I don’t think so – I think these are just different definitions in different parts of the Spanish speaking world for the same word. It’s not really surprising, I mean, I can look through the last volume of my dictionary and there are terms that have multiple, wildly disparate definitions, depending on where on the globe you are. I just didn’t think to ask because I recognized the words, I just applied the wrong meaning to them because I didn’t know the alternate one.

I think “shrimp scampi” comes into a similar category, because scampi is both the name of a creature (the Norway lobster, or Langoustine) which isn’t shrimp, and it’s also the name of a style of preparation. It’s not quite the same as simply a regional differentiation in meaning, but a case of a word that actually has two common meanings that aren’t directly related. I didn’t know we were sneering at the use of the dish’s name? When did that come about?

“Sauce au jus” is just someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about – unless, perhaps, like the double mole dish I described, they’re serving a sauce inside a jus….

The cases of names where people are taking a word and extending knowingly to apply to something that they know it doesn’t actually mean – like my example of carpaccio in yesterday’s post – are another arena to discuss.