BS: Translation from British to American

Subject: BS: Translation from British to American
From: RangerSteve
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:19 PM

In an episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs", Mrs. Bridges is skimping on food due to the war, and Mr. Hudson accuses her of serving the serving staff "faggots". What are they?. Any recipes?

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:22 PM

A faggot is a small piece of firewood.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:23 PM

That may not make any sense, but neither does most TV comedy - British or otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:48 PM

Concise Oxford Dictionary gives:

a ball of seasoned chopped liver, baked or fried.

Regards

p.s. Yummm...

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:50 PM

Faggots are also bundles of sticks or cigarettes, but God only knows what the English might mean by it.
SKP

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:53 PM

The "bundle of sticks" sense has fairly straightforward Latin roots. No idea of the origin of the culinary sense.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 06:56 PM

Incidentally, "rissole" is equivalent.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Bert
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 07:25 PM

It's a meat ball.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 07:37 PM

1851, Mayhew, "London Labour"- He made his supper of fagots... the preparation is a sort of cake, roll or ball.. made of chopped liver and lights, mixed with gravy, and wrapped in pieces of pig's caul.

1858, Sala, "Journey due North"- The curious viands known in cheap pork butchery as Faggots.
Both from the Oxford Dictionary.

The word has a number of meanings, esp. in relation to burning of heretics at the stake, including the little embroidered figure a recanted heretic wore on his sleeve.
Another meaning pertaining to cookery is a little bundle of thyme and other spices.

And let us not forget that a bassoonist is a fagottist.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 07:46 PM

If you want to know all about the delicacy, you could get hold of The Good Faggot Guide

Here's the picture on a pack of Mr Brain's Pork Faggots.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 04:14 AM

Coincidentally, there was a WWII documentary on TV last night about the German army in Norway preparing for the invasion of Russia. They were moving equipment across marsh/boggy ground using horse drawn carts on bundles of brushwood - faggots?

Regards
p.s. Whence, also, of course, fascist.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Stu
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 04:39 AM

I love faggots - we never have them any more but did all the time when we were kids. We always had them with peas and spuds.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Acorn4
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 05:02 AM

Faggots and peas !

I remember many "darts suppers", when I used to throw an arrow for the local team!

Brings it all back!

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Anne Lister
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 07:32 AM

My husband will never touch offal in any of its obvious forms, but he is very partial indeed to faggots. Mr Brains, for preference.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: GUEST,Amused Englishman
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 02:24 PM

In English a faggot is a type of cheap meatball or a piece of wood used for kindling (the Yanks use only one g for the second meaning I think).

There is no such language as "British" - although there are several British languages, including (Scottish) Gaelic, (Welsh) Celtic and (virtually extinct) Cornish, as well as English itself.

What most Yanks speak is a variant of English (at least for a few years until demographic change makes the USA part of Latin America - linguistically anyway). The Yanks can call their language whatever they like, except "American" as this adjective refers to a continent which is primarily Spanish and Portuguese speaking. However, they have no right to demand that we change the name of our mother tongue (Ebglish) to accommodate their lack of a widely spoken indigenous language. If the Yanks want their own native language then they should invent a new one (like the Indonesians did), re-invent an old and extinct one (like the Israelis did) or else learn to speak Navajo, Sioux or one of the other native languages that the wars of genocidal conquest didn't entirely eradicate.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Rumncoke
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 03:12 PM

Take one pound of minced pigs liver, 10 oz of minced belly of pork, two large onions chopped small, one clove of garlic, mashed and a teaspoon of dried sage, or 4 fresh leaves, chopped. Place in a heavy pan or frying pan and cook gently for 30 min, stirring from time to time. Do not brown.

Strain off the juices and retain for later.

To the meat add half a teaspooon of mace, two medium eggs, and enough breadcrumbs to make it handleable. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Take caul fat and soften it in hot water. Cut into approximately 5 inch squares place 2oz of the meat mixture in each piece of caul and form into a ball. Place in a dish and bake at 325 to 350 degrees farenhite for about half an hour. After 20 minutes strain off the liquid from the faggots and add it to the cooking juice. Chill the mix and skim off the fat.

About 5 minutes before the end of cooking pour the liquid over the faggots.

Serve with fresh peas in summer or pea puree in winter.

For Welsh faggots use a chopped cooking apple and omit the egg.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 03:27 PM

Take one pound of flesh from Amused Englishman, marinate overnight in vinegar and...

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 07:36 PM

Standard English is only one among a myriad English variants spoken around the world. And even in England, let alone the rest of Great Britain and its neighbouring isles, it is only spoken by a minority.

The same would apply to any "Standard American English" within the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Alice
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 07:55 PM

Also coincidentally, the package image showed up on the FAILblog.org today, as Appetizing Name Fail.
click

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Gurney
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 01:05 AM

Guest, 'fag' is slang for for cigarette.

As in "he stood on the corner with a fag in his mouth..."


Faggots in gravy are excellent on a cold day, very spicy and peppery. Or they used to be around our house, but not to Rumncoke's recipe, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Little Robyn
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 03:21 AM

They're very yummy - look like meatballs but taste much spicier.
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM

Guest "Amused Englishman", the thread title is perfectly succinct, valid, and apposite, unlike the fevered meanderings of your post above.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 10:21 AM

GUEST,Amused Englishman opined:

In English a faggot is a type of cheap meatball or a piece of wood used for kindling (the Yanks use only one g for the second meaning I think).

Where did you ever get an idea like that? Never heard of a one-G "fagot", in 77 years in the United States.

