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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder why.. (brace yourself)

696 replies

BackAgainSlimLady · 24/02/2025 12:29

Single cucumbers from the supermarket come wrapped in plastic.. but single courgettes don’t?

if you ask me.. courgettes have a slightly more fragile skin that cucumber.. so why the lack of protection?

OP posts:
JaninaDuszejko · 25/02/2025 12:44

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 10:36

Yes, most people think the composer is pronounced "bark"!

I don't think I've ever met anyone who admitted they thought that so I get annoyed at them happily saying Bach correctly (to show how educated they are) but then blithely saying lock instead of loch (because it's not important to pronounce Scots correctly). Same people get arsey about outwith.

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 11:56

BrainWontWorkAnymore · 25/02/2025 11:42

Which is exactly what I was pointing out if you read it again

Oh dear, I don’t need to read it again. I thought you were entering into the good-humoured spirit of the thread. Many apologies. When I posted:

If you think it’s ‘just desserts’, you’ve got another thing coming!

it was a joke. I know full well that it’s deserts and think! It was just a lighthearted (or so I thought!) play on people’s varying understanding of certain words and phrases, as was the post of mine you quoted. I thought you were responding in the same vein, but evidently got it wrong! Mea culpa.

BrainWontWorkAnymore · 25/02/2025 11:42

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 11:36

I don’t think ‘you have another thing coming’ is a thing. I think, if you think about it, ‘you have another think coming’ is the only thing which makes sense! Just to be clear 😁

Which is exactly what I was pointing out if you read it again

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 11:41

BackAgainSlimLady · 25/02/2025 11:38

well this appears to be somewhat derailed

Oh yes, sorry, I forgot it was all about cucumbers and courgettes!

BackAgainSlimLady · 25/02/2025 11:38

well this appears to be somewhat derailed

Jeff Goldblum What GIF by The Late Late Show with James Corden
OP posts:
maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 11:36

BrainWontWorkAnymore · 25/02/2025 11:24

You have another think coming if you think you have another thing coming

I don’t think ‘you have another thing coming’ is a thing. I think, if you think about it, ‘you have another think coming’ is the only thing which makes sense! Just to be clear 😁

BrainWontWorkAnymore · 25/02/2025 11:24

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 00:36

If you think it’s ‘just desserts’, you’ve got another thing coming!

You have another think coming if you think you have another thing coming

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 10:36

ErrolTheDragon · 25/02/2025 10:31

I tell English people if they can say Bach they can say loch.

There's an 'if' in there though!

Yes, most people think the composer is pronounced "bark"!

ErrolTheDragon · 25/02/2025 10:35

CorduroySituation · 25/02/2025 06:38

@MegTheForgetfulCat I don't care who else has replied. I read down threads and reply to comments where and when I feel like it. I can state my opinion if one or 12 thousand people have said it.

You can, but don't be surprised if people then reply to your tedious posts as they wish.🤷‍♀️

ErrolTheDragon · 25/02/2025 10:31

I tell English people if they can say Bach they can say loch.

There's an 'if' in there though!

JaninaDuszejko · 25/02/2025 10:16

I was on another thread recently trying to describe how to correctly pronounce "loch" 😂

I tell English people if they can say Bach they can say loch.

JaninaDuszejko · 25/02/2025 09:54

ErrolTheDragon · 24/02/2025 18:40

I've got another question... somewhere in the early 70s there was a year or two when a particular purplish colour was very trendy in the U.K., which was dubbed 'aubergine'.
So I'm wondering whether the same trend happened elsewhere and if so what this (frankly rather ugly) hue was called?

Farrow and Ball now have a purple paint called Brinjal.

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 09:47

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 09:40

It’s really interesting, though, if very difficult to convey pronunciation by means of the written word!

It is! The phonetic symbols in the dictionary are useful for that reason, as otherwise it's pretty subjective. I was on another thread recently trying to describe how to correctly pronounce "loch" 😂

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 09:40

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 09:24

I would too in my accent, but you may get some faux-naive replies from people who would pronounce the r sound in "ar" saying "why have you put an r in pasta? I don't understaaand!".

I clearly spend too long hanging around in language-related threads! 😂🤓

It’s really interesting, though, if very difficult to convey pronunciation by means of the written word!

