El Cinco de Mayo Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, May 5, 2021
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143 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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These moral panics don’t create themselves, you know.
Is there a reason why Cinco de Mayo is a bigger thing here than it is in Mexico?
@Doug Mataconis: Hah! Just think about St Patrick’s Day! When my 93 year old mother was a school girl in Ireland, the only thing different about St Paddy’s was that she had to get up earlier in order to go to mass before school, a feature it shared with a dozen or so other other holy days. No thought of parades or drinking or the wearing of the green. And the only corned beef she tasted before arriving in the US came in a little tin can like Spam.
@Doug Mataconis:
Well, after general Zaragoza defeated the French army at Puebla, the latter eventually toppled the Juarez government and installed emperor Maximilian. there followed years of civil war, which didn’t end until the U.S. was done with it’s own civil war and could remember to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.
@Doug Mataconis: Americans are a bunch of drunks?
Doug. We commercialize everything.
Steve
@Doug Mataconis:
Probably for the same reason that St. Patrick’s Day historically hasn’t been that big of a deal in Ireland.
How’s Afghanistan going? Two headlines:
US turns over base to Afghan forces in volatile Helmand Province, withdrawal up to 6% complete: military
Thousands of Afghans flee as fighting erupts after US troop withdrawal begins
There’s a good piece at the Wa Po encouraging Tokyo to tell the IOC to pound sand and take their financially ruinous event elsewhere:
Von Ripper-off, a.k.a. IOC President Thomas Bach, and his attendants have a bad habit of ruining their hosts, like royals on tour who consume all the wheat sheaves in the province and leave stubble behind. Where, exactly, does the IOC get off imperiously insisting that the Games must go on, when fully 72 percent of the Japanese public is reluctant or unwilling to entertain 15,000 foreign athletes and officials in the midst of a pandemic?
The answer is that the IOC derives its power strictly from the Olympic “host contract.” It’s a highly illuminating document that reveals much about the highhanded organization and how it leaves host nations with crippling debts. Seven pages are devoted to “medical services” the host must provide — free of charge — to anyone with an Olympic credential, including rooms at local hospitals expressly reserved for them and only them. Tokyo organizers have estimated they will need to divert about 10,000 medical workers to service the IOC’s demands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/05/05/japan-ioc-olympic-contract/
@Doug Mataconis:
It’s a Hallmark Holiday.
Because Corona Beer decided to sell more Corona Beer, by creating/promoting a “holiday” linked to Mexico, so they could promote the holiday to sell more beer.
Hispanic Communities, generally underfunded, realized that they could get tourist dollars so parades and festivals ensued.
https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/how-corona-made-cinco-de-mayo-an-american-holiday/
Buy more stuff that you don’t need. ‘Merica!
@drj: Look how much the temperature was lowered since Trump was deplatformed. Imagine if the same happened to Fox. We probably could start getting stuff done to modernize this nation for the rest of the 21st century.
The Chinese rethought Communism because the old system was no longer viable and would have destroyed them had they continued along with the status quo. America will have to do the same with Free Speech– or be destroyed.
@MarkedMan:
There are parades in Dublin and Limerick. When I was a Junior in High School and in the band we went to Ireland and participated in both
@Jim Brown 32:
Not so fast about Donald Trump being deplatformed. He’s baaaack!
http://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk
Don’t miss the introductory video dated May 4!
The line at the vaccination site, 2 hours prior to the site’s opening, stretches for several kilometers.
I’ll know exactly how many once I get there.
There’s some small satisfaction, for some reason, in seeing the line stretch behind me.
@Liberal Capitalist:
That would make it a Corona holiday, which is jarring in this eta of the trump pandemic 😉
I forgot to mention May 5th hasn’t been a day off in Mexico for many years. It came too close to international labor day, May 1st, and that holiday took precedence.
@Kathy: Always remember: Han shot first!
It’s a pretty damned impressive specimen.
@Doug Mataconis: In my house it is because it is my wife’s birthday 😉
@Doug Mataconis: When we were in Ireland, one of our guides told us that St. Patrick’s Day is mostly observed by attending Mass, and going up Croagh Patrick barefoot.
@Doug Mataconis:
I believe Ireland has caught up to some extent on St. Paddy’s Day because they can draw American tourists, including entire high school marching bands. I would be curious to know whether you marched in the 2nd or 3rd annual Limerick Parade.
@CSK: You’ll have to give me a brief rundown, because I just spent 5 years wishing to never have to look at him or hear his “nails on a chalkboard” voice again, I refuse to give him even one click or waste any eyeball time on him. 😉
@Joe:
It was in 1985
@Doug Mataconis: I did a little googling and discovered that there has been a St. Patrick’s day parade in Dublin since 1931. I’m trying to square that with my parents recollections. They didn’t leave until 1950, into their twenties so they should have been aware of Dublin activities. I’ll actually see my mother tonight and I’ll ask her.
