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Comment by phito | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure which French word they translated to "grill" tho. Maybe barbecue? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmMCbTAmFI8

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"grill" in France is used as an anglicism, ie. words imported straight from English, with the meaning sometime distorted beyond recognition. Here, it's used to imply that something have a flavor somewhat related to barbecue meat, say potatoes chips with "grill flavor".

> "grill" in France is used as an anglicism, ie. words imported straight from English, with the meaning sometime distorted beyond recognition

That’s not that simple. The English word "grill" comes from the French "gril", a word that has been in used for more than a millenary. Only the orthography "grill" with two "l"s comes from English, but the rest is plain old French. It also makes sense: "gril" comes from "grille", which also gave "griller".

I think it's "grillade" and it's indeed designating grilled meat

No it doesn't:

GRILLADE, noun, feminine A. The act of grilling. "One also had to endure the smell of the kitchen, the heavy scent of wine in the sauces, the nauseating grilling of onions in the frying pan" (HUYSMANS, Marthe, 1876, p. 62).

http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/visusel.exe?12...

Yes it does, as shown by your own link. You translated the "A" part, which is the general definition. There is a "B" part dedicated to the definitions in the cooking domain, "CUISINE" is even spelled out in uppercase letters. The definitions there all refer to meat or fish.

Also anecdotally as a French native, grillade = meat for me.

Indeed ! But as pointed by the sample I provided, you can use that word to refer to the act of grilling vegetables, so there is no point in being overly particular about the use of the word grillade. If a word was already reserved for the designation of grilled vegetables, on the model of bus/car or train/tramway (ie /within a city/ vs /between cities/), I'd accept your argument.

However what's discussed here is a case of legislators deciding what shape language should take, not usage !

BBQ. Shudder.

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