Talk:sushi

RFV discussion: December 2014–February 2015

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sushi

Rfv-sense: "A dish, based on Japanese cuisine, the chief ingredient of which is raw fish; sashimi."

I'm well aware that sushi is often defined by its fish component (same thing in Sweden), but that seems to always be in a context where sushi is actually served. People are clearly aware of the rice component, but are not aware that it actually defines it as sushi. However, going from that observation to creating a separate dictionary definition for the minor misunderstanding is making a lot of assumptions. And then to also define it as a type of synonym of sashimi just makes the argument both speculative and circular.

I'm all for adding a note about the confusion of fish vs rice, btw. But I'm against adding it as a separate sense unless it's described that way in other dictionaries.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The following quotations were added just recently:

The first one I simply removed outright since it doesn't imply anything other than that sushi usually contains raw fish. The third quote is pretty much the same thing. The context of the second quote can be found here.[1] A few sentences on, it describes the dish as "a little roll of rice with small, green sprigs of vegetable around it".

I'm getting the sense that this definition is there solely because people like focusing on a minor cultural misunderstanding. It smacks of proscriptive smugness. You know along the lines of "hahaa... well, I believe you actually mean sashimi". That's not a definition of words. It's more of an attempt to pretend you can read people's minds.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not about a "minor cultural misunderstanding" or prescriptive smugness, it's about sushi being used to describe meals that contain raw fish, even in contexts where no rice is involved:

• I ordered the sushi burrito on the top of the menu: salmon, tuna, tempura shrimp, fried wonton strips, guacamole, radish sprouts, jalapenos, pickled sunomono, green onions, wasabi mayo and habanero sauce.
• The wait is perhaps the most brilliant ploy conceivable to tease their customers, as the hammered and hungry must stand and watch others get their raw fish fill first. The novel sushi sandwich — fish wedged between crispy tempura chips — is a first for many and a must-try.
• Maybe it was because I'd been eating too much pizza, or maybe I am just a sucker for bold flavors, but I could have eaten a lot of Morimoto's sushi pizza. He used a crisply grilled flour tortilla, topped it with an eel sauce, raw tuna, red onion and and jalapeno slivers, fresh tomatoes, and cilantro, and then finished it with an anchovy aioli and some Tabasco sauce.

The split in meanings is not unlike that which burger underwent - the word can denote either any type patty, or the sandwich around it (even though the original German dish has little to do with bread rolls or flat patties). Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, all of those examples are clearly compounds. It's "sushi <food>" in every instance, not just "sushi". "Burger" is very different, since that word can mean both patty and the sandwich it's included with. Not so with "sushi".

Again, I see no problem in adding more info on the rice/fish confusion, including association with tortillas, pizza and whathaveyou. But the noun "sushi" by itself does not mean "sashimi" since any attestation is based on personal assumptions of the reader, and a heavy dose of semantic proscription. There are tons of these misunderstandings, but that doesn't mean that we list Switzerland as a synonym for Sweden (happened all the time when I was in the US) or that "dollar" is a synonym for "currency".

Peter ^Isotalo 12:37, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The fact remains that a lot of people simply mean "raw fish" when they say "sushi". It may be technically incorrect, but that's the usage. Semantic change doesn't always make sense- nice used to mean ignorant or stupid, fond meant foolish, glad meant smooth or slick, sad meant heavy. Strictly speaking, gorillas aren't monkeys and specie isn't the singular of species- but I hear people use them that way all the time. In the real world most people who talk about sushi have never eaten it, and have no clue what sashimi is. Relegating the vast majority of usage to a usage note is what's proscriptive. I may not have cites handy, but a lifetime of hearing people use the word has to count for something. Actually, I do have a few: this, this and this clearly show that the writers are aware that most people think sushi means raw fish. These are proscriptive attempts to correct common, existing usage. I would even go so far as to say that this passes as clear widespread usage. Or how about this and this? Although they're clear about sushi containing rice, they also rely on "raw fish" being an essential part of the concept of sushi. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Sashimi is a specific type of dish just like sushi. It's "slices of fish" in the same sense that steak tartare is limited to "raw minced beef". Sashimi is served in a specific manner wich sauces and whathaveyou. And it's actually not even limited to fish, but can also include various mollusks, beef or even horse.

You pretty much have to see actual sashimi or at least be aware of it to literally identify it as "sushi". That calls for extremely specific attestations and none of the ones you've provided here comes even close. Most of of them are used in contexts where the language user clearly knows the distinction and is merely pointing out differences. The rest belong to the vague "ugh, raw fish is strange"-category of statements. That doesn't qualify as a separate meaning or language shift that comes even close to "sad" or "burger".

Peter ^Isotalo 06:43, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

It's pretty clear to me that sushi, to many English speakers, means a dish including raw fish.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Chuck that this is in widespread colloquial use. I humbly admit to having had the same the misunderstanding some decades ago.

@Peter Isotalo re: "Well, all of those examples are clearly compounds". Well, they look like attributive use of the noun sushi. Attributive use counts for the semantics once something has been established as a noun. OTOH, SMurray's first cite contains a picture that shows that the product being described in fact has rice in it.

It is easy to add to Chuck's documentation of widespread acknowledgement of the popular misunderstanding, for example:

It's harder to find documentation for an identity between sushi and shashimi, but not as hard to find assertions of identity between sushi and raw fish"

I suggest that we strike sashimi from the definition and substitute raw fish. DCDuring TALK 04:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

That's a very good point. "Raw fish" seems to be the definition we've actually been debating.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Any objections to the current secondary definition? Should the verification template be removed?

Peter ^Isotalo 10:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Definition 2, amended to say "raw fish" rather than "sashimi", passes based on the citations above, IMO. - -sche (discuss) 21:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)