7 ms·

You're conflating metaphors with obfuscation. For example, coconut milk is named so simply because it's a white liquid. It's not trying to be a replacement for

You're conflating metaphors with obfuscation. For example, coconut milk is named so simply because it's a white liquid. It's not trying to be a replacement for milk, or trying to confuse people, it's just a metaphor. But vegan milk, sausages, etc, are all meant to be as similar to the real things as possible so as to cause confusion.

Nursie 4y ago
Nobody's trying to confuse anyone though, they're trying to provide alternatives. "Sausage" is such a generic term, covering so very many things, that it's bizarre to try and restrict it. (edit: almost forgot we are talking about France, a country which tries to control its language by law. Carry on then!)
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  agreed on genericness. I have generally at least 2 options anywhere I go - sausage or turkey sausage, with the default assumption of 'pork'. But many places around me have (pork) sausage, turkey sausage, and vegan sausage. I don't think it's that hard, or confuses people (or, at least the people who care about vegan in the first place).
  - 7952 4y ago
    And you can have cured and air dried sausages.
- rospaya 4y ago
  > (edit: almost forgot we are talking about France, a country which tries to control its language by law. Carry on then!) I get why this is controversial, but keep in mind that a lot of countries do that. English is the outlier here, and that's because it's not being threatened the same way other national languages are.
  - philistine 4y ago
    You're both completely right, and completely wrong. You're completely right that French is far from the only language with a centralized linguistic authority. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators) As a matter of fact, the United States is all in as a language regulator: they have a language regulator ... for Spanish! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Academy_of_the_Spanish_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Academy_of_the_...) Where you are absurdly wrong, is where you say that the threat to a language is the reason for the existence of a language academy. It simply isn't; the reasons are purely historical for almost all languages. I mean, Cardinal Richelieu founded l'académie française. French was not threatened during the reign of Louis XIII!
    - herewulf 4y ago
      French may be a bad example but at least some language regulation is actually nice, otherwise you end up with the dumpster fire that is English spelling. I say this as someone teaching two young children to read.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > "Sausage" is such a generic term, covering so very many things, that it's bizarre to try and restrict it. In France various types of sausage are with protected names and origins ( e.g. Toulouse, Montbéliard, etc.), so usually sausage is a very precise term and you know what you're getting.
ggm 4y ago
I think you are at least half right, but not entirely right. "cause confusion" is at least in part going to intentionality, where I agree the intent is to try and go beyond "its white" to "it has similar mouth feel, it whips, it makes a good coffee" But Veal and Beef is actually similar. Rose Veal is most definitely not Veal. It was named Rose Veal to try and market what they do with slaughterhouses and with discard young from the dairy industry, to break from the old practices (male milk calves have low value. farming it for veal was how farmers made money from discards) Rose veal is not veal, why did they keep the veal word?
- mike00632 4y ago
  Calling it "veal" instead of "baby cow" is intentionally deceptive.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
octodog 4y ago
What a strange idea. They are called vegan sausages because they simulate the flavour of and can substitute as a meat sausage.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> But vegan milk, sausages, etc, are all meant to be as similar to the real things as possible so as to cause confusion. Source? I would assume they are as similar to the real thing as possible in order to be as similar to the real thing as possible. I.e. an alternative for people who do not want to source their food from animals, but do want their food to have characteristics similar to those that are sourced from animals.
- zmalqp 4y ago
themitigating 4y ago
Vegan meat products advertise that they are plant based. They are trying to taste, feel, and look like meat products because people like that. For example this pack of ground beef says "Made from plants" in clear large letters on the front https://www.target.com/p/impossible-plant-based-burger-ground-12oz/-/A-79945403 https://www.target.com/p/impossible-plant-based-burger-groun... What confusion are the trying to cause
richardw 4y ago
They’re meant to be the same in what we value about eating them but not the same in how they’re produced. Same taste, no death. For a long time the taste couldn’t compare for any product. The fact that the pressure is building to keep the death part can only mean the taste is good enough for enough people that buying habits are changing. I can see the protection of local business, and France has a strong farming and taste leadership history, but this change towards plant meat is inevitable and good for the world as a whole. Countries can innovate or end up losing this battle and only importing fake meat tech.
hegelstoleit 4y ago
Who the fuck is buying vegan meat and being like "oh I thought this was meat"? Do we seriously need to legislate that? There's no real victim here, it's just a bunch of people who are sour or feel threatened by meat alternatives. It's ridiculous.
- jzwinck 4y ago
  Just this week I bought two tubs of vegan yogurt by mistake. They were the same shape, size and color as the milk based yogurts sitting all around them on the shelf. The only clue was the word "soya" printed at the bottom edge of the tubs in small letters. The kind of letters you'd expect to tell you something like the container size or the country the milk came from. To be fair this vegan nogurt tastes almost the same as the real thing. But I did not appreciate being tricked into buying it.
  - oregano 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - jdasdf 4y ago
      Do you genuinely not see a problem with people being deceived about what they are buying and eating?
      - 31835843 4y ago
      - oregano 4y ago
        Of course I see a problem. Transparency should always be a top priority. My intention was not to disagree with you, just to provide a different lens to view this. After all, are most American consumers aware of the conditions in which the animals they eat are raised (what they are fed, how they are treated, what types of drugs they are given, how long they live, general quality of life, etc…)? I believe this is just as important as what gets printed on a label.
seba_dos1 4y ago
> so as to cause confusion You got to be joking.
mike00632 4y ago
"Darn!, I was tricked into eating something that is healthier and better for the planet.". -nobody
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > "Darn!, I was tricked into eating something that is healthier and better for the planet.". -nobody Actually I'm pretty sure basically _everyone_ gets irritated when they think they're buying one thing, but instead get another.
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
Nut milks have been referred to as "milk" for nearly 1000 years in English and longer in Latin. I don't think Apicius was trying to sneakily confuse non-vegans when he said "lacte nucis".
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  This is a very interesting point actually. Apple used to mean just any fruit in general as well. Deer used to just mean animal too. But I guess arguably the question of whether confusion is being intentionally sowed has more to do with the how the the commonly understood meaning of words today than their historical meanings. Maybe a better statistic is: how often to people buy vegan/meat products mistakenly when trying to but meat/vegan products. It's obviously not an easy statistic to gather, but it is probably a bit more tractable than focusing so much on language in particular. I've certainly made this mistake myself.

