I learned something important about myself this morning.
I speak French.
I did not know this until today.
Peggy may not know it yet either.
We were talking about my writing and why lately it has started feeling more like me again. For a while I think we had edited some of the life out of it. Too careful. Too polished. Too worried about whether every story had a point.
I used the word milquetoast.
That is a ridiculous word.
I’ve probably heard it most of my life. I knew roughly what it meant. Bland. Timid. Wishy-washy. Somebody unlikely to pound his fist on the table and yell, “Jesus Christ, give it a try.”
But I had never really thought about the word itself.
Milquetoast.
Who the hell spelled it that way?
I assumed it must be French.
Malk toastique?
That’s how I say it.
You have to put a little upturn in your voice at the end. Not enough to make it a question. Just enough so the person listening knows that you know exactly what you’re saying and can speak French.
Malk toastique?
Ooh la la.
There is one small problem.
As far as I can tell, there is no French word malk toastique.
I made it up.
This is where a sensible person would have returned to the original conversation.
I did not. I did some research…
It turns out milquetoast comes from a comic-strip character named Caspar Milquetoast, created by cartoonist H. T. Webster about a hundred years ago.
Caspar was timid. Meek. The sort of guy who apparently looked at life and hoped life wouldn’t notice him looking.
Webster named him after milk toast.
Actual milk toast.
Toast with warm milk poured over it.
Apparently people ate this.
Maybe they still do.
I don’t know.
But now I had gone from believing I spoke French to discovering that one of the English language’s stranger insults was named after soggy toast.
This was already a pretty good morning.
And then ChatGPT screwed it up.
Somewhere in my research it decided I had said Melba toast.
I guaranteee you I had not said Melba toast.
I hadn’t even been thinking about Melba toast.
ChatGPT just wandered into the room carrying Melba toast like it belonged there.
Normally this is the point where you’re supposed to get annoyed with artificial intelligence.
“No, you idiot. I said milk toast.”
Instead I thought:
Actually... I like that too.
Because now I wanted to know why the hell Melba toast was called Melba toast.
Which is how Nellie Melba entered the story.
Her real name was Helen Porter Mitchell. She was an Australian opera singer and apparently a very big deal around the turn of the twentieth century.
Melba came from Melbourne.
Of course it did.
And she knew the legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier.
Now we have a Frenchman.
Just not where I put him.
Escoffier created foods in her honor, including Peach Melba, the dessert with peaches, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream.
He is also associated with Melba toast, those ridiculously thin, crisp little pieces of toast that always look to me like somebody sliced bread on a machine designed for microchips.
So let’s review.
I started out talking about why I wanted to stop editing the weird tangents out of my writing.
I said milquetoast.
I decided it was French.
It wasn’t.
I invented Malk toastique?
Ooh la la.
Then I discovered a timid comic-strip character named Caspar who was named after soggy toast.
Then an artificial intelligence got confused and handed me a completely different toast.
That toast led to an Australian opera singer.
The Australian opera singer led to a French chef.
The French chef led to peaches and ice cream.
And somehow, after taking the longest possible route, I finally got to France.
This is exactly the kind of shit I’ve been editing out.
And I think I’m done doing that.
I spend a ridiculous amount of my life going down rabbit holes. Peggy has lived with this for decades. One thing reminds me of another thing, which reminds me of something that happened 40 years ago, which makes me wonder who invented the zipper, and pretty soon I have 17 tabs open and have forgotten why I sat down.
Sometimes I find something useful.
Sometimes I learn something fascinating.
And sometimes I discover that I speak a language that does not exist.
Malk toastique?
Ooh la la.