# A lady at a restaurant didn't know what carrots or cucumbers were. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 9, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lady-at-a-restaurant-didnt-know-what-carrots-or-cucumbers-were/634230 "2012-09-09T21:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lady-at-a-restaurant-didnt-know-what-carrots-or-cucumbers-were/634230/161 "2012-09-16T19:49:12Z")
> [@Abortion\_Fanatic](#): > > In France the root is called céleri-rave (rave being French for root) and the stalks céleri-branche. However, the root is often just referred to as céleri - the opposite of what we do in English, where if you say “celery” pretty much everyone will think of the stalks first, or only think of the stalks, not the root at all. In Quebec, plain old céleri generally means the stalks. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lady-at-a-restaurant-didnt-know-what-carrots-or-cucumbers-were/634230/162 "2012-09-16T20:56:46Z")
I was on the VFX team at a local film studio. The whole production crew were going over some screenplay revisions, and the writer was reading aloud the new scene. It involved a character drinking a fifth of whiskey, and the lead of the writing staff stops him cold, with a concern about using brand names. There was a silence as no one could understand what her concern was. He re-read it for her, and she said, yeh, put in a note to change that. He asked “why?”, and it became embarrassingly clear she had no idea that a fifth is a very, very common unit of alcohol. She thought it was a brand name or something. We’re talking about a woman who has been around the globe, and is working in the film industry. I can see not knowing how much volume that actually is, but not ever hearing of a fifth of [insert liquor/spirits here]?! Later on, we found out she had been faking a heavy British accent. She grew up in our area, visited the UK for 6 months, came back and decided her natural dialect wasn’t conducive to her posh image. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lady-at-a-restaurant-didnt-know-what-carrots-or-cucumbers-were/634230/163 "2012-09-16T23:02:47Z")
> [@Abortion\_Fanatic](#): > > In France the root is called céleri-rave (rave being French for root) and the stalks céleri-branche. However, the root is often just referred to as céleri - the opposite of what we do in English, where if you say “celery” pretty much everyone will think of the stalks first, or only think of the stalks, not the root at all. Same in Hungary. Celery root is generally simply called _zeller_, and the green stalks are _zöld zeller_ (“green celery”). Sometimes, the root will explicitly be called _zellergyökér_, (“celery root”), but simply referring to it as celery was the usual, as most Hungarian cooking uses the root. (In fact, it was pretty damn difficult to find celery stalks in Hungary 10-15 years ago, and even if you bought the root with the top intact, it seemed like the types of celery that were grown for their roots were not suitable for their above-ground part–they were generally just limp, anemic stalks, not the thick, crispy ones we’re used to here.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-lady-at-a-restaurant-didnt-know-what-carrots-or-cucumbers-were/634230.md?page=8)