"restaurant"

[Mark Mandel]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

>
> NOAD2 has a carefully crafted definition of "restaurant":
>
> "a place where people pay to sit and eat meals that are cooked and
> served on the premises"
>
> which is in line with what Larry says above, though it's much more
> specific.  it seems to make McDonald's a restaurant, though i wouldn't
> use "restaurant", unmodified, to refer to a McDonald's; "fast-food
> restaurant", yes, but plain "restaurant", no, and i think many people
> are reluctant to refer to a McDonald's (or a Jack in the Box, or an In-
> N-Out Burger, etc.) as a "restaurant" (unmodified).  suppose the place
> closest to where you live where you can buy prepared food and eat it
> on the premises is a McDonald's, would you say that that's the
> restaurant closest to you?
>

Oh, dear.

McDonald's : restaurant :: Pluto : planet.

m a m

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