Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 December 14

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December 14

Random devices, e.g. coin and dice. (December 6)

I see from that article that the plan was to kill all the Jews on the thirteenth day of Adar, which is the twelfth and last month (sometimes the thirteenth and last). Could this be a reason why the number thirteen is considered unlucky? Do the Jews consider it to be unlucky? This date (or the day after) is the festival of the pur, which is a random device. 82.13.208.70 (talk) 12:14, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

What article? --Jayron32 13:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

209.149 mentioned dreidel. 82.13.208.70 (talk) 13:07, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Where? —Tamfang (talk) 21:11, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Here.[1] It was archived earlier today. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh, here. (Darn it again, why isn't there a direct link from this page to the last archive page?) —Tamfang (talk) 19:54, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

No, 13 has a consistently positive connotation in Judaism. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 18:32, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

See also triskaidecaphobia and the "origins" section. --Xuxl (talk) 19:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Brine-pickled cucumbers

I'm of a mind to write a new article about brine-pickled cucumbers. It's a kind of dill pickles where all of the sourness comes from natural lactic fermentation and no vinegar is added at any point in the process. This delicacy seems to limited to Central and Eastern Europe. While various kinds of pickled cucumbers are popular in Western Europe and North America, it seems that the vast majority of them contains vinegar. My question is, what is the most common English name for this kind of pickles? Does it have an English name at all? — Kpalion^(talk) 16:46, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Pickled cucumber#Brined pickles? Alansplodge (talk) 17:12, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm looking for reliable sources. That article section has no citations whatsoever. — Kpalion^(talk) 17:16, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I thought you were looking for "the most common English name for this kind of pickles". Alansplodge (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Try Polish Heritage Cookery (p. 756) "Polish Brine-Cured Dill Pickles - Ogórki kiszone / kwaszone". A search on Google Books for brined pickled cucumbers brings up lots of results about the biology of the process. Alansplodge (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm looking for the most common English name for this kind of pickles that is used in reliable sources. I thought the last part went without saying. A Google Book search for "brined pickled cucumbers" (in quotation marks) returns nothing, while "brine-cured dill pickles" very little. — Kpalion^(talk) 19:54, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The linked article refers to "naturally fermented pickled cucumbers" - and putting that into Google gives quite a few hits, either using naturally fermented, lacto-fermented, brine-fermented, fermented, or naturally cultured. The use of fermented in the name seems to be the main common factor. Wymspen (talk) 10:59, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Try without the quote marks (or click my link): "brined pickles" "brined pickles" (p. 5), "brined dill pickles" and so on. Note that these are American English, we Britons call these things gherkins - see "brined gherkins". Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Our article pickled cucumber simply mentions that gherkins are a different smaller species of cucumber Cucumis native to the West Indies. They are harvested at a much smaller size than what are sold as fresh cucumbers or regular pickles. But we are quite familiar with them in the US as a variety, if not the general name for pickles as a whole. μηδείς (talk) 20:06, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

But [[User:Medeis, in England "cucumber" only means what is apparently called English cucumber in the US. We don't really have other types of cucumber here. "Pickle" is this stuff. However, we see enough Hollywood films to know that when an American says "pickle", it translates to "gherkin" in the UK, regardless of the etymology. Alansplodge (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Okay, so from what I can make out, we have the following correspondences American/Species-method/English:

Cucumber/Cucumis sativus/English Cucumber

Pickle/Cucumis sativus, pickeled/Gherkin

Gherkin (pickled)/Cucumis anguria "West Indian cucumber" (pickled)/Gherkin?

Pickled (e.g., cocktail olive, etc.)/brined-fermented-vinegared-corned food/Branston Pickle, (etc. ?)

