No capisce?

Over the last couple of decades I have been pushed further into Grumpy Old Editor territory by the claims of political correctness, as it was once known. From the time I heard that African American would no longer be hyphenated but Irish-American would, I knew something was going on that was not dictated by logic or reason but by emotion and power. And indeed, from those humble beginnings have come no end of mischief. (I refer to the reader to my discussion of AFABs and AMABs in April, for example.)

One preference that irritates me for very practical purposes is this: that foreign words are no longer supposed to be set in italics when appearing in English text. You surely have seen passages like this in books in the past:

"Pardon me, Passepartout, have you seen the ticket office for the next stage of our journey?" 

"Alas, M. Fogg, la billetterie is shuttered for the day." 

In this pretend passage from the Verne work, we can gather what Phileas's helpful companion is saying and we have possibly learned some French vocabulary as well. But the insidious thing I have done with italicization is othered the French by making their language look like some weird -- well, foreign thing. And boy, won't the French be mad! I'm sure they never do anything like that to non-French words in their own text!

My point is, the italicization of a foreign word was never intended to make any non-English speakers feel like they didn't belong; it was intended to alert the reader that the word is in another tongue and help the clarity of the text. 

There are a number of foreign (I'm sticking to foreign over non-English) words that look the same as English words but are not -- and that's where clarity is threatened. Try this passage:

Mr. Van der Plotz ran up to me in quite a state of distress. "You shall not believe this!" he said. "I was minding a beer near the stream when suddenly an angel pulled at my shirt! I was slim enough to realize it was a roof! Fortunately, the man was aloud, and I was able to leap into the stream, escaping with no more than a bad, although my boots are coated in blubber. It quite upset my rooster!"   

From our example, it seems Mr. Van der Plotz has lost his senses. But let's identify which words were actually in his native Dutch by the use of italics.

Mr. Van der Plotz ran up to me in quite a state of distress. "You shall not believe this!" he said. "I was minding a beer near the stream when suddenly an angel pulled at my shirt! I was slim enough to realize it was a roof! Fortunately, the man was aloud, and I was able to leap into the stream, escaping with no more than a bad, although my boots are coated in blubber. It quite upset my rooster!"

"Oh!" I said. "You were watching a bear when a fishing rod snagged you? But you were smart and saw that it was an attempt at robbery! The man was elderly, so you were able to escape into the stream, suffering only an unexpected bath and muddy boots. And now your schedule is all upset."

"That's what I said!" he huffed. 

Yes, this is a silly example, but I hope it makes the point -- we treat foreign words as foreign in text because they are. We'd all like to be able to read any language, but that's not how life works. In most nations on Earth you will find only one or two common languages, and having limited language in a populace is useful for -- what's that word again? Yes, clarity. In a book, a reader needs a helpful indicator that a word has arrived from a language different from that in which the bulk of the text is written.

The war on precision and clarity in the supposed service of removing offense is itself offensive. This nonsense is brought to us from our universities, of course, paid for by tax dollars, outrageous tuitions, and rich people who should know better. If the intent was mainly to sow confusion, what more could the academicians do? The ivory tower has become a Tower of Babel.

Have some dirt!

Don't ask me what search terms I used that ralphed up this 2017 story on the web, because I don't remember. But this headline is hard to forget:

Rise in Dirt-Eating Means Booming Business For Soil-Selling Stands in Zimbabwe

Yes indeed, this story from the Global Press Journal tells us all about Zimbabwe's successful dirt entrepreneurs, selling soil for human consumption to hungry customers. 

For as little as a few cents per packet, Ndlovu saves the women the trouble of collecting the soil themselves. And his stand boasts an enviable assortment. Some options are brown, some are reddish. There is rough and smooth, sour-tasting or rich. The white, creamy soil comes from anthills in Harare, the capital city and the namesake for that variety. Cheaper options are the colored soils that include the Bellevue flavor, which is named after one of the Bulawayo neighborhoods where it’s found. Just 10 cents buys a packet.

 

So... What's with all the dirt eating? Isn't it bad enough that our social and scientific betters want us all to eat bugs, as I noted a couple of weeks ago? Now dirt-eating is the thing to do?

Dig in!

