Mozzarella Pronunciation
fruitbat
around here (South Jersey) is the standard lazy "maht-zuh-rel-uh"
(IPA: /A/). While at college near New York City (Hoboken, NJ), I heard
"muhtz" (IPA: /U/) used almost exclusively as an abbreviation
(especially at Vito's). When the entire word was used, the same
initial vowel sound was used, and sometimes the last vowel was left
off completely ("muht-zah-rel"), and I was sometimes scolded for not
pronouncing it this way myself. I've even heard at least one Brooklyn
native say "mootz-" (IPA: /u/)... I've always found this confusing. As
far as I have been able to ascertain, none of those (regional?)
variations are canonical Italian, but never having been to Italy
myself, I don't know anything about the actual local pronunciation
there. What makes matters more confusing is that I seem to hear these
variations more often from NY-area residents of Italian ancestry than
anyone else. Has anyone outside the NY area heard any of the
variations I mentioned? Or is it really just a regional thing? And
does anyone know if/how they developed locally, or where they came
from? I've always wanted to learn some Italian, being part Italian
myself, but my intuition tells me not to trust the pronunciation I'm
being told to use in this case...
Jeff
And don't even get me started on "ricotta"
JBYORK14
Mamma Mia... What-a can-a of-a worms-a you-a open...
You make-a too mucha trouble, ehh? How-a you-a a-gonna geta you answer whena
they all-a is-a right-a, ehh?
You never wanna correct-a the Italians... Capice?
Pat Durkin
"fruitbat" <fru1...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ef8861a0.0209...@posting.google.com...
Strange, isn't it?. The stereotype of the Italian immigrant's broken
English adds a vowel sound (as in JBYORK14) like "-a" or the schwa
sound at the end of some words, while many of them while speaking words
in their "own" language drop the final vowel in some words. If I am
talking to my brother-in-law, I might say "moe tsa REL' " as he does.
He is second generation and raise on Long Island. "Re GOT' " (almost re
GOTCH for ricotta) is the way that the people in my
early-childhood-hometown (SW small-town Wisconsin), then and now,
pronounce the name of the cheese. They were immigrants and now second
and third generation descendants of immigrants.
I suspect many of them, if they were to speak conversationally, would be
intelligible only within their small circles and dialect groups here in
the US. I wouldn't have any idea how much their dialect has veered from
that of their regions of Italy.
Richard Fontana
On 24 Sep 2002, fruitbat wrote:
> I have heard all sorts of pronunciations for "mozzarella". The usual
> around here (South Jersey) is the standard lazy "maht-zuh-rel-uh"
> (IPA: /A/).
That's probably the usual AmE pronunciation: /,mAt s@ 'rE l@/.
> While at college near New York City (Hoboken, NJ),
Stevens?
> I heard
> "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
Just to be clear, do you mean like "mutts" /mVts/ or /mUts/ which would
rhyme with "foots"?
> used almost exclusively as an abbreviation
> (especially at Vito's). When the entire word was used, the same
> initial vowel sound was used, and sometimes the last vowel was left
> off completely ("muht-zah-rel"), and I was sometimes scolded for not
> pronouncing it this way myself. I've even heard at least one Brooklyn
> native say "mootz-" (IPA: /u/)... I've always found this confusing. As
> far as I have been able to ascertain, none of those (regional?)
> variations are canonical Italian,
I think the word "canonical" may be inappropriate in this context, for
once.
> but never having been to Italy
> myself, I don't know anything about the actual local pronunciation
> there. What makes matters more confusing is that I seem to hear these
> variations more often from NY-area residents of Italian ancestry than
> anyone else. Has anyone outside the NY area heard any of the
> variations I mentioned? Or is it really just a regional thing? And
> does anyone know if/how they developed locally, or where they came
> from? I've always wanted to learn some Italian, being part Italian
> myself, but my intuition tells me not to trust the pronunciation I'm
> being told to use in this case...
In my experience there are two slightly different common pronunciations of
"mozzarella" used by not-completely-assimilated Italian-Americans in New
York city and also at least some parts of northern New Jersey (I'm talking
pre-suburbanization) and at least some parts of Greater Boston. They are:
/,mVt s@ '*El/ (first vowel like that of "mutt"; this is how I say it)
and
/,mUt s@ '*El/ (first vowel like that of "foot")
Let me explain my use of /*/ as a phonemic symbol here. I mean something
that, as realized, sounds pretty close but not identical to the phonetic
flap [*] we hear in typical American English "Adele". It's somewhere in
between [*] and some sort of more typical Italian trilled r. I assume
this corresponds fairly closely to an actual allophone common in some
traditional southern Italian dialects for /r/ where by /r/ I mean the
Italian trilled r phoneme for a single r between vowels, because the sound
used by Italian-Americans doesn't correspond to any other typical American
English phone for these speakers. Sorry I don't know what this is in IPA.
I've seen it notated in texts on Italian regional dialects as a d with a
dot under the d, IIRC, which I suppose suggests that it's significantly
different from any typical phone in your "canonical" Italian
pronunciation. Sorry I don't know more about this. I think a typical
AmE speaker would (mis?)hear this special flappy sound as a /d/. I
learned this pronunciation of "mozzarella" probably before I learned the
whitebread version (hi Coop!) and I think I think of it as "sort of like
/d/, but not quite". I say that because I wouldn't use the same phone if
I were saying an imaginary AmE word "muttsadell", but presumably (based on
all I've learned from the AUE ASCII IPA materials) I use [*] when saying
"muttsadell". I'm surprised you would hear that sound more as an 'r' than
as a 'd', unless the pronunciations you heard were very different from
what I've described.
These pronunciations are pretty clearly based on Italian dialects from
regions like Abruzzo and Campania, that is, thinking of it in terms of the
situation in the late 19th century, the upper part of southern Italy. I
suspect there was some blending of dialects that occurred in the process
of developing these quasi-Americanized, quasi-Italian words (and the ones
that have survived have tended to be food words). They certainly aren't
based on dialects from Calabria and Sicily, though
many immigrants came from those regions too. It's significant that the
dominant linguistic influence among the Italian immigrants who settled in
New York city (where there's no question that /mVts@*El/ or /mUts@*El/
is the standard non-whitebread Italian-American pronunciation) was the
speech of the Naples region.
Okay, finally you speak of a Brooklynite who used the /u/ vowel. I've
heard that pronunciation, but only in movies or television (I grew up in
Brooklyn [Fourth Largest City in America], by the way, though not in a
primarily Italian neighborhood). I'm not going to dismiss it as bogus,
however, because one feature found in Calabrian and Sicilian dialects is
the use of a vowel like [u] where standard RP Italian has <o>. (In some
cases this means these dialects preserve Latin <u>, as in Latin masculine
or neuter nouns in -us and -um which generally became masculine -o in
Italian.) So it's possible that someone who uses the "mootsa*ell"
pronunciation has a strong Calabrese or Sicilian influence on his
loan-words. But you'd think that, having grown up in Brooklyn [Fourth
Largest City in America], I'd've heard the "moot" pronunciation somewhere,
but I didn't.
> And don't even get me started on "ricotta"
Why not? The way I say it is /r@ 'gOt/, and I have reason to believe that
again this is standard in New York and at least the other subregions I
mentioned. However, someone I knew from Westfield NJ, a New York suburb,
whose mother was an Italian-American from Brooklyn, said /r@ 'gVt/ -- cut
vowel instead of caught vowel. "Manicotti" is similarly /m& n@ 'gOt/
or /mA n@ 'gOt/ in New York city, but this New Jersey guy used "gut" in
the last syllable. "Manicotti" seems to be where
not-completely-assimilated Italian-Americans draw the line and say, when
they hear an AmE speaker pronounce it /m& n@ 'kA ti/, "Oy!". (It
corresponds to *making* manicotti with cottage cheese instead of /r@
'gOt/. That's what many Americans seem to do. Oy! Oy!)
Oh, and that abbreviation you spoke of, "muhtz", is completely unfamiliar
to me.
GrapeApe
Pat Durkin
"Richard Fontana" <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.102092...@facstaff.wesleyan.edu...
>
> On 24 Sep 2002, fruitbat wrote:
>
> > I have heard all sorts of pronunciations for "mozzarella". The usual
> > around here (South Jersey) is the standard lazy "maht-zuh-rel-uh"
> > (IPA: /A/).
>
> That's probably the usual AmE pronunciation: /,mAt s@ 'rE l@/.
>
> > While at college near New York City (Hoboken, NJ),
>
> Stevens?
>
> > I heard
> > "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
>
> > used almost exclusively as an abbreviation
> > (especially at Vito's). When the entire word was used, the same
> > initial vowel sound was used, and sometimes the last vowel was left
> > off completely ("muht-zah-rel"), and I was sometimes scolded for not
> > pronouncing it this way myself. I've even heard at least one
Brooklyn
> > native say "mootz-" (IPA: /u/)... I've always found this confusing.
> > but never having been to Italy
> > myself, I don't know anything about the actual local pronunciation
> > there. What makes matters more confusing is that I seem to hear
these
> > variations more often from NY-area residents of Italian ancestry
than
> > anyone else. Has anyone outside the NY area heard any of the
> > variations I mentioned? Or is it really just a regional thing?
> In my experience there are two slightly different common
C'mon, Richard. Tell us the Italians you know all say "Oy! Oy!" Of
course they might be trying to blend into the neighborhood.
daniel gerard mcgrath
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
[lots of stuff regarding "mozzarella", "ricotta", "manicotti"]
Let me try and figure out how I would pronounce these words:
"Mozzarella": something like [,mUtsA'*El@]; also, in free variation,
[,mUtsa'*El@] and [,mUts@<r>*El@] (well, maybe not all of them). The
use of an [a] is odd because this sound does not normally occur in my
accent; so is the use of an r-colored vowel before a sound other than
[r] (maybe the second vowel in the first two pronunciations sometimes
has r-coloring as well).
Also odd is the [l]. It seems that, for almost all occurrences of [l]
in the lexicon, my accent has "dark l". I use the same kind of [l] at
the beginning of "leaf" as the one that I use at the end of "feel".
But the [l] sound in my "mozzarella" is a "clear l". It is also often
prolonged when I pronounce the word.
"Ricotta" and "manicotti" seem to be something like [rI'ko$t@] and
[,m&nI'ko$tij], respectively. Both words have, in the middle, what
sounds like ['ko$t] -- an unaspirated [k] followed by a "caught"
vowel, then a [t] -- an actual [t], _not_ [*] as in "daughter". This
[t] might get aspirated sometimes (perhaps especially in the case of
"manicotti"), which feels slightly less strange to me in this
phonological environment than an unaspirated [t].
