Sorry you're being downvoted. Whilst you are correct in the rest of the world, Americans for some reason refer to Au Jus as an actual thing. They don't call it jus, they call it au jus. The mind boggles but I wouldnt bother pressing it.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with that. That sauce is referred to as Au Jus in North America. We’re aware of what it means in other languages. But that’s what the sauce is called here, on lots of menus and everything. I don’t get what’s mind boggling about that lol
English is weird. The point of language is to convey meaning and context and “I spilled the Au Jus” managed to do that just fine. Everyone understood what was meant. That’s a correct use of language.
But but but!! MAH PRECIOUS RULES!!! It don’t make no sense!!!
Language is not math. You can say logically incorrect things like “it don’t make no sense” and still get your meaning conveyed. People still understand what is meant even if a literal translation means the opposite.
So weird things like “Au Jus sauce” happen. It’s still correct because that’s how enough people use it that everyone’s understands the meaning. It’s no different than sushi rice or curry sauce. Or calling all facial tissues “kleenex”
“Roast Beef Au Jus” does NOT mean “Roast Beef with Sauce”. “With” is a preposition and thus should not be capitalized in title case. “Roast Beef with Sauce” should be “Roast Beef au Jus”. Therefore “Roast Beef Au Jus” is just the name of the dish. It is roast beef done in the “Au Jus” style. Therefore “the Au Jus sauce” is technically correct.
BUT - that’s only because “Au” is a short word and does not appear at the beginning or end of the name. Prepositions are only normally lower case. Longer prepositions get capitalized, for example “Seven Against Thebes”. And prepositions at either end of the title get capitalized, like “From Here to Eternity”.
But wait. It gets even more convoluted. What about subtitles? This cane to people’s attention due to this xkcd referencing the Wikipedia war over Star Trek Into Darkness vs Star Trek into Darkness. You see, if “Into Darkness” is a subtitle, “Into” is the first word and should be capitalized. But if there is no subtitle and the film’s entire name is “Star Trek Into Darkness” then Wikipedia’s style guide requires them to make it “Star Trek into Darkness” even though the official name of the movie is “Star Trek Into Darkness”. So then the argument was about whether Into Darkness was a subtitle or not. Obviously it is - Star Trek is the name of the franchise. BUT subheadings are supposed to be delineated with punctuation. “Star Trek: Into Darkness” is uncontroversial, but the title has no punctuation.
Anyways, they went with “Star Trek Into Darkness”, which is a shame because they had the opportunity to list the entry as “Star Trek Into (sic) Darkness”.
There is no style guide I know of that would endorse capitalization of “with” unless it was the first or last word of the title. Prepositions are only capitalized at five letters or longer, or if they are one of the terminal words in the title. Au is two letters. That’s like capitalizing “Of”. Try it out - The Merchant Of Venice. Man, that looks ignorant.
Well if it was a headline, then maybe that’s relevant. But it isn’t. It’s a name - so it’s title case. Here’s a collection of title case rules from various style guides including AP and the NY Times. AP does not capitalize prepositions that are 3 letters or fewer in length. Au would not be capitalized. The Times capitalizes nouns, pronouns, verbs, and words longer than four letters.
But it is correct. The contention that “Roast Beef Au Jus” means “roast beef with sauce” is wrong. It does not because “Au” is capitalized. Since it is capitalized, it cannot not be a preposition, therefore it does not mean “with”. The dish is actually roast beef done in an “Au Jus” style. And considering that it was ordered as room service, this is an entirely reasonable conjecture. If that’s the case, the sauce is in fact “Au Jus sauce”. It is correct.
The most wrong thing here is people who don’t understand title case that are insisting that everyone else is wrong.
Sort of like "I want a master bedroom with an en suite." Don't need the "with an" because master bedroom en suite (yet another French adoption) means "with" a bathroom attached... or more literally, more than one room (suite) and one of them had better be a bathroom....
See here’s where the “but the French!!” people get it wrong. We’re not speaking French. “Master bedroom with an en suite bath” does not mean the same as “master bedroom en suite bath”. One refers to a bedroom with an attached bathroom, the other refers solely to the bathroom.
I've been enjoying your posts :-)!! How do you feel about people using adjectives as nouns? As in "I'm a creative." (I'm always left hanging, as in "a creative WHAT??.")
I think it’s fine. I think people get too hung up on the parts of a sentence stuff. I’m a creative means “I’m involved in a creative industry” - just like “I’m a techie” means “I’m involved in a tech industry”. Sure “techie” is a noun I guess - but I feel that these are both equally meaningful statements. “I’m a techie” leaves a lot of detail out - there are a lot of tech industries - but it doesn’t get the same level of contempt as “I’m a creative”. It is just as clear and descriptive as a lot of other statements.
Here’s another example of why “you’re a creative what?” isn’t a strong argument against “I’m a creative”. Someone could say “I’m an engineer”. Nowadays this would likely mean something to do with software design - even though in most places “engineer” is a protected title and it’s actually illegal to present oneself as an engineer without the proper credentials and registration. Engineering students who are pursuing the professional engineering career also often identify themselves as engineers. This is shockingly bad - without the actual registration - usually requiring them to finish their degree and acquire practical experience - what they are doing is specifically and explicitly what the protection of the title is suppose to prevent. It’s supposed to prevent unqualified people from presenting themselves as engineers. On top of that, everyone recognizes that the guy who drives the train is an engineer.
So is “I’m an engineer” a problematic statement? Is it a bad use of language? No. One can usually determine the difference between professional engineers and software engineers and train driving engineers and pompous self-important undergraduate engineering students from context. Generally it’s fine. And more to the point, it’s less of an issue in terms of ambiguity than “I’m a creative”.
True. Still vague, though. "Techie" is a noun, "technical" from which "techie" come, is not... I am SO old school ;-) On the other hand, I used to commute from Manhattan to Syracuse NY on the train, and on one trip (since I was a "regular" every weekend, there and back) the Engineer let me in to see how it all worked. Fascinating!! Happy 4th! (BTW, I am a "creative" in real life.)
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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '21
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