SARA BROOKE CURTIS: An interesting thing with ‘enjoy’ is that it's become so common, because it’s so normal, so many people do it in all the different restaurants, to such an extent that there are restaurants that you could not say 'enjoy'. That was their biggest pet peeve, was saying ‘enjoy’. And it was massive.
HZ: Why?
SARA BROOKE CURTIS: Because they didn't want their servers to act like robots and they thought that if you said 'enjoy' that people would feel like they're anywhere, and that you're not expressing anything; you're just saying this thing that people say all the time.
HZ: Where does it come from? Is there this cabal like the Pantone colour thing where it's like, "This year everyone will be wearing forest green" - is there that for service vocabulary?
SARA BROOKE CURTIS: Yeah, I think there is. I really do think there is.
Allusionist 105. F'ood - transcript
NANCY FRIEDMAN: The 1920s were kind of a big era for inventive spellings, with V and K: Tasty Kakes with a K, that was the 1920s; Cheez It - C H E E Z I T, 1921 it was. They're cheesy crackers. And. Let's see. There's Cheez Whiz which is a little newer, 1952. These names have been around quite a while.
HZ: And is the idea with things like Cheez Its and Cheez Whiz that it's a cheese-esque product but it isn't technically cheese?
NANCY FRIEDMAN: It's got some dairy, usually some kind of whey product in it; but you're not meant to think that this is - first of all, it's not perishable the way cheese is. So yeah, they do have some family relationship to a cow; but it's not the pure product. We have to remember that there was a time when that was a nifty thing. It was modern and scientific.
HZ: Does anyone go for cheeese, spelled with a triple E, as a variant?
NANCY FRIEDMAN: I haven't seen any brands that are doing that. But now I will look for them.
HZ: You can have that on me.
NANCY FRIEDMAN: Yeah. That would be very internetty, to go for three or four vowels.