Question for our non-American friends of whatever continent: what does "casket" mean to you? Can it be used for a jewellery box or some other use than putting dead bodies into? Because it seems to me that that's the only use it admits in these United States.
My British answer is that casket can certainly be a small, probably ornamental box for jewellery or similar. The box that we put dead people in is a coffin.
It all depends what you've done to the body, I suppose...
As a matter of interest, are balls of fluff generally called kittens in the USA?
This is the first time this American has ever heard dust balls called "kittens." I've always heard "dust balls" or "dust bunnies." I assume "kittens" might be regional, though I have no idea what region.
But the "long-handled floor duster" is, in my experience, usually called a "dry mop" here.
I had to look up “dry mop”, but I think that has to do with my lack of sophistication in floor cleaning technology rather than with any peculiarity of Canadian English. The thing that comes to my mind for that task is a broom...
The only connection I know of between felines and dust bunnies is the one we discovered when our newly acquired feline wandered under a chair on her first day at our home some years ago and came out with her tail covered in dust bunnies.
As a matter of interest, are balls of fluff generally called kittens in the USA?
This is the first time this American has ever heard dust balls called "kittens." I've always heard "dust balls" or "dust bunnies." I assume "kittens" might be regional, though I have no idea what region.
But the "long-handled floor duster" is, in my experience, usually called a "dry mop" here.
I had to look up “dry mop”, but I think that has to do with my lack of sophistication in floor cleaning technology rather than with any peculiarity of Canadian English. The thing that comes to my mind for that task is a broom...
The only connection I know of between felines and dust bunnies is the one we discovered when our newly acquired feline wandered under a chair on her first day at our home some years ago and came out with her tail covered in dust bunnies.
Thank you @NOprophet_NØprofit for your explanation. You've indicated a difference in English usage I'd never have even guessed at. 'Roast' here is a way of cooking any sort of joint, over time in an oven. It's not a cut of meat.
If someone in the UK is unwell, others will say to them "get well soon" which - to me - implies something which happens to the ill person, without much action from them. (ie "may your symptoms be resolved" )
I have heard Americans say "feel better". Does it sound to anyone else that this instead puts the onus on the ill person to do something about it, or even just adapt the way they are feeling, even if the symptoms persist?
If someone in the UK is unwell, others will say to them "get well soon" which - to me - implies something which happens to the ill person, without much action from them. (ie "may your symptoms be resolved" )
I have heard Americans say "feel better". Does it sound to anyone else that this instead puts the onus on the ill person to do something about it, or even just adapt the way they are feeling, even if the symptoms persist?
I suspect it may be a contraction of something along the lines of "hope you are feeling better soon."
I noticed @Wet Kipper's name. We eat kippered herring from a tin sometimes. Though given a choice I'd have pickled herring or rollmops. Rollmop: pickled herring rolled around a pickle usually with a tooth pick in it. Though we're far from the ocean, and local pickled pickeral is more divine than pickled herring (we call walleye pickeral).
I heard someone call a nap a "kip" on a TV program. Which seemed odd.
Re roast beef-prime rib, This is also the buffalo-bison issue. One is more correct. But we call them buffalo. Of which there are wood buffalo and plains bison. So buffalo on the plains are called plains bison; there's no "plains buffalo".
I noticed @Wet Kipper's name. We eat kippered herring from a tin sometimes.
You've not had the Real Thing - whole fresh herring, split, gutted and smoked on the coasts whereon it was caught. Soft and rich - grill with way too much butter and eat with brown bread.
I may have had. Though I perceive general confusion about herrings versus sardines. I've had things called sardines like you say which may be herrings. Then there's pilchards. And non-salt water smelts. The smelts we can get flash frozen in a bag. I likes 'em for breakfast.
(Re frying things, my daughter instructed us some years back, use oil and melt the butter in that, half and half. 50% less saturated fat. Lovely for us is catch jacks (pike) or pickeral, fry up for lunch on shore - open fire is usual - a little garlic, a little lemon pepper, a little salt.)
I've always ever read/heard "Get Well Soon" here (America). The section of the greeting card rack for sending to sick friends is the "Get Well Soon" section.
I
(Re frying things, my daughter instructed us some years back, use oil and melt the butter in that, half and half. 50% less saturated fat. Lovely for us is catch jacks (pike) or pickeral, fry up for lunch on shore - open fire is usual - a little garlic, a little lemon pepper, a little salt.)
50/50 oil/butter helps to prevent the butter from burning (doesn't exclude the possibility). I've never heard pike called jack. Is that a Saskatchewan thing?
I've always ever read/heard "Get Well Soon" here (America). The section of the greeting card rack for sending to sick friends is the "Get Well Soon" section.