--------------------------------------------------
daniel g. mcgrath (currently going through a depression)
http://members.tripod.com/denyore_w0o/
fruitbat
> On 24 Sep 2002, fruitbat wrote:
> > While at college near New York City (Hoboken, NJ),
>
> Stevens?
Yep
> > I heard
> > "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
>
> Just to be clear, do you mean like "mutts" /mVts/ or /mUts/ which would
> rhyme with "foots"?
I mean /mUts/, rhymes with "foots".
> > far as I have been able to ascertain, none of those (regional?)
> > variations are canonical Italian,
>
> I think the word "canonical" may be inappropriate in this context, for
> once.
Hmm. I hesitated to use it, but I couldn't think of a better word. I
suppose I was referring to dictionary or textbook Italian, assuming
that Italian dictionaries and textbooks agree on a pronunciation, that
is.
> In my experience there are two slightly different common pronunciations of
> "mozzarella" used by not-completely-assimilated Italian-Americans in New
> York city and also at least some parts of northern New Jersey (I'm talking
> pre-suburbanization) and at least some parts of Greater Boston. They are:
>
> /,mVt s@ '*El/ (first vowel like that of "mutt"; this is how I say it)
Interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard that particular one.
> and
> /,mUt s@ '*El/ (first vowel like that of "foot")
>
> Let me explain my use of /*/ as a phonemic symbol here. I mean something
> that, as realized, sounds pretty close but not identical to the phonetic
> flap [*] we hear in typical American English "Adele". It's somewhere in
> between [*] and some sort of more typical Italian trilled r.
[...]
> "muttsadell". I'm surprised you would hear that sound more as an 'r' than
> as a 'd', unless the pronunciations you heard were very different from
> what I've described.
The r is usually flipped, possibly in the fashion you described, but I
was just being lazy. I was more concerned with the vowels.
> Okay, finally you speak of a Brooklynite who used the /u/ vowel. I've
> heard that pronunciation, but only in movies or television (I grew up in
> Brooklyn [Fourth Largest City in America], by the way, though not in a
> primarily Italian neighborhood). I'm not going to dismiss it as bogus,
> however, because one feature found in Calabrian and Sicilian dialects is
> the use of a vowel like [u] where standard RP Italian has <o>. (In some
> cases this means these dialects preserve Latin <u>, as in Latin masculine
> or neuter nouns in -us and -um which generally became masculine -o in
> Italian.) So it's possible that someone who uses the "mootsa*ell"
> pronunciation has a strong Calabrese or Sicilian influence on his
> loan-words. But you'd think that, having grown up in Brooklyn [Fourth
> Largest City in America], I'd've heard the "moot" pronunciation somewhere,
> but I didn't.
The strongest Italian influence on my family is Sicilian, but we were
mixed and assimilated enough that I wasn't exposed to very much
Italian at all. In fact, I can't even picture any of my Italian family
members saying the word "mozzarella". I'll have to ask my great aunt
next time I see her.
> > And don't even get me started on "ricotta"
>
> Why not? The way I say it is /r@ 'gOt/, and I have reason to believe that
> again this is standard in New York and at least the other subregions I
While this may be standard in the NY region (and I've heard it from
plenty of people), it doesn't seem to be textbook Italian from what I
know. Not that I'm overly concerned with strict textbook Italian, but
I suppose I would prefer to learn/adopt that over a single dialect.
Based on my limited research, I was under the impression that the "i"
at the end of "manicotti" and the "a" at the ends of "mozzarella" and
"ricotta" should be voiced, e.g. something like /mot sa '*El la/ and
/ri 'kot ta/, though I would be ok with the latter using a softer
consonant sound somewhere between /k/ and /g/.
> the last syllable. "Manicotti" seems to be where
> not-completely-assimilated Italian-Americans draw the line and say, when
> they hear an AmE speaker pronounce it /m& n@ 'kA ti/, "Oy!".
I got a similar reaction freshman year. It was the first time I had
heard these pronunciations... I'm sure some of my hesitance to accept
them is due to my limited exposure.
> Oh, and that abbreviation you spoke of, "muhtz", is completely unfamiliar
> to me.
Really? At the aforementioned Vito's (Washington St, Hoboken), most
hoagies/subs/whatever were of the "<something> and mozzarella" variety
(*fresh* mozzarella. Mmmmmmm!), and just about everyone in front of me
in line would order something along the lines of "ham and muhtz". I
always preferred the "Vito's Hero", conveniently avoiding the
pronunciation issue entirely... I've heard the abbreviation used in
other places too, though.
Jeff
JBYORK14
pronounced many ways:
mUtsarel, mOzarel, mOOtsarel, MootsarElla, mUzarel, mAHzarel, mAHzarella,
Masarel, etc....
Each seems to say it "his way" with careful enthousiasm, certainly uncertain of
the the real pronounciation, if there even is one outside of Italy... Hey, and
think about it, Italy is pretty diverse too...
rigOt, richOt,
I am getting hungry now.
GrapeApe
>> > "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
>>
>> Just to be clear, do you mean like "mutts" /mVts/ or /mUts/ which would
>> rhyme with "foots"?
>
>I mean /mUts/, rhymes with "foots".
Considering how well the word identifies itself regardless of the pronunciation
of the words first syllable, I think the pronunciation is moot.
Brian Wickham
Aspetta! (in NYC pronounced approx. "Osh-PET") We also have
"pro-SHOOT" (prosciutto), "prova-LOAN" (provolone), "mani-GOAT"
(manicotti), and quite a few more. I'm told it is a southern Italian
influence in the pronounciations but I don't know for sure.
As far as Mozzarella is concerened, Italian requires a "T" sound to
start the "Z" so "moe-tsa-REL" would be my favorite NYC pronunciation
of that word. With a rolled "R" or course. I don't know if it would
be recognized in Italy.
Brian
marika
>
> Yep
>
> > > I heard
> > > "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
> >
> > Just to be clear, do you mean like "mutts" /mVts/ or /mUts/ which would
> > rhyme with "foots"?
>
> I mean /mUts/, rhymes with "foots".
I grew up in Philadelphia and it seems to me that all the South Philly
people pronounce it MOOtsarella. Just like MOO in Cow, which makes
sense since it is cheese.
Buut there is nothing like a southwestern virginian in a sign shop to
mangle something
I decided to get a sign made for Earth Day on Sat.
I opted for a small 3 foot by 2 foot nylon banner with a logo and
stuff to the side. It has a hole in each corner for rope to hold it.
It cost 50 bucks and the sign shop did a really great job on the logo,
EXCEPT they left out the E
They said they would fix it by tomorrow. I felt really bad because
the
girl did do a GREAT job with the logo.
One of the materials that they make signs with is PVC, which is one
of the things that Arth Day is opposed to because it is a Dioxin
producing
substance. SO, I made sure that they used Nylon for the banner. I
am sure
Nylon isn't all that great either, but I couldn't find much info on
it.
This will do in a pinch.
mk5000
"I'm sorry, I haven't been around long enough to be accepted into the
inner
sanctum of esotericism. Care to tell me what the BlackHelicopter
Express is ?"--Petecito
Richard Fontana
On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Brian Wickham wrote:
> Aspetta! (in NYC pronounced approx. "Osh-PET")
I've heard it as /,A 'SpEt/ which I'd represent naively as "ah-SHPET",
which is probably the same as what you're representing. I think this
again is Neapolitan-derived.
> We also have
> "pro-SHOOT" (prosciutto),
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
The correct pronunciation of "prosciutto" in New York is /br@ 'Zut/, which
can be naively represented as "bruh-ZHOOT".
> "prova-LOAN" (provolone),
I'm not really aware of any special New York Italian pronunciation of
"provolone"; I don't think it was ever a popular cheese among such
speakers.
> "mani-GOAT"
> (manicotti),
Whoa. Whoa. Impressively close, but no cigar. The one true correct New
York pronunciation of "manicotti", as I explained in a previous posting,
is one where the final syllable is /gOt/, which I would represent as
"gawt", rhyming with my "caught" (but I think many New York speakers who'd
correctly pronounce "manicotti" would use a different vowel in the final
syllable from what they'd use in "caught" since they'd use a more raised
and diphthongal vowel in "caught"; that is, I think the New York
"manicotti" final vowel is somewhere around nondiphthongal [A.] or [O].
Your "goat" vowel is /oU/, which is not possible. I noted, though, that a
New Jersey friend said it as "gut" /gVt/, which I think resulted from his
mishearing the pronunciation used by his mother, a native of Brooklyn
(Fourth Largest City in America).
> and quite a few more. I'm told it is a southern Italian
> influence in the pronounciations but I don't know for sure.
Yes, but it's more specific than that. These particular quasi-Anglicized
pronunciations are mainly drawn from the dialects of the Naples region,
which as I've said was the dominant linguistic influence in New York among
early Italian-American settlers, but these food words were, as far as I
know, pronounced more or less identically by my mother's mother's family
which was Abruzzese and raised in New Jersey away from (at that time) New
York city influence.
Pat Durkin
"marika" <marik...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:eb4ee788.02092...@posting.google.com...
> fru1...@hotmail.com (fruitbat) wrote in message
news:<ef8861a0.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > Yep
> >
> > > > I heard
> > > > "muhtz" (IPA: /U/)
> > >
> > > Just to be clear, do you mean like "mutts" /mVts/ or /mUts/ which
would
> > > rhyme with "foots"?
> >
> > I mean /mUts/, rhymes with "foots".
>
> I grew up in Philadelphia and it seems to me that all the South Philly
> people pronounce it MOOtsarella. Just like MOO in Cow, which makes
> sense since it is cheese.
>
> Buut there is nothing like a southwestern virginian in a sign shop to
> mangle something
>
> I decided to get a sign made for Earth Day on Sat.
>
> I opted for a small 3 foot by 2 foot nylon banner with a logo and
> stuff to the side. It has a hole in each corner for rope to hold it.
> It cost 50 bucks and the sign shop did a really great job on the logo,
> EXCEPT they left out the E
> They said they would fix it by tomorrow. I felt really bad because
> the
> girl did do a GREAT job with the logo.
>
OK. So where is it that you live in which tomorrow is Earth Day? And
tomorrow is Sat ?
Pat.
