Seriously, how the f*** do you say Croissan'wich?

As someone who writes a lot, I often find fast food grammar nonsensical and irritating. There is no better example of this than Burger King's Croissan'wich.

For as long as I can remember, I've pronounced the name of BK's signature breakfast sandwich the way its very structure would suggest -- by pronouncing the word croissant but without the "t" sound, then finishing with "wich." Grammatically, it checks out. Sure it's not the easiest thing to say, but I didn't invent the damn thing.

I had never been corrected, not even by a BK employee, until my friend and co-worker Clay stopped me mid-sentence to mockingly say, "Do you mean a cruh-SAN-wich?" I felt like a complete idiot. That pronunciation was so much better what I had been saying, and made me realize I've sounded like a dumbass for 30+ years.

Here's the thing though -- I'm not wrong. After getting some distance from that embarrassing exchange, I started to question the whole thing. So first I looked up BK commercials on YouTube. Here's their official pronunciation, which has remained consistent throughout the marketing over the years.

Now, I included this older one because they do a whole phonetic breakdown in the middle of the commercial, which should have been a red flag to their marketing team that the word design of the name sucks. Sure, when they break it out phonetically like that -- it tracks. The way they spell it on the menu, however, does not.

The apostrophe between the "N" and the "W" is what has always thrown me off. I assumed it was there to represent the shortening of the word "Croissant," and to imply that you drop the "T" sound. Based on what I know now, I realize that it is there to represent the dropping of the "T" but also of the "D" sound from the back half of "sandwich," which is just pure lunacy.

If they want you to end it by essentially saying "sandwich," why not just call it a Croissandwich? Instead of doing a double-apostrophized mashup that contains no full real words, just combine the two keeping the word "sandwich" fully intact. It's cleaner, it reads, and it's not confusing. In order for the reader to know to pronounce the back half of "croissant" differently, they'd need to imply that with some sort of punctuation or symbol before you get there. They do not. Therefore the word naturally reads as "croissant" until the apostrophe tells you to drop the "T" sound.

Also, why are they shortening the end as "san'wich?" That's absolutely bonkers. It's the main thing preventing this from reading properly. Were they worried people would pronounce it as "crow-sandwich" or something? This name really does seem as if it was born during a cocaine binge between marketing execs that went waaaay too deep into the wee hours of the morning. That wouldn't be there last crazy marketing idea...

I don't know why this stuff gets me so fired up, but I'm often bothered by fast food grammar. The constant pluralization of "McGriddles" and "McNuggets" also irks the hell out of me, but at least those are mashup words that make sense when you read them.

In short, get your head in the game, BK. You need to change the spelling to "Croissandwich" ASAP. In October, you could even make it "spooky" and change it to "Croissand-witch." While I'm throwing out suggestions -- bring back the Big King. That sandwich f***ing ruled. I bet you'll sell a lot more of those than these.

Burger King via YouTube
Burger King via YouTube
loading...

More From Banana 101.5