Nursie 4y ago

Nobody's trying to confuse anyone though, they're trying to provide alternatives. "Sausage" is such a generic term, covering so very many things, that it's bizarre to try and restrict it. (edit: almost forgot we are talking about France, a country which tries to control its language by law. Carry on then!)

mgkimsal 4y ago
agreed on genericness. I have generally at least 2 options anywhere I go - sausage or turkey sausage, with the default assumption of 'pork'. But many places around me have (pork) sausage, turkey sausage, and vegan sausage. I don't think it's that hard, or confuses people (or, at least the people who care about vegan in the first place).
- 7952 4y ago
  And you can have cured and air dried sausages.
rospaya 4y ago
> (edit: almost forgot we are talking about France, a country which tries to control its language by law. Carry on then!) I get why this is controversial, but keep in mind that a lot of countries do that. English is the outlier here, and that's because it's not being threatened the same way other national languages are.
- philistine 4y ago
  You're both completely right, and completely wrong. You're completely right that French is far from the only language with a centralized linguistic authority. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators) As a matter of fact, the United States is all in as a language regulator: they have a language regulator ... for Spanish! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Academy_of_the_Spanish_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Academy_of_the_...) Where you are absurdly wrong, is where you say that the threat to a language is the reason for the existence of a language academy. It simply isn't; the reasons are purely historical for almost all languages. I mean, Cardinal Richelieu founded l'académie française. French was not threatened during the reign of Louis XIII!
  - herewulf 4y ago
    French may be a bad example but at least some language regulation is actually nice, otherwise you end up with the dumpster fire that is English spelling. I say this as someone teaching two young children to read.
sofixa 4y ago
> "Sausage" is such a generic term, covering so very many things, that it's bizarre to try and restrict it. In France various types of sausage are with protected names and origins ( e.g. Toulouse, Montbéliard, etc.), so usually sausage is a very precise term and you know what you're getting.