R J Valentine
I don't know if this is relevant, but on the DVD of _The Sopranos_, when
someone says what I've always assumed to be "marone" or "marrone" as an
exclamation of exasperation (though I never knew what it meant), the
captions for people who keep the volume down at night say "Madonna". Now
their New Jersey Italian is apparently like Brooklyn Italian, and possibly
like Neopolitan Italian (the Sopranos' ancestral language) in dropping a
final vowel. So maybe that semiflap is a "d/r" thing.
Incidentally, I had no independent knowledge of "manicotti" except that
they served it every once in a while on Fridays in the (public-) school
(in northwestern Suffolk County (The Largest and Fourth Largest County on
the Island)) cafeteria I frequented in elementary school, where they
_never_ served meat on Friday (though they used "for thine is the kingdom"
in assembly). They pronounced it in the good old American fashion:
[,m&n@'cA"ti], surprisingly using a prestige [&] before an "n", which I
assume was possible only because the "n" was part of the next syllable.
When I took Italian in Freeport High School (in southeastern Nassau County
(semi-City (buses and trains to New York), semi-Island (I could spit from
my bedroom window into tidal salt water)) some years later, it would have
been [,mAnI'cA.ti]. I wonder if what I hear as an aggressively dropped
final syllable on _The Sopranos_ in real life might be an aspirated or
reduced-schwaed consonant.
"Can a cat man a manicotti van?"
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Ben Zimmer
And let's not forget Tony Soprano's favorites, /br@'ZoUl/ (braciola)
and /,gAb@'goUl/ (cappicola). Or the New Haven specialty /@'bits/
(apizza).
Ben Zimmer
And let's not forget Tony Soprano's favorites, /br@'ZUl/ (braciola)
and /,gAb@'gUl/ (cappicola). Or the New Haven specialty /@'bits/
(apizza).
M Dashevsky
> > > and quite a few more. I'm told it is a southern Italian
> > > influence in the pronounciations but I don't know for sure.
> >
> > Yes, but it's more specific than that. These particular quasi-Anglicized
> > pronunciations are mainly drawn from the dialects of the Naples region,
> > which as I've said was the dominant linguistic influence in New York among
> > early Italian-American settlers, but these food words were, as far as I
> > know, pronounced more or less identically by my mother's mother's family
> > which was Abruzzese and raised in New Jersey away from (at that time) New
> > York city influence.
>
> And let's not forget Tony Soprano's favorites, /br@'ZUl/ (braciola)
> and /,gAb@'gUl/ (cappicola). Or the New Haven specialty /@'bits/
> (apizza).
Right, I can report that in New Haven in the 1950s, everyone who was
Italian, or who knew a lot of Italians, or who ate a lot of pizza,
said /@'bits/ (with some variation in the vowel sounds).
This pronunciation is heard less frequently today, but many of the
local restaurant signs still say 'apizza'.
marika
> >
>
>
> OK. So where is it that you live in which tomorrow is Earth Day?
The Lost COlony of Roanoke
> And
> tomorrow is Sat
I think you mean Arth
mk5000
"A nail on the head banger!!
Same goes for mercury amagams!"-Jan
Richard Fontana
On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> And let's not forget Tony Soprano's favorites, /br@'ZUl/ (braciola)
> and /,gAb@'gUl/ (cappicola).
In New York city the final vowel is different: /br@'ZoUl/, /,gAb@'goUl/.
Richard Fontana
On 26 Sep 2002, M Dashevsky wrote:
> Right, I can report that in New Haven in the 1950s, everyone who was
> Italian, or who knew a lot of Italians, or who ate a lot of pizza,
> said /@'bits/ (with some variation in the vowel sounds).
>
> This pronunciation is heard less frequently today, but many of the
> local restaurant signs still say 'apizza'.
Yes. As I noted in another posting, /,A'bits/ ("ah-BEETS") was once the,
or a, common word for pizza in New York city too (I don't think the first
vowel was commonly rendered as a schwa rather thah the father vowel; I
don't know how it's said in New Haven), at least as late as the 1940s. I
don't know to what extent it ever appeared on signs, however. By the
time I was a kid in Brooklyn (Fourth Largest City in America) in the
1970s, any tradition of "apizza" or the like in signage must have been
long dead even if it had ever existed, even though there were still older
speakers who were saying "ah-BEETS", at least jocularly. (Query whether
it would be proper to use such a pronunciation when speaking of
Sicilian-style [square] pizza.)
Of course, traditionally pizza in New York was served not in
so-called "restaurants" but in pizzerias, and the traditional signage is
more likely to involve "PIZZERIA" than "PIZZA" I suppose. I've never
heard 'apizzeria' or anything like that but I suppose that was once how it
was said. Revealingly, New Haven's most famous pizza eateries are
restaurants, and not pizzerias, and the many *non-famous* pizza places in
New Haven don't look too appetizing to me (though at least some of them
also have "apizza" signs). I've seen "apizza" used in one or two other
places in Connecticut. I've never seen a true pizzeria in New Haven, or,
in fact, anywhere outside of New York's five boroughs.
Ben Zimmer
In these clips it sounds like James Gandolfini says [br@'ZoUl] and
[,gAb@'gUl]:
http://www.robinc.org/Sounds/suicide.wav
http://www.the-sopranos.com/sounds/tony/s3_tony_capicolla.wav
Frances Kemmish
> Of course, traditionally pizza in New York was served not in
> so-called "restaurants" but in pizzerias, and the traditional signage is
> more likely to involve "PIZZERIA" than "PIZZA" I suppose. I've never
> heard 'apizzeria' or anything like that but I suppose that was once how it
> was said. Revealingly, New Haven's most famous pizza eateries are
> restaurants, and not pizzerias, and the many *non-famous* pizza places in
> New Haven don't look too appetizing to me (though at least some of them
> also have "apizza" signs). I've seen "apizza" used in one or two other
> places in Connecticut. I've never seen a true pizzeria in New Haven, or,
> in fact, anywhere outside of New York's five boroughs.
>
>
I suppose this is another of Richard's idisynchratic definitions. I
would define a pizzeria as a place that serves only pizza. Pepe's (and,
I think, Sally's) in New Haven certainly meet that criterion; Modern (on
State Street) does not.
I still like the Pepe's clam pizza the best. I had one from Modern the
other day, and it was pretty good - we used to get Modern delivered when
we were working on excavations at the Whitney Armoury in Hamden - but
the crust at Pepe's is better. I never ate at Sally's.
Fran
M Dashevsky
>
> > Right, I can report that in New Haven in the 1950s, everyone who was
> > Italian, or who knew a lot of Italians, or who ate a lot of pizza,
> > said /@'bits/ (with some variation in the vowel sounds).
> >
> > This pronunciation is heard less frequently today, but many of the
> > local restaurant signs still say 'apizza'.
>
> Yes. As I noted in another posting, /,A'bits/ ("ah-BEETS") was once the,
> or a, common word for pizza in New York city too (I don't think the first
> vowel was commonly rendered as a schwa rather thah the father vowel; I
> don't know how it's said in New Haven), at least as late as the 1940s. I
> don't know to what extent it ever appeared on signs, however. By the
> time I was a kid in Brooklyn (Fourth Largest City in America) in the
> 1970s, any tradition of "apizza" or the like in signage must have been
> long dead even if it had ever existed, even though there were still older
> speakers who were saying "ah-BEETS", at least jocularly.
Can anyone report seeing the spelling 'apizza' in Italy, or for that
matter, anywhere outside the Northeast US?
My guess is that it's purely an Americanism, perpetuated by second and
third generation Italian-Americans who spelled it like they heard it.
It would surprise me to hear that they'd take similar liberties in
Italy --- for example, would a native Neapolitan ever be tempted to
spell 'prosciutto' without the 'o', just because he pronounces it that
way?
> (Query whether
> it would be proper to use such a pronunciation when speaking of
> Sicilian-style [square] pizza.)
>
> Of course, traditionally pizza in New York was served not in
> so-called "restaurants" but in pizzerias, and the traditional signage is
> more likely to involve "PIZZERIA" than "PIZZA" I suppose. I've never
> heard 'apizzeria' or anything like that but I suppose that was once how it
> was said. Revealingly, New Haven's most famous pizza eateries are
> restaurants, and not pizzerias, and the many *non-famous* pizza places in
> New Haven don't look too appetizing to me (though at least some of them
> also have "apizza" signs).
Hey, Satriale's doesn't look so hot either, but I'll bet you can get a
very nice cut of meat there if you don't mind the occasional whiff of
lapsed capo.
Actually I think you'd be amazed how good the average neighborhood
pizza joint is in New Haven. The local standards are high: fall too
far short and you won't last.
MD
Sara Moffat Lorimer
> I've never seen a true pizzeria in New Haven, or,
> in fact, anywhere outside of New York's five boroughs.
I'm curious (and hungry). Which true pizzerias do you recommend?
Mike Oliver
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >
> > > And let's not forget Tony Soprano's favorites, /br@'ZUl/ (braciola)
> > > and /,gAb@'gUl/ (cappicola).
> >
> > In New York city the final vowel is different: /br@'ZoUl/, /,gAb@'goUl/.
>
> In these clips it sounds like James Gandolfini says [br@'ZoUl] and
> [,gAb@'gUl]:
I can't find _cappicola_ (or the more-probable looking _capicola_ or
_capiccola_ or even _cappiccola_) at http://www.garzantilinguistica.it .
Sure you spelled it right?
Richard Fontana
I'm pretty sure "capicola" is the spelling I've usually seen (in the US,
of course). That spelling also seems to have the most hits on
Google. Maybe it's a dialect(s)' word whose standard Italian
equivalent is a non-cognate; this is (or was, a century ago) extremely
common.
Ben Zimmer
M Dashevsky wrote:
>
> Can anyone report seeing the spelling 'apizza' in Italy, or for that
> matter, anywhere outside the Northeast US?
>
> My guess is that it's purely an Americanism, perpetuated by second and
> third generation Italian-Americans who spelled it like they heard it.
Doesn't seem too common in Italy. Googling for "apizza" on
Italian-language sites yields 26 results, about half of which refer to a
pizzeria named "L'Apizza" near Tuscany. (There are also references to a
song called "'A Pizza" by Aurelio Fierro.) And Googling on "apizzeria"
yields only 6 results, most referring to a restaurant named "L'Apizzeria
di Masoni" in Florence.
Mike Oliver
Could be. What is it? I don't think I'd ever heard of it.