It may have been more of a political event than the raucous celebration of today. The Irish Republic has been peaceful since its inception in 1922, but the Orangemen were still marching in Northern Ireland to celebrate their victory over the natives and the subjugation of the Catholics by the Protestants. A march in Dublin might have served as a counterpoint to that.
When I visited Ireland as a kid in 1972, my relatives spoke of the poor American tourists who, having experienced the wild NYC or Boston or Chicago parades for their whole lives, would plan their trips around St. Patrick’s Day and end up sorely disappointed. And that was before airline deregulation and the era of cheap flights. Ireland is only five hours from NYC or Boston The Irish are no fools. If people wanted to spend buckets of tourist dollars to fill the pubs and watch an American style parade? By god, they would give them a parade!
Facebook’s ban of Trump will stay in place
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/facebook-trump-decision-05-05-21/index.html
@Doug Mataconis: Oh, this will be fun. Can’t wait for the hilarity to start.
@Jax:
It’s his “blog.” Basically the entries are what he’d be tweeting, if he had access to Twitter.
@Doug Mataconis: @Scott:
Given that he set up his “blog” yesterday, I wonder if he knew this was coming.
@Doug Mataconis:
If you think about it, Americans really have no native holidays other that 4th of July and Juneteenth. Things like Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day or Labor Day are more universal concepts that nations tend to adopt and the religious one are the bog standard Abrahamic ones. So Americans like to pretend having an ancestor of X ethnicity means they are X so let’s party with their holidays then. What, it’s no big deal back home? Bah, we’re Americans and we’re gonna do it our way – loud, drunk, a huge spectacle when it wasn’t one before and basically unrecognizable to the culture that spawned it. That’s just what we do.
For instance, I give you Dyngus Day. Sort of a thing back in Poland but a BIG deal to Polish-Americans in the States. In fact, it’s celebrated by more Poles and non-Poles in Buffalo NY then probably most of Poland itself. It’s really become an American thing to celebrate with it’s own pageantry rather than what it was originally. There’s a video of Anderson Cooper giggling himself silly over learning about the holiday and catching hell for it. It’s a far bigger and more serious deal here than in Europe because hey, public party! That’s the American way!
A little personal St. Patrick’s Day history (and this comes from someone who has never remembered to wear green on that day in my life). My father arrived in Chicago in the early fifties and eventually became President of the Chicago branch of the Clareman’s Club, sort of like the Elks club of that era but instead of Elks it was people from Clare. At that time, while there was a main Chicago Parade, there was no green river and there was a competing South Side Chicago Parade and a few smaller parades scattered around the area. From a 1956 Chicago newspaper article
My father moved to St. Sabina’s in 1955 and my sisters and I attended school there until we moved in ’64. Although my father loved the display of Irish pride, he and many of his fellow Irish community leaders felt the two parades didn’t reflect well on Irish unity, and made the Chicago parade a smaller and less prestigious affair than the Boston and NYC ones. I’m not sure the exact history, but by 1962 there was only the one parade and the green river and everything that goes with it. Somewhere in a box I’ve got a letter from one Mayor Richard J. Daley to my father as president of the Claremans Club, thanking him for his efforts in uniting the parades. He was one of many, but Daley knew that letter made him a lifelong Daley voter.
@Doug Mataconis: I like to think this whole thing was done just to rub salt in his wounds, but then I realize it’s a lot likelier it was to gin up publicity to themselves.
@KM: It is odd how many national celebrations in America have devolved into general mayhem and carousing and “who is this Patrick/Joseph/Dyngus/Cinco guy?”. But it makes sense that these parades and celebrations are a bigger thing in the US then in the home country. After all, no one in Dublin/Rome/Krakow/Mexico City needs to be reminded of their own country. But for those who left that home and made the uncertain journey to their new country, a day set aside to remember the old sod can be pretty welcome.
@KM:
Pulaski Day is an official holiday in Illinois (the Pulaski Day parade is a big event in Chicago), and there’s a Pulaski Park and Pulaski Memorial in Northampton, Mass.
Florida voting bill is as bad as the one that became law in Georgia
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/florida-passes-new-voting-law-includes-restrictions-vote-mail-drop-n1265765
Ashli Babbitt, the insurrectionist who smashed a window to illegally enter the Speaker’s Lobby in a secure government building during a riot/ soft coup to do god knows what to members of Congress was shot and killed for her efforts. Her family is claiming it’s murder; that “she could have easily been stopped” and there was “no need to shoot” her since “no one told her to stop”. They’re trying to sue and are using the language of BLM & police brutality reform to try and excuse this nonsense. No, there’s not way a “cop with handcuffs could have easily restrained her” and she wasn’t there to politely redress grievances with the government. There were dozens of angry, violent asshats right there with her and they were literally breaking the door down to get to Congress people for…. well, it wasn’t for tea and cookies. She got shot because the Capitol police were likely literally fearing for their lives and were protecting hundreds of innocents from an actual mob.
