A woman made an unwitting discovery about sherbet when she went on an ice cream-buying run to Target. It’s changed her life forever.
The revelation comes from TikTok user ClassicallyCara (@care_uhhh1517), who discussed her discovery in a video posted on Oct. 5 that has accumulated nearly 773,000 views since.
In it, she begins, “Tell me why I’m at Target and I went to get ice cream and my mind just got freaking blown, and apparently I’m an idiot.”
Woman goes to Target ice cream aisle…
She then shows an ice cream case which includes a tub of sherbet. “You mean to tell me I’ve been on this earth for 33 years, and I’ve called it sherbert for 33 years, and it is sherbet,” she said, careful to enunciate just the single “r.”
“I had no idea,” she said. “You know what else I didn’t know, ‘all of the sudden.’ I say ‘all of the sudden,’ like, I’ve always said ‘all of the sudden,’ and I got corrected three different times yesterday when I said that.”
She is confused by the new information, and fearful she’s been saying the wrong thing out loud for years. She observes, “If that’s the case, I’ve been out here talking stupid for a long time.”
Is she right or wrong?
Checking on both examples she gave, it does turn out that she’s maybe not as incorrect as she thought she was, but she’s more wrong than right.
First, on the sherbet vs. sherbert quandary, Merriam-Webster’s site observed, “The word in question is from Turkish and Persian words that both trace back to the Arabic word sharba, meaning “drink.”
All three words—the Turkish and Persian words are şerbet and sharbat, respectively—lack an “r” in the second syllable. But when the word was imported into English in the early 17th century spelling was all over the place. Among the many variations that existed in the early years, two that appeared then are still in use today: Sherbet and sherbert.”
Sherbet vs sherbert
While sherbet took over in the 18th century, sherbert made a brief rally in the early 20th century. It is now accepted though less common than sherbet. The article also specifies, “Sherbets in the U.S. must by federal regulation contain between exactly 1% and 2% butterfat. (This distinguishes sherbet from sorbet … which is typically dairy-free.)”
Consumer Reports explains a bit more of where the confusion might lie. That article notes “another common theory gives the credit to composer Ben Homer and his 1939 Big Band hit, ‘Shoot the Sherbet to Me Herbert.’ Though the word is spelled correctly in the title, it’s sung to rhyme with ‘Herbert.’”
“Interestingly enough, while that song also contains the words, ‘I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,’ it’s believed that the popular jazz group Waring’s Pennsylvanians wrote and performed the song of that title in the mid-1920s.”
As for “all of a sudden” vs. “all of the sudden,” Grammarly points out that the former is correct—now, at least.
“Although all of the sudden has been used in centuries past, all of a sudden is the phrasing that eventually stuck,” the blog article says. It further details, “‘On a sudden’ is a historic but outmoded variant.”
“Perhaps it is because Shakespeare used of a sudden in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ in 1594, and centuries of grammarians couldn’t help but side with the Bard,” the article observes.
What commenters said
People flocking to the comments section were amused.
“I used to call a sump pump a sub pump,” began one commenter. “A wheelbarrow a wheelbarrel, and a chest of drawers a chested drawers. As a kid, I thought Santa was on a one-horse soap and sleigh instead of one-horse open sleigh.”
“Sherbert was a brand name that’s no longer around,” suggested another, without citing proof or without any kind of Google-able backup. “Just like how we call all tissues, Kleenex.”
“Ohhhhhhh, that makes sense!” the creator remarked.
Others sided with Cara regardless of her acknowledging she was wrong.
“It will always be sherbert,” said one. “I don’t care what anyone says.”
“No one says sherbet,” someone else contended.
“I’m not changing it now,” another stood firm. “It’s sherbert.”
@care_uhhh1517 #target #didyouknow #mindblown #crazy #funfacts #icecream #foodie #momsoftiktok #relatable #fyp #facts #care_uhhh1517 ♬ original sound – ClassicallyCara
The Daily Dot reached out to Cara via email and TikTok direct message.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