As the story notes:

Dirt consumption is associated with a condition known as pica, doctors say, which causes people, to crave nonfood items. Often, the condition is associated with a nutritional deficiency.

We certainly have heard legends about women, especially pregnant women, craving weird things. I've heard of women devouring jars of giardiniera, or anything from the Chinese restaurant, or even the famous pickles & ice cream. Pica can be a serious problem, especially when people eat nonorganic indigestible matter (plastics, metal, gasoline, Tide pods, etc.). Dirt seems pretty harmless by comparison, but of course dirt can also carry all sorts of harmful microorganisms as well as other nasty stuff. Healthline tells us, "Eating dirt can expose you to parasites, bacteria, and toxic heavy metals. Dirt that contains a lot of potassium could lead to high blood potassium, increasing your risk for cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac arrest." So I wouldn't recommend it. But indeed, the story notes, 

Some people who are anemic also eat dirt, as do some pregnant women worldwide. In fact, many pregnant women often crave dirt, possibly because of the potential protection dirt can provide against some toxins and parasites, according to research.

We also learn that the eating of dirt has a special name: geophagia. While no pregnant woman has ever told me that she fancies a nice bowl of soil, it is a surprisingly common craving: 

Many pregnant women crave dirt or clay. Experts haven’t yet discovered a clear reason why this happens.

One theory links pica cravings to iron deficiencies. Another theory suggests these cravings develop as an adaptive response to the way the immune system changes during pregnancy.

Changes in immune system function could slightly increase your risk of being affected by toxins and foodborne illness, such as listeria. But multiple animal studies have suggested clay consumption offers protection against a range of toxins.

Whatever the cause for dirt cravings during pregnancy, eating dirt can create health risks not only for you, but also the developing fetus.

Even if the dirt you eat is free of toxins and has been baked or prepared safely, it can still bind in your stomach to the nutrients you get from other sources, preventing your body from absorbing them properly. This can put your health at risk.

This could be why, as one of the dirt lovers in Zimbabwe told the GPJ, "It’s not my wish to eat it, but I just find myself wanting to eat it."

I get the feeling that Prince Ndlovu (not an actual prince), the dirt vendor, probably is not able to put his dirt through an autoclave to sanitize it, nor take other steps to get out any potential hazards. Still, his dirt is sold in small portions, so perhaps it is not likely to be harmful for that reason. And it comes with another benefit: 

“By the end of the week, I can make as much as $200, which is more than someone seated jobless at home would make,” Ndlovu says. “It’s definitely better than stealing.”

And I think we can all agree on that. Hats off to you, Mr. Ndlovu! Perhaps one day you will found a chain like Waldirt or McDirtle's or a high-class place like Outback Dirthouse (containing actual outback!) or Top Soil (Try our surf & turf!). It may be a dirty job, but your customers know what they're getting. 

Huppeldepup.

A fellow editor passed this along to me: 

I want to thank Adam Sharp for arranging these foreign words for whatchamacallit. I'm not quite sure it's accurate, though. I put huppeldepup in Google Translate and got hopping pup. Of course, the Dutch may have thought that a crazy puppy was a good visual representation of a weird object for which you have no name, something that gets lost when you need it. Or the whole thing could be nonsense. I put thingamajig in the translator and got dinges, which (when reversed) came out in English as thingy. Also, zamazingo I found nowhere in Turkish, but is a Xhosa word meaning round. 

I don't care; I love huppeldepup and I'm adding it to my personal list.

We already have a lot of terms for these unknown thingies in English. Thesaurus.com gives me these words for whatchamacallit:

• doodad
• doohickey
• gizmo
• thingamabob
• widget

Under other terms I also found:

• gimcrack
• contraption
• dojigger
• jigger
• thingummy
• whatsis
• whatsit
• whosit
• whosis

And related:

• knickknack
• bric-a-brac
• flummery

We have a lot of words for nouns we don't remember in English. Not surprising, in one way; it's often considered the language with the most words, so there's that many more to forget. 

In my family, whatchamacallit was my mom's favorite, but my dad preferred the simplicity of thing. As in, "Go to the bench and get me... one of those things -- you know, that thing." (No, we're not related to the Bidens.) He might add, "Aaah, what's it called." And 90% chance I would return with the wrong thing. I'd bring an airplane (Phillips) screwdriver when he wanted a 1/4-inch socket. 