There is such a thing as appropriate use of force in defense of self and others and this was it. That her family is mad she wasn’t talked down or treated with kid gloves because she was a white female conservative is ridiculous; she was an intentional threat and was dealt with like one. She did not deserve the benefit of the doubt when smashing glass to access an area far into a secure building she already illegally entered that she was acting harmlessly and could be persuaded to stop if someone just “listened to her”. They want to equate this with people being killed by police for BS reasons or racism when the reason was *very* clear; we’re just supposed to ignore it because how dare the police kill a white woman following Trump’s command! They’ll sue for this!
@CSK: Yeah, the intro video was awe inspiring.
@Doug Mataconis:
And they’re already freaking out about it. Turns out this may be more damaging to Repubs then they thought – a huge portion of R’s vote by mail since not all of them live in the state full-time and the elderly have been using it for decades. As it was only recently adopt by Dems due to the pandemic, this short-sightedness means they may have rigged it in the Dem’s favor unintentionally. They’ll have to blow a ton of money of GOTV on voters that would have just mailed it in and some might not be able to vote at all.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
You have hit on the very word to describe it: awe-inspiring.
Jackpot! I just got a first dose of Pfizer.
Let’s remember the vaccine was developed by BioNtech, too.
Now I’m exactly as vulnerable as I was yesterday, but that will change shortly.
@Jax: His voice isn’t even on the intro video. The posts aren’t worth reading, but I scrolled down the few there just for the elephant. Little snippets of what’s on his [what passes for a] mind.
BTW, the line was four kilometers long.
@CSK: I take it that he did a bunch of backdated posts then?
The Federal budget in simple infographics (pdf) (prepared by the CBO).
Commentary.
@Doug Mataconis: I’m guessing Taco Tuesday is a bigger deal here, too.
@KM:
I’m skeptical of the idea that these attempts will inadvertently do more net damage to R’s ability to vote. That doesn’t mean some R voters won’t be affected. It’s similar to the way poll taxes were used in the past: they were aimed at disenfranchising blacks and they did just that, though they also disenfranchised many whites. (Maybe that was why even some segregationists such as Strom Thurmond were opposed to them.) Those whites were seen as collateral damage to the overall goal of keeping blacks from voting, a strategy that was largely successful.
Now I do think these laws do have the potential to backfire on Republicans, by getting so much negative attention they invigorate Dem voters more. It is therefore the responsibility of Dems to try to keep the issue alive and not let it be forgotten by the next election.
@Paine:
Why any city or nation would host the Olympics is beyond me. There was an effort in Boston to bid a couple of years ago that was crushed by overwhelming opposition. An acquaintance of mine who lives in Paris, already has plans to decamp to her vacation home when the hoards invade Paris in 2024(?)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I didn’t bother scrolling all the way through, but it goes back at least through mid-April.
Some people are disgruntled that there’s no way for them to reply to his babblings, but that option may appear “very soon.” I doubt that, though, since someone would have to man the account full-time in order to banish all the libtard trolls.
@Kathy: The study numbers are all over the place but it looks like efficacy rates rise rapidly the first 10 days and should be in the 60s prior to the 2nd dose.
Good stuff. May you have few side effects.
@Kathy: Wow! Very fast for such a long line. Congratulations.
@Doug Mataconis:
Doug, while you were there, did you go by O’Mataconis? Just wondering. 🙂
@Mu Yixiao: Fortunately, only Republicans are talking about large expenditures financed through perpetual borrowing. The last big one I recall was some conflict in the Middle East, but I can’t remember the details anymore.
@James Joyner:
But at least we’re smart enough to know that quesadillas must include cheese. When I ordered one from a street vendor in Mexico City, the silly guy asked me if I wanted cheese on it!
@Mu Yixiao :
Hmmm, “on” it or “in” it? I would imagine it would be like asking someone if they want cheese melted on top of their grilled cheese sandwich or stuffed crust pizza. It happens.
That or he’s used to silly tourists making demands like “garlic-free garlic bread” and just asks rather than have to explain things. Sometimes it’s better to treat the customer like an idiot if you’re mass-producing a customizable item quickly or have a pro-forma line of questioning you just blurb out; it’s why you always get asked if you want cheese on that at fast-food places, even if it’s a cheeseburger.