ggm 4y ago

I think you are at least half right, but not entirely right. "cause confusion" is at least in part going to intentionality, where I agree the intent is to try and go beyond "its white" to "it has similar mouth feel, it whips, it makes a good coffee" But Veal and Beef is actually similar. Rose Veal is most definitely not Veal. It was named Rose Veal to try and market what they do with slaughterhouses and with discard young from the dairy industry, to break from the old practices (male milk calves have low value. farming it for veal was how farmers made money from discards) Rose veal is not veal, why did they keep the veal word?

mike00632 4y ago
Calling it "veal" instead of "baby cow" is intentionally deceptive.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

octodog 4y ago

What a strange idea. They are called vegan sausages because they simulate the flavour of and can substitute as a meat sausage.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> But vegan milk, sausages, etc, are all meant to be as similar to the real things as possible so as to cause confusion. Source? I would assume they are as similar to the real thing as possible in order to be as similar to the real thing as possible. I.e. an alternative for people who do not want to source their food from animals, but do want their food to have characteristics similar to those that are sourced from animals.

zmalqp 4y ago

themitigating 4y ago

Vegan meat products advertise that they are plant based. They are trying to taste, feel, and look like meat products because people like that. For example this pack of ground beef says "Made from plants" in clear large letters on the front https://www.target.com/p/impossible-plant-based-burger-ground-12oz/-/A-79945403 https://www.target.com/p/impossible-plant-based-burger-groun... What confusion are the trying to cause

richardw 4y ago

They’re meant to be the same in what we value about eating them but not the same in how they’re produced. Same taste, no death. For a long time the taste couldn’t compare for any product. The fact that the pressure is building to keep the death part can only mean the taste is good enough for enough people that buying habits are changing. I can see the protection of local business, and France has a strong farming and taste leadership history, but this change towards plant meat is inevitable and good for the world as a whole. Countries can innovate or end up losing this battle and only importing fake meat tech.

hegelstoleit 4y ago

Who the fuck is buying vegan meat and being like "oh I thought this was meat"? Do we seriously need to legislate that? There's no real victim here, it's just a bunch of people who are sour or feel threatened by meat alternatives. It's ridiculous.

jzwinck 4y ago
Just this week I bought two tubs of vegan yogurt by mistake. They were the same shape, size and color as the milk based yogurts sitting all around them on the shelf. The only clue was the word "soya" printed at the bottom edge of the tubs in small letters. The kind of letters you'd expect to tell you something like the container size or the country the milk came from. To be fair this vegan nogurt tastes almost the same as the real thing. But I did not appreciate being tricked into buying it.
- oregano 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdasdf 4y ago
    Do you genuinely not see a problem with people being deceived about what they are buying and eating?
    - 31835843 4y ago
    - oregano 4y ago
      Of course I see a problem. Transparency should always be a top priority. My intention was not to disagree with you, just to provide a different lens to view this. After all, are most American consumers aware of the conditions in which the animals they eat are raised (what they are fed, how they are treated, what types of drugs they are given, how long they live, general quality of life, etc…)? I believe this is just as important as what gets printed on a label.

seba_dos1 4y ago

> so as to cause confusion You got to be joking.

mike00632 4y ago

"Darn!, I was tricked into eating something that is healthier and better for the planet.". -nobody

CogitoCogito 4y ago
> "Darn!, I was tricked into eating something that is healthier and better for the planet.". -nobody Actually I'm pretty sure basically _everyone_ gets irritated when they think they're buying one thing, but instead get another.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

Nut milks have been referred to as "milk" for nearly 1000 years in English and longer in Latin. I don't think Apicius was trying to sneakily confuse non-vegans when he said "lacte nucis".

CogitoCogito 4y ago
This is a very interesting point actually. Apple used to mean just any fruit in general as well. Deer used to just mean animal too. But I guess arguably the question of whether confusion is being intentionally sowed has more to do with the how the the commonly understood meaning of words today than their historical meanings. Maybe a better statistic is: how often to people buy vegan/meat products mistakenly when trying to but meat/vegan products. It's obviously not an easy statistic to gather, but it is probably a bit more tractable than focusing so much on language in particular. I've certainly made this mistake myself.