Proposals for a Title More Refined than “Butcher” or “Meatmonger” at the Cheese Shop

A while back, we took a call from Jenny. She works at the meat counter at Murray’s Cheese and Grand Central Station here in New York City, where I am broadcasting.

Her dilemma, Martha, if you remember, was, what do you call a person working at the specialty meat counter?

Oh, yeah, I remember that. We got a lot of responses.

We did. We all agreed that meat monger sounds a little too salacious and not very delicious, and butcher sounds unrefined, right?

Or a comparative.

Yeah, yeah, butcher.

I don’t think so.

So we asked for your help, and we got help from you, lots of it, in email and discussion forums and on the phone.

Mary in San Diego suggested cold cutzlery.

Cold cutzlery kind of works, though it sounds more like a tool or a place.

Scott in Dallas suggested Salieri, maybe, but it also happens to be the Venetian composer who was Mozart’s rival, played by F. Mary Abraham in the movie.

Right.

Dale in Indianapolis suggested carnesieres, as in a meat concierge.

The carne is from the Latin word for flesh, of course.

Brian in Dallas had a similar idea.

He said carne carver, so the Spanish word for meat, carne carver.

And, of course, there are many, many more.

Harrison suggested delimonger.

Carl suggested meat maven.

Elena suggested meter D.

I like that.

Meter D.

Pamela offered meat meister.

Elise wanted meat maestro.

And David in Cape Cod reminded us of the old term tripe dresser.

Tripe dresser?

Yeah.

Would you like a top hat on your intestines, sir?

Something like that.

Tripe dresser.

It doesn’t really work, but fun.

If you’ve got more suggestions on what to call the person who works at a specialty meat counter, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.