So I will try to remember huppeldepup and use it the next time I forget the noun for the object I actually need. The problem is, now I have to remember huppeldepup, when I ought to just remember what I'm looking for. Well, 90% I'll say naninani and not even know what I'm saying. And two more words will enter the English language.

Jest in translation.

I've got this rhino-choking 1935 edition of Mark Twain stories that holds a tender place on my bookshelf, where it acts as a counterweight to approximately ten to twelve other hardcovers. It belonged to my parents, and where they got it from I have no idea. It's called The Family Mark Twain and it is more than 1,440 pages long.

For strong families

I have nothing against Twain. I admire the man. I have paid a call on his tombstone in Elmira, New York. I dislike how much he hated his own countrymen, but I think that was part of his hatred for humanity in general. He wrote an awful lot, and I'll bet if you sat down nineteen people out of twenty who claim to be his fans, you could without too much trouble introduce them to material they did not know he wrote that would repel them. He was wide, varied, and often desperate for money.

However, he could definitely make me laugh.

You just can't sit down and read this book; it's too huge. A few times I did dip in, though, and I discovered to my surprise that I did not like his most famous short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which I found cruel and stupid. However, I absolutely loved "The Jumping Frog, in English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil," which he wrote in response to the poor reception of the famous story by Frenchmen. He maintained that the translation had sucked the humor and wit out of the original, and to prove the point he translated the translation literally back into English. And that was hilarious.

What put me in mind of this was the spate of YouTube videos featuring popular songs performed with the lyrics translated by Google Translate and then back to English. Between cultural changes, syntax changes, and poor translations, they are a target-rich field of humorous jabs.

I wondered if I could get Google Translate to do a Translate-hatchet job on a joke I wrote, to see if it would annihilate the humor or if it might make the joke even funnier. So I racked my brain and wrote the following joke. (It's easy enough to be funny, but hard to write a joke; I hope I have not inadvertently stolen it from someone, but I've heard hundreds of thousands of gags and never kept files on them.)

Herewith, the joke:

A prince riding a camel to the capital sees a crooked old man shuffling over the ground, peering down. Being a kind prince, he says, "Old man! Are you in distress?"
"Aye, your highness," wheezes the old man. "For I have lost my good walking stick, which helps me stand upright and move almost normally."
"Was it a well-made rod, carved of ebony, with a round top?"
"Why, yes, your highness, it was just like that."
"Wait on me a moment, old man." The prince jumps off the camel, saying, "I saw just that stick lying not far from here on the way out of the city. I picked it up to look for the owner, and my camel is holding it now."
"Wonderful, sire!" says the old man. "But I see nothing upon your beast of burden, let alone my stick."
"Ah," says the prince, "but you see, this is a magic animal, capable of storing any number of things with ease. Watch this!"
Much to the old man's surprise, the prince then picks up the camel's tail, twirls it five times, then reaches directly into the creature's rear end. The camel makes no change of expression to this violation. The prince gropes around inside for a brief period, then suddenly pulls the described stick directly from the camel's anus.
"Ha! It is as I said," exclaims the prince. "Is this the stick?"
The old man, stunned, says, "Y-yes, your highness, that's the one!"
"Excellent! Here you go." Handing over the item, the prince says, "Is there anything more you need, old one?"
"Well," says the old man, eyeing the camel, "I lost my dentures as well, but... You know what? Skip it."

It doesn't matter if you don't like it; this is for science, remember. Linguistics and computer programming. I'm a joke philologist.

All right, let's translate the joke! First we'll run it through Google Translate into Spanish.