Ben Zimmer
--------
http://www.foodsubs.com/MeatcureHams.html
capocolla = capicola = capacollo = capacola = capocollo = capacolla
Notes: Italian in origin, this is a sometimes spicy dry-cured pork
shoulder.
--------
Ben Zimmer
And I'd guess it's etymologically related to "coppa" (lit. "cup"), which
refers to a similar cut of meat:
-----------
http://tinyurl.com/1odh
Coppa is made from the pork shoulder or "collar" of the hog. Using a
whole
piece of pork shoulder, the master salumiere cures the coppa in
seasonings for a period of approximately three weeks. Coppa is usually
made with mild
seasonings. It is also made with hot red pepper. The Coppa is then
stuffed into a casing and placed in an aging room for a period of six -
eight weeks.
Coppa has a similar texture to prosciutto. However, unlike Prosciutto
which is made from the lean leg muscle, the shoulder muscles often
contain veins of fat. This marbling effect helps produce a robust and
rich flavor.
The process for making Cappicola is similar to that of Coppa, except
that Cappicola is slowly roasted after the curing phase as opposed to
being air-dried. Cappicola is placed in a large oven and roasted until
an internal temperature of 150 degrees is reached.
Coppa and Cappicola are traditionally used in antipasto dishes. The
unique flavor of Coppa and Cappicola is enhanced when served with sharp
cheese and crusty Italian bread. Thinly sliced, these traditional meats
enhance a true Italian meal.
-----------
Mike Oliver
> Ben Zimmer wrote:
>> http://www.foodsubs.com/MeatcureHams.html
>> capocolla = capicola = capacollo = capacola = capocollo = capacolla
>> Notes: Italian in origin, this is a sometimes spicy dry-cured pork
>> shoulder.
>> --------
>
> And I'd guess it's etymologically related to "coppa" (lit. "cup"), which
> refers to a similar cut of meat:
I doubt it. _Capocollo_ is literally "head-neck", which seems to be
where the meat comes from.
Oh, looking in my dead-tree Garzanti (the online version isn't responding)
I see that there's a second meaning of _coppa_:
coppa 2
1. la parte posteriore del capo
2. in Lombardia, taglio di carne di bue macellato
3. salume fatto nell'Italia settentrionale con lombo di
maiale insaccato, nell'Italia centrale con carni
della testa del maiale, cotte e pressate.
Da _coppa_ 1, per la forma.
So it's the back of the head, which *looks* like a cup. But
_capocollo_ still looks like it's from _capo_ and not _coppa_.
Ben Zimmer
That obviously makes sense for _capocollo_. But what do we make of
these variant forms (with number of Googlehits):
coppacola (57)
coppacolla (38)
copacola (25)
copacolla (14)
These could derive from _coppa_ + _collo_ (back of head + neck). Or if
_capocollo_ is the original form, then perhaps the variants represent a
kind of folk etymology that occurred in some dialects, connecting the
term to _coppa_ once the connection to _capo_ had been lost. (Or maybe
it's a combination of metathesis and folk etymology.)
Richard Fontana
Whoa. Dashevsky is absolutely dead right, and I've been dead stoopid
about this all along. Of course. Of course!
It's not one word, "apizza", as the ignorant New Havenites (plus me, but I
blame the ignorant New Havenites in part) seem to think. It's _'a
pizza_, _'a_ being a Neapolitan dialectal counterpart to standard Italian
_la_, the singular feminine definite article. "The pizza".
As evidence of this, aside from the fact that you rightly couldn't really
find any Italian sites using "apizza", consider this song I
found online, written, it appears, in Neapolitan dialect or quasi-dialect:
'A PIZZA
Io te 'ncuntraje:
na vocca rossa comm'a na cerasa,
na pelle prufumata 'e fronne 'e rose.
Io te 'ncuntraje...
Volevo offrirti,
pagandolo anche a rate,
nu brillante 'e qunnece carate.
Ma tu vulive 'a pizza,
'a pizza, 'a pizza
cu 'a pummarola 'ncoppa,
cu 'a pummarola 'ncoppa.
Ma tu vulive 'a pizza,
'a pizza, 'a pizza,
cu 'a pummarola 'ncoppa,
'a pizza e niente cchi.
Io te purtaje
add' ce stanno 'e meglie risturante,
add' se mangia mentre 'o mare canta.
Io te purtaje...
Entusiasmato 'a tutte st'apparate,
urdinaje nu cefalo arrustuto.
Ma tu vulive 'a pizza,
....................................
Io te spusaje,
'o vicinato e 'a folla d' 'e pariente,
facevano nu sacco 'e cumplimente.
Io te spusaje...
All'improvviso,
tra invite e battimane,
arrevaje
na torta 'e cinche piane.
Ma tu vulive 'a pizza [...]
Notice not only the general use of articles _'a_, _'e_ (see below) _'o_,
but also in several words <u> corresponds to standard Italian <o>, which
is done more systematically or completely in dialects south of Naples but
clearly occurs to some extent in Neapolitan too. This has some bearing on
what you were saying about Gandolfini's pronunciation. It occurs to me
that _finocchio_ ("fennel") is /f@ 'nuk/ in, I believe, both
Neapolitan-New York as well as Abruzzese-New Jersey dialects, which shows
non-deep-south examples of the o => u thing.
Another reason I was confused about this was that in old-time New York
Italian-American speech you also hear the word /A bit saI 'joUl/, or
that's how it sounded to me, for _pizzaiuolo_ ("pizza maker"). But this
turns out to be two words also, the first the masculine singular definite
article: _'o pizzaiol'_. In both cases the apostrophe signifies a loss
of historical initial /l/. This loss of /l/ in the articles occurs in
some other Italian dialects too; in some Sicilian and Calabrian dialects
the masculine singular definite article is _'u_. (These are direct
cognates of stand. Italian _lo_, which is only used in stand. Italian
before certain consonant sounds beginning with a sibilant, IIRC. Well, of
course _il_ is a cognate too.)
It makes sense, anyway, since the word "pizza" is itself of Neapolitan
derivation (that is, I think the word entered standard Italian from
Neapolitan, just as it entered standard American English from Neapolitan,
and standard British English from standard American English :-)). Mike
Oliver or someone else with access to unabridged Italian dictionaries can
correct me, as I may be wrong about this point, but English dictionaries
have a tendency to say bogus things about the etymology of "pizza". If
Neapolitans had really called it "apizza" it probably would have entered
these languages as "apizza", or so I'm theorizing.
Ben Zimmer
Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> > M Dashevsky wrote:
> > >
> > > Can anyone report seeing the spelling 'apizza' in Italy, or for that
> > > matter, anywhere outside the Northeast US?
> > >
> > > My guess is that it's purely an Americanism, perpetuated by second and
> > > third generation Italian-Americans who spelled it like they heard it.
> >
> > Doesn't seem too common in Italy. Googling for "apizza" on
> > Italian-language sites yields 26 results, about half of which refer to a
> > pizzeria named "L'Apizza" near Tuscany. (There are also references to a
> > song called "'A Pizza" by Aurelio Fierro.) And Googling on "apizzeria"
> > yields only 6 results, most referring to a restaurant named "L'Apizzeria
> > di Masoni" in Florence.
>
> Whoa. Dashevsky is absolutely dead right, and I've been dead stoopid
> about this all along. Of course. Of course!
>
> It's not one word, "apizza", as the ignorant New Havenites (plus me, but I
> blame the ignorant New Havenites in part) seem to think. It's _'a
> pizza_, _'a_ being a Neapolitan dialectal counterpart to standard Italian
> _la_, the singular feminine definite article. "The pizza".
Another possible explanation: it could be a case of metanalysis, along
the lines of _an ewt_ > _a newt_. Similarly, _la pizza_ might have been
reanalyzed as _l'apizza_.
Looking online for other examples of this kind of metanalysis, I see
that there is an Italian term for this phenomenon: "concrezione
dell'articolo" ('concretion of the article'). One example is Italian
_lastrico_ 'paving' < _l'astrico_ < Latin _astracum_ 'plaster'. And
here is a case of _a-_ < _l'a-_ < _la_, from a vocabulary of the Cremona
dialect:
-------
http://www.cremonaonline.it/contenuti/art0014976.html
Avčertus: scriminatura dei capelli. Probabile esempio di concrezione
dell’articolo con caduta dell’iniziale -l-. (la včertus/avčertus) v.
včetus.
-------
Mike Oliver
> (These are direct
> cognates of stand. Italian _lo_, which is only used in stand. Italian
> before certain consonant sounds beginning with a sibilant, IIRC.
"Lo" is used before masculine nouns beginning with:
"impure s", that is s followed by a consonant, e.g. lo scoiattolo,
the squirrel
z, as in lo zucchero, sugar
y, lo yogurt (these are probably all foreign words)
gn, lo gnocco (singular of gnocchi)
ps, lo psichiatra, the psychiatrist
any vowel, however the vowel is usually elided so the article appears as l'
an exception might be words beginning with i pronounced [j],
e.g. lo iettatore, the jinx -- l'iettatore would be hard to pronounce
and Italians are big on euphony.
Richard Fontana
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >
> > > M Dashevsky wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone report seeing the spelling 'apizza' in Italy, or for that
> > > > matter, anywhere outside the Northeast US?
> > > >
> > > > My guess is that it's purely an Americanism, perpetuated by second and
> > > > third generation Italian-Americans who spelled it like they heard it.
> > >
> > > Doesn't seem too common in Italy. Googling for "apizza" on
> > > Italian-language sites yields 26 results, about half of which refer to a
> > > pizzeria named "L'Apizza" near Tuscany. (There are also references to a
> > > song called "'A Pizza" by Aurelio Fierro.) And Googling on "apizzeria"
> > > yields only 6 results, most referring to a restaurant named "L'Apizzeria
> > > di Masoni" in Florence.
> >
> > Whoa. Dashevsky is absolutely dead right, and I've been dead stoopid
> > about this all along. Of course. Of course!
> >
> > It's not one word, "apizza", as the ignorant New Havenites (plus me, but I
> > blame the ignorant New Havenites in part) seem to think. It's _'a
> > pizza_, _'a_ being a Neapolitan dialectal counterpart to standard Italian
> > _la_, the singular feminine definite article. "The pizza".
> [snip]
>
> Another possible explanation: it could be a case of metanalysis, along
> the lines of _an ewt_ > _a newt_. Similarly, _la pizza_ might have been
> reanalyzed as _l'apizza_.
Interesting. Perhaps something like that would have been particularly
likely to happen in an Italian immigrant community in the US where you had
significant dialect mixing between one that had _'a_ and another that had
_la_, and/or Standard Italian's _la_.
