Talk:papadom

Tea room discussion
Which of these (36!) forms should be our main entry? Oxford dictionary says it doesn't matter, so I suppose it shouldn't matter much to us either. --Jackofclubs 14:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Although they said it didn't matter, they led with "poppadom". That's how I'd spell it. What matters, of course, is how they spell it on restaurant menus. My guess is they got it right. - Pingku 16:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, they say it doesn't matter which one you choose, but their listing should be an indication of the frequency of use. NOAD has only pappadam, while the CanOD has “pappadum . . . (also pappadam, papadum, poppadum)”.  Since all three dictionaries share a database, I interpret this as an indication of regional usage.  Of course it would be nice to compare to some other good dictionaries, too. —Michael Z. 2008-12-13 17:49 z 


 * Restaurant menus getting it "right"? Are you kidding? They are all over the place. And there isn't a "right" answer, although some are better than others. From what I've seen and heard, the first two vowels should be "a", and the last "u". But that is just one single (set of) observation(s). WP uses papadum. The reason this is difficult is that it is not just a transliteration of the Tamil word, it is a successive borrowing, with lots of variations in spelling and pronunciation at each stage. Given the Tamil, pappadam would seem the best. We also need papad as a near-synonym. Robert Ullmann 18:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Tamil has பப்படம் (pappaṭam), but Tamil has no "d", and the ṭ sound is often transliterated as a "d" (in contrast with த, which is a regular "t"). —Stephen 21:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternative forms
More alternative forms, which do not meet CFI: gets two hits, as does pappodum; puppodom gets one; the singular forms of all of these get no hits, AFAICT. papodom is attested but doesn't seem to refer to this thing. pappodoms and popodums are attested only in the plural! papodam gets &lt;3 hits. - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)