That Word

It does not mean what they think it means.

Americano Restaurant is a classy joint* in the Hotel Vitale, at the corner of Mission Street and The Embarcadero in San Francisco. It’s a place where customers are expected to know their confit, their brodo, their salumi, and their Grana Padano. Some of them may also know the correct definition of “arriviste.” However, the Americano’s managers apparently do not.

I took the best photograph I could of this sign, which is etched in glossy granite and mounted on a wall at the entrance to the restaurant. Here’s the text:

The ‘American Dreamers’ Series

Gazing upwards at our ceiling you will see commissioned photo-portraits of San Franciscan arrivistes from other lands; the latest generation of successful entrepreneurs (three of them are local restauranteurs) to live the American Dream and become ‘Americanos’.

The primary goof: “Arriviste”—from the French arriver, to arrive—does not mean what they think it means. It does not mean “arrival” or “newcomer”; rather, for more than a century it has meant “a pushy, ambitious person” or “an upstart,” someone intent on “arriving” in society. It has no positive connotations.

And as long as I’m being picky:

• A person who owns or operates a restaurant is a restaurateur—no n. This is a good thing to memorize if you happen to own or operate a restaurant yourself.
• Since we’re all Americanos here, let’s observe the American punctuation style: double quotation marks, period inside the quotation marks.
• In American English, there is no s in upward (or backward, toward, forward, et al.).
• That semicolon? Wrong. Make it a colon or an em dash.
• The adjectival form of “San Francisco” here should be “San Francisco” (as in “San Francisco landmarks,” “San Francisco fog,” “the San Francisco treat”).

I’ve had only a light snack at Americano, so I can’t say whether the restaurant pays closer attention to cuisine than to editing. At least one critic, Amy Sherman, gave the restaurant a favorable review.

Hat tip for the headline: The Princess Bride.

Read other posts in the That Word series.

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* Oh, pardon me: “dining experience.”

Comments

[Licia]

Incidentally, Italian "arrivista" has the same negative connotations as the English word, so it's not even a matter of false friends by non-native speakers...

[Mima]

I love your blog and I find your views both clever and entertaining. However, I was surprised to see that you adhere to the "old school" custom of putting the punctuation inside the quotation marks with no exception. The way they wrote it, "become 'Americanos'." is fine with me. Here is how I see the difference:

We want to become 'Americanos'.
She said: "We want to become Americanos."

In the first example, the period belongs to the sentence, not to the word 'Americanos', In the second, it belongs to the sentence within the quotation marks.

Thank you for your witty and word(l)y blog!

[Nancy Friedman]

Mima: “When it comes to commas and periods … logic doesn't enter into the equation, at least not in the United States. Universal American usage places commas and periods inside the quotation marks, regardless of logic.”
Source: http://grammartips.homestead.com/inside.html

[richard howland-bolton]

If the photos included those responsible for the sign, then perhaps 'arrivistes' is le mot juste.

(Pretentious, moi?)