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Newark USA

A fotojournal about LIVING in Newark USA, New Jersey's largest and most cultured city, by the author of the foto-essay website RESURGENCE CITY: Newark USA.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Grill or Bistro?

As I wandered around NJPAC after the Aljira show on Thursday, I noted an inconsistency in the treatment of the name of an upscale restaurant there. Is it Theater Square Grill, Theater Square Bistro, or Theater Square Grill [&] Bistro?
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In the picture at the top of this blog entry, only the G of "Grill" is well-lited. Is "Grill" fading out of use?

"Bistro" ("a small nightclub or restaurant") is a word of variable pronunciation. I pronounce it in the original French fashion (minus the uvular (gargled) R), bée.stroe, but some people give it an English short-I (bís.troe), which I regard as a bit grotesque. Dictionary.com Unabridged (based on the Random House Unabridged) shows and offers a recorded pronunciation with short-I as the sole English pronunciation, and labels the version with long-E "French". But the American Heritage dictionary, at the same URL, shows the version with long-E first, and offers only that pronunciation in auditory form.

So do we have another case of two-in-one, like the Certs ad campaign I mentioned a few days ago, or is it more like the "Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't" campaign for Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars? I did not find online the commercial I most recall, in which an actor/dancer is made up on one side to look like a man in a tuxedo, in profile, and on the other like a woman in flowing skirt. But I did find another video in that series.

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