Here are 3 examples:
Fried egg, fried rice, fried chicken
All these “fry” are different. If you were to use the “fry” in fried rice to fry an egg, you’d get scrambled egg. Fried chicken is done by submerging it in oil, which you won’t do with fried egg or fried rice.
This post is made from the perspective of a Cantonese/Chinese speaker. We have different words for these different types of “fry” (煎, 炒, 炸 respectively)
People aren’t downvoting because it’s about English. It’s because this is memes and where meme?
Is this meme though? This is a genuine thought I had.
!showerthoughts@lemmy.world is a better place for genuine thoughts.
This is for memes, which is usually jokes in image form.
Damn I can’t even have thoughts
You can, but don’t get bothered when you share them in the wrong place and people don’t respond well. If you’re not sure where to share there’s !nowhereelsetoshare@sh.itjust.works
Yeah, that’s not how “meme” is commonly used in today’s usage.
All English cooking terms are like this. “Bake” just means heating in an oven but says nothing about the type of oven or level of heat, “season” means adding a small amount of flavorful ingredients, but they could be almost anything.
That’s why we have modifiers like pan-fry, stir-fry, or derp-fry.
I see. Guess I’m not familiar with English enough.
“run” is my favorite.
Run a marathon, run for office, fun a business, run off a copy, melt (like makeup running), and a ton more
I am also not a native speaker and I just understand frying as cooking with fat and (usually high) heat.
I guess so. The language I speak never makes me think in this way.
People here really don’t like it when a post talks about the English language
Haha, I love projection like this, you assumed and people are downvoting, and you’re wrong: hubris.
People are downvoting for multiple reasons, right up front is this is a community for memes - I don’t see a meme here.
Second reason: you’re patently wrong about the word fry. Frying food has one meaning (as clarified by others), with different techniques for each food.
Also, your post comes across as criticising, which isn’t interesting.
Ok then I’m leaving Lemmy. As much as I want to stay, maybe a Hongkonger doesn’t fit here yet
To fry means to cook something in oil or fat. That perfectly applies to all 3 of your examples.
That’s right. It’s not specific enough.
Ah yes, prescriptivism
Not specific enough for what?
Which action you would need to do to achieve cooking the food in the way you want
You just need some common sense for that.
An egg is essentially a liquid, so you can just pour it into the pan and it spreads out thin enough that it gets cooked all the way trough.
Rice is made out of grains, so if you just pour them into the pan, the ones on the bottom will burn before the ones on the top gets cooked. So you have to stirr it to disperse the heat evenly.
And chicken is a more bulky solid, so it needs to be submerged.
That’s why we have modifiers. Pan fry (egg), stir fry (fried rice), and deep fry (chicken). There is even flash fry and now air fry.
Yeah but pan and fry can be names. If you say “hey pan fry me an egg” you might be asking someone to pan fry you an egg or maybe you are specifically asking Pan to fry you an egg or maybe you are informing both Pan and Fry that you are an egg.
That’s what commas are for
pan fry and deep fry are common expressions
That’s just English for you, the same language gives us this (perfectly valid and meaningful) sentence:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Shhh, no one had better tell this person about the many different uses for the word “fuck”
“Fry” can also mean “a very small fish.”
