Renaming enemy-associated foods like sauerkraut and french fries counts as verbal realism

Evidence

This evidence of the impact of ethnophaulisms on the people towards whom they are directed also provides indirect support for Allport’s notion of verbal realism, the tendency to respond as strongly to words as to the actions they represent. In a historical example of culinary verbal realism, the First World War inspired many in the US to rename sauerkraut as “victory cabbage,” hamburgers as “victory steaks,” and frankfurters as “hot dogs.” More recently, the refusal on the part of France to support the US war on Iraq led Representative Bob Ney (a Republican from Ohio) to propose that US government restaurants rename french fries as “freedom fries” and french toast as “freedom toast.” Despite these salient examples, there have been no empirical investigations of the prevalence, the antecedents, or the consequences of this tendency for verbal realism. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1274

Categorization

• CANDY: “Freedom fries” and “hot dogs from hamburgers” is a fun dinner-party fact about wartime psychology. Two real presidents’ eras renamed common foods for political reasons.
• DEFINE: Defines Allport’s “verbal realism” — responding as strongly to words as to the actions they represent — via concrete wartime examples.