Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • rhubarb wrote: »
    With the order at Subway being bread and meat, what else would you call the lettuce, tomato etc put on next other than salad? Makes perfect sense to me.

    Toppings. Veg. Extras. There are a ton of other things you could call it. Since it's not a salad, it's confusing to call it a salad.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I don't know why anyone would call it veg. Half of the things aren't vegetable. Toppings, I'm familiar with.
  • Lettuce, tomato, peppers, pepperocini, olives, spinach, red onions, jalapeños, cucumbers -- these things all count as "veg" here. Flogging my mind to think of what else there is, other than the dressings.
  • Trudy wrote: »
    My most confusing eating-out experience involving salad was in Australia. We travelled as much as we could with our kids when younger, and while they were great travellers for their age, they were not always great at adventurously trying new foods, so we often ate at familiar North American chain restaurants where we saw them, so as not to have to wrestle a 7 year old and a 9 year old into eating something they would find strange. So in Australia we found a couple of such places during our two-week visit, one of which was my daughter's favourite chain restaurant, Subway. Most of the sandwich topics looked like the ones we were used to, and we went through the line ordering in our usual way, then were totally thrown by the question, "What salads would you like?" We didn't know how to answer: we were having sandwiches, not a salad! The Australian friend we were travelling with had to explain that "salads" meant the vegetable toppings - lettuce, tomato, peppers, etc etc. I don't know if this is generally used in Australia or just in that type of chain sandwich place, but my kids (now grown) still remember that sandwich toppings were called "salads" in Australia.

    My UK Subway experience is that the same term is often used here except that it would be in the singular 'what salad would you like?' Salad being the collective noun for items such as lettuce cucumber sweetcorn tomato olives peppers etc etc. After the salad they ask you what dressing you want. All seems quite logical to me. Is it the idea of salad in a sandwich that seems strange? Prepacked sandwiches from the supermarket chiller cabinet might be described as 'ham salad' etc here for instance.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited January 11
    And a lunch of a sandwich of eg ham and salad, or cheese and salad, etc, is common and pretty nutritious. A question along the lines of "what would you like in your salad" would be normal unless you'd already said "no onion please"; you could well then be asked "everything else ok then?". It's the question "what salads would you like" that I've never heard.
  • The UK Subway site uses veggies and salad interchangeably when describing the salad options for their subs. (I haven't used them for a couple of years, but it used to be an acceptable lunch/midday meal to buy a student when tutoring peripatetically.)
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Mr Image and I visiting my southern relatives were fed many fried meals with gravy and sweet tea. We were out alone in the car at lunch time and he said, I am dying for fresh vegetables lets see what we can find." There was a large sign in front of a restaurant saying lunch time salad bar, all you can eat. "Perfect," he said. There we found chopped, ice burg lettuce, and assortment of other vegetables such as tomatoes and corn. We also found, pickles, olives, jello, cornbread and grits and gravy.

    The reason why iced tea (always sweet) . . . .
    Indeed. “Sweet tea” is traditionally considered redundant.

    Butthe explanation that sweet tea was served in the South so you’d know that the water was boiled sounds like urban (or rural?) legend, or the food equivalent to folk etymology, to me. I’ve never heard that theory before. I’d say the primary and obvious reason for the popularity of “ice tea,” as it’s often called here, is much simpler—cold drinks are refreshing in places that are often hot and humid.

    In the 18th and 19th centuries, tea and sugar were expensive, as was access to ice, and those in a position to drink and serve ice tea were not people likely to drink or serve suspect water. Ice tea, at the time generally made from green teas, also generally included alcohol and was served as a punch. It was greater and cheaper access to tea, sugar and refrigeration, along with Prohibition, that caused ice tea’s popularity to spread in the South.

  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    The oddity for us with the "salad" thing is that while many of the things concerned (lettuce, tomato, cucumber slices, green peppers, etc etc) could go IN a salad, and all served together on a plate or bowl could BE a salad, in Canada we would never refer to them as "salads" in their role as sandwich toppings. As mousethief said, presumably speaking from US experience which is similar to ours, the "sandwich artist" here would say, "What toppings do you want?" or "What veggies do you want on that?"
  • rhubarb wrote: »
    With the order at Subway being bread and meat, what else would you call the lettuce, tomato etc put on next other than salad? Makes perfect sense to me.

    Toppings?