There are reports, I don't know how jocular or factual they are,
that some Italian immigrants called the US "La Merica" (or maybe it was a
conscious jocularism). There's a well-known book about the Italian
immigrant experience in the US by Michael La Sorte titled _La Merica_.
Richard Fontana
My guess without looking into this is that the 'o' forms result from
Americans (with the ah/short-o merger) hearing "capo-" rendered with
ah/short-o, and that this also explains the double-p forms (as "copacola",
for example, looks to me at least like it should sound sort of like "Coca
Cola"[TM (Hi Coop!)]). An interesting way to test this might be to see
how people up Boston way pronounce it, as they don't have the ah/short-o
merger. My personal experience is complicated a bit because my
Boston-region Italian relatives originally migrated from the Young Joey
region of New Jersey, so the oldest generation, the one closest to Italian
ethnic influence, *has* the ah/short-o merger, and the younger
generations, though they *don't* have the ah/short-o merger, would have
learned a word like "capicola" (or however we should spell it) in the
first instance from elder relatives.
Anyway, I just did some Google searches restricted to .it sites. It
appears that _capocollo_ is the standard Italian version. I'd guess that
"capicola" is an American rendition of one or more dialectal equivalents,
with the final -a probably representing a semi-vanished schwa.
Richard Fontana
On 27 Sep 2002, M Dashevsky wrote:
> Can anyone report seeing the spelling 'apizza' in Italy, or for that
> matter, anywhere outside the Northeast US?
>
> My guess is that it's purely an Americanism, perpetuated by second and
> third generation Italian-Americans who spelled it like they heard it.
> It would surprise me to hear that they'd take similar liberties in
> Italy --- for example, would a native Neapolitan ever be tempted to
> spell 'prosciutto' without the 'o', just because he pronounces it that
> way?
It's more than simply an altered pronunciation, like speaking standard AmE
with a southern as opposed to a midwestern accent. That's even more true
if you think of it from the point of view of a century ago when these
immigrants were arriving in the US. Most of them were at least
bilingual, in the sense that they spoke at least one dialect (their native
one) plus the standard Italian lingua franca which was taught to children
when quasi-universal education arrived. Such dialects ight well be
as substantially distinct from one another and
from standard Italian as standard Italian is from, say, Spanish. I
believe that many linguists treat Sicilian and Sardinian as languages
separate from Italian rather than dialects, partly because of the extent
to which there's a tradition of written literature in the dialect
(substantial in the Sicilian case, at least) and partly because the
distance between standard Italian and these dialects/languages is no
narrower than the distance between standard Italian and another Romance
language.
Nevertheless, it looks like you're right about "apizza", which is actually
Neapolitan _'a pizza_ (std. Ital. _la pizza_); see my other posting.
Richard Fontana
http://www.adriashop.it/shop-it/gallery/catering/capocollo.jpg
http://www.mregg.it/salumi/capocollo.jpg
http://www.bonobono.it/images/prodotti/salumi/capocollo.jpg
It's pretty good, actually. Note the "capocollo" spelling on these three
Italian sites. I'm no longer sure that "capicola" is "the spelling I've
usually seen", though clearly it's common in the US.
Richard Fontana
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Sara Moffat Lorimer wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > I've never seen a true pizzeria in New Haven, or,
> > in fact, anywhere outside of New York's five boroughs.
>
> I'm curious (and hungry). Which true pizzerias do you recommend?
Well, note first of all that it has to be a true pizzeria, so that rules
out a few places that are generally considered to produce fairly good
pizza. Anyway, I'm not sure I can give reliable up-to-date
recommendations at this time, as I've generally been disappointed with the
state of New York pizza since about the time of the Gulf War. I blame it
on _Friends_, actually, though I'm still working on the specifics.
When I was still living in M'nhattan in the Murray Hill/Kips Bay
arrondisements, and I wanted to get pizza at a pizzeria, I'd go to (or
order from) a place called "La Pizzeria" on Third Avenue a bit below 34th
Street. It's reasonably good for Manhattan pizza, which has declined
in quality particularly dramatically post-GW; I think it has something to
do with _Friends_, the NBC sitcom, but I'm not sure what exactly. One
general rule of course is never to go to any of the Manhattan pizzerias
that use "Ray" in their name. (However, back in the late 1970s, there
*was* an original, famous Ray's Pizza in the Village which was justly
famous.)
Oh, back around September 11th 2000 (= AmE "Nine Eleven") I mentioned that
one of the best Manhattan pizzerias was right near the World Trade Center,
across from One Liberty Plaza. I was down there this past summer and I
was delighted to see that it's still in business. However, I didn't
happen to get any pizza. I keep forgetting the name of that place, but if
the ownership is still the same it's probably still making excellent New
York pizza. Order by the slice; it's a lunch, carry-away/eat standing up
sort of place. It's on the north side of Cortlandt Street if I remember
correctly.
There used to be many decent pizzerias in various parts of Brooklyn and
Queens, and there probably still are, though I'm sure a lesser decline has
occurred in those places too. Even in the golden past quality varied
quite a bit, as I think I once pointed out here when describing that
birthday party I went to (GoogleGroup for "Gaylord" I think) as well as
that pizzeria on Cortelyou (hi Daniel) Road (which I think still exists!)
whose pizza my older brother used to tell me was made with rats. (Not
Riviera, which was good but went out of business around 1981.) Back in
Brooklyn during the second half of the 1970s we used to mainly get pizza
from this place called Avenue J Pizza, which was on Avenue J. Oh, but
sometimes during the '70s we'd get Sicilian pizza at the famous Queen
Pizzeria which was somewhere between Red Hook and Brooklyn Heights and
which existed at least as late as the early 1990s. Queen Pizza was in
fact generally regarded as having the best Sicilian pizza in New York.
However, I looked for it over the summer and couldn't find it, but then I
get lost easily.
In summary, I can't really help you out much because for all my blather
I'm completely out of touch, but at least I know good pizza
when I taste it. So someday I'll do a general survey of whatever true
pizza is left in New York and report my results here.
One general problem with modern New York pizza is the issue of fire. It
is generally accepted that the four elements that make for good pizza are
water, earth, fire and air. The importance of water is one reason why
well-made pizza in New York is superior to pizza in most other places in
the US (except for a few places found in coastal and western Connecticut
and northern and coastal New Jersey), and probably the main reason why
pizza in Boston is so bad (the badness of Boston-region bagels, and the
nondisputed excellence of New York bagels, is known also to be a matter of
differences in water). Anyway, I don't know much from pizza regulations
but my understanding is that the proper ovens for baking pizza at
appropriate temperatures were banned in New York city for health or safety
or environmental reasons a long time ago (before my time).
R H Draney
> There are reports, I don't know how jocular or factual they are,
> that some Italian immigrants called the US "La Merica" (or maybe
> it was a conscious jocularism). There's a well-known book about
> the Italian immigrant experience in the US by Michael La Sorte
> titled _La Merica_.
Now *this* is embarrassing...thirty-five years to get a minor piece of
wordplay from the first season of the original "Star Trek"...in the
episode "Bread and Circuses", the Enterprise goes to a planet where a
20th century version of the Roman Empire is still in place, and where
a renegade Federation officer has set himself up as a dictator, using
the name "Merikus"....r
Richard Fontana
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Frances Kemmish wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > Of course, traditionally pizza in New York was served not in
> > so-called "restaurants" but in pizzerias, and the traditional signage is
> > more likely to involve "PIZZERIA" than "PIZZA" I suppose.
[snip stuff I said about 'apizza' now known to be mistaken]
> > Revealingly, New Haven's most famous pizza eateries are
> > restaurants, and not pizzerias, and the many *non-famous* pizza places in
> > New Haven don't look too appetizing to me (though at least some of them
> > also have "apizza" signs). I've seen "apizza" used in one or two other
> > places in Connecticut. I've never seen a true pizzeria in New Haven, or,
> > in fact, anywhere outside of New York's five boroughs.
>
> I suppose this is another of Richard's idisynchratic definitions. I
> would define a pizzeria as a place that serves only pizza. Pepe's (and,
> I think, Sally's) in New Haven certainly meet that criterion; Modern (on
> State Street) does not.
I'd have to say that defining a pizzeria as a place that necessarily
serves *only* pizza (even if we ignore things like beverages) is as
idiosyncratic as any of my definitions. I'll concede that my
understanding of "pizzeria" is possibly valid only in New York and its
immediate environs.
It seems that Pepe's is formally _Frank Pepe's Pizzeria_, and Modern is
_Modern Apizza_, and apparently Sally's is _Sally's Pizza_, for whatever
that's worth. Anyway, Google shows that the term "pizzeria" is actually
used a fair amount in the proper names of pizza places in various regions
of the country, but I suspect that in many cases it's just to provide a
sort of pseudo-Italian quaintness, and that in most of these places
"pizzeria" is never used as a general term. In how many parts of the US
can one say "There's a pizzeria over on the corner", as opposed to saying
"a pizza place" or "a pizza restaurant" or something like that?
Well, anyway, a pizzeria in the New York sense has certain required
features:
(1) It should be extremely informal, almost to the point of
shabbiness, and fairly small, perhaps cramped, with at most a few tiny
tables and chairs, but possibly only a bit of counter on which one can eat
standing up or sitting on a stool
(2) There should be a guy with a white apron who's actually making the
pizza and putting it in the oven; moreover this has to be visible to the
customers
(3) It should have a fairly limited set of offerings besides pizza
itself, but certainly non-pizza food (apart from beverages) is possible,
such as heroes or calzones
(4) It really should properly offer legitimate Italian ices, at least in
the warm weather (this alone might rule out anyplace outside of New York
and environs)
(5) It absolutely must offer pizza by the *slice* (again, probably rules
out most pizza places in the US) as well as by the *pie* (Note: pizza is
not a kind of pie; "pie" is just a traditional term for an unsliced pizza,
including Sicilian (square) pizza)
(6) It should have those traditional gurgling containers of orange liquid
and grape liquid that no one actually ever orders (are they even on the
wall menu? What exactly were these beverages?) Now, I'm not even sure
you can find any pizzerias left in New York that have the orange-and-grape
thing (though perhaps it's still quite prevalent) so I'm basically not
going to count this one.
