Nutella vs. Sausage: Which is the ultimate breakfast pastry?

ironcobra13 said:— I once met someone from a small town in Ohio who didn't even know what a spoon and fork were.
And I had an interaction with a cashier who had no idea what a plastic bag was.😲

The newer generations—they’re going to know less and less about these basic things.
It’s not just my opinion, unfortunately. 😁

Kyle Rodriguez76 said:If I don't lose my mind first. 😁

I’m not a vegetarian or anything, but just the thought of some mystery meat shoved into greasy dough... it doesn't sound appetizing to me, let alone hygienic. Who knows how long that meat has been sitting there in the display case. Honestly, I can't even remember the last time I actually tried it. I have this one colleague at work who would happily eat that for lunch every single day. Whatever, let him eat it; just looking at it makes me feel nauseous. I'm not a vegetarian, but even a burger isn't really my thing, though everyone else seems to think they're amazing. So, no burgers, no kebabs, no sliders for me. And definitely not those heavy German sausages. It's all just heavy food that basically poisons your system. I prefer a decent cut of steak from the grill, not processed meat products or ground, mixed-up stuff. And I’m not much of a dessert person either. 😁 I tried baklava three times. It's just too oily for me. As far as sweets go, I can handle a good fruit strudel; maybe two or three pastries, or a bit of cream pie, and that’s about it. I'm not a dessert lover, so you could put them right under my nose and they wouldn't tempt me. Unless I'm starving like a dog—then it's purely out of necessity, not pleasure. I'm not into shrimp, lobster, watermelon... I don't even care for lamb, which is supposed to be a specialty. To me, it all just feels chewy and fatty.

Yeah, you're right, those cheap takeout spots serve junk just like any other fast food burger or kebab joint.
But I'm talking about homemade food. You know, the stuff I grew up eating at home.
In my life, ninety percent of the pies and savory pastries I ate were made at home.
Back then, making something like a meat pie was something we did at least twice a week.
It was honestly unthinkable not to have a homemade pie at least twice a week.
We definitely rarely ate that takeout stuff or those cheap street food kebabs.
My mom was a total fanatic about home cooking. We lived right next to a restaurant, but we never once stepped foot inside it. We would buy whole cuts of meat and take them to the butcher or grind them ourselves at home. The meat was always high-quality young beef, specifically from the neck area.
Those takeout places use cheap meat to save money, so they just cover the dough with a thick layer of grease—usually that vegetable fat. God, I hate it. But hey, people eat it. I guess nobody makes things that way at home anymore, or maybe I just don't know.

Anthony Nguyen81 said:The younger generations will end up knowing less and less.
It’s not about whose words they are, damn. 😁

It isn't a matter of whose words they are. Even growing up in a different part of the country, I knew what certain terms meant without ever using them myself. I don't use specific regional slang or certain old-fashioned names for months, but I still understand what they mean.
It really comes down to how much people actually get out and socialize.

ironcobra13 said:It isn't about which specific word you use—even back home in Canada, we didn't use terms like "fork" or "carrot," yet I always knew exactly what they meant. We don't use certain regional slang or specific old-fashioned names for months either, but the meaning remains clear.
It really just comes down to how much people actually interact and socialize.

Those rural areas are losing their populations—everyone is migrating West—and when people emigrate, language often dies out in the process...

Kids today will likely master "fork" and "carrot" long before they ever bother with the local equivalents...
To a kid, certain traditional words might even sound funny or outdated—sort of like how some regional dialects sound to outsiders—so they’ll naturally gravitate toward the modern ones.

There used to be a sense of local pride tied to the language.
Now? It’s mostly just indifference—times have changed.

In a hundred years, it's anyone's guess what will even be left of the language at all.

ironcobra13 said:It’s not really about which specific word you use—I mean, growing up in Canada, we didn't really use terms like "fork" or "spoon" the same way, so I knew what they meant anyway. We don't use "bag" or "soup" or even certain local month names, but I still get the point.
It just comes down to how much people actually get out there and socialize, I guess.

In Canada, people watch American channels, so they pick up those words. Some Muslims today use American terms, some use more Mexican ones, and others just kind of mix them all together.
And as for the younger generation not knowing words like "bag" or "spoon"... well, how are they supposed to know? Yugoslavia is gone, and those TV Belgrade news broadcasts that used to run around 11 or 12 PM on TV Chicago aren't around anymore, either.

