'a'
Not just any old 'a' but the addition of word 'a' to a mass noun like 'coffee' or 'chocolate' to imply connoiseurship. A lot of consumerism is pretty mindless - when it's food or drink it's basically variations on stuffing your face. Everyone knows it, some people even feel a bit guilty about it.

So one way to market stuff to the aspirational is to appeal to people's snobbish tendencies by trying to make them feel like connoiseurs. Wine experts have traditionally referred to different types of wine as 'a dry wine, or 'a tannic wine', rather than plain old 'dry wine' or 'tannic wine' (as you might with with orange squash or strawberry milkshake).

Now marketing people are slipping in the indefinite article when talking about other products, such as the aforementioned chocolate or coffee, in order to give them the same kind of cache as wine. Often with an adjective between the 'a' and the noun. The other day I saw some expensive coffee described as 'a fruity, nutty coffee'. It it's that important to drink fruity, nutty coffee why not drop a dried apricot and a walnut into your cup of nescafe for fucks sake?

Anyway rant over, sorry. Don't even get me started on 'pan'-fried.
(Cameltoad, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 15:41, 9 replies)

Pan fried?
Is that the pan fried, suggesting it's fried in a pan, as opposed to deep fried? I can't see why people have such a problem with this.
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 15:46, closed)

Exactly.
There was a discussion on this a little while ago.
I don't think there was a clear winner, but this makes much more sense.
(TheColonel, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 16:22, closed)

What, pray, is the name of the oil receptacle in which food items are deep fried?
It would be some type of pan, would it?

And if you say "a fryer" I shall put you over my knee.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 15:30, closed)

As Bill Bailey says...
..."Pan fried? What else are you going to fry it in? A bucket? 'I'll have the pan-fried chicken please. And a rabbit, done in an old pair of gardening trousers'".
(NoveltyCondomHead Clanks Wams., Thu 8 Apr 2010, 16:12, closed)

As I said above
Perhaps it might be fried in a deep fat frier, as opposed to a pan, or perhaps you might stir-fry it, in a wok?
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 16:46, closed)

Exactly
I can't understand what people find confusing about this.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:55, closed)

Well in olden times....
....deep frying was still done in a pan rather than a 8.99 plastic fire hazard from Argos, and a wok is really just a big pan.

Fuck me, I didn't invent it, I just quoted a hairy comedian!
(NoveltyCondomHead Clanks Wams., Thu 8 Apr 2010, 23:02, closed)

Surely the phrase "deep-fried" makes the phrase "pan-fried" redundant?

If it isn't a deep-fried Mars bar, then it must be a pan-fried one...
OK, bad example.
(shanterbabs, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 0:35, closed)

Pan Fried.
I reckon that people have started taking the piss because they've spotted a certain squeamishness about frying among food snobs. It's still got too many associations with working-class breakfasts and roadside cafes. There used to be the expression 'shallow-fried', but I think that's got ditched in favour of 'pan-fried' because the latter sounds a bit less 'greasy spoon'.
(Cameltoad, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:10, closed)