - he's a darling really.

Naice if said the way it is written is not a MN circular reference at all - it is a phonetically written word.

Just like Hyacinth Bucket is written Hyacinth Bouquet - it indicates that it is said in an affected way even though the actual written word is quite clear.

And the only people that would make a point of saying something purely because it is a 'posh' word or class marker are those very people that 'naice' is mocking.

MOST people just say whatever they have been brought up to say, and there is no pretence in that.

I use cake/dessert forks because that's what I was brought up to do - and FYI cake forks are not usually set at a table setting by their very nature.
They are for eating cake in an informal afternoon tea type setting whereby you are holding a plate so need the cake fork to cut and eat using only one hand.

The points throughout the thread about class markers are purely that if you are at peace with yourself you use the words you want to use and are comfortable using.
It is only those desperate to be something else who are obsessed with what word to use and when (usually middle class pretending to be either 'poor, salt of the earth, working class' or middle class trying desperately to be posh).

I am from a working class background, became a middle earner and mixed with all types and am now a single mother on benefits - yet I still use the words I have always used as I am not a pretentious snob nor am I a champagne socialist pretending to be 'down with' the working classes.

But seriously - I don't see my usages as 'posh' - they're just the way I was brought up, and I was brought up firmly in the upper middle class. Although we're downwardly mobile because the money's gone and we all have to work for our livings now. So posh is definitely not always rich.

So I don't think of deliberately using upper middle class usages - rather, the other way around: because I am upper m-c, whatever language I use is upper mc.