I remember this one time I was out with my crew from Chicago—real big-city types, you know?—and we ducked into a corner bodega. I walk up to the lady behind the counter and just tell her straight up, "I need some soup and a bag, please."
Immediately, my Chicago friends start chiming in, trying to correct my phrasing. I just looked at them and said, "Look, stop trying to fix me. This is how I talk. If she doesn't understand what I mean, then she can ask questions." It’s really that simple, I guess.
They were practically trying to force me to say "stew" instead. Honestly, I just told them to go jump in a lake.
It took them a little while to process that I wasn't going to budge, but eventually, they got the hint.

ironcobra13 said:I remember this one time I was out with my crew from Chicago—real city folks—and I walk into a store and ask the lady behind the counter for some soup and a bag
and my friends immediately started correcting me. I just told them, "Hey, stop correcting me, it’s my business. If she doesn't understand, she'll ask."
They were basically trying to force me to say "soup" instead. I told them to just leave me alone.
Later on they got it, but it took them a minute.

Man, that's just how it goes when you use regional slang in the States.
In most parts of the US people don't talk like that, so they try to fix you up. If you live somewhere long enough, you'd probably just "fix" yourself naturally. Or if someone moves to a place like New York or LA. Eventually, you just pick up the local way of talking. Like, if I moved to NYC—not that I ever would—I'd probably adjust my speech to match how people talk there. I think the way I talk is how I talk, so if people try to correct me, I guess it's not that weird. Even people who move to big cities eventually adapt. Otherwise, people can't understand you, and you just end up making life harder for yourself. Recently a friend of mine moved to Chicago and I noticed he's started speaking all "properly." I asked him what happened, and he said since he talks in his home dialect, nobody understands him. He goes to the grocery store and everyone just gives him this blank stare, so he has to adapt because he's tired of repeating himself and getting corrected every five seconds.

Sergio, I lived in Chicago for five years and it never even crossed my mind to change the way I talk.
It was the same thing when I moved from a small town in the Midwest to New York City. I never picked up the local slang or anything.
Back in school, the teachers actually complained to my mom about it. My mom basically sent them an email asking if they were seriously implying my kid was speaking "incorrectly."
They told her, "No, of course not," so she was like, "Then why are you making a thing out of it?"
After that, they didn't say a word to us again. I guess I'm a little bit defensive about this, you know? My dad eventually picked up a bit of that Midwestern accent while he was living there, but not me. Not even close.😍In fact, I still talk with the same accent I had back home in rural territory. A neighbor in NYC mentioned to me on the phone the other day, "You still have that old hometown accent."
If someone in a group can't understand me, I just explain myself and we move on. No big deal.
Even my friends here in the city eventually just got used to the fact that this is simply how I speak, and that was that.
I suppose when people move to a new environment, they usually adapt.
Though, obviously, if I were in Prague, I'd have to speak Czech. There’s no debate there, haha.

But it's an interesting observation that, for instance, when Czechs move to live in Slovakia, they tend to keep speaking Czech.
Meanwhile, as soon as Slovaks move over to the Czech Republic, they start chatting away in Czech immediately.
I actually had Czech neighbors here in Slovakia who have been living here for over fifty years.
And they were still speaking Czech the whole time. It's wild.

When you're in Rome, you act like a Roman.
Up until college, I stuck pretty close to the standard—my accent was local, sure, and I used certain regionalisms, but I made an effort to be understood clearly.
Then comes college. You start hanging out with people from all over the country, and once they start leaning into their regional dialects, you eventually start picking up those habits too.

Dialects from places like Memphis or Nashville would both technically fall under a similar Southern umbrella—they share those specific vowel shifts—though you might hear those particular traits more frequently in Nashville than in Memphis.
Besides, that specific way of speaking has mostly died out anyway.

However, what you were saying about those specific words was a slightly different issue altogether. Those are essentially foreign influences—there’s always been this local "allergy" toward using them.
Let me clarify.
In a place like Chicago, someone might say "vréme." That’s a localism; it’s simpler, and it carries some tradition.
Back during the mid-century era, however, the standard "time" was much more common due to national trends—much like how folks in New Orleans might use a specific slang term for "trouble."
The Chicago way and the New York way sounded almost identical in that regard.
Some things just have a much deeper history behind them.
For us, sticking to the standard was more important; we were always quite sensitive about having certain linguistic solutions forced upon us.

