This has been bugging me.
“Soy” in French is written “soja.” Which looks like a different word, sure, but if you go global with your “j”‘s could be pronounced “soya,” which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen and heard used in English. So I decided that that must be it and went on with my life until, through one coincidence and another, I’d heard about four French people say “soja.”
I’m talking about the “j” from “déjà-vu” here. It’s soft, but there is no mistaking it for any other letter.
And two nights ago, when Karine asked Nick about the delicious marinade he put on the lovely free-range chicken I’m addicted to getting on a weekly basis, he could translate everything but “soy sauce,” for which he settled for “sauce de soy.”
“Soja” I whispered, and he looked at me like I was crazy, but Karine went from confused to comprehending in half a second, flat. Which settles it: seriously, they walk around saying “soja.”
So yesterday I was in the supermarket and seriously contemplating an Old El Paso® fajita kit (it’s like there’s a big calendar in my head marking off the days before I’ll cave and eat trans fats just to get a fix of Mexican food–hey, is it hard to make your own tortillas?), and my eyes wandered curiously from the ingredient list to the little descriptive blurb meant to sell the French on something totally un-French.
And I don’t remember most of it, I’m afraid, because it begins about like this:
“Les fajitas [pron. fa-ri-tas]“…and my eyes kept tracking back over that in a helpless loop. I mean, okay, they don’t really do an “h” sound, but the country that brought you “soja” also came up with “farita”?