Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 October 2

= October 2 =

Pike perch à la Mannerheim
I just translated the article Savoy (restaurant) from the Finnish article fi:Savoy (ravintola).

The article mentions "pike perch à la Mannerheim" as one of the restaurant's famous dishes. The original Finnish article calls it "kuhaa Mannerheimin tapaan", literally "pike perch in the manner of Mannerheim" or "pike perch in Mannerheim's manner".

Now my question is, is "à la Mannerheim" really the best way to write this in English? The established use of the term comes from the French phrase "à la maison", meaning "of the house". The way I wrote it, "pike perch à la Mannerheim" would literally mean "Mannerheim's pike perch", only calling Marshal Mannerheim a woman, when he actually was a man.

Is the French phrase "à la" really established enough in English for this usage to be correct, or should it be phrased in a more native English way? J I P &#124; Talk 02:14, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * To be fair, Chicken à la King almost certainly refers to a male as well. English doesn't have really have extensive grammatical gendering, so the fact that "à la" needs to match gender doesn't register to English speakers. If I'm not mistaken, I think French also permits à la to be used with a proper noun. I don't think the problem is that the usage isn't intelligible in English; "a la" is used prevalently in the context of food (a la carte, a la mode, a la King). It's just that I would assume that "pike perch à la Mannerheim" is exactly what Finnish people call the dish, when that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe you could say "Mannerheim-style pike perch", which would be just as idiomatic without running into the misunderstanding that the dish itself is called "pike perch à la Mannerheim".  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:47, 2 October 2021 (UTC)


 * According to Wikipedia, and I've seen this somewhere else too, this use of à la is short for à la manière de, so the gender of what follows it is irrelevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.144.99.72 (talk) 05:39, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * In French as well. The French Wiktionary defines this, when used before a proper noun, as à la manière de ; dans le même style que telle personne ("in the manner of; in the same style as said person"), quoting Zola's use of "à la Dumas ou à la Hugo", both male authors. --Lambiam 09:09, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It can also be used with an adjective, à la [manière] provençale. —Tamfang (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Several naming styles can be seen at List of foods named after people. However, these are established dish-names, in use, so constructing "pike perch Mannerheim", "Mannerheim pike perch" or "Mannerheim's pike perch" would not be encyclopedic, and "pike perch à la Mannerheim" isn't great either. Searching the web, it seems that lots of Finnish restaurants offer this dish - but not English translations - and the Savoy site has menus with English translations, but not the dish in question! Personally I would like you to preserve "kuhaa Mannerheimin tapaan" in Finnish (just in case I ever want to order it) and then gloss it, like (lit: "pike-perch in the manner of Mannerheim").
 * What is the meaning of "Savo OY"? Card Zero  (talk) 09:01, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Savo is Finnish for Savonia (or the lect spoken there), and OY can be an abbreviation of osakeyhtiö, meaning "joint-stock company", similar to LLC in the US. (It is also the abbreviation for the University of Oulu, but I guess this is not what people saying Savo OY have in mind.) --Lambiam 09:24, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Is this the same dish? Mannerheim's favorite dish, Zander Walewska Card Zero  (talk) 09:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "Zander" is used as a synonym of "pike-perch". --Lambiam 09:35, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Precisely, so Zander Walewska may be the same recipe? Card Zero  (talk) 09:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Here a reviewer reports having had "zander a la Mannerheim" in Helsinki's Sea Horse, one of the restaurants advertizing their "Pike perch à la Mannerheim". --Lambiam 10:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It was Walewska that puzzled me, not the Zander. Mannerheim evidently had this favorite zander dish which is not even the same as Zander à la Mannerheim. (I am familiar with the pike-perch and its aliases, having caught a great number of them in simulated iron-age Finland).  Card Zero  (talk) 12:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The style "à la Mannerheim" can be found in English sources:, , . It is also how Finnish restaurants may present it on their English-language menus: , , . --Lambiam 09:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've been finding that too (about the menus), so this must be the right translation to use. Still kind of nice to preserve the Finnish alongside it in the article, though. Seems useful. Card Zero  (talk) 09:51, 2 October 2021 (UTC)


 * "a la Mannerheim" doesn't worry me at all, but what the hell's a "pike-perch"? DuncanHill (talk) 12:12, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, a zander. DuncanHill (talk) 12:13, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * One of the great modern British psychologists. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:04, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Note that Linnæus' original specific name bestowed in 1758, Perca lucioperca, literally means "pike-perch" (though he faffed about with the genus), suggesting it was already popularly known as something like that (perhaps in Swedish or Dutch). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.131.207 (talk) 13:50, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The Swedish common name is gös, but indeed the Dutch name snoekbaars is a compound of snoek ("pike") + baars ("perch"). It is not clear whether the English name pike-perch is a calque directly of the Dutch name or of the specific epithet lucioperca, also used as a common name for the fish in Spanish and Italian. --Lambiam 06:30, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * A registered alternative common name in Swedish is 'gäddabborre' ('gädda'='pike' + 'abborre'='perch'), used for all species in the genus Sander, but more specificly for the species Sander vitreus. I do not know how old that name is, but is has been used at least in a culinary context (and then for all tyoes of Sander) for a considerable time. --T*U (talk) 12:03, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Probably aided by the fact that it's a type of perch which resembles a pike. Alansplodge (talk) 11:12, 5 October 2021 (UTC)