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60-second fix: palate, palette and pallet
Author : Cathy Dann
Posted : 24 / 12 / 11
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Do you know your palates from your palettes from your pallets? It’s a particularly important distinction if you work with food or wine – or, indeed, paints or wooden platforms.
Of course, it’s blinking typical of English to have three different spellings for one pronunciation. But that’s part of our dear language’s charm.
Take a look at the following observed-in-the-wild examples (which are, on reflection, a little skewed towards wine – make of that what you will) and see if you can spot what’s wrong.
According to the above, the world has gone mad – artists are painting with wine, children are developing their sense of colour based on food choice, and perfectly good wine (iceberg pure, no less) is being thrown at wooden crates. Corblimey.
Here are the definitions, in glorious clarity:
palate the roof of your mouth palette the scoop-shaped board that artists mix paint on pallet a flat platform that you transport goods on
palate the roof of your mouth
palette the scoop-shaped board that artists mix paint on
pallet a flat platform that you transport goods on
We hope your palate receives many good and tasty things as the festive season jingles upon us. Not so much your palette, or your pallet – they tend not to appreciate it.
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