The problem with ‘toast bread’ and ‘toasted bread’ - Punch Newspapers

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In the past, bread was one of the most derided foods in Nigeria. Unlike rice or noodles, especially the ones crowned with chicken, it was regarded as the staple for the wretched. That was an irony because there was never a time the rich or elite too didn’t eat bread, sliced or otherwise. But because it was comparatively cheap or considered so, it was taunted as the food for the poor – alongside garri, guguru (popcorn) and epa (groundnut). No wonder, in Yorubaland, bread was derogatively nicknamed bugan, pafun, digbe etc.

Now, God – or is it bad leaders? – has upgraded bread’s destiny. The economy has become so sick that the rejected stone has become the connerstone. (In literature, the use of ‘the rejected stone …’ here is called an allusion – a biblical allusion – while it can also exemplify a metaphor, hyperbole or personification.) Simply put, bread too has become gold. Based on its new status, I thus think we should chase away any grammatical error associated with the word. It is also a development on the topic we treated last week, titled, ‘Eatery palaver: Between takeout and takeaway’.

Undue repetition

One of the questionable sayings is ‘toasted bread’, which carries not less than two grammatical contradictions, euphemistically speaking. (Hope you know the meaning of euphemism as a figure of speech.) When you heat bread so that it becomes brown on both sides and is no longer soft, it becomes ‘toast’. The name of the food changes dramatically, 100 per cent. The initial ‘bread’ disappears, giving ‘toast’ the full semantic and grammatical status to bear the transformation. That is why Longman Dictionary defines ‘toast’ (in the bread/food context) as ‘sliced bread that has been made brown by being put near a high heat’. The implication is that the word does not need any adjective to be, just as it need not be relegated to an adjective serving ‘bread’:

Can I have toasted bread? (Tautological.)

Can I have toast? (Correct.)

I served her buttered toast bread. (Tautological.)

I served her buttered toast. (Correct.)

Toast bread?