American Readers(and others too)

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

As for the question of cakes vs biscuits (not to mention cookies), I've come to understand that this is a matter of severe contention between the English and the denizens of their renegade colonies. Here in Germany we distinguish between kuchen and torten; kuchen are usually dry (except for fruitcakes and cheese cakes), whereas torten are topped with some sort of cream. A birthday cake in English (the kind of thing with candles on top) would in most cases be a torte in German.

Pitchwife, I love you. You have just opened my eyes on why the Russian words for "pie" and "cake" don't really match up to "pie" and "cake" - a phenomenon which confused me for years. That is because the word for "cake" migrated there via Italian and German torte and has nearly the same sound and meaning, leaving the likes of fruit cake and carrot cake and other un-creamed cakes for "pie". You have just enlightened me to an etymological discovery, and that pretty much made my day.