@CSK:..Pulaski…
There is a Pulaski telephone exchange and a Village of Pulaski in Pulaski County in Southern Illinois 360 miles due south of Chicago on Interstate 57.
@Mister Bluster:
Same one. Casimir Pulaski, Polish-born Revolutionary War hero.
@KM: One time I was in Rome and we stopped at this nice little trattoria and I ordered something for lunch, the waiter asked if I also wanted “fried potatoes” and I thought “wow, Italian fried potatoes, sounds good” and then he brought french fries because I’m American.
I felt both disappointed and stereotyped at the same time…haha…
The fries were very good, actually. I was just hoping for something I hadn’t had before.
@CSK: Yep, I used to get Casimir Pulaski Day off at my high school in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. It’s largely due to the fact that Chicago, for a long time, had the highest population of Poles of any city outside of Warsaw.
@KM:..you want cheese on that?..
A grilled chicken sandwich at Culver’s is served with lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayo. If it is ordered with no lettuce, no tomato and mayo on the side as I do they actually deduct 20cents from the total price for no tomato.
@Mister Bluster:
All that from one season in Star Trek. Amazing! 😉
(Please note the emoji)
@CSK:
Just to give you an idea of the sectarianism that can arise between immigrants, when I was a kid the Chicago road known today as Pulaski Ave was only called that on the Chicago side (?) and Crawford Ave on the suburban side. Not in the usual way, where a road changes names when it enters a new municipality. It served as the border between Chicago and the suburbs for a few miles at least, and for that whole length, if you went on the Chicago side of the street it read “Pulaski Ave” then crossed the street it said “Crawford Ave”.
[I may have it backward. It might have been Crawford on the Chicago side]
@KM:
Well technically he asked “con quesso”, so “with it”. But… Quesadillas (in CdM) do not have cheese at all–unless requested. I asked my Mexican colleague about it, and he laughed. “Yeah… that’s a stupid southern thing.” (He’s from Juarez). Apparently quesadilla isn’t a combination of quesso and tortilla to the southerners (they are, of course, wrong; I’m from Wisconsin, everything needs cheese.)
@CSK:..Same one. Casimir Pulaski, Polish-born Revolutionary War hero.
I’m trying to decide how to respond to this:
A) Tell me something I don’t know.
B) Do you really think you had to tell me that?
C) Yes. Yes it is.
For some reason my comment posted at 11:31 is in moderation…
I can see it and the EDIT key is available however after proofing it I can’t figure out which of the draconian posting policies I have violated.
@James Joyner: Story I heard long time ago and cannot vouch for in it’s particulars; I THINK I read it in Latitude38 the SF Bay sailing magazine that has lots of coverage of sailors cruising in Mexico.
Anyhow, seems right after Pepsi bought Taco Bell they wanted to spread the Taco Bell line throughout the area that Pepsi has a footprint. So they had to do a large advertising campaign to teach Mexican consumers what is a Burrito.
@James Joyner:
@Mu Yixiao:
Well, schools don’t typically provide lunch. the midday meal tends to be between 2 and 4 pm, and it’s the big meal of the day. Most children eat that at home after school lets out.
But we have real tacos, not Taco Bell concoctions.
BTW, I’m often asked to recommend Mexican restaurants in the US. For the record, I don’t go to Mexican restaurants when I travel to the US. Why would I? I can go to plenty good ones, from taco stands to fancy sit down ones and everything in between, whenever I want at home. When I travel I try what’s offered locally.
@CSK:
Does it include a cameo by Ajit Pai with a lightsaber?
@Mister Bluster:
Who the hell orders grilled chicken from Culver’s?!
Wait, let me answer that: the same (sub)humans who put ice cream on top of cake.
@Kurtz:
Sadly, no.
@Mister Bluster:
I thought you might have confused him with Ed Pulaski.
@Kathy:
Whaaa-? Next thing you know you’re gonna tell me fortune cookies aren’t Chinese.
@Kathy:
C’mon! Everyone knows that Pancho Villa created the Chalupa!
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dang that thing is large, it would be like Mothra is chasing you if you encountered this moth in the wild. And to think I was impressed by the size of some of the moths that would attach themselves to the screen door at my parents home.
@Sleeping Dog:
My High School band was invited to the Dublin and Limerick parade
@Kathy: Welcome to Team Pfizer!
Hah! From a story on Trump’s new “communications platform”:
The TOS says
@Doug Mataconis:
My point, Doug, was only that the Limerick parade was probably a recent invention when you were in high school. As it turns out, Limerick’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival blog currently reports:
That puts the first year at 1970 and you in the 15th, so it’s a little older than my guess, but I think my point stands.