And it’s always next to the Sympathy section here in the UK, which strikes me as a little callous.
I noticed @Wet Kipper's name. We eat kippered herring from a tin sometimes. Though given a choice I'd have pickled herring or rollmops. Rollmop: pickled herring rolled around a pickle usually with a tooth pick in it. Though we're far from the ocean, and local pickled pickeral is more divine than pickled herring (we call walleye pickeral).
I heard someone call a nap a "kip" on a TV program. Which seemed odd.
Re roast beef-prime rib, This is also the buffalo-bison issue. One is more correct. But we call them buffalo. Of which there are wood buffalo and plains bison. So buffalo on the plains are called plains bison; there's no "plains buffalo".
Do you still call it prime rib if it's topside or brisket or any other cut?
Don't care for prime rib myself. Too fatty. Can't be arsed with performing dissection at the table.
I may have had. Though I perceive general confusion about herrings versus sardines.
Not hereabouts. You rarely if ever see fresh sardines - they're a southern European fish. Herring otoh was a staple food in the north (loads of folk songs about fishing for herring, gutting herring, eating herring).
Sardines are tiny things in tins that you mash with butter and grill on toast. A whole herring is a plateful, but possibly in reaction to it long being a food of the poor (tatties' 'n' herrin') more often appears as kippers.
I think that what happens sometimes with names like Delores (how does one pronounce it ?) is that people hear a name such as Dolores but don't know how to spell it and make up their own spelling. I once came across a girl who was named Kelaire which seemed to me to be the way that a good number of Scottish people would say Claire.
The movie Percy, about the farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan who fought Monsanto is being advertised. He was accused to have planted their canola seeds. I understand that the old named rapeseed is still used in the UK. (There are obvious reasons why rapeseed is an unfortunate name even though the root origin is completely other.)
The movie Percy, about the farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan who fought Monsanto is being advertised. He was accused to have planted their canola seeds. I understand that the old named rapeseed is still used in the UK. (There are obvious reasons why rapeseed is an unfortunate name even though the root origin is completely other.)
Do you get cooking oil called canola oil?
Not that I've seen. It tends to be just labelled "vegetable oil" though.
You won't have seen the movie yet. Just being released.
We get a wall of cooking oils, all labelled: corn oil, canola, grape seed, avocado seed, flax, sunflower, olive. Others in combination. The analysis of saturated, mono and polyunsaturated, trans fats (which should be zero), and the omega 3 and 6. Generic vegetable oil is usually corn oil and not the healthiest.
Perhaps the labelling regulations are not that detailed for you.
You won't have seen the movie yet. Just being released.
We get a wall of cooking oils, all labelled: corn oil, canola, grape seed, avocado seed, flax, sunflower, olive. Others in combination. The analysis of saturated, mono and polyunsaturated, trans fats (which should be zero), and the omega 3 and 6. Generic vegetable oil is usually corn oil and not the healthiest.
Perhaps the labelling regulations are not that detailed for you.
It's there if you look at the detail. It's just not the name on the label.
It is labelled vegetable oil but is listed in ingredients as rapeseed oil usually. We have very strict rules for listing ingredients and nutritional analysis.
We have a wealth of other oils but I don't think I have ever seen corn oil here in the UK - we don't use it, presumably because we don't grow it. We grow lots of rape seed.
Mr F decided he didn't like rapeseed oil, so put vegetable oil in the shopping trolley instead. When we got home I pointed out the ingredients were listed as 100% rapeseed oil...
But our normal cooking oils are sunflower and olive, with walnut, hazelnut, sesame and chilli for dressings and drizzlings.
Olive is quite expensive here. It's for eating like in salad dressing. Not for cooking. Grape seed, avocado are cheaper here. The go-to is canola. The name change occurred when they bred out some nasty unhealthy characteristics in the 1980s. Plus the connotations of "rape".
Olive oil does for most of our cooking, but we don't use a lot of oil anyway. Nor do we deep fry or anything that requires a great deal of heat, which would mess up olive oil. So we can afford it.
Olive is quite expensive here. It's for eating like in salad dressing. Not for cooking. Grape seed, avocado are cheaper here. The go-to is canola. The name change occurred when they bred out some nasty unhealthy characteristics in the 1980s. Plus the connotations of "rape".
Wow, grapeseed is outrageously priced here. We use olive oil exclusively (except for sesame oil, which is far to pricey to fry in). Olive oil comes in several grades, and the cheapest, used for frying, is not much more than "vegetable oil".
The other thing is that we don’t grow any commercial GM foods in the UK though we do import them (it needs to be clearly marked on the label). I gather canola is often GM, or at least it is in the US.