(7) It must offer boxed pizza to go (or for delivery), and said boxes
must adhere to a certain format: they must be white on the outside, with
an illustration of a smiling moustachioed Italian guy wearing a chef's
hat, and the slogan
You've Tried the Rest
Now Try the Best
or something substantially similar (sometimes with scare quotes), with the
outline of the illustration and the lettering printed in red
(8) Ideally it should be possible to order a slice or an ice from the
outside front, by way of a window, but this is not an absolute requirement
Robert Lieblich
[re pizzerias]
> (5) It absolutely must offer pizza by the *slice* (again, probably rules
> out most pizza places in the US) as well as by the *pie* (Note: pizza is
> not a kind of pie; "pie" is just a traditional term for an unsliced pizza,
> including Sicilian (square) pizza)
Vic's of Bradley Beach, a red sauce joint (trattoria to my eye) that
has been there since I first saw Bradley Beach in 1967 and probably
quite a bit longer, has neon signage on its exterior that offers,
among other things, "tomato pies." My wife's mother's second
husband, Mr. Del Medico, came from a large family in the Bronx and
Southern Westchester that used the term "tomato pie" frequently. Is
a "tomato pie" not the same as a "pizza," or do we have
unacknowledged synonyms here?
--
Bob Lieblich
Getting hungry for a slice
Richard Fontana
I would guess that "tomato pie" is just an archaic regional term for
pizza. I believe I've seen some references to descriptions of pizza as "a
kind of tomato pie" from, or referring to, the pre-War era. Even though
from our (or my) modern postwar perspective pizza is in no way a "pie"
(would any BrE people call it a "tart"?), you can easily imagine how early
attempts to describe pizza to Americans involved reaching for the "pie"
word. That's the obvious origin of the still-current use of "pie" in New
York City Region English (NYCRE) to refer to an unsliced *unit* of pizza.
(This use of "pie" is not found throughout the Northeast or East Coast, it
should be noted.)
I did a Google search for "tomato pie". The term seems to mainly be used
to describe some sort of old-fashioned true AmE pie, usually "savoury" as
they say in BrE. If in fact a 'savoury' "tomato pie" was once a fairly
popular AmE dish (back in the prewar days of frontier cuisine), it might
be that the exotic "pizza" introduced by Italian immigrants was best
described by some people with the words "tomato pie" even though it was
nothing like good ol' frontier AmE tomato pie.
The archaic "pizza pie", an early synonym for "pizza" in some American
regions, has been dead since the late 1960s. The last known sincere use
was one by Shaggy (as voiced by legendary DJ Casey Kasem) in an episode
of _Scooby Doo Where Are You!_, where he says "Give me liberty, or give me
pizza pie!"
Michael J Hardy
> in New York City Region English (NYCRE)
Always coining acronyms.
Richard, I have thought about some of your claims of
a few months ago, concerning dialects used on network TV.
Could it be that the _pronuncations_ are those of the
MINMINM & CINC northeast, but the intonations are from
much further west? -- Mike Hardy
Michael J Hardy
Always coining acronyms.
much further west? Of course in recent years PIPs like
Dan Rather and Forest Sawyer have gotten big in TV news,
but I think in commercials they still pronounce "ten"
with the /E/ in bet and not like "tin". -- Mike Hardy
Brian Wickham
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>
>In summary, I can't really help you out much because for all my blather
>I'm completely out of touch, but at least I know good pizza
>when I taste it. So someday I'll do a general survey of whatever true
>pizza is left in New York and report my results here.
>
When you do get around to it, for by-the-slice pizza try
Sal & Carmine's on Broadway between 101 & 102 Streets in Manhattan and
DiFara's, 1424 Ave J, at 15 Street in Midwood, Brooklyn. These are
two different types of slices but easily recognizable as quality NYC
pizza.
For whole pies there are a few places making excellent pizza, each
with its own distinctive taste.
Brian
Tony Cooper
>. It's reasonably good for Manhattan pizza, which has
> declined in quality particularly dramatically post-GW; I think it has
> something to do with _Friends_, the NBC sitcom, but I'm not sure what
> exactly. One general rule of course is never to go to any of the
> Manhattan pizzerias that use "Ray" in their name.
Do you find that pizza is more or less authentic if served in a pizzeria
that has an odd address (2701) compared to an even address (2708)? If the
pizza better or worse during the "season", or is it equally good or bad
during the re-runs?
I was going to ask if the location of the serving window (left of the door,
right of the door, directly in front of the door) affected the taste of the
pizza, but decided that this is a silly question. Yet.....
--
Tony Cooper aka tony_co...@yahoo.com
If you think we can't drive here in Florida, wait until you see us vote.
Brian Wickham
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>
>The archaic "pizza pie", an early synonym for "pizza" in some American
>regions, has been dead since the late 1960s. The last known sincere use
>was one by Shaggy (as voiced by legendary DJ Casey Kasem) in an episode
>of _Scooby Doo Where Are You!_, where he says "Give me liberty, or give me
>pizza pie!"
>
>
>
I still use the term "pie" but I'm 60. I don't say "pizza pie" but I
would say to a waiter, "We'll have a plain pie." or alternatively
"We'll have a regular pie." Both mean the same thing: a cheese and
tomato pizza with no additional toppings.
When using the word "pie" to mean pizza one must be already talking
about pizza. In NYC though, you could ask, "Do you want to go for a
pie?" and you would be understood by natives to mean pizza, and that
you intend to eat it at the restaurant. But if you asked "Do you want
to go for pie?" you would be understood to mean dessert, as in apple
pie or such.
Another example of usage would be, "I like the pizza at John's. They
make a nice pie." Here "pie" is code for a place that doesn't serve
slices.
At a storefront pizza place where you buy slices, the word "pie" is
hardly ever used by the clientele except when ordering a "whole pie".
In this case "pizza" is a generic term that doesn't quantify the
ordered amount. Either you order a slice or x slices, or you want a
"whole pie".
But you are right - no one but a child would say "pizza pie", at least
not in NY.
Brian
Mike Oliver
> "Lo" is used before masculine nouns beginning with:
>
> "impure s", that is s followed by a consonant, e.g. lo scoiattolo,
> the squirrel
>
> z, as in lo zucchero, sugar
>
> y, lo yogurt (these are probably all foreign words)
>
> gn, lo gnocco (singular of gnocchi)
>
> ps, lo psichiatra, the psychiatrist
>
> any vowel, however the vowel is usually elided so the article appears as l'
> an exception might be words beginning with i pronounced [j],
> e.g. lo iettatore, the jinx -- l'iettatore would be hard to pronounce
> and Italians are big on euphony.
Missed one. Also anything starting with 'x', as in _xenofobo_ xenofobe.
Note that the x is pronounced /ks/; similarly, the 'p' in _psichiatra_
is pronounced. The letter 'z' is either /ts/ or /dz/ depending on
the word.
So it seems that it's not so much words that start with sibilants, but
rather words that begin with clusters containing a sibilant
(and, usually, a stop). But not always: _lo_sciatore_, the skiier,
which is pronounced /Si a 'tO re/.
Pat Durkin
"Richard Fontana" <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.102092...@facstaff.wesleyan.edu...
I found 96 hits for "capricola", the spelling I have seen and heard
pronounced more often than the others--at least to the point that
capicola sounds defective to me.
This may be just another spelling error, however, as the true meaning of
"capricola", it appears, is an intestinal parasite in goats. And here
I just _assumed_ (1) it was named for goat meat, and for the sausage
shape (tail). I just understand it is another spicy meat sausage.
(1) How assumptions run in my family--Over the last weekend I was
explaining how nucular might have come into existence as a variant of
nuclear. We had the same math and science teachers in high school. He
told me he had always just assumed that they were two different things.
He made a good living as a chemical engineer, and it sounds to me
(another assumption) that he spend his working career amongst other
chemical engineers to whom no distinction was ever made betweeen the two
sounds.
(But this grates on my nerves. How can a scientist think there are two
such similar terms and not search for the difference? Well, that's OK.
We can't talk politics, either. Hmph!)
Tony Cooper
(9) If the place has a counter or tables where the pizza may be consumed
in-house, the management must supply paper placemats illustrated with a
colored map of Italy.
(10) Somewhere in the establishment, there must be a hanging bunch of
plastic grapes so dusty that they look like purple horse-chesnuts.
(11) There must be a badly painted mural on at least one wall.
Richard Fontana
On Sun, 29 Sep 2002, Tony Cooper wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote:
[Snipped: Richard's eight required features of a true *pizzeria*]
> (9) If the place has a counter or tables where the pizza may be consumed
> in-house, the management must supply paper placemats illustrated with a
> colored map of Italy.
Coop, that's Dead Wrong[tm]. I hadn't thought of this, but a true
pizzeria is certainly not going to have placemats of any sort.
I've seen the sort of paper placemats you're talking about, but not in
pizzerias but in inferior and bogus Italian *restaurants*. These places
are, as a rule, informal and casual, and they may well have pizza on the
menu (or, more likely, something they incorrectly describe as "pizza"),
but they are not pizzerias.
> (10) Somewhere in the establishment, there must be a hanging bunch of
> plastic grapes so dusty that they look like purple horse-chesnuts.
No, this isn't a requirement of a pizzeria. I think I know what you're
talking about (but I'm not sure), but this again might be seen at a
certain type of restaurant, never at a pizzeria.
> (11) There must be a badly painted mural on at least one wall.
No, this is certainly not a requirement, and it usually won't be present,
but I can barely imagine its presence without making what otherwise would
be a pizzeria into a non-pizzeria. Again, I believe you are thinking of a
certain kind of American restaurant.
Ben Zimmer
Pat Durkin wrote:
>
>
> I found 96 hits for "capricola", the spelling I have seen and heard
> pronounced more often than the others--at least to the point that
> capicola sounds defective to me.
>
> This may be just another spelling error, however, as the true meaning of
> "capricola", it appears, is an intestinal parasite in goats.
Well, it looks like "capricola" is the species epithet for at least
two different species of strongyles, which are nematode worms found in
the gastrointestinal tract of some mammals (not just goats):
Trichostrongylus capricola
Varestrongylus capricola
But then again "capicola" can also be a species epithet for several
different species:
Streptopelia capicola (ring-necked dove)
Heliophanus capicola (spider)
Euophrys capicola (spider)
Coleoptera capicola (beetle)
etc.
> And here
> I just _assumed_ (1) it was named for goat meat, and for the sausage
> shape (tail). I just understand it is another spicy meat sausage.
At the risk of reviving the sausage thread, I don't think there's any
way that "sausage" could properly refer capicola (i.e., dry-cured
smoked pork shoulder), since there's no casing.