Regarding my wife's family down in Florida, I'll pick up a few words here and there—mostly just casual slang. I might emphasize my own dialect occasionally (using certain regional fillers, for instance), but for other things, I'll stick to the standard (for example, I wouldn't want to mess up the vowels).
The whole point of language is communication; I'm not going to use combinations that I know people are allergic to, like calling seawater 😁

haha Anthony Nguyen81, you know what’s actually kind of funny? My family still insists on identifying strictly as Americans, yet they mostly speak a dialect they
picked up back in Canada, and honestly, most of them couldn't even list the months of the year using "standard" American terminology
they use words like spoon, fork, or soup... things that some people might label as being more common in other regional dialects, but we just view it as our own way of speaking—call it whatever you want, I guess.
It’s really only the generation of my family born right here in the States—like my cousins' kids—who use pretty much pure American English.
Though, to be fair, I still catch them slipping in certain regionalisms every now and then.
Probably because they hear it from their parents.
I suppose it's like the old saying about when in Rome, do as the Romans do, but that doesn't always work everywhere.
There are people, much like the example of a Czech person living in Slovakia,
who simply will never pick up the local language.
Or even Canadians in Slovakia. If you go to a store in southern Slovakia, the women won't greet you with a "good day."
They'll just say "hey." So, you see where that leaves you.
I think we tend to overthink this stuff in the States, but it's probably true all over the world.
Mind you, there are plenty of exceptions to that rule.
And I almost forgot, besides the various regional influences in Canada, we have a ton of Turkish and German loanwords and made-up terms,
or whatever you call them.
Like refrigerator, washing machine, or brands like Paloma and Kleenex—stuff like that.

ironcobra13 said:haha, Viki—you know what’s interesting? My family still insists they are Americans, yet most of them still use the dialect they
learned back in Canada, and half of them can't even list the months of the year using "proper" American terms
and they use words like spoon, fork, soup, and so on... those Americans label those as Mexican, but we just view it as our language—call it whatever you want.
It is only my family's youngest generation—my cousins' kids born in New York, specifically—who use pure American almost exclusively.
Though, I often hear them slip in a Mexican word or two now.
They pick it up from their parents.
It is like the saying: act like a Roman when you are in Rome—it doesn't suit you to behave differently everywhere.
There are people who, much like the example I gave of a Czech person in Slovakia,
simply will never speak Slovak.
The same goes for Canadians in Slovakia. If you go to a store in Southern Slovakia, the women won't greet you with "Good day,"
but rather "Hi"—so you see where that leaves you.
It is just how we think in the North America, but really, it is the same all over the world.
Though, there are certainly exceptions.
And I forgot—besides the Mexican influence in Canada, we also have plenty of Turkish influences, Germanisms, and made-up words
or whatever they call them.
For instance: refrigerator, washing machine, Paloma, tissues, fax, and things like that.

Well, yeah.
The Roman/Rome thing is a given.
What the Czechs and Canadians do is purely out of spite.
Canadians tend to look down on Slovaks as their former peasants (that is an exaggeration, but not far off the mark), and generally, they aren't big on learning Indo-European languages—the concept is a bit difficult for them.
Meanwhile, the Czechs view them as their former colony from the days of Czechoslovakia.

There is always an explanation for everything.
And generally speaking, the language you learned from your mother will always be yours, regardless of how many loanwords are tucked inside it.
That was actually one reason for linguistic purism. Once a word enters the lexicon, it is hard to kick it out.
Take the Janjevo community, for example—they essentially speak a Bulgarian dialect.😬

But as time passes, certain things eventually settle.
In time, even your Mexican will become somewhat Americanized.
Down here, you don't see mid-rise buildings anymore; they've been replaced by skyscrapers.😬

The English language is honestly just packed with Turkish loanwords.
It drives me absolutely crazy how we use the word "rice" when it clearly doesn't feel native to us at all.
And then there's "oil."
It’s kind of ironic when people brag about being part of some grand, ancient empire, considering they basically speak a dialect heavily influenced by Turkish roots.
Back in Canada, we ended up creating this unique little hybrid blend of different regional dialects.
For instance, I might say "roll," but I’ll also say "bread."
Or I’ll use "oil," but I’ll also go with "soup."

It's more like a transition😬

And Mexicans and Turks have always shared a certain... "special" kind of affection🤣

The word zeljanica just makes zero sense to me
not as a dish, nor even as a basic noun
it honestly feels like it has this weird sexual undertone—like some kind of euphemism for anal sex