Un príncipe que monta un camello a la capital ve a un viejo torcido arrastrarse por el suelo, mirando hacia abajo. Siendo un príncipe amable, dice: "¡Viejo! ¿Estás angustiado?"
"Sí, su alteza", jadea el viejo. "Porque he perdido mi buen bastón, lo que me ayuda a ponerme de pie y moverme casi con normalidad".
"¿Era una vara bien hecha, tallada en ébano, con una tapa redonda?"
"Por qué, sí, su alteza, fue así".
"Espérame un momento, viejo". El príncipe salta del camello y dice: "Vi ese palo tirado no muy lejos de aquí al salir de la ciudad. Lo recogí para buscar al dueño, y mi camello lo sostiene ahora".
"¡Maravilloso, señor!" dice el viejo. "Pero no veo nada sobre tu bestia de carga, y mucho menos mi palo".
"Ah", dice el príncipe, "pero ya ves, este es un animal mágico, capaz de almacenar cualquier cantidad de cosas con facilidad. ¡Mira esto!"
Para sorpresa del anciano, el príncipe luego levanta la cola del camello, la gira cinco veces y luego llega directamente a la parte trasera de la criatura. El camello no hace ningún cambio de expresión a esta violación. El príncipe anda a tientas adentro por un breve período, luego de repente saca el palo descrito directamente del ano del camello."¡Ja! Es como dije", exclama el príncipe. "¿Es este el palo?"
El viejo, atónito, dice: "S-sí, su alteza, esa es la indicada".
"¡Excelente! Aquí tienes". Entregando el artículo, el príncipe dice: "¿Hay algo más que necesites, viejo?"
"Bueno", dice el anciano, mirando al camello, "también perdí mi dentadura postiza, pero ... ¿Sabes qué? Sáltatela".

Now we'll run it again, but this time from Spanish into German.

Ein Prinz, der mit einem Kamel in die Hauptstadt reitet, sieht einen krummen alten Mann auf dem Boden kriechen und nach unten schauen. Als freundlicher Prinz sagt er: "Alter Mann! Bist du verzweifelt?"
"Ja, Hoheit", schnappt der alte Mann nach Luft. "Weil ich meinen guten Stock verloren habe, was mir hilft, aufzustehen und mich fast normal zu bewegen."
"War es ein gut gemachter Zauberstab aus Ebenholz mit einem runden Deckel?"
"Warum, ja, Hoheit, es war so."
"Warte einen Moment, alter Mann." Der Prinz springt vom Kamel und sagt: "Ich habe diesen Stock nicht weit von hier geworfen gesehen, als ich die Stadt verlassen habe. Ich habe ihn aufgehoben, um den Besitzer zu finden, und mein Kamel hält ihn jetzt."
"Wunderbar, Sir!" sagt der alte Mann. "Aber ich sehe nichts über dein Lasttier, geschweige denn meinen Stock."
"Ah", sagt der Prinz, "aber Sie sehen, dies ist ein magisches Tier, das in der Lage ist, jede Menge Dinge leicht aufzubewahren. Sehen Sie sich das an!"
Zur Überraschung des alten Mannes hebt der Prinz dann den Schwanz des Kamels, dreht ihn fünfmal und kommt dann direkt auf der Rückseite der Kreatur an. Das Kamel ändert seinen Ausdruck nicht an dieser Verletzung. Der Prinz tastet kurz hinein und zieht dann plötzlich den beschriebenen Stock direkt aus dem Anus des Kamels heraus."Ha! Es ist wie ich sagte", ruft der Prinz aus. "Ist das der Stock?"
Der alte Mann sagt fassungslos: "Y-ja, Hoheit, das ist derjenige."
"Ausgezeichnet! Los geht's." Der Prinz liefert den Artikel und sagt: "Gibt es noch etwas, was du brauchst, alter Mann?"
"Nun", sagt der alte Mann und schaut auf das Kamel, "ich habe auch meine Prothese verloren, aber ... weißt du was? Überspringe es."

And now into Russian.

Принц, едущий на верблюде в столицу, видит кривого старика, ползающего по полу и смотрящего вниз. Как дружелюбный принц, он говорит: «Старик! Ты в отчаянии?»
«Да, ваше высочество», - задыхается старик. «Потому что я потерял свою хорошую палку, которая помогает мне встать и двигаться почти нормально».
"Это была хорошо сделанная палочка из черного дерева с круглой крышкой?"
«Почему, да, ваше высочество, это было так».
"Подожди минутку, старик." Принц спрыгивает с верблюда и говорит: «Я не видел эту палку, брошенную далеко отсюда, когда покинул город. Я поднял ее, чтобы найти хозяина, и мой верблюд держит ее сейчас».
"Замечательно, сэр!" говорит старик. «Но я ничего не вижу в вашем вьючном животном, не говоря уже о моей палке».
«Ах, - говорит принц, - но вы видите, это волшебное животное, способное легко хранить много вещей. Посмотрите на это!»
К удивлению старика, принц поднимает хвост верблюда, пять раз поворачивает его и затем попадает прямо в спину существа. Верблюд не меняет выражение от этой травмы. Принц нащупывает кратко, а затем внезапно вытаскивает палку, описанную прямо из ануса верблюда.
«Ха! Как я и сказал», - восклицает принц. "Это палка?"
Старик говорит ошеломленно: «Да, ваше высочество, вот оно».
"Отлично! Поехали." Принц доставляет статью и говорит: «Вам что-нибудь еще нужно, старик?»
«Ну, - говорит старик, глядя на верблюда, - я тоже потерял свой протез, но ... знаешь, что? Пропустить это».