Pat Durkin
"Ben Zimmer" <bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:3D96A81A...@midway.uchicago.edu...
Again, that was capacola. (Recall the number of variants in spelling?
Perhaps there are variants in definition? Americans can mince anything
and call it anything they want. Look at Spam, originally Spiced Ham.
Fish sticks _may_ be cut off a filet of fish, or may be minced and
pressed. Of course, the Japanese are way ahead of US. Look at surimi.)
One of my Google sites was the resume of a worker with 2 or 3 years
experience in an Armour packing plant, I believe in Chicago. After 6
months of stuffing canned hams (she could see the worms) she was happy
to be back kneading and stuffing capricola, a spiced sausage. At least,
she couldn't see any worms. (Do you think they had fled the spices, or
been minced out of sight? <{;o)
Richard Fontana
On Sun, 29 Sep 2002, Pat Durkin wrote:
[Ben Zimmer:]
> > At the risk of reviving the sausage thread, I don't think there's any
> > way that "sausage" could properly refer capicola (i.e., dry-cured
> > smoked pork shoulder), since there's no casing.
>
> Again, that was capacola. (Recall the number of variants in spelling?
> Perhaps there are variants in definition?
Nope. /,gAb@'goUl/ is one thing and one thing only. It's not a sausage.
It's a cold cut (albeit an unusually good one). But anyway I think Ben is
right even if you adopt a Varelan definition of "sausage".
When I was googling for images of capocollo, I found one from some
American 'sub' place that looked not like /,gAb@'goUl/ but like some
variety of Virginia ham.
Ben Zimmer
Yes, I noticed that site:
-------------
http://memory.loc.gov/mss/wpalh0/07/0705/07050805.htm
I work in Armour's sausage department. They make all different kinds
of sausages. Making capricola, that's a hot Italian sausage, lots of
spices and garlic in it, well, it has to be skivered.
-------------
(I won't quote the more gruesome bits.)
But that's the only Googlehit I see that refers to capricola as
"sausage"-- perhaps "sausage" is used here as a generic term for
processed, seasoned meats. Here are other sites that describe
"capricola":
-------------
http://www.caller2.com/2001/may/25/today/restaura/969.html
"Is that corned beef?" my companion asked when I unwrapped my
muffaletta. Close. Turns out it's called capricola ham, the same cut
as corned beef but prepared with pepper for a spicy flavor.
-------------
http://www.seacruisereviews.com/bylengthreview.asp?cruiseid=269
I had capricola (air-dried thinly sliced beef in herbed olive oil),
linguini with clams and shrimp in a white sauce, and a very nice
lightly breaded flounder filet.
-------------
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/forum/messages/38.html
I can only get capricola one place, so I do freeze this, sliced, laid
out thin on a piece of wax paper, in a real freezer bag, in serving
size portions for my muffaletta...
-------------
http://recipe-appetizer.com/24/133855.shtml
Capricola With Fallen Bean Souffle And Winter Fruit
[...]
1/2 lb Capricola; sliced paper thin by your butcher
-------------
So there's some suggestion that "capricola" can refer to a spicy,
air-dried, sliced cut of *beef* (brisket, like most corned beef?), as
opposed to "capicola", a spicy, dry-cured sliced cut of pork shoulder.
(Two of the above sites mention "capricola" as an ingredient in a
muffaletta sandwich, which suggests it's a New Orleans variant.)
Both "capricola" and "capicola" are frequently referred to as "ham".
If one is beef and the other is pork shoulder, then neither are
technically "ham", which is supposed to come from the thigh of the
hog. But like "sausage" above, "ham" might be used as a generic term,
for any sliced meat that has been salt-cured or dry-cured. But that
seems odd, since that definition would include corned beef and
pastrami, which I don't think anyone would call "ham".
daniel gerard mcgrath
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>Oh, back around September 11th 2000 (= AmE "Nine Eleven") I mentioned that
2000?!?!?!
- Daniel, who lives near a pizzeria located on Gouvendelyou Road
(Just kidding!)
--------------------------------------------------
daniel g. mcgrath (currently going through a depression)
http://members.tripod.com/denyore_w0o/
Pat Durkin
You found her!! Yes, aside from the diseases, the capricola
descriptions vary between ham and beef. I think one or two sites
suggest capricola if one is lacking prosciutto. Lots of subs and
muffalettas use it, and some places top their pasta and salads.
Pat Durkin
"Richard Fontana" <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.102092...@facstaff.wesleyan.edu...
>
>
> [Ben Zimmer:]
>
> > > At the risk of reviving the sausage thread, I don't think there's
any
> > > way that "sausage" could properly refer capicola (i.e., dry-cured
> > > smoked pork shoulder), since there's no casing.
> >
> > Again, that was capacola. (Recall the number of variants in
spelling?
> > Perhaps there are variants in definition?
>
> Nope. /,gAb@'goUl/ is one thing and one thing only. It's not a
sausage.
> It's a cold cut (albeit an unusually good one). But anyway I think
Ben is
> right even if you adopt a Varelan definition of "sausage".
>
much from mine. No, I confess to abysmal ignorance regarding this cut.
I have only seen it on menus, and found the sausage maker's description
interesting, but I do wonder if Armour shouldn't sue.
> When I was googling for images of capocollo, I found one from some
> American 'sub' place that looked not like /,gAb@'goUl/ but like some
> variety of Virginia ham.
Am I safe from Tony Soprano, do you think?
Richard Fontana
On Sun, 29 Sep 2002, daniel gerard mcgrath wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 01:58:25 -0400, Richard Fontana
> <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>
> >Oh, back around September 11th 2000 (= AmE "Nine Eleven") I mentioned that
>
> 2000?!?!?!
Oops. I meant 2001.
Michael J Hardy
> not in pizzerias but in inferior and bogus Italian *restaurants*.
Richard, does this mean they're bogus restaurants, or that they
are genuine restaurants whose advertised Italian nature is bogus?
If the latter, you should hyphenate it, thus:
bogus-Italian restaurants
The use of hyphens, other than line-end hyphens, as a standard tool
of punctuation, is not *yet* universally considered intolerable, and
I haven't given up the fight. I hope this example shows why they are
useful. -- Mike Hardy
Michael J Hardy
> Well, anyway, a pizzeria in the New York sense has certain required
> features:
>
> (1) It should be extremely informal, almost to the point of
> shabbiness, and fairly small, perhaps cramped, with at most a few tiny
> tables and chairs, but possibly only a bit of counter on which one can eat
> standing up or sitting on a stool
Small and cramped sounds like a New York thing. This ought
not to be considered compulsory in other places.
> (5) It absolutely must offer pizza by the *slice* (again, probably
> rules out most pizza places in the US)
Really? My experience of pizza-places is entirely outside of NYC,
and has been that pizza is generally available by the slice.
Mike Hardy
Richard Fontana
On 30 Sep 2002, Michael J Hardy wrote:
> My impression has been that words in Italian containing
> any of the letters j, k, w, x, or y or foreign. Is that correct?
Certainly not true of 'j', which in modern Italian orthography seems to be
standard for pre-vocalic /j/ (my sense is that this is a 20th century
thing).
Richard Fontana
On 30 Sep 2002, Michael J Hardy wrote:
> > (5) It absolutely must offer pizza by the *slice* (again, probably
> > rules out most pizza places in the US)
>
>
> Really? My experience of pizza-places is entirely outside of NYC,
> and has been that pizza is generally available by the slice.
That surprises me. I've eaten pizza at plenty of places outside the New
York metropolitan area (First Largest Metropolitan Area in America) and
there are very few that seemed to offer pizza by the slice. I can think
of some, though.
One reason why slice culture doesn't exist out there is that the slices
would be too small. Get this: The other day I ordered a pizza from a
reasonably acceptable pizza place in lower Litchfield County, Connecticut.
The pizza actually isn't bad -- it's like average New York Neapolitan
quality. The people at this place (which is a restaurant, not a
pizzeria) seem familiar with legitimate pizza-making traditions. Okay,
but I order a "large" pizza, which is the largest size they have.
What I get is something significantly smaller in diameter than the
corresponding standard New York "pie". What I'd call "medium" I suppose,
if I had to name it anything. I swear that a typical New York slice of
pizza is twice a big as a slice of this "large" pizza.
I don't get it. You see the same thing with bagels. Aside from the fact
that bagels are of poor quality outside of New York, they're also without
exception significantly smaller. I haven't eaten a bagel in weeks, in
protest.
Richard Fontana
On 28 Sep 2002, Michael J Hardy wrote:
> Richard Fontana (rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu) wrote:
>
> > in New York City Region English (NYCRE)
>
> Always coining acronyms.
>
> Richard, I have thought about some of your claims of
> a few months ago, concerning dialects used on network TV.
> Could it be that the _pronuncations_ are those of the
> MINMINM & CINC northeast, but the intonations are from
> much further west?
I've been thinking about this too. What I hear on network TV these days
(speaking of local news broadcasting as well as relatively non-famous
national news people) is a whole lot of CIC and MIMIM. But the artificial
accents used by these news people seem to adopt an *East Coast*
intonation. In other words, my sense now is that it's the opposite of
what you're hearing.
I recently realized what it is that, at the most basic level, makes
Postwar Northeast Coastal Urban Prestige ("PiNECUP") speech prestigious.
I used the phrase here a long time ago, but I still think it's a useful
one: "Absence of twang". That's what makes Western, Midland, and Southern
speech sound unprestigious. It's too twangy. That's the common feature
that unites all those otherwise very different dialect groups.
I cannot emphasize the following point more strongly:
The most characteristic feature of East Coast speech is *lack of
twang*.
I'm not saying I really know what "twang" is (but I know it when I hear
it).
So I think the professional broadcasters, who are going to be more likely
to be from *outside the Northeast Coastal Urban Region ("NECUR"), are
struggling to eliminate all the "twang" from their natural accents, and
they do this by copying features of PiNECUP accents and intonation,
without taking the further step of enriching their vowel inventory with
the distinctions made by at least some PiNECUP speakers.
I think this explains something else. You'll note that I've ignored the
Upper Midwest or Inland North people, towards whom, you probably recall, I
used to direct much of my scorn. Well, it's occurred to me that the
regional accent you *do* hear a fair amount of among newspeople is a
somewhat toned-down variety of any one of the various Inland North accents
(e.g.: Tom Bosley-style Chicago, standard Michigan/Buffalo Great Lakes,
Western New England Urban). I think this may be because the *worst* sort
of accent characteristic an American can have is "twanginess", and,
whatever their other faults, Upper Midwesterners (etc.) aren't "twangy".