The other thing is that we don’t grow any commercial GM foods in the UK though we do import them (it needs to be clearly marked on the label). I gather canola is often GM, or at least it is in the US.
I have been led to believe that it's always GM unless it says otherwise on the label. (And even then, who knows?)
Back to kippers. I always poach them. Put them in a suitable container, cover with boiling water until done. Drain, slather with butter. (I do the same with smoked haddock, though with that may add a poached egg.)
On one of my OU summer schools, they arranged the last day to end at Craster, where people could stock up on freshly smoked kippers. The train back south had an interesting odour.
Mackeral are similarly sized to the various fishies called sardines and herrings here. I think there is probably an official sardine and herring, and others labelled or called as such.
Little fishies I either barbeque or do in a cast iron pan. Cook until crispy. Local perch we catch are nice that way. No worries re bones. Crunch them up.
I've occasionally wondered what 'canola' was. We don't use the term. 'Vegetable oil' may be a mixture of various oils or may be cheap rapeseed oil. There's a fashion for what one might call 'chateau bottled rapeseed oil' from specific farms. Basic olive oil isn't too expensive but I fear it is likely to go up dramatically after 1st January. Gourmet pressings are more expensive.
Bee keepers don't like oilseed rape because their bees do, and produce large quantities of low grade and even oily tasting honey from it.
The other 'foreign' food name that I've seen but am a bit puzzled by is 'granola'. I've wondered whether it is something we call by a different name, like egg-plant, or something we don't have at all. Is it a sort of muesli?
Going back a few posts, I don't think we have either pickerel or wall-eye on this side of the Atlantic at all. I'm also slightly intrigued by pike being regarded as a bit of a delicacy as although they're quite common here and of great interest to anglers, we don't normally eat them, or for that matter any of what anglers usually class as coarse fish.
We mainly eat salt water fish, or salmon and trout, both of which are also widely farmed.
The other 'foreign' food name that I've seen but am a bit puzzled by is 'granola'. I've wondered whether it is something we call by a different name, like egg-plant, or something we don't have at all. Is it a sort of muesli?
Yes, it's like muesli. A blend of rolled oats and other grain, seed, and nut ingredients, sometimes chopped dried fruit, then baked, often with some kind of sugary or honey-based glaze.
Mackeral are similarly sized to the various fishies called sardines and herrings here. I think there is probably an official sardine and herring, and others labelled or called as such.
Sardines and pilchards are afaik the same kinds of fish, but pilchards are bigger. They're not the same fish as the kinds of fish called "herring", but they're closely related.
Not completely sure. Jack, jackfish. Think it's probably Manitoba too. What about pickeral which are otherwise called walleye? Is that familiar.
I know a fish (I think that it's the largest of the perch family) as both pickerel and walleye.
Pike I know only as pike of one variety or another. It is (or, was) popular in Burgundy, where it's known as brochet. I love quenelles de brochet. There's also a very good dish, the name of which escapes me, of pike braised in pinot noir.
The largest jack (pike)I've caught was 26 lbs. About 40" long. Teeth like needles. They are great eating. Not coarse at all. As nicely textured as the various freshwater salmon relatives - lake trout, rainbows pikeral (walleye).
I've occasionally wondered what 'canola' was. We don't use the term. 'Vegetable oil' may be a mixture of various oils or may be cheap rapeseed oil. There's a fashion for what one might call 'chateau bottled rapeseed oil' from specific farms. Basic olive oil isn't too expensive but I fear it is likely to go up dramatically after 1st January. Gourmet pressings are more expensive.
There is at least one very good Australian olive oil readily available here, but around the same price and quality is an Italian organic oil. It goes against the grain, but we buy the Italian. We also buy their grape seed oil for the occasions where we don't want olive. Anything labelled "vegetable" is to be avoided.
I usually use rapeseed oil, but have a large bottle of "vegetable" bought at the beginning of the present situation, when it looked as if lines of supply might be disrupted. Apart from not being able to pour it out, I am at a loss what to do with it.
Comments
It all depends what you've done to the body, I suppose...
Huh?
The word I am used to is "dust mop".
But it does make me hungry.
However, ashes go into urns, even if the urn is a wooden box.
Funnily enough, when I Googled “dry mop” (in a different country) I ended up on the same website...
If you think roast beef and prime rib are the same thing, somebody is going to cheat you out of a lot of money.
Very true. You have choices like chuck, rump roast, prime rib, and whole beef tenderloin on a very extended cost scale.
I have heard Americans say "feel better". Does it sound to anyone else that this instead puts the onus on the ill person to do something about it, or even just adapt the way they are feeling, even if the symptoms persist?
