This is totally shady: The NYT has a new column called “One Pot,” with a recipe for some international stew. This week’s was for a Spanish stew called a cocido. I read the column, and spent a lot of time on the first two paragraphs, confused, because there was no transition between the use of the word ‘cocido’ and then an explanation of a new term, ‘olla poderida’. It seemed like something had gotten lost in the editing.

Turns out it was the TRUTH that got lost in the editing. I was alerted by the ever-trusty and -geeky Language Log, which pointed out that the term should be ‘olla podrida’, which really means ‘rotten pot’…in a good way. When questioned, the writer freely admitted she had just made up ‘olla poderida’ (‘strong pot’) because she thought eaders would be creeped out by the word ‘rotten’. Read the whole expose here, along with more details on ‘rotten’ food.

This is kind of shocking, no? I mean, it’s a newspaper. It’s supposed to be factual. I feel betrayed.

I think Elaine Louie should go back to her little Weddings beat, and if the editors can’t give enough space to a story to properly explain something (‘rotten’ can be used as an emphatic, along the lines of ‘filthy rich’–that wasn’t so hard to take, now was it?), then it just shouldn’t run the story. I hate to think what’s happening to the real news.