They can be extremely nasal, sure, and they all have that unpleasant
short vowel shift thing going on to a greater or lesser degree, but that's
not "twang".
> Of course in recent years PIPs like
> Dan Rather and Forest Sawyer have gotten big in TV news,
> but I think in commercials they still pronounce "ten"
> with the /E/ in bet and not like "tin". -- Mike Hardy
Well, once we get out of news we open a whole nother can of worms.
It's interesting to compare the accents we hear on "national" commercials
with those on the typically lower-budget "local" commercials. I think
that I also don't hear PIP much in national commercials. I'd say that the
standard accents you hear on national commercials track closely what you
hear among newspeople. Absence of twang, and tolerance of toned-down
Inland North.
Has anyone ever described a Northeast Coastal accent as "twangy"? I don't
think so.
Richard Fontana
On Sat, 28 Sep 2002, Brian Wickham wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 01:58:25 -0400, Richard Fontana
> <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >In summary, I can't really help you out much because for all my blather
> >I'm completely out of touch, but at least I know good pizza
> >when I taste it. So someday I'll do a general survey of whatever true
> >pizza is left in New York and report my results here.
> >
> When you do get around to it, for by-the-slice pizza try
> Sal & Carmine's on Broadway between 101 & 102 Streets in Manhattan and
> DiFara's, 1424 Ave J, at 15 Street in Midwood, Brooklyn. These are
> two different types of slices but easily recognizable as quality NYC
> pizza.
Interesting. I think I mentioned in another posting that when I were a
lad and still lived in Brooklyn (in the Ditmas Park West area of Flatbush
[The Heart of Brooklyn {Fourth Largest City in America}]) we at some point
in the mid-1970s settled on one very good pizzeria for Neapolitan pizza
(we'd have pizza for "supper" as often as once a week, nearly always on a
Saturday or a Sunday) and that was a place in Midwood on Avenue J that,
till now, I assumed was called "Avenue J Pizza" because I think that's
what my parents called it. I suppose it's possible that it may actually
have been this DiFara's place and my parents called it
"Avenue J" because they didn't know the true name of the pizzeria (after
all, I'd say it's usually not very important, especially if you don't call
in advance to order something). I say that because Avenue J and East 15th
Street (you must mean *East* 15th) is pretty much where our "Avenue J
Pizza" place had to have been, give or take a block or so.
When we were living in Bayside (Queens [Seventh Largest County in
America]) we'd usually get pizza (often Sicilian, as I recall) from this
place in the Whitestone Shopping Center. I don't think we ever found any
decent pizza closer by.
Getting a pizza for "supper" meant, of course, ordering one or two "pies",
depending on how many children were living at home at the time. My
parents, Roman Catholics, went to church every Sunday (or Saturday
evening), and when they'd go to an evening mass they tended to combine
that with getting pizza. You call up the pizzeria and order the "pies" in
advance, saying when you wanted them to be ready. Then you go to mass.
Then you leave the church and drive to the pizzeria and pick up the pizza
and go home. Thinking about this now, I suppose that this tended to occur
on Saturdays.
I'll try that Sal & Carmine's place, though I *hate* going all the way
uptown. It's like so remote.
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Has anyone ever described a Northeast Coastal accent as "twangy"? I
> don't think so.
Google reports 67 hits on "down east twang". This might support your
position, though, since I've never heard a newscaster with what I'd call a
Down-East accent.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Mike Oliver
Early 20th, maybe. There was a story from around then called _Lo_jettatore_
(the jinx), but now Garzanti does not even give a definition
for _jettatore_, only for _iettatore_.
Hm, it doesn't find _zabajone_ either. Might be an internal
style thing; I think these are actually reasonably standard
alternative spellings.
Brian Wickham
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> wrote:
>
>Interesting. I think I mentioned in another posting that when I were a
>lad and still lived in Brooklyn (in the Ditmas Park West area of Flatbush
>[The Heart of Brooklyn {Fourth Largest City in America}]) we at some point
>in the mid-1970s settled on one very good pizzeria for Neapolitan pizza
>(we'd have pizza for "supper" as often as once a week, nearly always on a
>Saturday or a Sunday) and that was a place in Midwood on Avenue J that,
>till now, I assumed was called "Avenue J Pizza" because I think that's
>what my parents called it. I suppose it's possible that it may actually
>have been this DiFara's place and my parents called it
>"Avenue J" because they didn't know the true name of the pizzeria (after
>all, I'd say it's usually not very important, especially if you don't call
>in advance to order something). I say that because Avenue J and East 15th
>Street (you must mean *East* 15th) is pretty much where our "Avenue J
>Pizza" place had to have been, give or take a block or so.
It's probably the same place, and yes it is at East 15 Street, right
on the corner. The same guy is still there making pies the way he
always had. Some people think it is the best pizza in NYC. I
wouldn't go that far but we all have different tastes.
>
>When we were living in Bayside (Queens [Seventh Largest County in
>America]) we'd usually get pizza (often Sicilian, as I recall) from this
>place in the Whitestone Shopping Center. I don't think we ever found any
>decent pizza closer by.
>
Yes, everyone seemed to like that pizzeria in the Whitestone Shopping
Center! We didn't. There was a good place, in the early 1980s, on
Francis Lewis near 20 Ave, but it went downhill. Later we liked
Coppola's on 14 Ave in that little shopping center on the left heading
towards College Point. But neither of these can compare to the pizza
now available from a few expert places in NYC.
Brian
Richard Fontana
On 1 Oct 2002, Michael J Hardy wrote:
> Richard Fontana (rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu) wrote:
> > >
> > > Richard, I have thought about some of your claims of
> > > a few months ago, concerning dialects used on network TV.
> > > Could it be that the _pronuncations_ are those of the
> > > MINMINM & CINC northeast, but the intonations are from
> > > much further west?
> >
> > I've been thinking about this too. What I hear on network TV these days
> > (speaking of local news broadcasting as well as relatively non-famous
> > national news people) is a whole lot of CIC and MIMIM. But the artificial
> > accents used by these news people seem to adopt an *East Coast*
> > intonation. In other words, my sense now is that it's the opposite of
> > what you're hearing.
>
>
> But instead of news broadcasters, think of anonymous narrator's
> of commercials. Certainly news people are to some extent individuals
> in their accents, even though, usually on religious grounds instilled
> in broadcasting school, they try not to be. Obviously Dan Rather is
> PIP. Do you hear vowel-mergers in commercials? (Occasionally, yes,
> I believe, but maybe only occasionally.)
Hmm. Well, I don't think I hear CIC as much from the commercial narrators
as I do from local news broadcasters. The same may go for MIMIM, though I
suspect that MINMINMism is going to be less common than MIMBMIDism. I
don't notice the narrator accent as much, probably because they seem more
familiar to me -- very close to what I've been calling Northeast Coastal
Urban Prestige (NECUP).
> > I recently realized what it is that, at the most basic level, makes
> > Postwar Northeast Coastal Urban Prestige ("PiNECUP") speech prestigious.
>
>
> You gotta be kidding. Does anyone anywhere consider
> recognizably Bostonian accents prestigious? Certainly not.
> But that area is undeniably "northeast coastal urban".
Yes, but the people with your "recognizably Bostonian accents" aren't who
I'm talking about. There's a Boston-region counterpart to the accent I
used to call New York Postwar Prestige Standard. I think it's CIC, but
MINMINM, as I suppose you'd expect. Similarly, people with "recognizably
New York accents" are almost certainly not the same people who speak with
the accent I used to call New York Postwar Prestige Standard.
Richard Fontana
On 1 Oct 2002, Michael J Hardy wrote:
> Richard Fontana (rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu) wrote:
>
> > > Really? My experience of pizza-places is entirely outside of NYC,
> > > and has been that pizza is generally available by the slice.
> >
> > That surprises me. I've eaten pizza at plenty of places outside the New
> > York metropolitan area (First Largest Metropolitan Area in America) and
> > there are very few that seemed to offer pizza by the slice. I can think
> > of some, though.
>
>
> Richard, I really wonder if you're generalizing from Connecticut
> to the whole non-NYC universe. Rocky Rococco's was a pizza-place chain
> that I think may be defunct; I ate at several Rocky's franchises in
> Minneapolis; they served pizza by the slice. I frequented a couple
> of pizzerias in Chapel Hill, NC, when I lived there, and pizza was
> available by the slice. Lobdell's Food Court at MIT's Stratton Student
> Center serves pizza by the slice. So do the food trucks on campus that
> serve pizza. I have eaten at numerous and geographically diverse places
> that serve pizza by the slice, none of them in NYC.
I do believe you. I've also had pizza by the slice far from New York
(well, actually none of it was pizza; it was "pizza"). But it just seemed
to me that the places where ordering by the slice wasn't an option were
more numerous by far.
> > One reason why slice culture doesn't exist out there
>
>
> But it does. Universally, except perhaps in Connecticut.
Well, one of the places where I ordered "pizza" by the slice was at this
on-campus pizza place at the undergraduate college I went to, which was in
Connecticut, so at least at one time there was at least one such place.
It wasn't very good pizza, but I've had worse.
> > if I had to name it anything. I swear that a typical New York slice of
> > pizza is twice a big as a slice of this "large" pizza.
>
>
> The slices at Lobdell's are pretty big.
Well yeah, but I think what people in other parts of the country call
"big", at least in certain food contexts like pizza and bagels, is
a whole lot smaller than the way "big" is defined in New York culture.
I'm sure, though, that there are many examples of the reverse sort of
phenomenon. For example, I'll bet that restaurant-served steaks in Denver
and Houston are a lot bigger, on average, than steaks in New York. (I've
never been to either of those cities, though.)
> > I don't get it. You see the same thing with bagels. Aside from
> > the fact that bagels are of poor quality outside of New York,
> > they're also without exception significantly smaller. I haven't
> > eaten a bagel in weeks, in protest.
>
>
> You must be generalizing from Connecticut to the whole
> non-NYC universe.
I've noticed it in other places too.
> OK, there's a chain called Brueger's Bagel Bakery; I've seen
> franchises in Minneapolis and Ann Arbor (recently) and other places.
> Are you familiar with it? -- Mike Hardy
Yes, they have franchises in Connecticut. The bagels are small, compared
to New York bagels, and they taste funny. That could be the water,
though.
My favorite bagel place is this little deli place on the southeast corner
of Lexington and 39th. Another good one near there is Daniel's Bagels on
Third Avenue.