Then, into Japanese! Why not? (Had to use Roman letters; was unable to render Japanese characters on this page.)

Shuto de rakuda ni notte iru ōji wa, magatta rōjin ga yuka no ue de raw tte mioroshite iru no o mimasu. Yūkō-tekina ōji no yō ni, kare wa iimasu: `Rōjin! Hisshidesu ka?' `Hai, denka' rōjin wa iki o kirashimasu. `Yoi sutikku o ushinattanode, okite hobo seijō ni ugoku koto ga dekimasu.' `Sore wa marui futa no aru yo kude kita kokutan no bōdeshita ka?' `Nande, wa i, denka,-sōdeshita.' `Chottomatte, rōjin' ōji wa rakuda kara tobiorite itta. `Watashi wa kanojo o mochiagete masutā o mitsukemashita, soshite watashi no rakuda wa kanojo o ima motte imasu.'
`Sugoi!' Rōjin wa iimasu. `Shikashi, watashi no sutikku wa iumademonaku, anata no pakku dōbutsu ni wa nani mo miemasen.' `Ā ,' ōji wa iimasu. Mitekudasai!' Rōjin no odoroita koto ni, ōji wa rakuda no shippo o age, sore o 5-kai mawashite kara, ikimono no senaka ni chokusetsu chakuchi shimasu. Rakuda wa kono kega kara hyōjō o kaemasen. Ōji wa mosaku shi, rakuda no kōmon kara chokusetsu byōsha sa reta bō o totsuzen hikinukimasu.`Ha! Watashi ga itta yō ni,`ōji wa sakebu. `Sore wa bōdesu ka?' Rōjin wa odorokimashita. `Hai, denka, arimasu.' `Sugoi! Yukō' ōji wa kiji o haishin shi, iimasu: `Hoka ni nanika hitsuyōdesu ka?' `Mā' to rōjin wa rakuda o minagara iimasu. Kore o sukippu shimasu.'

Finally, back in to jolly old English.

The prince riding a camel in the capital sees a bent old man raw and looking down on the floor. Like a friendly prince, he says: "Old man! Desperate?"
"Yes, Your Highness," the old man gasps. "I lost a good stick and can get up and move almost normally."
"Is it a well-formed ebony stick with a round lid?"
"Why, yes, your Highness, it was."
"Wait a minute, old man," said the prince, jumping off the camel. "I lifted her and found the master, and my camel has her now."
"Wow!" Says the old man. "But, not to mention my stick, you see nothing in your pack animal." "Oh," says the prince. "please look!" To the surprise of the old man, the prince raises the tail of the camel, turns it five times, and then lands directly on the creature's back. Camel does not change expression from this injury. The prince seeks out and suddenly pulls out a pictured stick directly from the camel's anus. "Ha! As I said," The prince shouts. "Is it a stick?"
The old man was surprised. "Yes, your Highness, there is."
"Wow! Let's go," the prince delivers an article and says: "Do you need anything else?"
"Oh," said the old man, looking at camels. "Skip this."

There! What'd you think? As the eye doctor says: Better? Worse? About the same?

Okay, it screwed up the punch line -- I have no idea where the dentures got to. But still, I have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Could Twain's translator have been worse than Google Translate?

Achtung!

"Grimsley! Come here immediately! I must ask you someting!"

"Yes, Herr Burgermeister?"

"Suddenly I am rackink my brain, Grimsley, unt it is painful! I need to know...
vy am I der only person in dis dumkopf town mit ein Cherman acczent?"

