Chiff and Fipple Forums

I am a Left-side Ponder. What is it with Marks & Spencer? Does the name of their new pastry/confection, YumNutstm push the envelope as much on the Right-side of the Pond as it does on this side? Or is this like the already noted divides of pants/trousers, bum/fanny, and giving a lift/ride ? Enquiring minds want to know.

Bob

Strikes me as being not very inventive or catchy but no more. Which half of the compound is a big problem ? I guess they got the second half, referring by analogy to the toroidal shape, from you.

an seanduine wrote:YumNuts

Been watching Colbert, have we?

david_h wrote:Which half of the compound is a big problem ?

Both in combination. To the American ear it sounds downright salacious: "YumNuts" immediately translates, without even trying, to "delectable testicles". Understandably, we Yanks tend to be a bit more skittish about how we handle our nuts.

So if you hear any American visitors busting a gut over it, now you know why.

Yes, we know about nuts. So what does DoNuts translate to then? I know it's not normally capitalised like that but neither, it would seem, is Yumnuts. I've never met one in person but they seem to be iced doughnuts (iced as in sugary glaze).

Or these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronut which seem to be a left pond invention that M&S say inspired their product.

david_h wrote:So what does DoNuts translate to then?

Donuts.

The proper spelling is doughnuts, but you hardly ever see that in commercial settings anymore. It's an entrenched, familiar word in the States, so there's no ulterior meaning attached to it, apart from being stereotyped as the favorite nosh of police on the clock. We'll call certain inedible things donuts, but that's only on account of their shape.

Strike the "do-" or "dough-" from donut, replace it with something else, and the portmanteau is at serious risk of losing any doughnuttish connotation since we don't colloquially shorten "donut" to "'nut". "Nut" on its own, or in combination, isn't necessarily going to be enough to imply a donut (except perhaps in awkward jest, and that seldom, if ever). So if you're going to make it understood that a riff on the donut is meant, you'll have to do better than "yum". It is thus that "Yumnuts" veers wildly off into new and snickerworthy territory in the tradition of Spotted Dick.

"Cronuts" OTOH succeeds at conveying a donutly thing, but other than that, it falls flat. "Cro" has no particular meaning on its own, and it adroitly rhymes with "dough", so no one's going to giggle over that; you know right away that it's just another edible toroid. Doesn't even make me think of crow's danglies (until now when I forced the idea, and it's not really funny, just ... weird). A good deal of what's lost in translation with Yumnuts is the fact that we don't have Yum Yums in the States, at least not in name; I don't think any Yank really knows what we call them. Twists, maybe. But if I told a fellow Yank that I had a hankering for Yum Yums, they would ask what the hell I was talking about. So without that cultural element to guide us, we are left to our dirty little minds. Even if we did have Yum Yums in name, we'd only come up with "Yumnuts" knowing full well that tongues would wag and never stop, and that would be incentive enough for us to go there. So congratulations! You've beaten us to it fair and square, and the irony is that it's all been without having so much as a clue to light your way.

Seriously, sometimes I think you Brits deliberately feign innocence for no good reason, other than to entertain yourselves. SMH.

Speaking of double entendres, here's an American brand that gets a certain amount of reaction:

Nanohedron wrote:A good deal of what's lost in translation is the fact that we don't have Yum Yums in the States, at least not in name.

You have these though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum-Yum_Donuts.

david_h wrote:

Nanohedron wrote:A good deal of what's lost in translation is the fact that we don't have Yum Yums in the States, at least not in name.

You have these though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum-Yum_Donuts.

Not the same thing. That's only a shop name with a limited geographic range.

I can see it now:

W.C. Fields: "What are you eating, my little turtledove?"
Mae West (languidly): "Yumnuts. Why don't you come up, and I'll show you how it's done."

We have corn nuts - a sort of crunchy parched-corn (maize) snack - nothing snickery about that name. We also have the breakfast cereal Grape Nuts - although the question has been raised as to whether grape nuts might also be a venereal disease.

YumNuts also happens to rhyme with numbnuts, rather unfortunately.

Tunborough wrote:YumNuts also happens to rhyme with numbnuts, rather unfortunately.

And there's that. In case you Right Ponders don't know, "numbnuts" means "idiot". And "numb" recalls "nummy", which brings us full circle. So from the Left Pond perspective, the name "Yumnuts" is most inauspicious all around. But be defiant! Raise your Yumnuts high, and to hell with the begrudgers! Just know that your allies are going to have serious reservations about backing you up on this one.

Nanohedron wrote:In case you Right Ponders don't know, "numbnuts" means "idiot".

Singular or plural? An etymological relative of 'nutcase' or not? Quite a few Right Ponders may think it was something to do with cycling.

david_h wrote:

Nanohedron wrote:In case you Right Ponders don't know, "numbnuts" means "idiot".

Singular or plural? An etymological relative of 'nutcase' or not? Quite a few Right Ponders may think it was something to do with cycling.

The pejorative "numbnuts" is singular, as in: "I already said 'numbnuts' means 'idiot' - ya numbnuts." I've never heard it levelled at a crowd, so if you have before you more than one numbnuts gadding about, I expect the pluralization style will pretty much be up to the speaker. Never really thought about it until now - it's one of those words normally applied only to individuals. I think it's best kept that way; "numbnutses" seems an unnecessary stretch when there are easier insults to fire plurally.

It has no meaningful relationship to "nutcase". A nutcase is crazy, deranged, cracked, giddy, twirly, demented; the word is on par with "nutjob", and "nut" - crazy person - is the defining element here. "Numbnuts", OTOH, shares meaning with "numbskull": a dolt, twit, halfwit, moron, tool, imbecile; "numb" is the element that clues us into that. I have been both, so I know whereof I speak. Why "numbnuts", though? Well, since it strongly suggests that the numbnuts in question is male, and since "numbskull" almost certainly predates it both literally and figuratively, and given the trope that men think with their nethers, then if even your cojones are numb, that's as SOL as a guy's mental capacity can get. That's my take on it. And "numbnut", without the S, is never correct: it means that either you haven't grasped the concept, or English is very much your second language. I would never call a woman a numbnuts except for its tasty dissonance whereby one gets an extra measure of laughter from the peanut gallery. While men haven't cornered the idiocy market by any means, a lot of insults that mean "stupid" do seem to suit men to a T. I mean, would you call a woman a dolt or a tool? You could, but the words just don't fit right, somehow; there's a bit of a gender register to them.

But cycling? Now you've lost me altogether.

david_h wrote:Yes, we know about nuts. So what does DoNuts translate to then? I .

Torus. Its basically a shape,a toroidal confectionary item

Nanohedron wrote:

david_h wrote:

Nanohedron wrote:In case you Right Ponders don't know, "numbnuts" means "idiot".

Singular or plural? An etymological relative of 'nutcase' or not? Quite a few Right Ponders may think it was something to do with cycling.

...
But cycling? Now you've lost me altogether.

Consider how you might feel after a long cycling trip on an uncomfortable bicycle seat.

Tunborough wrote:Consider how you might feel after a long cycling trip on an uncomfortable bicycle seat.

Aha.

But that doesn't apply in any sensible way if you hurl it as an insult. "Your nuts are numb from bicycling!" might be invective in Calais, but in English? Nope.

Had M&S asked me, I would have advised them to harken back to the original name for doughnuts, dough naughts, and call their new snack Yumnaughts. I expect Right Ponders would still understand what was meant, and it would not provoke sniggers on this side of the Pond.