Pass the Booster Shot

“Look, if you want us to say it a special way, why don't you spell it the way you want us to say it, huh? You ever thought about that?" – Nadia Giosia, on Nadia G’s Bitchin' Kitchen

People sure have problems when they try to pronounce “Worcestershire Sauce,” don’t they?

Even the celebrity chefs make fun of it during their programs. I’m talking hotshots like Michael Chiarello, Emeril Lagasse, Kelsie Nixon, Roger Mooking and Paula Deen. Nigella Lawson doesn’t even pronounce the entire word, calling it “Wooster” sauce instead.

When I was a kid, we sometimes called it “Booster shot.” The fact that Dad was a doctor probably had something to do with it, but we eventually settled on “Wooster-sher.” Even my iPad plays games with the words and tries to auto-correct its spelling to “Woe heaters ire.”

I looked it up in the online Merriam Webster Dictionary, and they said it’s pronounced “Wooster-sheer.”

Here’s a sure-fire cure: Instead of trying to pronounce the word, just say, “Pass the Lea & Perrins.” That works too.