"I mean, didn't ve grow up here? But everyone else ist an American!"

"I'm sure I don't know, Herr Burgermeister."

"Schtop it, Grimsley! Vy do you sound like some silly Britishy person? Vy don't you

sound American? Even dot silly Mickey Rooney -- I mean, de Kringle -- and der schtupid Vinter Varlock kah-nucklehead sound American!"

"I grew up watching Eric Blore films, Herr Burgermeister!"

"I vill not rest until I find out vat is goink on! Vy am I der only person in dis schtupid town who sounds like I belonk in der Chermanic vorld? Vy do you all sound American?"

"Gee, that's a good question, Mister Lederhosen man! We were wondering why most of the folks around us sound French!"

Cartoon Language Academy.

Good mornink, Americanski!

 Are you wishing that learning foreign languages was as easy as watching TV in your underpants while eating cheese? Boy, don't we all! And that's why the Cartoon Language Academy can help!

Yes, the CLA can teach you a foreign language with the help of our shifty language experts from the cartoons! No more fumbling with dusty old books and stupid software that doesn't work right! No more wrestling with parts of speech and vocabulary lists! With the help of our certified cartoon characters, you can be speaking a foreign tongue good enough to pass for a native on an average cartoon in no time at all!

Prof. Badenov, our dean and professor of Russian and Pottsylvanian Languages, says the following: "We are thinkink you would all part with nice green money to attend worthless program, da? Or as they say in English, you want learn foreign language fast?"

Each class comes with a sample phrasebook that will have you speaking the lingo in no time! Here's one from Dr. Badenov's class:

Russian	English
Shurrup you mouth.	Please be silent.
You busybodies have busied your last body.	You have interfered for the last time.
Raskolnikov!	Darn it!
Allow me to introducing myself. I am Boris Badenov, world's greatest no-goodnik.	Allow me to introduce myself. I am Boris Badenov, the world’s finest language instructor.

Here is a sample of some of our other learned professors and the languages they teach:

N. Fatale: Russian, Pottsylvanian, Seductress
S. Gonazales: Mexican
B. Looey: More Mexican
P. Le Pew: French
D. Do-Right: Canadian
Hassan: Arabian
Charlie (dog): Italian
Charlie (human): Chinese
Dexter: German
T. Devil: Tasmanian
Savoir-Faire: Canadian French
C. McBragg: British
Bruno: Russian, Slovakian
Vavoom: Vavoom
H.K. Phooey: Chinese, Scat
A. Nahasapeemapetilon: Swahili, Bengali {CLASS CANCELED}
M. Martian: Martian
Y. Sam: Authentic Frontier Gibberish

Yes, sign up today and be blathering in the tongue of a shifty foreigner by nightfall. That's the Cartoon Language Academy, folks! And remember, as Prof. Vavoom would say, Vavoom.

Guava.

There's a sushi place we get food from occasionally. While I'm not a big fan of sushi, I do like the fact that in lieu of after-dinner mints, they give you these:

I had no idea what these were, what the label said (besides "Classic Series"), or what they were supposed to taste like. I didn't recognize the little fruit on the wrapper.

A bit of searching taught me that the fruit is guava, and this fine Chinese candy can be purchased through Amazon. "Classic Series," rather than being puffery, seems to be the actual name of the candy, and the company appears to be Hong Yuan. Asian Supermarket 365, which also sells the candy, describes it thus: "Even if guava is not your favorite fruit, you may also this candy. It tastes delicious and natural, not too sweet."

Well put! I believe it's true that you might like this even if you don't like guava. I can't say for sure, because I don't think I've ever had guava. It's fun to say: Guava Guava Guava. A baby could say it. I guess guava (guava! guava!) is a hole in my culinary education.

But the reason I support their assertion is that grape candy, as we all know, is almost a completely different flavor from actual grapes. The same goes for other candies. It's no original observation on my part to note that we have contrasting and simultaneous ideas for flavors like blueberry, blackberry, watermelon, and others based on what candy and actual fruit taste like. You would never confuse watermelon's flavor with that of a watermelon Jolly Rancher, for example.