BarnacleBeasley · 25/02/2025 09:30

I think that neither British nor American English pronounces a short 'a' sound exactly the same as Italian people do. So if you are trying to reproduce an Italian word like 'pasta', you hear it, and say it, it in the closest sound your accent can come up with. For British people, that tends to be shorter, and for Americans it's more like 'pahsta', and the Italian sound is actually somewhere in between the two.

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 25/02/2025 09:28

It's "just deserts"

www.oed.com/dictionary/just-desert_n

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 09:24

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 09:16

I would say ‘parsta’ the same as ‘pahsta’. Like ‘parsley’’ or ‘parson’, so barely sounding the ‘r’!

I would too in my accent, but you may get some faux-naive replies from people who would pronounce the r sound in "ar" saying "why have you put an r in pasta? I don't understaaand!".

I clearly spend too long hanging around in language-related threads! 😂🤓

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 09:16

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 08:44

RisOHto. But they'd say pasta as pahsta, not parsta, as Americans tend to have rhotic accents

I would say ‘parsta’ the same as ‘pahsta’. Like ‘parsley’’ or ‘parson’, so barely sounding the ‘r’!

MegTheForgetfulCat · 25/02/2025 08:44

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 08:32

Yes - baysil, parsta, and……?

RisOHto. But they'd say pasta as pahsta, not parsta, as Americans tend to have rhotic accents

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 08:40

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 08:32

Yes - baysil, parsta, and……?

I’ve just googled, and the US pronunciation seems to be with a soft ‘s’ - ‘sot’, as opposed to the UK, which is like a ‘z’ (zed) - ‘zot’, the same as the Italian.

NooNakedJacuzziness · 25/02/2025 08:39

Rizz-OH-tow I think

maudelovesharold · 25/02/2025 08:32

JustBitetheKnotsOff · 25/02/2025 07:15

pronouncing basil, pasta and risotto the American way

How do Americans pronounce risotto, then?

Yes - baysil, parsta, and……?

Lovelysausagedogscrumpy · 25/02/2025 08:00

MumGuilt101 · 24/02/2025 22:14

Wait what’s a marrow then??

An adult courgette.

phoenixrosehere · 25/02/2025 07:40

AnnoyedAsAllHeck · 25/02/2025 04:38

I thought we used the word squash to mean anything besides pumpkins that are a member of the gourd family. Zucchini is used because it sounds more fun to say zucchini bread instead of courgette or squash bread.

Really though, I don't know. I didn't even know that there were so many different shapes/varieties of zucchini. It's one of very few fruits/vegetables I don't like, along with most types of squash in general. It's confusing enough to know that squash, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and more are actually fruits, let alone the many varieties and ways to use them. Maybe I have been missing something?

I also had no idea so many varieties of squash and pumpkins existed. I knew plain pumpkins (knew there were different shapes, colors etc., but put them all into the same slot), yellow, acorn, crookneck, spaghetti and butternut and that's as far as I ever got. But there are at least 50. Mind-blowing.

There are so many variety of different fruits and vegetables that most are not aware of unless you get into gardening or read the packaging if it says the variety. I was telling my family about my garden and they were shocked that you could grow purple tomatoes, pink blueberries, golden raspberries and white strawberries. Just showing them how strawberries grew was a lesson since they had never seen them other than in the stores.

I think more often than not when it comes to most varieties it is just ease for people to know what they’re picking up especially if they’re following a recipe or have a particular purpose. A butternut squash is different internally from a spaghetti squash and you probably can’t make a lantern out of either of those squashes like you can a pumpkin.

It grinds my gears when I go home and hear Canadians using ‘cilantro’ instead of coriander

Weird thing to be annoyed about. Cilantro is Spanish for coriander and referring to the leaves and stems while coriander is referring to the seeds in the States. They both have completely different taste. India does the same thing, having separate names for different parts of the coriander plant.

Instead of being annoyed about why certain countries call different things xyz, why not look it up and try to see why vs thinking they’re automatically wrong or did it just to be different.

notnorman · 25/02/2025 07:24

Crunchymum · 24/02/2025 13:01

Courgette

(and it's "just deserts" not desserts - sorry!!)

Edited

HERES ONE!
(There's been a recent argument regarding this on here...)

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