Amused Englishman, you are permitted to continue to call your language "Ebglish". Fine by me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 12:34 PM

My 1976 Concise Oxford Dictionary does give "fagot" as an alternative, with a * attached, which is supposed to mean "chiefly U.S. (often also Canadian, Australian etc)". Still that doesn't in itself mean that it has to be the normal variant anywhere. Which it pretty clearly isn't.

But on the basis of the dictionary you could get away with using it in Scrabble.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:22 PM

The American "Merrian Webster's Collegiate Dictionary," 10th ed. 1996:
fagot or faggot [ME fagot from MF](14c): Bundle,a. as in a bundle of sticks b. a bundle of wrought iron to be shaped by rolling or hammering at high temperature.

fagot or faggot: to make a fagot of: to bind together into a bundle (-ed sticks).

faggot a male homosexual .....

fagoting or faggoting 1: an embroidery produced by ....;

Obviously the preferred American spelling is fagot, but faggot, I believe overtook the single-g spelling sometime in the 1940s.

The Collegiate does not include the food item, but an older large Webster's includes it. In some ways, the Collegiate is the equivalent of the Concise Oxford, but there is no American published equivalent to the complete Oxford Dictionary.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:23 PM

fagot



]Pronunciation
(UK) IPA: /ˈf¾g.ət/ SAMPA: /"f{g.@t/
[edit]Noun
fagot (plural fagots)

A bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches of trees bound together.
(slang, chiefly US) A (male) homosexual.
NATO code name for the Soviet MiG-15 fighter aircraft.
[edit]Derived terms
(homosexual): fag

Wiktionary

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:42 PM

Well, I guess I am not a preferred American speller. I have always spelled the 'f' word, no matter the context, with two Gs (speaking of which a couple of Gs would help pay my current bills, but I digress). But my American Heritage Dictionary lists single G first

I most often have used the word to denote kindling, occasionally to denote homosexual males (but not recently), infrequently to mean cigarettes, but never, never to denote food. Having read those recipes, I may never be able to use the 'f' word with either G or GG again. The mind picture is too gross.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 03:54 PM

The 'preferred' spellings are sometimes rejected by the English as well as by Americans or Australians, etc.

Recognize is the spelling used in the Oxford English Dictionary, but most English, including university graduates from what used to be called, disparagingly, 'red brick' institutions by Oxbridgers, use recognise.
There are other cases where the average Englishman departs from OED usage.
Recognize is used by Americans.

This has been gone over in several threads at Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 04:31 PM

And just to add a bit of musicality for some odd reason.......As myself, Micca, and a few other Mudcat oddball bassoonists will attest, Faggotto in its "bundle of sticks" meaning is another name used for the bassoon.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 05:23 PM

Beat you. Spaw, on 18 Jul.

And a question- Fagotists Judith Le Clair and Roger Nye play with what orchestra?

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Rowan
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 10:00 PM

Can't say I've come across "faggots" as in the recipes above but they sound appetising; a bit like fancy lamb's fry. In all the time I've been reading I can't say I've ever seen "fagot" in any version of English; I've only ever seen "faggot". But I was aware of the bassoon connection.

Incidentally:
If the Yanks want their own native language then they should invent a new one (like the Indonesians did).

My understanding is that, following independence, the Indonesians wished to avoid the problems consequent to picking the language of any dominant group as the national language for a new nation with several hundred languages spoken across the archipelago. Instead, they chose the language of almost the smallest group, on the Riau Archipelago, as the source for Bahasa Indonesia. This little archipelago is just to the south of the island of Singapore and the language spoken there is very similar to (but distinct from) Bahasa Melayu. A very sensible and successful move, but using cooption rather than invention.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:08 AM

I recall being taught how to faggot with my needle way back in my 20's but can't for the life of me recall how to do it now.. I may have to go back to my text books to remind myself.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Emma B
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:31 AM

Faggot Stitching
This is chiefly used as a trimming for blouses and other garments of thin material, where it is desirable that one or more bands of material be fastened together by lacy open work.

Take a narrow strip of cross-cut lawn or similar material about 1 inch wide and fold both edges inwards, forming a narrow band about 1/3 to 1/2 inch wide. Tack this in a straight or curved line, as the required shaping demands, to a firm piece of cardboard, taking care not to pull out the material too tight. Then lay the hem of the material to be trimmed (or a corresponding band) parallel to the first and tack to the cardboard.

The stitch is a variant of herring-boning, but the needle is inserted close to the folded edge of the band vertically, forming loops (instead of horizontal stitches) on the wrong side

If many bands are required to be shaped, for instance, into a neckband, it is advisable to draw the shape out on the cardboard and to tack the bands into place along both edges

From 'Educational Needlework'

I prefer
Savoury Ducks!
with mushy peas please :)

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:44 AM

So, basically, what we have is a bundle of bundles. The culinary sense still seems a bit of an anomaly to me since they're bound internally, so to speak.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:49 AM

p.s. The military use referred to earlier is also called a "fascine"

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: bubblyrat
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 11:13 AM

I THINK I can see what everyone is getting at ---so, a gay pilot pulling 3g in a Mig 15 is a Fagggot, right ??

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: RangerSteve
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:30 PM

This is far more information than I needed, but my question was answered, and thanks for the recipe. And thanks for some entertaining reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Translation from British to American
From: Bert
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:40 PM

If you consider yourself somewhat upscale and would never descend to eating faggots then you can take Rumncoke's recipe, bake it in the oven in a loaf tin and serve it as Paté.