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Re: We speak the same language??

On Wed 19 Aug, Allan Day wrote:
> On Wed 19 Aug, Stacey VanDenburgh wrote:
> > Allan's response to Stan's Strip reminds me of something. He mentions a
> > "fortnight", which those of us Americans who read English literature
> > know as "two weeks".  A few years ago, my husband and I were in England
> > during the wonderful month of June and we noticed that some vegetables
> > had different names: what is commonly referred to as zucchini here in
> > the US are called courgettes and eggplants were aubergines. Does anyone 
> > know of any other differences? I mean, both countries do speak the same
> > language, right? Actually, I think there are regional differences in the
> > USA too, are they scallions or green onions?
> > 
> > --Stacey
> > 
> > Farmington, NY
> > Zone 5
> >
> Stacey, you have raised the ghosts of recent correspondence (see
> bottling v canning in the archives) just when I thought it was all
> finished with. I certainly could collect a lot of differences between
> usage of certain words in Britain and the States,even in veggies alone
> but I don't suppose it would do any good. For instance our broad beans
> you call fava beans, a term so unrecognised over here that I had to look
> it up, I had never heard of it before. As to courgettes, that came from
> the French use of immature marrows in cooking (courge=little pumpkin),
> the word Zucchini is Italian and is applied to one variety only, perhaps
> the most popular one with gardeners. But with all the cucurbits the
> dividing lines are very blurred. Even in UK until we moved across the
> country we had never heard runner beans described as kidney beans, a
> term which is elsewhere reserved exclusively for french beans, or what
> you call green beans! We grow a bean called Romano, from Thompson &
> Morgan which has the flavour of a runner bean , indeed that was how it
> was described at first, then with no explanation the next year it came
> labelled as a french bean which it seems to be by habit. As to that
> eggplant, that name is best reserved for one type of aubergine which has
> all the appearance of a white egg and needs more heat than I can give it
> rather than the large purple fruits one sees in our shops and is happy
> at lower temperatures.
> 
> My conclusion about the whole affair is when using these names be very
> careful about understanding what the other person really means. I doubt
> if it is possible to do a glossary which is 100% reliable. If the
> botanic names apply, use these because at least these are standardised
> at international level.

-- 
Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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