Smashed potatoes . . .

[Hillary Brown]

Was she leaving a lot of the skin on? That's the distinction between
smashed and mashed, for me. Kind of an early 90s gourmet thing with
the revival of comfort food, I think.

hb

On 1/12/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Smashed potatoes . . .
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>
> Yesterday the Food Channel's Rachael Ray was discussing "smashed potatoes."  I assumed the phrase was just another of her many annoying cuteisms.
>
> However, the phrase has a whopping 1,090,000 Google hits, in comparison with just 1,400,000 for "mashed potatoes."
>
> Does "smashed" represent a childish misunderstanding or mispronunciation of "mashed"?  I wouldn't have supposed the verb "mash" is any less transparent or intelligible than "smash."
>
> --Charlie
>
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