Ah Fudge!
This lovely find is from the Coffee Company in Amsterdam, a Dutch business that is thriving in part thanks to their English name, according to the owner in a television interview. What wrong here? It’s a literal translation from the Dutch ‘Probeer nu onze brownie fudge’, which is also wrong apparently, as it should be ‘fudge brownie’. (True, I never had one, but I did make chocolate chip cookies yesterday, which has no bearing on this post whatsoever).
Brownies have been gaining in popularity as a foreign treat just like chocolate chip cookies (there they are again!), muffins and bagels, which means using English to describe them. And again, I’m surprised that such a successful company can’t be bothered producing proper English having claimed that they do well with tourists in Amsterdam because of their English name.
(Photo: Caroline)
December 25th, 2006 at 12:57 am
I saw this ad the other day. I could not help laughing
December 27th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Two initial impressions:
It reminds me of Canadian French product descriptions … like ‘brownie au fudge’. And maybe because it’s Christmas, archaic English syntax (‘Don we now our gay apparel’, etc.).
‘Brownie fudge’ doesn’t even seem like the right order in Dutch (unless it’s supposed to be a construction like ‘broodje rosbief’). Since neither ‘fudge’ nor ‘brownie’ has an accurate equivalent in Dutch, it would/should have been ‘fudgebrownie’ (let op spatiegebruik!) in the original.
December 27th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
1. fudge = chocolat fondant, but OK 🙂
2. You’re probably right, but I cannot wrap my brain around those Dutch spelling rules…
December 28th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Yeah, fondant, but I almost never see that here – it’s always carré au fudge or whatever.
Stichting Nederlands suggests ‘bruintje’ as an alternative. I would like to propose ‘choco-tegel’ 🙂