The last time I was subjected to the water-boarding called looking for a Manhattan apartment, I cast a covetous eye on a beautiful midtown loft. This place had a sunny balcony facing the art deco fantasy of the Chrysler Building, and a motormouth roommate who talked like she was on cocaine. I’d almost convinced myself I could handle the roommate, but one thing she said stuck sourly in my head.

She asked me whether I’d be cooking. ‘I can’t stand that curry smell,’ she said.

Let’s put that trope out of its British Raj-induced misery. Indian dishes as a whole are not called curry. They’re called sabzi or khana in Hindi, or just plain Indian food. In Punjabi cooking, curry is one specific dish: a thick yellow sauce made with yogurt and garbanzo flour, spiced with turmeric and eaten with rice. Some stir munchies like vadas, chicken or mutton into this base.

Calling all Indian food ‘curry’ is like calling all American food ‘Jello’: it’s nonsensical. If you tell me, ‘Let’s get some curry!’ and then order saag paneer, I’m going to laugh at you. Loudly.

Is this just semantic quibbling, when cheap Indian restaurants themselves perpetuate the corruption? Forget Curry in a Hurry, try ordering a Chinese dish by the wrong name. I did that at the tiny takeout place on the corner and got a stern lecture. ‘That not chow mein,’ the owner said. ‘I make you lo mein.’ Damned if it wasn’t better, just like he said.

Furthermore, there ain’t no such thing as chai tea, star-buckers. Chai is tea, so unless you and your sibling are the Doublemint twins, or you’re the mascot for Little Caesars Pizza-Pizza, don’t be ign’ant and run around asking for tea-tea. (Mmm, Doublemint twins.)

On that minty-fresh note, I leave you with these bouts of Kiwi brilliance. From two weeks ago:

A Tauranga woman is accusing a local branch of The Warehouse of racial discrimination after she was denied the right to return purchases because they “smell like curry”… After a brief conversation with a Warehouse employee, the mother of five was allegedly told: “We can’t take these back - they stink like curry”… With the family having eaten roast lamb and vegetables for dinner, Mrs Ali argued there was no chance the clothing could have acquired a “curry smell”.

And in 2003:

A small-town motelier denied an Indian man a unit for a family holiday because she claimed he might make the room smelly by cooking curries… after learning that Mr Roychoudhury is Indian, she said she could not offer the room because she would not be able to get the smell out before the next guests arrived… Mrs Nemhauser had not asked the family if they would be cooking Indian food.

Do the various styles of Indian cooking have characteristic olfactory hues? You bet. So do Thai, Italian, Mexican and sex.

And they’re all orgasmic.