    In these parts, you usually get asked "what do you want on it?" while the employee indicates the boxes containing the various possibilities.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    As a Brit dinosaur, I'm totally baffled. 'Salad' might go with, i.e. alongside but separate. 'Topping' might go on top of the upper piece of bread. You might have a 'garnish' - a sort of gesture - a lettuce leaf of sprig of watercress - place on the plate alongside the sandwich. (I once complained to the waitress that the perfunctory leaf that came with the sandwich I had ordered was oozing green slime, to which the reply came that I wasn't supposed to eat it. This, needless to say, was in 20th century Britain - ah the good old days! But anything that goes between the slices of bread, even if on top of meat or cheese, is 'filling'. Which of these are we discussing, please?
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    Should be 'a sandwich' after 'with' in the first sentence of my post. And parentheses need to be cosed after days!'. Sorry, shoud have prood-read.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited January 11
    Subway is an American sandwich chain. Their sandwiches are constructed from bread rolls, offered in half-a-dozen different recipes, that are roughly a foot long and 3 inches across; customers purchase a sandwich made from either a whole roll ("a footlong") or a half ("a six inch"). The sandwich is assembled in front of the customer from the ingredients on display.

    Being an American sandwich, the principal filling is a large quantity of meat. One specifies the sandwich by the kind(s) of meat that it contains. Slices of ham, turkey, salami, whole chicken breasts, meatballs, and similar items are available.

    Again because America, the offer of slices of cheese is automatic; there are several kinds but none of them have any flavour. At this point, there will be an offer to have your sandwich "toasted", which means shoved under the grill whilst opened for long enough to melt the cheese a little.

    Then you have the choice of additional fillings / toppings / salad / veg / whatever. It is these additions that we are discussing. The shop contains a number of plastic bins containing lettuce, tomato, sliced cucumber, onion, pickles, sweet peppers, spicy peppers etc., and the customer selects which of these they require in their sandwich.

    The final step is the offer of generous squirts from a number of squeezy bottles containing various kinds of salad dressing, oil, vinegar and the like.
  • My UK Subway experience is that the same term is often used here except that it would be in the singular 'what salad would you like?' Salad being the collective noun for items such as lettuce cucumber sweetcorn tomato olives peppers etc etc. After the salad they ask you what dressing you want. All seems quite logical to me. Is it the idea of salad in a sandwich that seems strange? Prepacked sandwiches from the supermarket chiller cabinet might be described as 'ham salad' etc here for instance.

    It's not the idea of salad in a sandwich that seems strange, but using salad as a collective noun for items such as lettuce etc. In the US, at least, salad is a dish (I mean the food not the servingware), not a collection of products. So when somebody meets a new (to them) use of the term, they are confused. If someone said "what salad do you want on your sub sandwich?" the immediate thought is of someone mixing up a salad (say, a caesar or cobb) and then putting it on the sandwich. It is not "oh they mean do I want pickle chips or jalapeños". Apparently I'm not the only person thinking this way or we wouldn't have this tangent.

    Ham salad, tuna salad, etc., as sandwich ingredients, are in a class by themselves and are generally not referred to in the collectives as "salads". If a waitron asked "do you want a salad?" one would be very surprised indeed if minced ham with pickles was on offer.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    From my Brit perspective referring to the vegetables in a sandwich as "salad" (an uncountable noun in this context) seems perfectly natural
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Subway is an American sandwich chain. Their sandwiches are constructed from bread rolls, offered in half-a-dozen different recipes, that are roughly a foot long and 3 inches across; customers purchase a sandwich made from either a whole roll ("a footlong") or a half ("a six inch"). The sandwich is assembled in front of the customer from the ingredients on display.

    Being an American sandwich, the principal filling is a large quantity of meat. One specifies the sandwich by the kind(s) of meat that it contains. Slices of ham, turkey, salami, whole chicken breasts, meatballs, and similar items are available.

    Again because America, the offer of slices of cheese is automatic; there are several kinds but none of them have any flavour. At this point, there will be an offer to have your sandwich "toasted", which means shoved under the grill whilst opened for long enough to melt the cheese a little.

    Then you have the choice of additional fillings / toppings / salad / veg / whatever. It is these additions that we are discussing. The shop contains a number of plastic bins containing lettuce, tomato, sliced cucumber, onion, pickles, sweet peppers, spicy peppers etc., and the customer selects which of these they require in their sandwich.

