Talk:99 Flake

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"The story about the 99 guards of the Italian monarch has been proved to be unfounded. The Wordhunt initiative in 2005 found that the myth referred to the Vatican's Swiss Guard which actually traditionally had 105 members and now has 100." I viewed the program a few minutes ago and it had no resolution to ths question of where the @99@ came from - is there any citation for the claim it came from the Vatican?

THE 99 FLAKE IS THE CADBURY CHOCOLATE BAR AND NOT THE ICE CREAM WITH THE CHOCOLATE BAR INSERTED

Not according to ice-cream vendors (who call the whole thing a "99 Flake"), Cadbury's (who call the chocolate bar a "Flake") or, in fact, anyone. Daibhid C 18:50 18 Oct 2004

Cadbury's also sell boxes of unwrapped Flakes (shorter in length than the individually wrapped bars), labelled "99 Flake", for the use in the said ice creams, so they do call the bars "99 Flakes". But Daibhid C's point is also valid - the ice cream cone/flake combo itself is nearly always refered to as a "99 Flake" too. --Zilog Jones 21:10, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually in my experience the ice cream is known simply as a "99". You don't go up to an ice-cram van and ask for a "99 Flake", you ask for a "99". A 99 Flake is the Flake that goes in a 99.

The term 99 comes from the cone produced by Askeys cone manufacturers in the 1930s. People would ask for an Askeys 99 cone, with a Cadburys flake. This inevitably shortened to a "99 Flake".

The BBC has recently disp[roved many of the theories of the prodcuts origins as stated here and sated on the Cadbury's website.

The BBC Word Hunt and associated series "Balderdash & Piffle" has inspired another popular theory with 2 variations. The theory is that the name 99 is a play on Roman numeral notation. Ice Cream -> IC -> 99. This is contested to be based on a flawed understanding of Roman numeral notation, hence the alternative: wafer; choclate; ice cream; wafer -> XCIX -> 99. There are also a further 4 ice cream dynasties, in addition to the Portobello family, claiming to have invented the 99. These families claim either to have sold ice cream and inhabited a building numbered 99 or to have sold ice cream at a building numbered 99.IP 20:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I was just wondering about the Roman numeral "IC" theory as well. I remember it being mentioned on that programme, but then a statement made along the lines of "No, it can't be, they would have known 99 is XCIX". But in my mind, even if they did know this they could have seen "IC" and pretended it meant 99 in Roman numerals, and so this doesn't prove anything. Indeed, I've just found this on the BBC website [1]:

"Another theory goes that the initials of ice cream are IC, which is one way to write 99 in Roman numerals. But the convention is to write it XCIX - but it's possible this was ignored or not known."

And the "wafer; chocolate; ice cream; wafer" theory seems contrived. In what way are there wafers either side of it?

Still, is there any reason not to mention either of these theories in the article? I'm also wondering whether the suggested etymologies would be better presented as bullet points, especially if we're going to have more than three of them. — Smjg (talk) 17:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Reasons? yes, Wikipedia policies, WP:V and WP:NOR. Only what's published in reliable sources can be summarised in the article. – Fayenatic London 20:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand your argument. Are you claiming that the BBC is an unreliable source? And how have I done original research by quoting something I heard on a TV show, or read on a website, that is nothing to do with me? — Smjg (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I would concur that I (in Eastern England) ordered a '99 all the way through my childhood, and never once heard the term '99 flake'. If you didn't want a flake then you just asked for an ice-cream cone, whereas if you did then you asked for a '99. The flake did not have to be made by Cadbury's particularly, even if it was branded as an ACME chocolate stick or whatever, putting it into an ice-cream still produced a '99. --Zeth

On the other hand I (in Worcestershire) always called it a "99 Flake". I might well be in the minority, but I did! 86.136.250.154 (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Living on the south coast and growing-up in the 1970's and 80's, I only ever heard the phrase or used the phrase '99 when buying one these ice creams from a beach-side parlour or ice cream van. Anything else is superfluous. JD 19:15, 15 May 2013

Actually...

I haven't stopped an ice cream van lately, but both the small Flakes and the ready-made 99s are now sold as Flake99, not 99 Flake. See pictures on main article.

The name

Surely it's because the flakes are 99mm long... Try it yourself and measure one.

Or more likely because they were introduced 99 years after the formation of Cadburys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.164.14.2 (talk) 13:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, the metric system wasn't in common use in the UK at the time it was introduced. As such, I very much doubt that the flake was named after its length in millimetres. If they are 99mm long now, I would presume that the length was changed in more recent times to match the name. — Smjg (talk) 22:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Quit just guessing, see the policy No original research!

Moving the following to talk page from the main article (added by 91.125.34.19 in 2010) as it doesn't fully explain the falsely claimed origin, and doesn't cite the episode which refuted it:

There is a false origin of the name, claimed by the Fecci company, an Italian ice-cream outlet in Tenby, Wales, its falsity revealed by a programme on the BBC designed to originate words for the OED, called Balderdash and Piffle, introduced by Victoria Coren.

It sounds as if this was a different episode from the one mentioned above. - Fayenatic (talk) 22:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it OK to post speculations on article talk pages, as opposed to articles? In any case, I can't see what WP:OR has to do with it. Speculation and research are two very different things. — Smjg (talk) 22:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The theory on the article page about a cone being sold for 99 pence seems incredibly unlikely. The 99 cone has existed since before decimalization in the UK. There was no such thing as 99 pence, and anything close would be an absurd amount of money for a cone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.4.251 (talk) 01:49, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The internal link from Name at the top is wrong. S C Cheese (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2022 (UTC)