@Mu Yixiao:
When I first started to read “Although Save America has no obligation to do so,” I thought your point was going to be a disclaimer that the blog would not be responsible if it in fact ruined America.
@Scott:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It was very well organized. Most of the wait time was before they opened. Around 8-8:15, the line started moving steadily, stopping for short periods. I didn’t even have to get out of the car.
The vaccine pretty much grants efficacy once the immune system responds to the spike proteins. That takes a few days to happen.
But, yeah, the numbers are all over. I’ve heard claims of 90% efficacy three weeks after one dose. The second dose obviously increases efficacy, but it appears to also extend the duration of protection.
@Mu Yixiao:
Gee, isn’t that…censorship?
@Mu Yixiao:
Don’t worry. It only removes users that support Cancel Culture.
@Kylopod:
The terms of service are that they own all user posts and can do with whatever they wish with them, but the user is liable for everything if that user’s posting defames anyone.
@Mimai:..(sub)humans…
Me and Ozzy Osbourne.
He’s batty!
@CSK:
I hope they have a chance to test that in court.
@Kathy:
Having said all that, if you want real tacos in Vegas, try Tacos El Gordo.
A friend of mine local to Vegas insisted on treating me to lunch there. It was good. I couldn’t help but notice all the employees spoke Spanish*. Coincidence, no doubt. But they do have real tacos al pastor, with pineapple, and the salsas available were sufficiently hot.
*Yes, I did order in Spanish. But so did my friend, as he was then trying to learn Spanish.
@Gustopher:
Thanks!
You know, I felt very relieved when the shot went in, and I began to think all I could do now.
Of course, right now I can’t do a thing I couldn’t do yesterday. have to keep that in mind. there have been reports of breakthrough infections, too (infections in vaccinated people), 2 weeks or more after the second dose.
So I’ll keep my mask and I’ll keep distancing and washing my hands often for some months yet.
BTW two coworkers received their vaccines today. One also got Pfizer, the other got Sputnik V. We’ll see how that goes.
Of two others I know of, one had Pfizer and the other AstraZeneca (and only a couple of weeks after he recovered from COVID in a hospital).
@CSK: When Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) visited Chicago many years ago, it was pointed out that Chicago has a larger population claiming to be Polish than Warsaw.
@Doug Mataconis: Hey, at least there’s proof of vote fraud in FL. (James post about the prom queen election.)
@Kathy:
In car, or at least socially distanced? But mostly, congratulations!! Feeling the usual side effects: relief, relaxation, joy, hope? Speaking of hope, I hope your second shot goes routinely.
@Mimai: Upvote for the proper attitude towards people who will spoil a perfectly good piece of cake by putting ice cream on it :^)
@MarkedMan:
Interesting. I used to live in an urban neighborhood that had been settled first by Irish immigrants, then Polish, then Portuguese. My street was one of the so-called Polish streets.
OK, so here’s the scoop from my mother, born 75 miles south of Dublin in 1928, left in 1950, and her friend, born 75 miles west of Dublin in 1940, left in 1967. Both were surprised when I told them there had been a parade in Dublin since 1931. What they remembered was that all business were closed on that day, including pubs and stores, because it was a holy day of obligation. And they complained quite a bit about how long the mass was on that day, clocking in at a claimed one and an half hours. They didn’t think the parades came until there were cheap flights to Ireland from the US.
@Mimai: Hah! I had never heard of Culver’s chicken until 45 minutes ago, when my nephew let me know he was going to pick some up for dinner.
Since we are talking about ethnicities and Pulaski, I’m going to throw out a question to the gang, but I want to caution that it may contain an ethnic slur. If it does, it is unintentional.
In the ’70s, on the South side of Chicago, just north and west of Bogan High School, something like 75th and Pulaski, there was a little neighborhood where the corner stores had signs in the windows in a foreign alphabet. Might have been slavic or it may have been something else. When I asked my friends who lived there, they replied it was the Lugos. For years I assumed there was a country called Lugostan. Haven’t thought about it in years and now I wonder what nationality that was. Anyone know?
There is something wrong with the link function.
Nevermind. it seems to be working properly now.
@MarkedMan:
Yugoslavians? I had a professional acquaintance who grew up Chicago; he was half-Italian (mother) and half-Croatian (father). According to him, the hostility between the Chicago Serbians and the Chicago Croatians was intense; his paternal relatives would refer to “the dirty Serbs.”
@MarkedMan:..Lugos…
They were probably all fans of WLS DJ Larry Lujack
@Mister Bluster: Lugan was/is a term for Lithuanian. I don’t think any more, or less, derogatory than Polack.
@CSK: One time I was watching an old Bond film in which the captions at one point informed me that some of the characters were “speaking in Yugoslavian.”
