Do you hate "brussels sprouts"? Or are they "Brussels sprouts" that you despise?
I happen to love the little greenies (when sautÈed with garlic and almonds), but I do get confused about whether they - and other foods named after cities or nations - should begin with a capital letter or not.
Take French fries. And Swiss cheese. And German chocolate cake. All of these, like Brussels sprouts, begin with a capital letter. So do Brazil nuts, Boston baked beans, and Buffalo wings, the latter being named after a city in New York, not one of several wild oxen of the bovine family.
Given this, why do we still eat lima beans? They're named for Lima, Peru. And what about the sandwich, which got its name from a little town in southeast England?
Why do we drink champagne instead of Champagne (the region of France where champagne is made)? And what's up with Danish pastry, which, according to most dictionaries, may be spelled either Danish or danish? Dijon mustard also can go either way - dijon or Dijon - as can Polish (or polish) sausage.
The confusion is enough to make one lose one's appetite.
With all this confusion, here's where I come down: Deciding whether to capitalize a food item named after a place is, for each writer, simply a matter of taste.
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegieliteracy.org) and author of FatherLoss and VoiceMale. The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Neil at neil@carnegiecenterlex.org or (859)254-4175.