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LizKat said:
And so of course my latest purchase this summer has been not leaf management tools but... yeah, potato chips, or crisps for you folks on the other side of the pond.

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I remember being upset as a young kid one day at a restaurant over "chips" and "fries" on my order.

I ordered a standard American meal called "fish and chips" with the full expectation that I would be receiving potato chips with the fish. Much to my dismay and disappointment I received French fries instead. Everywhere else in my albeit young life to that point, "chips" were always potato chips. How could this restaurant screw up such a simple thing I wondered.

Even to this day I still don't quite get it. If I order a burger and fries, I get the fries. If I order fish and chips, I still get fries. 🤷‍♂️
 
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This Side Of The Pond, fish and chips, are one (delicious, traditional) thing, and crisps (preferably cheese & onion), quite another.

As for French fries, well, as I learned in my student days, "that is what they call chips in The US."

Same language, (some of the time) but a different vocabulary.

Mind you, I knew a senior diplomat - I was friendly with his son at university - who, much earlier in his career, had served in the US as a junior diplomat. This was where he came across American spelling, which he subsequently adopted with glee, delighting in and relishing the fact that it absolutely infuriated his colleagues.
 
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SandboxGeneral said:
I remember being upset as a young kid one day at a restaurant over "chips" and "fries" on my order.

I ordered a standard American meal called "fish and chips" with the full expectation that I would be receiving potato chips with the fish. Much to my dismay and disappointment I received French fries instead. Everywhere else in my albeit young life to that point, "chips" were always potato chips. How could this restaurant screw up such a simple thing I wondered.

Even to this day I still don't quite get it. If I order a burger and fries, I get the fries. If I order fish and chips, I still get fries. 🤷‍♂️
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Potato chips are different from fries. Fries are skinny things with not much substance. Where as what we call chips are a thicker cut. Much tastier.
Crisps (what you guys call potato chips) are very aptly named. As the are just how they sound.
Of course I like fries, chips and crisps!
 
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Namara said:
@kazmac, OK I give up, who is the actor now occupying your avatar? I thought it might be Peter Lorre, but now I'm not sure.
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@D.T. yes! 😋

D.T. was right. It’s Herbert Lom in his most famous role, Commissioner/Chief Inspector Dreyfus from The Pink Panther series. Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau drove Dreyfus insane. For me, Mr. Lom was the best thing about those movies.

😂🤣😂

a compilation featuring some of Dreyfus’ funniest moments...

Sorry to make you miserable @Namara 😉
 
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kazmac said:
@D.T. yes! 😋

D.T. was right. It’s Herbert Lom in his most famous role, Commissioner/Chief Inspector Dreyfus from The Pink Panther series. Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau drove Dreyfus insane. For me, Mr. Lom was the best thing about those movies.
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I LOVED those films, just genius with Lom, Sellers, hahaha, Cato! (Burt Kwouk)

"Beware of Japanese waitress bearing fortune cookies ..."
 
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D.T. said:
I LOVED those films, just genius with Lom, Sellers, hahaha, Cato! (Burt Kwouk)

"Beware of Japanese waitress bearing fortune cookies ..."
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;)
Yes, Burt Kwouk was delightful. Loved when Cato would ambush Clouseau. I sometimes imitate Dreyfus when someone does something absurd at work, his nervous laugh slips out. :p

Lom still makes me laugh hard, his body language was brilliant.
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
As for French fries, well, as I learned in my student days, "that is what they call chips in The US."
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But we don't.

We call French fries, French fries.

What you call crisps, we call chips.

The odd American exception is that when you order a meal called "fish and chips" what you're really getting is "fish and French fries."
 
SandboxGeneral said:
But we don't.

We call French fries, French fries.

What you call crisps, we call chips.

The odd American exception is that when you order a meal called "fish and chips" what you're really getting is "fish and French fries."
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I expressed myself poorly, or imprecisely; I meant that I had understood that the term "French fries" was how Americans referred to what we call "chips".

In France and Belgium, they are known as "frites" (a dish at which the Belgians excel).
 
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Fries
6147552_050320-cc-shutterstock-french-fries-img.jpg


Chips
ChipsBanner.jpg


Crisps
1200px-Potato-Chips.jpg



Now I've gone and made myself hungry!
 
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Clix Pix said:
Pommes frites, to be precise, and which my husband (who spoke fluent French) taught me these many moons ago.... And indeed, in France they definitely were different than in the US!
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In restaurants, cafés, bistros, (in France & Belgium) yes, (pommes frites, wistful swooning sigh, yum) but, - if memory serves - I'm pretty certain that those Belgian trucks (the Belgian take on the idea of a 'taco truck') one could find in corners of central Brussels sold what they described as (sinfully delicious) frites, with mayo. (Not ketchup, unless you asked).
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
In restaurants, cafés, bistros, yes, (pommes frites, wistful swooning sigh, yum) but, - if memory serves - I'm pretty certain that those Belgian trucks (the Belgian take on the idea of a 'taco truck') one could find in corners of central Brussels sold what they described as (sinfully delicious) frites, with mayo. (Not ketchup, unless you asked).
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Yes with mayo! Yum. Or garlic mayo. Seriously don't need these on my mind right now! But nobody ever talks or thinks of carrot sticks in the same way!
 
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Clix Pix said:
Those UK "chips" look ever so much better and satisfying, with more flavor, than the skinny, skimpy "French fries" we so often see and are served here in the US!
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They are.

In my experience, the very best "chips" tended to come from small, family owned businesses, (often immigrant family businesses, such as Italians after WW2, or Russians before WW1, immigrants interpreting our classics better than we had ever thought possible) in seaports with some tradition of fishing, where the chips would have been individually cut by hand, & probably deep fried twice, everything done to order entirely on the premises.
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
I start Architecture school in two weeks and am quite looking forward to it :)
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A 4 year college?

I loved the idea of designing interior space and majored in architecture in my freshman and sophomore year until I figured out that due to my pilot dreams I’d most likely not be able to practise it, so I switched to commercial art and never practised that either, becoming a career pilot. One thing that irritated me was they did not spend anytime teaching painting technique in commmerial art which was a very competitive career field.
 
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