I suspect it may be a contraction of something along the lines of "hope you are feeling better soon."
I heard someone call a nap a "kip" on a TV program. Which seemed odd.
Re roast beef-prime rib, This is also the buffalo-bison issue. One is more correct. But we call them buffalo. Of which there are wood buffalo and plains bison. So buffalo on the plains are called plains bison; there's no "plains buffalo".
You've not had the Real Thing - whole fresh herring, split, gutted and smoked on the coasts whereon it was caught. Soft and rich - grill with way too much butter and eat with brown bread.
(Re frying things, my daughter instructed us some years back, use oil and melt the butter in that, half and half. 50% less saturated fat. Lovely for us is catch jacks (pike) or pickeral, fry up for lunch on shore - open fire is usual - a little garlic, a little lemon pepper, a little salt.)
50/50 oil/butter helps to prevent the butter from burning (doesn't exclude the possibility). I've never heard pike called jack. Is that a Saskatchewan thing?
And it’s always next to the Sympathy section here in the UK, which strikes me as a little callous.
Do you still call it prime rib if it's topside or brisket or any other cut?
Don't care for prime rib myself. Too fatty. Can't be arsed with performing dissection at the table.
Not hereabouts. You rarely if ever see fresh sardines - they're a southern European fish. Herring otoh was a staple food in the north (loads of folk songs about fishing for herring, gutting herring, eating herring).
Sardines are tiny things in tins that you mash with butter and grill on toast. A whole herring is a plateful, but possibly in reaction to it long being a food of the poor (tatties' 'n' herrin') more often appears as kippers.
Jackfish = northern pike (used interchangeably) for my Manitoba relatives.
Do you get cooking oil called canola oil?
Not that I've seen. It tends to be just labelled "vegetable oil" though.
We get a wall of cooking oils, all labelled: corn oil, canola, grape seed, avocado seed, flax, sunflower, olive. Others in combination. The analysis of saturated, mono and polyunsaturated, trans fats (which should be zero), and the omega 3 and 6. Generic vegetable oil is usually corn oil and not the healthiest.
Perhaps the labelling regulations are not that detailed for you.
It's there if you look at the detail. It's just not the name on the label.
We have a wealth of other oils but I don't think I have ever seen corn oil here in the UK - we don't use it, presumably because we don't grow it. We grow lots of rape seed.
But our normal cooking oils are sunflower and olive, with walnut, hazelnut, sesame and chilli for dressings and drizzlings.
Wow, grapeseed is outrageously priced here. We use olive oil exclusively (except for sesame oil, which is far to pricey to fry in). Olive oil comes in several grades, and the cheapest, used for frying, is not much more than "vegetable oil".
I have been led to believe that it's always GM unless it says otherwise on the label. (And even then, who knows?)
On one of my OU summer schools, they arranged the last day to end at Craster, where people could stock up on freshly smoked kippers. The train back south had an interesting odour.
Little fishies I either barbeque or do in a cast iron pan. Cook until crispy. Local perch we catch are nice that way. No worries re bones. Crunch them up.
Bee keepers don't like oilseed rape because their bees do, and produce large quantities of low grade and even oily tasting honey from it.
The other 'foreign' food name that I've seen but am a bit puzzled by is 'granola'. I've wondered whether it is something we call by a different name, like egg-plant, or something we don't have at all. Is it a sort of muesli?
Going back a few posts, I don't think we have either pickerel or wall-eye on this side of the Atlantic at all. I'm also slightly intrigued by pike being regarded as a bit of a delicacy as although they're quite common here and of great interest to anglers, we don't normally eat them, or for that matter any of what anglers usually class as coarse fish.
We mainly eat salt water fish, or salmon and trout, both of which are also widely farmed.
Yes, it's like muesli. A blend of rolled oats and other grain, seed, and nut ingredients, sometimes chopped dried fruit, then baked, often with some kind of sugary or honey-based glaze.
Sardines and pilchards are afaik the same kinds of fish, but pilchards are bigger. They're not the same fish as the kinds of fish called "herring", but they're closely related.
Mackerel are a different set of fish.
I know a fish (I think that it's the largest of the perch family) as both pickerel and walleye.
Pike I know only as pike of one variety or another. It is (or, was) popular in Burgundy, where it's known as brochet. I love quenelles de brochet. There's also a very good dish, the name of which escapes me, of pike braised in pinot noir.
There is at least one very good Australian olive oil readily available here, but around the same price and quality is an Italian organic oil. It goes against the grain, but we buy the Italian. We also buy their grape seed oil for the occasions where we don't want olive. Anything labelled "vegetable" is to be avoided.