Topic: Who introduced the term BIR?

[Peripatetic Phil]

Of course, George : it was meant to be humourous, not factual, although both JAM's web log and Google's Ngram are well worth researching in their own right.  If you use the Ngram Viewer to investigate BIR and then use the year-zoned links at the bottom to investigate the corpus you will see that none of the usages appear to refer to "British Indian Restaurant" at all.   At the risk of pusuing a pointless theme, it may also be worth noting that the peak in British English usage occurs much later (in 1990, I think) but again the usages encountered have nothing to do with the BIR that we know and love.

** Phil.

[Secret Santa]

I think this is pretty definitive: http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=62.msg134#msg134

Second paragraph, first line. So it was Muttley.

So now you know what to answer when asked who invented BIR. It was Dick Dastardly's sidekick!  ;D ;D

[George]

I think this is pretty definitive: http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=62.msg134#msg134
Second paragraph, first line. So it was Muttley.
So now you know what to answer when asked who invented BIR. It was Dick Dastardly's sidekick!  ;D ;D

It's a pity he was last active at the forum in December 2008. I wonder if Muttley knows he's on the verge of becoming a bit famous for coining a term which could, given a bit more time and usage, find its way into the dictionary.

[Peripatetic Phil]

I'm not clear on what basis Santa believes that Muttley originated the term. 

I think this is pretty definitive: http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=62.msg134#msg134Second paragraph, first line. So it was Muttley.

The line cited reads "It is just that after posting the thread, I once again started musing on how to get what the average British Indian Resturant (BIR) gets.".  In other words, we know that Muttley used the term on 11 January 2005, 11:02:23 (necessary) but not that no-one had used the term previously (not sufficient).  Necessary but not sufficient is not enough to establish provenance, I am afraid ...

** Phil.

[Secret Santa]

I'm not clear on what basis Santa believes that Muttley originated the term.

On the basis that he spells out the meaning and then introduces the acronym, a sure indication of its first use on the forum.

That and the fact that, as I said earlier, I hadn't seen or heard the term BIR before coming to this site (and I was here right at the start). And I distinctly recall it occurring on this site first even though I've been following curry related sites for decades (including the few that talked about British restaurant curry rather than traditional Indian).