    The final step is the offer of generous squirts from a number of squeezy bottles containing various kinds of salad dressing, oil, vinegar and the like.

    Doesn't the entire Western World have Subway?

    The kids quite like it but I find the main flavour regardless of what you actually choose is Subway.
  • Subway are now advertising a T.L.C. (Tastes Like Chicken) and Plant Patty option in the UK, but when I was buying the occasional half sub for lunch I would confuse the system by refusing anything but the salad, because I don't like meat and the cheese isn't worth having. Definitely not my preferred food. I suspect I still would as I like synthetic meat even less than real meat.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    From my Brit perspective referring to the vegetables in a sandwich as "salad" (an uncountable noun in this context) seems perfectly natural

    Which is why the title of this thread references the fact that American English and British English are two different animals.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    From my Brit perspective referring to the vegetables in a sandwich as "salad" (an uncountable noun in this context) seems perfectly natural

    Which is why the title of this thread references the fact that American English and British English are two different animals.

    That was my point.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited January 11
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Doesn't the entire Western World have Subway?

    It probably does, now, although I think the only non-American one I've actually ever been in has been an an airport.

    There's nothing terribly wrong with it, but I agree with you that it doesn't have much in the way of flavour. I can't quite imagine being in the UK and wanting to go into a Subway, when IME much tastier sandwiches are fairly easy to find.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Doesn't the entire Western World have Subway?

    It probably does, now, although I think the only non-American one I've actually ever been in has been an an airport.

    There's nothing terribly wrong with it, but I agree with you that it doesn't have much in the way of flavour. I can't quite imagine being in the UK and wanting to go into a Subway, when IME much tastier sandwiches are fairly easy to find.

    The trick is to go heavy on the chillies and chilli sauce, IME.
  • KarlLB wrote: »

    The kids quite like it but I find the main flavour regardless of what you actually choose is Subway.

    Note that in Ireland the outer part of a Subway product cannot be desribed as "bread" as the sugar content is too high. ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread )
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    From my Brit perspective referring to the vegetables in a sandwich as "salad" (an uncountable noun in this context) seems perfectly natural

    Which is why the title of this thread references the fact that American English and British English are two different animals.

    That was my point.

    Ah. I see.
  • KarlLB wrote: »

    The kids quite like it but I find the main flavour regardless of what you actually choose is Subway.

    Note that in Ireland the outer part of a Subway product cannot be desribed as "bread" as the sugar content is too high. ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread )

    I think part of the reason Subway's bread (so called) is so full of sugar is so that it will rise quickly. They bake their own bread on-site the night before. You want those little yeasties to be in high gear, farting up a storm, and sugar is more digestible than flour.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    The kids quite like it but I find the main flavour regardless of what you actually choose is Subway.

    Yes ... if you’ll remember my story, the kids liking it was the only reason we were in a Subway in Australia. The familiar can be very comforting when all around you is strange.

    I agree entirely with mousethief’s explanation — it’s the use of “salads” as a collective noun for the veggies you’d put in a sandwich, that strikes the North American ear so oddly.

  • Can I pick it apart a bit more please? "Salad" in America refers to an assemblage composed of at least two different elements (usually vegetable in nature, but then there's tuna salad, and etc.). So when someone says "What salads do you want on that?" and is pointing at a bin of lettuce, a bin of tomatoes, a bin of olives, it makes my brain short out. Each of those is one element, one veggie--NOT a "salad." You could barely justify asking "What salad (singular) do you want on that?" if you expected them to choose at least two veggies, though it would still be weird. But you can't, you just can't, refer to a tomato as a salad. Or a handful of olives. And you can't call the two of them together "saladSSSSSS." That would have to be at least two separate assemblages, probably on two separate dishes.

    By analogy, it's like going to the bookstore and saying, "I'd like to order some libraries."
  • But you can't, you just can't, refer to a tomato as a salad.

    I think I would refer to things like tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumber as "salad vegetables" - they are vegetables that are normal salad constituents. (Yes, tomato is botanically a fruit. It's functionally a vegetable, unless you're making tomato jam.)

    I can imagine "salad vegetable" being abbreviated to "salad" in some contexts, although in Subway, I'm wondering what's wrong with "vegetables". It's not like they're offering you some roast potatoes or brussels sprouts on your sandwich, and I don't think they have non-vegetable salad ingredients like croutons or bacon bits, do they?

