I don’t believe this. Stephen J. Dubner, the journalist half of Freakonomics, has totally blown it. In the Freakonomics blog for the New York Times he writes:
The Economist is, almost inarguably, a great magazine.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make the occasional mistake. Consider this lead from a recent article about a huge Mexican mining company called Fresnillo, which was recently listed on the London Stock Exchange:
In the hills north east of Mexico City it is not uncommon to find Cornish pasties for sale.
They meant to write “pastries†but, considering that miners work really hard, they might also be hoping to encounter the kind of people who go shopping for pasties.
I have made plenty of similar errors myself. I read this mistake in the print edition of The Economist and fully expected it to be corrected in the online edition — but, as of when I included the link above, it hadn’t been.
As every commenter pointed out, the joke is on him. I hope he has the cojones not to correct himself.
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Guess what? Dubner was right. Cornish pasties are what Cornish miners traditionally ate for lunch; they are not what you think! (I only know this because I grew up not far from a Cornish mining settlement in Wisconsin.) Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasty
…oh and it is pronounced past-ease, not paste-ease, get it right or else everybody there in Wisconsin will laugh hilariously at you.
Er … sorry Kerry, but in what sense was Dubner right?
He even admitted as much in Addendum 1 to the original post. He simply didn’t know what a pasty was, and he couldn’t be bothered to check.
And another question for you; what did you think I thought they were? I’ve eaten many a genuine pasty, and even made some myself.
Thanks for stopping by.
Hah!
“Laugh hilariously” is also amusing, implying some contagion perhaps, but this is too subtle a point for a place that can’t pronounce pasty. Still, they know how to make the word’s best horseradish mustard.
I wonder why the wikipedia entry for Belle Fourche in South Dakota neglects to mention that the locals call it Bellfoosh?
OK. My bad. I’ll read more carefully next time. Your website is great, so your robots must be awesome.
@Kerry -
No problem, and thanks.