Long Island Iced Tea
You searched for Long Island Iced tea so you probably want to know how to make one, or are looking for recipes. Or, maybe you'd like some history and the original recipe from the 1940's?
If not you can stay here and read my idle chatter about what the correct name of this drink is.
Long Island Iced Tea or Long Island Ice Tea: That is the question.
Okay, so this is not quite as serious as Hamlet’s dilemma, but the question remains. Ice or iced?
Let’s think about how regular ice tea is made. You start with tea and then put ice in it. The tea becomes iced.
There’s no doubt then that Long Island Iced Tea is the correct name for the drink.
But no one ever asks for Iced Tea, they always say Ice Tea. People like to say things in the easiest way possible.
What does the rest of the world have to say about this?
Well, all the dictionaries I checked cite Long Island Iced Tea; however some on-line dictionaries index Long Island Ice Tea, but show Iced Tea in the definition. Score: 1 Iced Tea, 0 for Ice Tea.
A trip to the supermarket seems to back up what the dictionaries are telling me: All of the tea manufacturers refer to their product as iced tea, not ice tea. Score: 2 Iced Tea, 0 for Ice Tea.
But a search on the Internet tells a different story. While the number of web pages devoted to each variation is almost exactly the same, there are way more searches each month for Long Island Ice Tea. Tie score.
This is not surprising at all. People are great at using words that ain’t in the dictionary and almost always speak using the easiest pronunciation.
Nobody ever asks for a Long Island Iced Tea, even though that’s technically what it is.
Feel like a drink? I do. How ’bout a Long Island *Ice* Tea?
Comments
There's a reason that it *sounds* like people are saying "ice tea" instead of the proper
"iced tea".. that reason is that the "d" allides with the "t".
You don't say "is'd tee" you say "is'tee".. very few people separate words like
that... say the words "when I'm old" out loud and see if it doesn't sound like "when I
mold." I suppose "ice tea" is tea made from ice. Iced Tea is tea that you cool
by adding ice. It's kinda sad that so many people don't get that, but oh well. I
guess that's the world we live in.
-Submitted on October 14, 2006 by Laura from Texas.