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Cucumbers are also botanically a fruit too.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Cucumbers are also botanically a fruit too.

    Yes, I suppose they are.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Cucumbers are also botanically a fruit too.

    As are olives, and all three kinds of peppers they serve. Getting lost in the details serves no end.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited January 12
    But you can't, you just can't, refer to a tomato as a salad.

    I think I would refer to things like tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumber as "salad vegetables" - they are vegetables that are normal salad constituents. (Yes, tomato is botanically a fruit. It's functionally a vegetable, unless you're making tomato jam.)

    I can imagine "salad vegetable" being abbreviated to "salad" in some contexts, although in Subway, I'm wondering what's wrong with "vegetables". It's not like they're offering you some roast potatoes or brussels sprouts on your sandwich, and I don't think they have non-vegetable salad ingredients like croutons or bacon bits, do they?

    If they said "vegetables" to me it would sound like they were offering cabbage, peas or sprouts. Every sandwich shop in the UK where I can recall the issue arising has referred to vegetation in a sandwich as "salad", but never "salads". Salad as an uncountable noun suggests to me a category - vegetables eaten raw, as opposed to "a salad" which is an assemblage of such as a side or main dish. "Salads" would be two or more such assemblages.

    The sandwich shop I occasionally use near work has sandwich prices with and without "salad", which means plant things in the sandwich alongside the main ingredient. You can also buy "a salad", which is an assemblage of salad items in a box. It's never seemed in the slightest odd to me. I thought this was normal UK usage. They will ask "what salad do you want in this?" and no-one bats an eyelid if the response is "oh, just the cucumber". Cucumber can't on its own make "a salad", but it is in the "salad" category.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    Thanks for the explanation. I shall not set foot in a Subway now.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    KarlLB, yes, I agree with you.

    MMM
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    They're salad ingredients. We don't bother using 2 words.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 12
    To spin off that idea, my favourite single shortening is one that, as far as I'm aware, is unique to Canberra.

    While all the official signs don't say this any more as it's far too confusing to non-locals, for any long-term resident the centre of the city is known as Civic.

    On the original plans it was labelled as the civic centre. Nobody stuck with that. It's just Civic. For years it didn't occur to me that non-Canberrans saw that as an adjective crying out for a noun.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I have the same response to the common UK dialect (maybe elsewhere as well) "the electric". My brain waits for the noun, but of course in the dialect 'electric' is the noun used for "electricity supply" and "electricity bill".
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited January 12
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I have the same response to the common UK dialect (maybe elsewhere as well) "the electric". My brain waits for the noun, but of course in the dialect 'electric' is the noun used for "electricity supply" and "electricity bill".

    And also "electricity supplier / company / board", as in "the man from the electric."
  • We'd say "power" and power bill. Some places they call it "hydro" in Canada where electricity is from water power.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Trudy wrote: »
    I agree entirely with mousethief’s explanation — it’s the use of “salads” as a collective noun for the veggies you’d put in a sandwich, that strikes the North American ear so oddly.

    This. I would have been as baffled as Trudy and family. AFAIK in North American usage, salad is not something that goes on a sandwich. Salad is its own thing, a dish unto itself. "Veggies" would be the more likely term. Veggies wouldn't imply cooked vegetables only.

    (I would define veggies as the produce, served appropriately raw or cooked, which my carnivorous family ignores in favour of consuming all of the meat and half of the carbs at the evening meal, which we in our household would call supper.)
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    I have the same response to the common UK dialect (maybe elsewhere as well) "the electric". My brain waits for the noun, but of course in the dialect 'electric' is the noun used for "electricity supply" and "electricity bill".

    Or, sometimes, "th'lec".
  • We'd say "power" and power bill. Some places they call it "hydro" in Canada where electricity is from water power.
    We'd say "power" and power bill. Some places they call it "hydro" in Canada where electricity is from water power.

    Around here it's always 'hydro', though the supply (at this moment) is roughly 50% nuclear and 27% hydro electric. (https://gridwatch.ca/)
  • NicoleMRNicoleMR Shipmate
    I refer to paying my electric bill as paying Con-ed, referring directly to the company. (Con-ed = Consolidated Edison, though even Con-ed uses "Con-ed" now.)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited January 13
    Leaf wrote: »
    Trudy wrote: »
    I agree entirely with mousethief’s explanation — it’s the use of “salads” as a collective noun for the veggies you’d put in a sandwich, that strikes the North American ear so oddly.

