You know those times when you are reading a food review or a book passage and the author feels the need to italicize a word that's foreign? For example, this sentence from a recent review for a tapas bar around here: "The menu is more straightforwardly Spanish, with its spicy patatas bravas, lemony grilled sardines, flaky empanadillas stuffed with creamy oxtail meat and a nutmeg-and-allspice-warmed sangria that's too good to order by the glass."

This annoys me to no end. What's the point? Is this the proper way to introduce the reader to what is probably a new word? If so, I guess that's understandable, but it still annoys me. Needless clarification if you ask me.

Xenophiles, bro.

I think the word "pretentious" gets thrown around way too much, but in this instance it is exactly the right word for what this journalistic technique is.

Let's ask Jorge if food critics in Argentina do this with their reviews. Hamburger.

I think you just asked him that.

Yup, they do.

I don't think it has anything to do with pretentiousness. If the word genuinely is foreign, as in, from another language, then it's proper to italicize, regardless of context.

I disagree with that rule, wholeheartedly. Can't words and people live together without drawing attention to cultural differences?

Don't be such a pomme de terre.

This may not be the time or place, Jorge. But how has Magu been?

i never eat italics

Jorge, is it normal to call somebody ignorant that in your country?

I wasn't trying to call you ignorant. I was trying to call you a potato

I gathered that, but why?

I... I don't know

There goes your writing gig at Southern Gentleman's Weekly.

this thread is tuber-ridiculous

This doesn't annoy any of you?

Not really. I think it's a fairly accepted practice, same thing happens in the law with Latin phrases like obiter dicta or jus cogens.