[Ads-l] Stealth re-phrasing

[Laurence Horn]

I'm not sure this is a shift for me.  Seems like (if I'm introspecting correctly) I've always referred to the device in which fries, onion rings, nuggets, etc. are fried (in deep fat) as a deep fryer rather than a deep fat fryer; I assume this is because the fat is redundant (not for cooking, but for mentioning)--given that there are no deep milk fryers, deep water fryers, or...

I think another option is "French-fried" for things other than potatoes.  Or "batter-fried", which I think always involves deep (fat) fryer, whether or not they admit it.  For example, I fondly recall stopping at the Giant Artichoke restaurant in Castroville, CA for their "French fried artichokes" but now when I google the restaurant, which is apparently alive and well, they call their specialty "Fried artichokes" (really artichoke hearts).  Definitely not now or ever "Deep fat-fried artichokes".  How about those deep-fried butter sticks at Midwestern county fairs, though--Deep fat fried?  Deep fried?  

But I wouldn't be surprised if there's a euphemistic factor in some people who once would have referred to deep-fat fried goodies or deep-fat fryers eliding the fat.  (Easier to elide it from the description than from the cooking.)

LH

> On Jul 7, 2015, at 5:56 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Have others of a certain age noticed the elimination of the word, "fat,"
> from the adjective phrase, "deep-fat fried," presumably for reasons of
> health?
> 
> Googling yields:
> 
> deep-fat fried = About 316,000
> 
> deep-fried = About 13,200,000
> 
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
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