I was at a meeting the other day with some of the organizers of the Vancouver Meatless Meet-up Group where I
was corrected on my pronunciation of the the word 'vegan'. Vegan, I
had always presumed was a derivative of the word 'vegetable', and
pronounced along the same lines. Being English and not South African,
or Australian or Kiwi, vegetable has always been uttered from my
mouth as 'veh-geh-ta-bul'. As Vegetarian follows the same basic
principles, it seemed to me entirely logical that vegan would dance
to the same tune. But noooooo! I was told the person who 'invented' the word made it to be 'vee-gan'. “What bollocks!”, thought I. What twit would invent a word, derived from another and go against all the existing rules of pronunciation?
Apparently it was a
group of Brits, led by a fella by the name of Donald Watson in 1944.
The things one learns when one is corrected. If you are interested in
more of the terms (and conditions) of vegetarianism, veganism and all
things in between, check out The
International Vegetarian Union's web site. Yes there is one, both
an IVU and a web site. I did, and I learned a few new things, which
is a good thing, because I have always maintained, the day I stop
learning things is the day I get put in a box and the whole package
gets burnt.
Not being ready for the cinder heap quite yet, I'll carry on learning a few things every day. Hopefully, the new things being learned are greater in number than the things I forget, but hey, "Live n Learn" they say.
Getting back to the meeting, and more interestingly the meet-up group, for someone who likes food and wants to experience a wide range of flavours and and ethnic styles, this Meatless Meet-up Group is pretty cool. At over 1100 members, they organize dine-out dinners, potlucks n such. You get to visit restaurants, enjoy a healthy sampling of the meatless menu items, and get new ideas of what you can prepare for yourself for dinner. Best of all, the price per person is incredibly cheap - less than $20 - and you are WELL FED!
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