It could be a conundrum for Plato or the Scholastics: Is there a watermelon essence that is above and beyond the actual watermelon? A World of Forms watermelonness that Jolly Rancher captures to some extent, even without physical watermelon? If you replace a watermelon slice by slice with artificial watermelon, at what point does it cease to be watermelon? And that doesn't even to address the kumquat issue. Where do they fall in all this?

It's too much for me. I'll just say that I do like the guava "Classic Series." It is indeed tart but light, refreshing in the way an after-dinner candy should be. Unlike After Eight mints, you can even eat one at seven thirty. I'd like to try Hong Yuan's lychee candy, which I'd bet I'd like too -- since I have no idea what lychee tastes like.

P.S.: Guava Guava Guava! Heh.

Snacks are weird.

It's true---people will try to explain away differences in cultures for many things, including such minor considerations as politics, religion, and class distinctions, but when it comes to snack food, we're appalled at what the other guy eats. I think we're even willing to cut entrees some slack, since you have to eat something and maybe locusts were all there was (for example). But you eat snacks when you're not starving. You eat that stuff on purpose. Therein lies the horror.

When Americans go someplace truly foreign, they will either reel with horror from what the people snack on or will pretend that they've not only come to like it, they're something of an expert. Yeah, even the locals defer to my taste in fried tortoise testicles. I've got a rep, I guess.

Even within our own nation, other foods surprise me. I've never warmed to grits, or even a single grit. And I'd only heard whispers of things like this: 

Although the product has been around for fifty years, and is known internationally, you could not find these up north until recently, or at least I couldn't. Never ate a thing "in a biskit." Chicken-flavored snacks are like something you'd use to train the dachshund. But no, these are crackers for human consumption, flavored with dehydrated chicken, and things like this are popular in various places. I bought them and ate them... and I liked them myself. They tasted like chicken broth. What could be wrong with that? Crumbled crackers are used to top all sorts of casseroles; I'll bet these are great for that.

The Wikipedia page says that in Australia, Nabisco makes a Vegemite-in-a-Biskit cracker. That's taking things too far.

Another foreign snack that has a chicken variety is Twisties, made by Smith's Snackfood (owned by Pepsi). In Italy they are sold under the name Fonzies.

Aaaaayyyy!

I wondered if they were actually named for the internationally popular character Arthur Fonzarelli, the Fonz, portrayed memorably by Henry Winkler. Longwhitekid, who runs an amazing blog on New Zealand stuff (and a lot on food), believes so:

Interestingly, Twisties are produced in Italy under the brand name “Fonzies”. In the mid 1970s, General Foods and Bluebird, on the back of the success of the T.V. series “Happy Days” and the resulting 1950′s retro/ Greaser style revival that resulted – did a licensing deal with Paramount Pictures and marketed a cheesy snack product named “Fonzies”, for actor Henry Winkler’s character “The Fonz”, which was the epitome of cool to boys at that time and much impersonated.

My question, though, is this: Since Henry Winkler is Jewish (which came as a crushing blow to the Italian kids in my school -- not that the Fonz was Jewish but that he was not Italian), are Fonzies kosher? Hmm....

Here's something to ponder: Winker is 68 now; when he started playing the Fonz he was 28. The show Happy Days was originally set in the mid-50's (a second-season episode centered around Eisenhower's reelection campaign). Assuming Fonzie was the same age as the actor playing him, the Fonz would now be about 85. Which means Winkler could kick Fonzarelli's butt. 

Here's another: The great Al Molinaro played the character Al Delvecchio on Happy Days, but he was well known before that for playing Murray Greshler, a Jewish cop on The Odd Couple TV show. So while the Jewish Mr. Winker was playing the Italian Mr. Fonzerelli, the proprietor of the diner had once been an Italian actor playing a Jewish cop. Somehow I don't think that would have comforted the Italian kids in my school, though.

And a third: I thought Nabisco had been taken over by some bizarre Spanish firm, as all the product boxes say "Mondelēz" on them. But no: They decided to change the parent name from Kraft Foods, and while the company is still American, they chose a stupid name in a stupid way: "The Mondelēz name, adopted in 2012, came from the input of Kraft Foods employees at the time, Monde being French for world and delez an alternative to delicious." Mrs. Key thinks this a team-builder and a boost for employee morale. I call it maize. Which is in keeping with many of the fine corn-based Mondelēz products.