    This. I would have been as baffled as Trudy and family. AFAIK in North American usage, salad is not something that goes on a sandwich. Salad is its own thing, a dish unto itself. "Veggies" would be the more likely term. Veggies wouldn't imply cooked vegetables only.

    (I would define veggies as the produce, served appropriately raw or cooked, which my carnivorous family ignores in favour of consuming all of the meat and half of the carbs at the evening meal, which we in our household would call supper.)

    Can't you buy a ham and salad sandwich for your lunch? That is, a couple of slices of bread with ham, lettuce, tomato etc between? If so, what would you call it? Or a salad roll, a bread roll filled with various vegetables and fruit?

    To go back to Trudy's post, what is odd is the use of "salads". You'd asked what of the various vegetables or fruits you'd like in your salad.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    Can't you buy a ham and salad sandwich for your lunch? That is, a couple of slices of bread with ham, lettuce, tomato etc between? If so, what would you call it? Or a salad roll, a bread roll filled with various vegetables and fruit?

    No. You can buy a ham sandwich OR a salad. You can buy a veggie roll, not a salad roll. If you want veg toppings on your ham sandwich, you specify which veg/veggies/toppings you would like if you're ordering it.

    If you tried to order a "ham and salad sandwich" here, you might instead receive a "ham salad sandwich" which is chopped-up cubes of nasty pseudo-ham, mayonnaise, pickles, and other items God did not intend to be consumed together.

    The use of the word "salad" as a collective word to describe these added items is not known here.

  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited January 13
    Here (US) you'd simply call it a ham sandwich, with lettuce and tomato if you cared to specify so far. Or if you wanted to save words, you'd say "ham and veggie sandwich." You'd never say "ham and salad sandwich" because "salad" by itself, with no qualifiers at all (such as "jello salad" or "egg salad") ALWAYS means a dish-in-itself, served separately from your sandwich or soup or whatever, and composed of at least two veggies tossed together.

    If you wanted a sandwich filled with plant bits but without meat, you'd ask for a veggie sandwich.

    There's also a strong, strong tendency to identify a "salad" as something that contains leaves, though in a pinch you can get around that. And most commonly it is dressed with oil and vinegar or some other dressing, to the point that it causes mild surprise in your server if you request a "salad" with nothing at all, just the plant bits.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited January 13
    Right - much the same thing but using "veggie" rather than "salad". "Veggies" (plural) here is used to describe what comes on your plate at dinner alongside the meat/chicken/fish etc.
  • Don't have much fondness for Subway, but the question wouldn't be about toppings or salad etc, just "what do you want on it". Depending on location you'll see a chart or the actual things and you say or nod/ shake head as various things are said. Subway is basically a lot of not so good bread IMHO.

    It's peanut butter and jam. No one days peanut butter and jelly. In fact even if the thing is technically jelly (no semi-solid pieces of fruit within), it's still called jam. And only on TV is peanut butter PB.

  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    I remember 'Sandwich Spread, a revolting concoction of chopped-up vegetation in 'salad cream' (mayonnaise substitute). It tasted of vomit. I think it was made by Heinz for the British market.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I remember 'Sandwich Spread, a revolting concoction of chopped-up vegetation in 'salad cream' (mayonnaise substitute). It tasted of vomit. I think it was made by Heinz for the British market.

    I've had worse things. I didn't notice a vomit taste, and I'm one of thosed convinced that vomit is an ingredient of Hersheys.

    Worse by far - vol-au-vents filled with Campbell's Condensed mushroom soup. Damned things were everywhere in the 70s befoulling anything they touched.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I remember 'Sandwich Spread, a revolting concoction of chopped-up vegetation in 'salad cream' (mayonnaise substitute). It tasted of vomit. I think it was made by Heinz for the British market.

    Chacun à son goût* I really liked Heinz sandwich spread as a child, and still do.

    *Each to their own taste
  • BroJames wrote: »
    Eirenist wrote: »
    I remember 'Sandwich Spread, a revolting concoction of chopped-up vegetation in 'salad cream' (mayonnaise substitute). It tasted of vomit. I think it was made by Heinz for the British market.

    Chacun à son goût* I really liked Heinz sandwich spread as a child, and still do.

    *Each to their own taste

    Me too!
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