185. Gems and Patties

The Allusionist

Helen Zaltzman

Arts, Education, Words, Linguistics, History, Entertainment, Helen Zaltzman, Etymology, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re returning to the theme of renaming, for two food-related renamings: the first one that mostly happened, the second that mostly did not - but in a good way.

Dr Erin Pritchard persuaded a British supermarket to rebrand a type of sweets that had a slur in their name. And Chris Strikes recounts the renaming conflict that was the Toronto Patty Wars of 1985.

Content note: the first part of the episode concerns an ableist slur, so there are incidences of that slur, and discussion of ableism and later anti-Black racism.

Get the transcript of this episode, and find out more about the topics therein, at theallusionist.org/gemsandpatties.

This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Martin Austwick of Neutrino Watch and Song By Song podcasts provides the Allusionist music.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the illusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, get a great deal on language, 30% off with only minor stains.
0:12.0	In this episode, we're returning to the theme of
0:14.6	renaming for two food-related renames, the first one that mostly happened, the
0:21.0	second one that mostly did not, but in a good way.
0:24.5	Content note, the first part of the episode concerns an ablest slur, so there are
0:30.0	incidences of that slur, and discussions of ableism and later anti-Black racism.
0:36.1	Also if you are involved or have been involved with a renaming project of any kind
0:41.9	then I'd love to hear about it. It's a topic I plan to keep returning to, get in touch.
0:46.0	On with the show. In the UK, there's a fairly common type of sweet, candy in US English, that is a kind of medium firm gummy that comes in fruit-esque flavours and vivid colours
1:05.9	shaped like very small truncated cones or pyramids decorated with little grooves.
1:11.2	And in 2022 some retailers started selling these sweets under a new name,
1:16.1	Mini Gems. But a lot of manufacturers and vendors still use the suite's previous name,
1:22.0	Midget Gems. And it took Dr. Erin Pritchard pointing out that
1:26.6	Midget is a slur to get any of them to do anything about it.
1:30.0	I'm Dr. Erin Pritchard. I'm actually a doctor of human geography but I specialise in job with these of disability and so now I am a lecturer in disability
1:42.0	and special educational weeds,
1:44.0	a member of the Centre for Cultural Disability Studies.
1:48.0	In August 2020, Erin published an article in The Big Issue North with the title,
1:54.4	Why don't we just stop using the word midget?
1:57.8	And then I thought, right, let's try and be proactive about it.
2:00.7	So Erin wrote to the supermarket M&S, which has more than 1,000 stores within the UK, as well as around 400 internationally.
2:08.0	And I wrote to M&S and I said, look, I don't think you're intending to cause any offense, But this word is upon hate speech and not many people know that because
	...

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