μηδείς (talk) 20:34, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

You're getting a bit too specific. See Pickled cucumber#Etymology. Any type of pickled cucumber is a gherkin; little ones are "cocktail gherkins" and I even found "AMERICAN GIANT GHERKINS". Most of ours come from Poland or elsewhere in Eastern Europe. We have all sorts of stuff which is "pickled", pickled onions, pickled beetroot, pickled red cabbage etc etc but "pickle" is a type of chutney. Alansplodge (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

You have responded as if I am arguing in favor of a certain interpretation @Alansplodge: rather, I am trying to communicate towards a transpondic understaning. The Kühne web page you linked to is defunct. The website itself shows that they are calling all Cucumis sativus gherkins. Again, that is not American usage. Further, I do obviously know that all sorts of thing can be pickled, that to pickle is a process. Americans simply treat pickle as a count noun referring specifically to pickled cucumbers are opposed to other pickled things, which are individually specified. I think this is synecdoche, but I am not an English major. μηδείς (talk) 03:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

I think we're almost in agreement here. My point was that "the most common English name" in British English for any type of pickled cucumber is "gherkin" regardless of size, species or method of preservation. Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC

No. Not in any way. The quintessential British Broadcasting Company (BBC) even call cucumber pickles Dill pickled cucumbers and not gherkins. Aspro (talk) 12:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The unstoppable march of the Americanism I suspect. I surrender... Alansplodge (talk)

Think a starting point would be to improve the Pickled cucumber article which appears to be in a small pickle of its own. Its may be better to spell it out rather than rely on broad generic terms. For one can have: Brined lacto-fermented cucumber pickles (traditional).Brined lactic acid pickles with added vinegar (modern commercial offerings with an extended shelf life with the lactic acid and vinegar derived industrially but with non of the flavor imparted by the bacteria). One could even have fermented cucumber pickles without salt but they would be very mushy. So, only then, think about creating a separate article for Brined lacto fermented cucumber pickles. A bit of a mouthful of a title but leaves the reader in no doubt about what type of pickle it is, as there does not seem to be any English generic name reserved solely this specific preserve. The brine is part of the primary preparation so comes first, the lacto is a secondary so comes after brine but before cucumber. So, think this discussion should be continued on that article's talk page. 15:42, 15 December 2017 (UTC)15:40, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I have a feeling that using "brine" with American-based processes can itself cause confusion. When I was a teenager, I worked in a beef processing plant. I specifically worked on the brine line. We brined strips of stomach muscle to make beef bacon. The "brine" was a mix of salt, water, and vinegar. Not only did we call it brine. The barrels of it came in with the name "meat brining solution". From the discussion above, it appears that in the UK, brine excludes use of vinegar. From my experience, that exclusion isn't as strict in the US. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Brine means exactly the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic – e.i., salty water. The beef processing company was using a 'meat' brining 'solution'. In other words, a solution that can contain one or more solutes for processing meat. It is more than probable that it also contained a nitrate for safety reasons (unless it was operating illegally). The words 'meat' & solution clearly indicates that it is not solely a simple brine. It may even had sweeteners and smoky flavors added to it. Otherwise, what is the economic advantage of buying salty water when one can buy just the salt more cheaply? Although we try to keep to commons names, this appears to be an example where we need to differentiate those 'solutions' whose primary solute (by percentage) is salt. Think of it the way that Wrought iron is differentiate on WP from stainless steels and both of those differentiated from chromium-vanadium steels, etc. Aspro (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Here in the UK, only picked Gherkins (of any size) are called pickled Gherkins. These are the ones most commonly found in supermarkets. In home preservation and some select delicatessen stores in the UK pickle Cucumis Sativus are found. These are called picked 'cucumbers' because... (wait for it...) they are picked Cucumis Sativus cucumbers and not picked Gherkins. Oh what a pickle some editors have got themselves in. P.S. I have never seen them pickled whole but diced up into smaller chunks. Presumably, so that they mature quickly and thus maintain some crunch, rather than going mushy or to make it more convenient to spoon out servings onto a plate or maybe a combination of both. I favor the later explanation. So yes, in the UK we do indeed have had picked cucumbers ever since my grandmothers time but they are rare to find in most shops these days due to the ubiquitous Gherkin. Yet, the fact remains that cucumber pickles in the UK do not contain any Gherkins. Courgette pickle looks much the same but they are not commonly seen these days either but they too have a long culinary history. Hope this has spread some light on this matter. Aspro (talk) 12:48, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all for the responses and, especially, links to sources. I will try to work through them during the Christmas period. I suppose 209.149.113.5 is right and I should start with expanding the existing Pickled cucumber article. — Kpalion^(talk) 17:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)