Battle royal
I have a little stash of American junk food I order online, because I’m pretty sure if my body is ever completely clear of preservatives, they’ll take away my passport.
So this afternoon, I’m like “hey, B — want a plain M&M?”
And he’s like, “what even is one of those?” (He didn’t say it like that. He talks real stupid like “oh, I say, Weasel, whatever might those be at home?” I do my best to translate).
You could’ve knocked me over with a pixie stick. Imagine! So I give him a little pile of M&Ms and he’s like, “oh! Smarties!”
I’ll spare you the argument we had on account of I suck at writing dialogue, but it came down to me yelling “It’s M&M’s because they were first!”
You guessed, didn’t you? They weren’t. Smarties were introduced in 1937 and M&M’s in 1941. We laughed and laughed and then we ate the whole bag because we are pigs.
If you hanker to learn how much of a piece of shit Forrest Mars was, here you go.
Posted: March 25th, 2019 under britain, food.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from Carl
Time: March 25, 2019, 10:52 pm
Actually, according to Wikipedia, Rowntrees had been making them since at least 1882 but under another name. They changed the name to Smarties in 1937. Forrest Mars saw them in Spain during the civil war there and created the U.S. version which he named M&M – Mars and Murrie. Murrie was his business partner.
Comment from Mitchell
Time: March 25, 2019, 11:45 pm
Wait, Smarties are those little chalky things that come in a roll!
You know, we need to have a US/UK Cultural Summit where we can hammer out some common terms and spelling issues. Or we could do things the Easy Way: pay you guys a few billion dollars to just do everything the way we do.
Comment from Mark Matis
Time: March 25, 2019, 11:55 pm
I’m sure that would work, Mitchell, as long as you paid that money to the Right People…
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 26, 2019, 1:13 am
I’ve seen brits getting teary over these flat chocolate discs the size of a silver dollar – maybe larger. I think they called them buttons.
Comment from BJM
Time: March 26, 2019, 3:53 am
@ Ric Buttons are so sweet…I’ll never understand the appeal of Flake either.
Here’s a sweet treat youse guys might enjoy.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: March 26, 2019, 12:37 pm
‘Mericans!
Hey, them fuzzy Euro furriners owes us for helping to stop them krauts (twice, even though we were a little late) and then keeping the Russkies from marching their dirty botinoks all over the carpets in L’Assemble Nationale and stealing the crappers to ship home to the Rodinia!
Besides WE gave everyone Coke, and dungarees! and…McDonalds, and uh, rock and roll!
So, we, um, liberated a few ideas along the way, get over it!
We’re talking about people who think the word biscuit means cookie! Not to mention all the other ways they abuse the English language – boots, bonnets, flats, crisps, Wellingtons, Aluminium, just to name a few!
And don’t even get me started on the French! The way they abuse the English language is outrageous! Putting letters all over the place they don’t even use –
Rendezvous = Ron-day-view? In what language?!
And then the French went and taught the Vietnamese to use American letters so they could claim Nguyen is pronounced as WEN!
Which brings up the whole Cockburn is pronounced Coburn and Leicester is Lester, but I’ll let that slide for now because at least the English are sorta like our silly cousins or something.
So if once in a while we, uh, borrowed some ideas they weren’t even really using the right way what’s the big deal!
‘Merica!
Being the Chinese before the Chinese even thought of doing it!
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 26, 2019, 4:30 pm
Democracy died in the UK today.
#burnthewitch
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 26, 2019, 9:54 pm
When I visited the U.K. not too long ago, I was amused by the “American Foods” section of Tesco.
Apparently the main staples an American requires are:
Lucky Charms, Coco Puffs, Jiffy peanut butter, Twinkies, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, and Poptarts.
Comment from Oldowan
Time: March 27, 2019, 11:14 am
Hmmm….
Everyone knows that THESE are “Smarties”:
…at least here in Northeastern ‘Murica…
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2019, 9:11 pm
Yeah, but they’re always the gross Poptarts, like frosted vanilla fudge. I have to order the proper deuir ones online. Fake blueberry was always my favorite, but I haven’t seen them in a thousand years.
Does anybody else still think of frosted Poptarts as newfangled and weird?
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