This was one of several instances where I’ve seen captions make language-related errors, either misidentifying the language spoken or naming a language that doesn’t exist. In Master and Commander, the captions describe some characters as “speaking in Brazilian.” In The Goonies, when the kid recites a Hebrew blessing, the captions said he was “speaking in Yiddish.”
Actually, I recently checked out that scene on HBO, and this time the captions correctly identified the language as Hebrew. So maybe they’ve begun cleaning up these sorts of errors. Or maybe James Carville got involved.
@gVOR08:
At this site, it’s all in the car. The line and the vaccine both.
They were checking that everyone wore masks, but didn’t do temperature checks.
So far, about 5 hours and some minutes after the shot, I feel exactly as I did before. We’ll see how the second one goes by the end of the month.
@Doug Mataconis:
Facebook ought to offer Trump a deal:
He’ll be allowed in, but if he posts any misinformation, like a claim the election was stolen, he’ll be banned for life.
I think if he took it, he’d last fifteen seconds.
@Kylopod:
I had a summer job once during which one of the dimwits who worked in the office, knowing I’d lived in Scotland, asked me if I spoke Scottish.
She didn’t mean Scottish Gaelic.
@Kylopod:
Dear god… don’t tell any of my relatives that they speak “Yugoslavian”!
Something I picked up as a kid: There has, in the history of the world, only been one “Yugoslavian”: Marshall Broz Tito.
I might allow that as a reference to it as a dialect. When I was teaching “English” in China, I made a point of telling them that “I speak American–it’s different”.
Which, now that I think of it…. Nobody speaks “Chinese”. Everyone speaks their own local language first, and then learns either Mandarin (Pu Tong hua) or Cantonese (Guang Dong Hua)
@CSK: Did they mean Scots?
@Kathy:
In some case, the weird Americanized tacos ARE what’s offered locally. e.g. Korean tacos definitely aren’t representative of Mexican culinary culture, but they are representative of the culinary culture of the west coast of the US.
@Mister Bluster: Wasn’t he the DJ who played “Smoke on the Water” every night at the same time all through the 70’s?
Bonus trivia question: What did WLS originally stand for?
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“World’s Largest Store” It was originally owned by Sears, Roebuck and Co.
WCFL stood for “Chicago Federation of Labor” and when I was a kid the pop songs would get interrupted for station ID, which would be accompanied by mellifluous voices singing “The Voice of Labor”.
@Mu Yixiao:
Yeah, but that usage isn’t especially common. People talk about American English, but the language is still English.
I remember a Jeopardy where the clue asked what Gene Simmons’ native tongue was (tongue–ho ho), and the contestant said “What is Israeli?” I can’t remember whether this was accepted as correct or not.
@gVOR08: I must have know that, because that’s what came to mind. But I discarded it because it only had the “L” in common.
I bet people here have heard this already, but the adage is “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
@Kylopod:
Oh, not at all. When I say this person was a dullard, I mean it. I know Scots, or Lallans, or Doric, is spoken, but I never had any trouble understanding it.
Everybody in Edinburgh used English anyway.
@Kylopod:
Back in the days of mailing lists, I was on one for stagehands. We had members from US, UK, CA, and Oz. All of spoke “English” as our native language–and this was all text, so accents weren’t a factor. The amount of time we spent trying to understand each other was… not insignificant.
US and CA had the least problems, but there were still a few.
I remember a long conversation trying to figure out what a “shifting spanner” is (it’s a Crescent Wrench (open-ended adjustable wrench)). It was an even longer conversation to explain to the Brits that a “Yankee” is a tool (spring-return spiral-ratcheting screwdriver). And it took a rather {ahem} detailed explanation from an Aussie for us to understand what “poofta plugs” were.
@Mu Yixiao: It’s occurred to me that our conception of English as a single language has partly to do with the fact that we native speakers become acculturated to far more dialects and accents than we use individually. So for example, if those of us in the Northern US hear someone pronounce 5 as “fahv,” we don’t blink an eye even though we would never use that pronunciation ourselves. But it can be confusing to non-native speakers who haven’t spent their lives absorbing these distinctions. When my Polish grandmother first studied English it was British English, and the first time she met a Texan it sounded like gibberish to her (and she was pretty skillful at language acquisition).
@Mu Yixiao:
Two people separated by a common language and all that.
It happens in every language that’s spoken in more than one country, and sometimes there are regional differences within the same country. My grandmother liked to tell a story about taking fifteen minutes to make a salesperson in Madrid understand she was asking the price of a brown sweater in the shop window.
Or take what happened on a trip to Monterrey, a city in the north of Mexico, not too long ago. I got into the cab at the airport, told the driver where to go, and then he asked the equivalent of “Do you want the climate on?”
