Talk:Bonbon

Definition

I disagree. I thought bonbons were either chocolate candies or chocolate covered ice cream dolops. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.232.150.166 (talk) 18:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, I know that hard fruit candies are called bonbons, maybe those are too? PDXblazers 07:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought the word came from French bonbon which means candy Sum1else 10:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

In the UK, a Bonbon is a hard candy like a toffee covered in fondant, normally strawberry, vanilla or lemon. --Dave 01:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In Australia and South Africa, a 'bonbon' or 'bon-bon' is what is known in Britain as a Christmas cracker. For a brief overview of its history, see http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/xmas.html towards the bottom of the page. Alpheus 06:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There appears to be a similar article to this one at Bon bon...--Dreaded Walrus 05:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm that in Portugal (which is part of Europe), sugar-coated almonds are certainly not considered bonbons. I'm pretty sure the same applies to most countries. Unless someone can produce enough evidence of this for, say, 50% of the languages spoken in Europe, I think that paragraph needs to be changed. RMN (talk) 05:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

How about from a French guy (me, although my name doesn't show it) : bonbon in French means "candy" in US-English, or confectionery. Yes it comes from bon ("good"), so a bonbon is a "good-good", or "goody-goody". See bonbon in the French Wiktionary. A sugar-coated almond is a dragée, which is a specific kind of bonbon. I'd bet that in English, "bonbon" would designate a specific kind of candy, as is often the case with terms borrowed from the French, or other languages ; in France and elsewhere, they do the same with English words. So i would go for Dave's and Alpheus's defs. "bonbon" in the English Wiktionary has it as "a sweet", period. My huge 1963 Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary adds that bonbon is from French baby talk, and defines it as "A piece of candy, specifically a small chocolate-coated or fondant-covered candy with a center of sugar fondant to which fruits and nuts are sometimes added." A candy with a soft core different from its covering is a bonbon fourré ("stuffed candy"). BTW fondant means "melting", like melted sugar, or smthing that melts on your tongue. From the verb fondre, to melt.

So i don't know what this Wikipedia article is doing here, Wiktionary is largely sufficient for this as it presently is. For this page to be worthwhile, it'd have to indicate much more on these specific candies, with their history, etc. --Jérôme Potts (talk) 20:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I call bullshit on the whole “In Europe” section!

What retard wrote this? There is not a single true word in the section and the references (which do not make it magically true)!
I am from Germany, and I am originally from Luxemburg, where we have over 30% of the population coming from France, Germany, Belgium and Portugal. I was for nearly two months in France, with French friends. And I lived for 3 months in Spain. So I know myself very well around. And in Europe “bonbons” look like this: http://www.urbanek-gmbh.de/images/inhalt/werbe_bonbons.jpg
By the way: Europe in not a country, and never will be! You can't just go and generalize over all the 46 (yes, that's fortysix!) countries on that continent. We are as different from each other, as the USA is from Brazil, Russia and Turkey. Oh, and yes, we still all know what bonbons are. :P
— 94.220.252.190 (talk) 18:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Since the link is broken, here’s what German Google returns. (Note that you need to disable customized search results, and have your browser set to prefer European languages [e.g. German/French], or you might get something different.)
Makes it pretty clear to me…
— 87.79.233.7 (talk) 19:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)