To hate the word "pudding?"

[Misswrite89]

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

In fact, agree with OurBlanche too - dessert is cold and light, pudding is hot.

"Your sweet milady"
"Your nuts m'lud"

Pudding is a nice round (woody) word, whereas dessert is spiky (tinny)

OP YABU mostly for "hating" it when people use a word you don't like. There are lots of different words for the pudding course. Which word you use is mostly about where/how you were brought up. Usages in the UK mark class (and to a lesser extent, region).

In other countries, different usages persist. In US English, it's generally "dessert". In Germany "pudding" means a specific type of food - a custardy sort of runny sweet thing.

So, while I might mentally register someone saying "dessert" (just like I"d register them saying "The settee in the lounge" I don't hate it. That would be silly. People can't help their backgrounds.

I usually say pudding. I think dessert is quite a specific type of pudding but am not exactly sure what. So I call everything pudding.

I hate the word afters. Bloody awful.

I prefer to say pudding.

I agree that in general, puddings and desserts are for different types of sweet dish. If custard could be served with, then it is a pudding. No custard = dessert.

X post Madame!

Also hate 'pud'.

Please explain the class marker for a non-Brit!

So why is it called the dessert menu in a restaurant, Bunny? Waiters never ask if you'd like pudding, do they?

Yabu. Pudding is a much better word than dessert.

Pudding is such a squidgy and cuddly word.

Pudding, not dessert.

i like pudding or use afters in a retro ironic vulgar way, mainly cos I know it vexes my mother.

Flogging - have just done a quick Google and I am still clueless!!

Apparently 'high end eateries' have taken to calling it a pudding menu nowadays, but I suspect this ties in with the wankery of hipster dickheads (especially those with penny farthings, monocles & pocket watches...)

Ah. Obviously I've never been properly high end

I loathe 'dessert' - it should be pudding.

People think they're being refined by saying dessert, but it's quite the opposite.

"Pudding" is an upper middle class thing, but also used by aspirants to upper middle class (so it's not an entirely secure indicator of higher class status).

What happened in UK English usages mid-20C was that the aspirant lower middle class, wanting to climb up to solid middle class (but without the experience of managing servants, or attending prep school, public school, & university), developed an aversion to simple words, which were felt to be "common" and so developed overly fancy, less direct words - often faux French.

So instead of "lavatory" (seen as too explicitly referring to the bodily functions) the word "toilet" - a variation of the French "toilette" was used to distance the linguistic usage from the [base] activity and reference to bodily functions.

Think Hyacinth Bucket telling us her name is pronounced "Bouquet" - it's a kind of aspirant elegance which is just fussy, really.

Kate Fox writes about this [from a solidly middle class point of view] in Watching the English. A very funny book.

The first time I heard a British person on tv say, "what's for pudding?" I was so confused, because to an American that question doesn't make any sense. Here pudding is strictly a food, not a course.

I cannot be doing with this "class marker" snobbery. People who look for signs of class in others are showing a distinct lack of class themselves

Call it whatever you like

" Waiters never ask if you'd like pudding, do they?"

Depends where you eat. In places like Rules which prides itself on being over 200 years old and quintessentially English, it's pudding.

Isn't American pudding a specific gloopy chocolate thing steff?

Pudding is sweet
Dessert is fruit
Cheese is cheese and port

I'll take the cheese and port please

Oh, I'm not posh.

Pudding conjures up a stodgefest for me. As Finola says, it seems like it needs to be hot and served with custard.

From wiki:

^Unless qualified, however, the term in everyday usage typically denotes a dessert; in the UK, "pudding" is used as a synonym for a dessert course. Dessert puddings are rich, fairly homogeneous starch- or dairy-based desserts such as rice pudding, steamed cake mixtures such as Treacle sponge pudding with or without the addition of ingredients such as dried fruits as in a Christmas pudding^.

Does this rule out ice-cream, tiramisu, cheesecake etc. as puddings?

I don't think noting that different word usages generally/often/sometimes indicate different class backgrounds is snobbish in itself Kummerspeck - it's a fact of British (maybe just English?) life. I suppose it depends what one does with registering the difference. I note it & move on.

To "hate" one usage or the other is daft. But one can have a preference because of familiarity - "What I'm used to." Nowt wrong with that.

I have no preference but can't say "pudding" without in my head saying it in the style of the Grandad in Bread in a strong spouse accent.

"Where's me pudding?!"

It may just be me....?