I was thinking of making a post about the definition of a sandwich but that particular semantic argument has been done to death and instead I am going to write about the definition of a burger.

I promise that I am not trying to merely quibble over definitions here but highlighting an interesting geographical gab in communication I have encountered a few times: The term burger generally means something subtly different in America¹ than it does in much of the rest of the English-speaking world.

To an American a burger is a clipping of the world hamburger: A dish consisting of a ground beef patty in a sliced bun. The patty is a key component of the dish and without it it would cease to be a burger. The burger is, of course, the true and ultimate symbol of the United States of America and America, taking pride in the creation of her icon, her ideals given form, displayed to the rest of the world the humble burger, and the rest of the world said “Got it! A burger is when you put stuff in between a sliced bun.” The bread was taken as the key component. The ground beef patty is a part in the Platonic ideal of a burger—if I ask one to imagine “a burger” it will be there as the default filling—but not a necessary piece definitionally.

This linguistic chasm thus leading inevitably to me being bewildered by people getting mad at me on an internet forum as a teenager for talking about a chicken fillet burger that I got at a takeway, because it’s clearly a nonsense term because if it’s a fillet then how is it a burger and what you’ve posted is clearly a chicken sandwich². But the chicken fillet burger is a mainstay of the menu of local chippers across Ireland and for many years I have seen restaurants offer portobello mushroom or halloumi burgers as vegetarian options. A burger, to the Irish mind, is simply something in a burger bun.

One might argue (and has been argued to me) that seeing as the burger is the food of the United States that we should align to the Yank understanding of the term to which I offer the counterargument: No.

Does this post have a point? Also no. I simply find linguistics interesting.

Still fine 👍

It would have been Ellie’s 43rd birthday yesterday. She had a fairly difficult life and it made her shy, reserved and awkward. Over the time I knew her I got to see start to shed so much of that, becoming more confident, more happy, more silly, more herself. It was absolutely marvellous to witness. It felt like her life was finally getting started before it was so suddenly cut short. She only told me about Kat a week before they died. There are many parts of her life I only knew the scantiest details of. So many little glimpses into her that I wanted to spend years learning more about. Sometimes I just wish I could just learn any little bit more about her. It would have been amazing to see her in five, ten years. To see her grow completely into herself.

If I want to turn this into some kind of positive message: It is a tragedy that it took until her forties to get to where she was, and an even bigger tragedy to have her life cut short just as that was happening, but she was still able to start doing that in her forties. To figure things out, to transition, to come to terms with part of herself, to love without shame. As long as you are alive there is still time.

I went out for dinner with some of our friends last night to the same burger place we went on her birthday last year. We talked about Ellie a little bit but mostly just enjoyed each other’s company. It was a nice thing to do to mark the occasion in a positive way. Caoimhe³ was there as well. She has been one of the people who has most helped me through the last few months and more recently we have started dating as well. She was a great comfort yesterday and she spent last night at my place after the dinner.

I brought the Zippo lighter to the dinner that I gave to Ellie as a birthday present last year. I lit for a while to warm it up and held in my palm for a little bit during the meal. She had had a running joke that what she wanted for her birthday was €200 worth of marsh­mallows, so I gave her €20 of marsh­mallows with the lighter as the initial deposit on that that she could toast and make s’mores with. €20 gets a lot of marsh­mallows it turns out. I don’t think that she had even gotten through them all by the time she died. After that dinner last year we went back to her’s and watched the trans episode of Dirty Pair (which she didn’t actually like that much outside of the transness and burgers, something I left out of the original post about it) and we also watched the first episode of the Chucky show together after she had been recommending it to me. It was a wonderful night, and, sad as it was, so was last night as well.

Never really has me laughing that hard but has been a good second monitor show or something to throw on when I’m too tired for something very mentally engaging.

Perhaps I would not have had such a wonderful time with this film if not for the particular atmosphere and group of friends that I watched it with. They were part of the recipe that made this such a wonderful dining experience. Dresses itself up with high-concept plating and then delivers a delicious cheeseburger of a movie.

finally, they made a burger that can consent

Went out with partner for fancy burgers last night and then went back to her’s and cuddled on the couch and I suggested watching the trans episode of Dirty Pair as I had started watching the show and while I knew that there was a happy couple in it where the bride was a trans woman I did not know that they were also burger freaks.