Vernacular Spectacular #8: “ramen noodles” vs. “two-minute noodles”

“Ramen noodles” has always puzzled me. Is it some kind of Asian word, or were they invented by some guy named Ramen? (Could be both, I suppose, if invented by an Asian guy.) “Two-minute noodles” emphasize how quickly they can be prepared, which I would have thought of as their third-most appealing feature, after (1) how cheap they are, and (2) how decent-for-dirt-cheap-food they taste, if your constitution can handle the salt. “Two-minute noodles” gets some nice assonance going with the “oo”-“oo”, and affords the knowing acronym TMN.

Jeremy’s winner: two-minute noodles

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