Talk:General Tso's Chicken

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I'm probably the only one who cares, but this is something that really bugs me. Whenever Strong Bad mentions General Tso's Chicken, he mispronounces it. I understand that it's commonly mispronounced. I work in a Chinese restaurant, and I've heard it pronounced every way possible. It's correctly pronounced "General SO". Actually, there's two ways to pronounce it. That is the accepted American pronunciation. In Chinese, the TS are treated as one letter. The T is pronounced before the S but just barely. It comes out sounding kinda like the cymbal noise that you make when you make drum sounds with your mouth, but not quite as accented. So, you more or less pronounce it exactly like it's spelled. All three letters in one syllable.

It's not "Tao", "Too-so", "Tee-s-o", or "Cho". It's "TSO", or simply "SO"

Paul McCoy, St. Louis, Missouri

Ha.. I always found it funny how Americans are unable to pronounce simple sounds and make such a mess about the sounds of kh (also ch), hard A, hard R, ts and tz. (No offense, anyone) — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 05:48, 21 Jul 2005 (UTC)

TBC probably wanted to have Strong Bad to pronounce it wrong. I think it's funny20X6 GEM

I guess I should find it just as funny how Chinese people are unable to pronounce simple English sounds. Really, dude, don't you think before you write something? You know, writing "no offense" doesn't whitewash what you wrote. Any moderately cultured person would understand that all languages have unique sound combinations that take years to hear and reproduce distinctly. That same moderately cultured person would immediately recognize how boneheaded and ignorant it is to point out that one group or another can't "produce simple sounds."

According to Wikipedia, in Canada, it is usually refered to as "General Tao's Chicken, which could be why Strong Bad says it that way. On a side note, I actually ate some of this stuff a couple of days ago. It was pretty good! — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 07:10, 28 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Where I live, it is prononced Chow-- Benol, aka Coach B 22:36, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The proper sound is "tso"(the "t" sound is also heard). Not So, not Sao, and not Tao. I've studied Chinese and Japanese for a very long time. :D68.187.53.11 00:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow. I'm the guy who posted the original message (yeah, Paul McCoy is my real name for all who care). In fact I think it was posted within my first hour of finding H*R Wiki (and Wikipedia in general), before I knew a lot about it (like how to sign posts). It was also posted back when I thought I knew a lot more about Asian culture than I actually did. I REALLY want to learn Japanese (anime dork), and it'd be pretty cool to learn Chinese, but currently I speak neither. The thing about the TS being one letter was something I got out of the 15 minutes I listened to a Japanese language CD once. I don't know if it's true for Chinese and/or the word Tso. All I know is that my boss at the Chinese resturant I worked at pronounced it "So", and I assumed he knew what he was talking about, being Chinese and all, but since then, I've been in a million other Chinese resturants, and heard/saw a million other Chinese people say/spell it a million other ways, including "Tao", so I really don't know what's what. Mayhaps, since it's actually an American dish, and according to the Wikipedia article, General Tso's actual name was Zuo Zongtang, it could be that Tso is more or less an American word, and there isn't a clear cut way to say it in Chinese.--Antisexy 05:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a anime dork too, but the difference between you and me, i speak japanese.--Kanjiro talk 05:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ryan S?!

Wait, how do we know that Homsar is specifically dressed up as General Tso's Chicken? For all we know, he could be dressed up as a simple box of noodles? (maybe they stated it in theme park--i haven't seen it in a while) ♥ _tee^eff_oh! 19:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

He did... 99.144.244.101 22:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] General TSU

The original games menu mentions a dish called "General Tsu's Chicken"- spelled with a "U" instead of an "O." While this is clearly the incorrect spelling of the Real World dish, it is the first instance of this Chinese dish on HR.com and as far as I can tell there is no other spelled out reference to it on HR.com. I think that we ought to change the spelling used on the rest of hrwiki to "Tsu" in order to be consistent within the HR universe. I would imagine that there other instances where the HR universe and the Real World don't line up exactly. In these instances, isn't it more to the purpose of hrwiki to document the way things are presented in the HR universe and only explain inconsistencies with the Real World in the footnotes? Lynx 03:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

as an added thought, isn't it possible that TBC spelled it "Tsu" on purpose as a small joke or something?Lynx 03:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm reminded of Lao Tsu, whose name means "venerable master". "Tsu" can possibly be a reference to that - any college student who has studied philosophy is likely to be familiar with Taoism. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  03:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Qermaq, that's kind of beside the point. Lynx 04:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think if it's generally pronounced "Tso" in the toons (or "Tao" for that matter), and only one place calls it "Tsu", I think changing it in the article and everywhere in the wiki would be unnecessary. If TBC consistently called it "Tsu" then that would be a different matter. At best listing it as a spelling "variation" is sufficient. --Stux 15:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Well after they hear the general tsos chicken song then they won't mispronounce it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y9qgA7O11s — 128.228.113.231 (Talk | contribs) 15:23, 14 September 2010 (left unsigned)

[edit] Chinese Food

This should be changed to an in general chinese food article. I mean, in a couple instances there's no way to know, and in others it's shown that it's not but it is something else like fortune cookies. — D&d greg (Talk | contribs) 21:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC) (left unsigned)