WTF?
And that’s a city I’d visited multiple times during my youth (my grandparents lived there). So I realized after a moment he was asking if I wanted the AC on.
@Kylopod:
I very much agree.
This was a frequent conversation I’d have with Chinese businessmen. They suffer from two handicaps when trying to learn English: 1) a deep fear of losing face by using bad grammar or mispronouncing something, and 2) basically only hearing American Standard and Received British (because Hollywood & the BBC).
America and Canada are countries filled with immigrants with a myriad of accents. The UK interacts heavily with Europe, so has the same familiarity with accents. Other countries are more insular–and SE Asia can be excessively so in some places.
I would have fun by doing a “trip around the world”, where I would talk about “where I am” while using that accent. It would blow them away that “all of that is English”.
@Kathy:
My Spanish teacher in HS was from Peru. He would often remind us that most Americans learn “Mexican”. And he hated talking to actual Spanish people because 1) he couldn’t stand the Castilian lisp, and they slaughtered his name (Zuzunaga)
Little things like “do you want the climate on” can really catch you off guard. In China, for example, they “open” and “close” electrical things. So they will as “do you want me to open the air conditioner?” And… because their AC units are dual-purpose, AC mean both “machine that makes it cold” and “machine that makes it warm”.
And… before I head home, I’ll leave you with my favorite quote about English:
― James D. Nicoll
Re: dialects
The school district I went to growing up had two junior high schools and one high school. Three of the four German teachers in the district had studied near Frankfurt, and the fourth had studied near Berlin. When I was in high school, the one who taught the ninth grade German course mentioned he could always tell which junior high each of his students came from at the start of that course because all the ones from my junior high had a noticeable Berlin accent.
@Kylopod: I hear a lot of English accents with where I live and who I encounter and have decided that English speakers are pretty agnostic to vowel sounds if the consonants more or less line up at both ends of a word.
@Joe: That may be because English has got so many vowel sounds; in my experience it’s one of the greatest difficulties non-native speakers have with English pronunciation.
@Mu Yixiao: Now I’m curious. If one were to order a quesadilla “sin queso” in the southern part of Mexico, what would one be getting?
@Kathy: When I was in grad school, I was friends with a Hispanic kid (at that time, he identified as Chicano, but I don’t stay current) who always used to want to eat at a different dining hall on the nights his closest one had “Mexican Night” or “Fiesta Night.” He used to say that they don’t serve Mexican food, they serve “tay-cohs,” “buh-rit-ohs,” and “tah-males.” When he wanted to eat Mexican food, he went home for the weekend.
@MarkedMan:..Smoke on the Water…
I am quoting myself.
In other fun news the Giuliani camp, after Rudy The World’s Worst Attorney came to the realization that he is not actually indemnified and is therefore about to lose his ass in attorney fees trying to save it, is pressing for the Trump camp to pay up.
Anybody want to start a pool on how this one plays out? 😀
@HarvardLaw92:
I put my money on “deliciously.”
@HarvardLaw92:
Don’t stones bleed now and then?
Can’t you make a needle big enough to pass a camel though its eye?
@HarvardLaw92:
Good luck with that. Trump stiffs his own attorneys.
Maybe Giuliani can get L. Lin Wood and Sidney Powell to represent him gratis.
@Stormy Dragon:
I’ve never tried Korean tacos.
In Vegas I typically eat a very early dinner (by local standards) or a late lunch (by mine) at a buffet, that being the local culinary specialty in a way. Not to mention cheap and very filling. I like the one at the Main Street Station, the dining room is lovely*.
For real dinner, by my standards, I often go to Magnolia’s, the 24/7 coffee shop at the Four Queens (I usually stay there, too). and that’s the other local cuisine in a way.
When I meet friends, we hold the “official” gathering a the 777 Pub at Main Street Station, because they have large tables. I hosted it there once, and the previous time at The Sugar Factory at the Paris hotel.
Another place I liked was the Hash House at the Plaza (I think it has closed since I last visited the Plaza). The portions are ginormous. The waiters advice one to split the entree with someone else, then they offer complimentary biscuits. I order one entree for myself, and take the leftovers to eat in my room for dinner. Yes, it’s cold then, but still good.
*Buffets for the single traveler can be challenging. I take my purse to the serving line, but that makes it hard to find “my” table later on. I hit upon a trick of leaving a small bottle of hand sanitizer at the table, as that’s unlikely to be removed by the wait staff.
BTW, always leave a tip at the buffet. There’s a waiter removing dirty dishes, and bringing drinks and coffee, who makes less than minimum wage. they will also fetch stuff from the buffet line if you ask.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It was a fried flatbread (thicker than a tortilla, but thinner than pita) with your choice of meat and onion, peppers, and chilis (IIRC). Kathy might know.
