Pigging out at Golden Corral's "troth"

[W Brewer]

A crucial question is: How are they PRONOUNCING the word they spell
<troth>?  Are they still pronouncing it [troff]? Maybe they have simply
upgraded the spelling, robbed from the grave of an obsolete, zero-frequency
word. Fink there's some truf in this idear?


On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 9:19 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Pigging out at Golden Corral's "troth"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7/8/2013 07:17 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >On Jul 8, 2013, at 6:05 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >
> > > I remember the days when my mother, brother, sister, and I would go
> with
> > > our aunt to visit my great-grandmother at the retirement home, and take
> > > her to Golden Corral for lunch. We couldn't go anywhere else, because
> if
> > > we did, every 10 minutes or so during our meal, my g-grandmother would
> > > interrupt with, "This isn't where we usually go, is it?"
> > >
> > > Anyway, it seems GC has jumped into the news with an employee-made
> video
> > > of foodbeing stored next to a dumpster. A guy named Mackinley Greenlaw
> > > comments on it in a one-minute video, and 15 seconds in, refersto GC's
> > > "literal [sic] troth [sic] of deeply saturated factory-farmed food
> > > gobs".
> >
> > > The /trOT/ pronunciation was new to me. It's also unclear exactly
> > > what he means by "deeply saturated". I figure the idea of "saturated
> > > fat" was probably in MG's mind when he said this, but it seems to have
> > > mutated fromfats saturated with hydrogen bonds (or whatever it is)to
> > > food saturated with fat, or grease or oil.
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.examiner.com/video/this-may-make-you-think-twice-about-eating-at-golden-corral
> > >
> >
> >So you're saying that if it's not actually a *literal* troth of
> >deeply saturated factory-farmed food gobs, at least it's a matter of
> >trothiness.
> >
> >LH
>
> They're plighted to it.  And "deeply saturated" is perhaps
> picturesquely evocative of the deep fryer that creates
> highly-saturated fats (and by the latter I mean the customers).
>
> Joel
>
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