Offer me an appetizer. If you must, ask me if I'd like something to munch on. You can even beg me to chew on your shoelaces.
But don't offer me an "appeteaser."
You, the restaurateur or menu designer who came up with this word: kill it, dump its remains down the toilet and flush until midnight. "Appeteaser" should not be allowed to exist. I feel dirty just typing it.
I pity you, the server in a restaurant that offers "appeteasers." It wasn't your idea. You didn't decide to pervert a perfectly good word into a word that serves no function, that makes you sound like you don't know how to pronounce the word "appetizer." You're just doing your job.
Which you should quit. A job that requires you to offer "appeteasers" to intelligent human beings is degrading.
(I insist on putting the word in quotes because it is not a real word. It is an incorrect, false, self-hating word in drag masquerading as something it is not: clever. I put "appeteasers" in quotes only because I cannot put it in leg irons.)
I am not a word purist, one of those self-appointed grammarians that love to quibble over "who" and "whom" or the contextual strengths of "yadda yadda " versus "et cetera." Such fine points often lead to questions that have no firm, universal answers.
But there is a firm, universal answer to the question, "How often should Frank Mullen have to hear the word 'appeteaser' spoken in a restaurant?"
Never. Not ever.
All you in the restaurant business who would desecrate the English language with the filth of this vulgar word, hear my solemn vow: if you offer me an "appeteaser," or if I even see the offensive world on your menu, I will pick up my coat and hike around the salad bar, past the cash register and straight out the door.
You are warned.
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