@Joe:
Yep. Which is a serious problem for Chinese speakers–because in Chinese it’s the vowel sounds (and the tones) that are more important.
I had several games that I’d have the student play (remember: These are grown businessmen), and one of them was a variation of Wheel of Fortune. It caused them to try to figure out the words without any vowels. It was really difficult for them.
@HarvardLaw92:
In full El Cheeto form, the Orange Ass says he would like to help Rudy, but it’s not his call
@Kathy:
Which translates to: “You’re on your own, buster.”
And Giuliani will turn on Trump to save his own keister.
@Mu Yixiao:
There are two kinds: deep-fried and cooked on a comal* (that’s a thin, flat piece of metal you place on the stove’s burner, or over some other type of fire).
In either case, the tortilla dough (masa) is freshly made and flattened on a press. Then they put in the fillings, which can be literally anything, usually cooked. Popular ones are chicken, beef, pork, mushrooms, noaples, flor de calabaza (squash blossoms, whatever they are), huitlacoche (a pest fungus on corn, I’ve never tried it), and cheese.
The masa is folded over the filling, and pressed lightly to seal it. then thrown in the deep fryer** or the comal to cook the dough. salsa goes on top, or you can do what I do and rip the quesadilla open and pour salsa on it. When possible, I eat them with knife and fork (I eat pizza and burgers that way, too). Most people eat them with their hands.
*If made at home, with fresh masa, one can cook them on a pan, grill, oven, etc. I dare say most homes have a comal in the kitchen. Not all have a tortilla press.
** or pot or saucepan with hot oil. the principle is the same.
@Mu Yixiao: The answer is pretty damned simple. And no I don’t mean cut more taxes.
@Mu Yixiao:
i am a tool geek. I have tools i will probably die before using, because I worked at both Home Depot and Lowe’s and they were on clearance. But every tool has at least three names, which provided me with an amusing story when a New Jersey native came into the store demanding dykes. He was shouting “DYKES. I NEED DYKES. YOU GOT ANY DYKES??” And I didn’t mention that my boss was a lesbian. Eventually I figured out he meant cutting pliers. 😀
I know what a Yankee is (i own a Cobalt one) but i have no idea what Poofta Plugs are.
@Teve:
You may not wish to know.
@Teve:
Before I sign off for the night:
Dykes. I remember sitting on the stage of the University Theatre with some friends when the TD walked in and asked “Have any of you seen a pair of dykes?” I had never heard that term for “diagonal cutters”. I’d always called them “wire cutters”.
@Teve:
“Poofta plugs” are what you’d find on old Christmas tree lights. The wires come in from the side, and the plug has both a “male” and “female” ends. “Poofta” is Ozzie slang for a gay man. The plugs both have “male” parts and accept “male” parts.
@Kathy: Ah! Thanks! In grad school, the dining hall called that an “empanada.” Adrian (my friend from the previous post) called them “not Mexican food,” but I don’t know where his people came from (and it may have been an aesthetic objection anyway). I always found them too greasy to eat from sitting in a tray on a steam table.
Liz Cheney just went nuclear…
@Mu Yixiao: When I was doing electrical hobby stuff I had both square head wire cutters and diagonal cutters. The diagonal cutters were mostly for trimming the remaining lead after you soldered a wire to a board. It was hard to do that with conventional wire cutters, but they could handle more different gauges of wire. (And yes, I was too clumsy to use combination wire cutter/strippers.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
An empanada is made with wheat flour. Tortilla dough uses corn meal.
Also, and I don’t see how this affects the flavor, empanadas are made using a rolling pin and sealed by pressing a fork on the edges. They may also have a coat of egg wash.
@Kathy: In my experience, using a rolling pin decreases the likelihood that the dough will tear or have air bubbles that can burst while handling or cooking. The dough needs to be crimped because seams made of wheat dough are famous for leaking and the crimping seems to help some.
Egg wash is cosmetic, in my opinion.
@HarvardLaw92:
Wrong forum: not enough Trumpers here to nob-slob on an orange cretin, there won’t be nearly enough money on the other side of the pool to cover all of us.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I forgot if you fold the wheat dough over itself a few times and roll it, you can get layers and that affects the final texture. Like how an English muffin differs from a roll.
@Kathy:
English muffins don’t have layers. I think you’re thinking of scones?
@Stormy Dragon:
Possibly. I’ve never had either.
I was going to say biscuits, but I don’t think those in Mexico compare to the ones in America.
@Kathy:
Ah yes. “Southern” style biscuits have lots of layers in them. =)
An english muffin is basically a little unsweetened cake, although it’s cooked by pan frying it instead of baking it.