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A disgusting display of cultural ignorance:


Old Koreelah

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Many Australians are too ignorant of their own history and blindly adopt the US culture that pours into our country.

 

To explain my rage: to Australians, ANZAC biscuits were invented here and are traditionally cooked to celebrate our national day. They are to us what Americans might feel about Davey Crockett and The Alamo, apple pie, Thanksgiving and Halloween.

 

(It appals me that many Australians now celebrate these last two, even though they have as much relevance to this country as Russia's Victory Day or Uganda's Independence Day.)

 

Perhaps we could learn from the French, who have enough national pride to legislate to protect their culture and language from the worst of Americanisation.

 

 

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Hmmmm... not feeling the rage OK... cookie is just another word for biscuit, regardless of country of origin - (jeez a good proportion of our language is French anyway!)

 

A rose by any other name, etc.

 

Oh, I spent a good 20 seconds looking at the picture trying to figure out what had your dander up... "ANZAC" was spelled right... couldn't figure it out until I saw #3!

 

 

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Hmmmm... not feeling the rage OK... cookie is just another word for biscuit, regardless of country of origin - (jeez a good proportion of our language is French anyway!)

A rose by any other name, etc...

Marty I have no objection to our language evolving and adopting new words and usage. You've probably seen me use Americanisms where they are more efficient, but the issue here is the corruption of a core component of our national culture.

 

The item's name is "ANZAC Biscuit". It's been that for a century. The term "cookie" is clearly an American import, and as such has no place next to our national biscuit.

 

 

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Culture change starts with minor things - slight changes to the vernacular, cuisine changes and then before you know it, we are aboserving their hoidays playing their regurgitated news (who cares that some women got done for shop lifting a freckled apple in Louisiana), adopted their remedial sense of humour and pay through the nose for education while the safety net has holes cut in it big enough to fit a blue whale through.. Yet us guys them complain we have been Americanised (or is that Americanized)?

 

"Guys" in the below prose intentional for irony - American style irony.

 

<snip>Oh, I spent a good 20 seconds looking at the picture trying to figure out what had your dander up... "ANZAC" was spelled right... couldn't figure it out until I saw #3!

Actually, I thought it was the $4 for two biscuits that was the problem to start with..

 

 

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Actually, I thought it was the $4 for two biscuits that was the problem to start with..

Me too!. Paying 4 bucks (or should I say dollars in this thread...) for a 20 cent biscuit is MORE of an outrage!

 

I guess the poor cafe owners have to pay the extortionate lease somehow. What's the bet the landowners are foreign and $2 of that biscuit/cookie goes overseas? More outrage!

 

 

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The Old French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis (twice) and coquere, coctus (to cook, cooked), and, hence, means "twice-cooked".[5][n 1] This is because biscuits were originally cooked in a twofold process: first baked, and then dried out in a slow oven.[6] This term was then adapted into English in the 14th century during the Middle Ages, in the Middle English word bisquite, to represent a hard, twice-baked product .

 

The Dutch language from around 1703 had adopted the word koekje ("little cake") to have a similar meaning for a similar hard, baked product.[8] The difference between the secondary Dutch word and that of Latin origin is that, whereas the koekje is a cake that rises during baking, the biscuit, which has no raising agent, in general does not (see gingerbread/ginger biscuit), except for the expansion of heated air during baking

 

 

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Most of our language is based on Latin (obviously), and so is French. Plus the upper classes in England used to speak French.

 

For example the Latin word "vadāre" (to go, rush, walk) is the origin of English words "invade", "evade", "pervade" and also the French "va" ("go" or "is going").

 

Similarly the latin word "ambulare" (also "to walk") is the basis of "ambulate", "ambulance", "perambulator" in English, but also the basis of vulgar Latin "alāre", which leads to the French word "aller" ("to go").

 

All of which has nothing to do with biscuit/cookies.

 

 

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The best simile to describe the English language is that it soaks up foreign vocabulary like a sponge soaks up water.

And we fix up the spelling although "kinwah" is taking a bit of time - the latte drinking, kale and mashed avo eating yuppies are buggering up spelling reform.

 

 

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Languages will always evolve - listen to a German or French talk show and the splatterings of English in them makes them almost bearable ;-)

 

But, I can't see them compromising their language with culturally important icons. Yes, biscuit may be derived from French, but at the time the term for the icon of Anzac Biscuits was coined, that was the term.. and forever it should remain. It would be like the British eating pies and fries... even when served with fries, the dish will always be pie and chips...

 

 

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Frites are different to chips. There is always some animosity across the channel particularly about food. Unless a lot's changed I will go for the French offerings in general. The brits say they "invented " Fish and Chips" which may have had some validity when fish were more plentiful.. Nothing wrong with a good bit of fish wrapped in paper. Nev

 

 

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You don't have to eat the paper. It's not the Reader's Digest. It's to soak up some of the fat, keep the salt there and so as to not burn your hands when you first get it.from the shop. Nev

I know. Bad (dad) joke. Comes from talking to the kids. Come to think of it, they don't laugh either...

 

 

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I know. Bad (dad) joke. Comes from talking to the kids. Come to think of it, they don't laugh either...

No worries, Marty. When they get older, nostalgia will kick in and they'll remember their dad's jokes as being really funny. You'll be a cool dad then.

 

 

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On a slightly different tack, but a propos of the fish and chips matter. I made a serious attempt to get off crook oils Transfats and processed meat, salt . sugary stuff fizzy drinks etc and quit smoking many years ago.. ALL my blood tests are good. Kidneys fine arteries far better than most. Pulse in feet excellent. Heart normal.

 

You often hear "IF I had to eat that stuff, (good healthy food) I'd rather be dead" Not sure people really mean that but it's working for me.. It's not easy finding good stuff or eating well when out. Can't afford to eat out really so that's not a problem.. I'd like to encourage anyone trying to help them selves this way. I'm starting to amaze the medico's when I state my age.. Nev

 

 

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I'm just going to live with the Americanization of English. It's gone too far to stop when you hear ABC announcers saying "Skedule" instead of schedule. And in what way are frites different from chips? They are both pretty bad for you as Nev says.

 

 

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