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I always read the name as “Pet a Manager” which makes me never want to step inside one.

Luckily, the name just means "ready to eat" in French.

Perhaps they could have done like Panera and renamed themselves to something that wouldn't upset easily confused American diners?

I always misread it the same way and I'm Polish.

English misreads confuse everyone, not just Brits and Americans, because for better or worse, English is the international language. Lingua franca, to make an obvious pun.

OT: 'Lingua franca' might be my favourite term. AIUI its a Portuguese term to refer to the 'Frankish language', the Franks being Germanic (not Gallic; somewhat akin to the situation of Angles and Britons) and somehow it's used normally to refer to English [not exclusively ofc, there are many lingua franca].

We could just say 'common tongue', but that's just not the English [Language] way - far too simple.

It confuses me because the accents are 'missing' (prêt-à-manger). I wonder if people more familiar with French are better at interpolating accents.

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