(no subject)

[jack]

Did you know, kipper is a sort of smoked haddock?

OK, you do know that. But in twenty-five years, no-one told me that. It's the sort of thing that it seems odd to run up to someone in the street and say "Hey, just in case you don't know, Haddock is a sort of smoked kipper (or vice versa)!") And yet, it would have been useful if someone had. It came up in conversation, and it suddenly clicked when I realised those two fish being discussed were the same.

(Being vegetarian, I've never known any of the details about quite a lot of sorts of meat, just enough to know I didn't eat it. I had a vague impression you didn't want to get slapped in the face with a wet one, but none at all what they were like to eat. And it never happened to come up in any book I was reading or work I was doing. Well, until yesterday; you'll be unsurprised to learn that it was a literary allusion that finally did bring it up.)

Conversely, someone (iirc) didn't know that the horse's head in the bed was from the Godfather. That, people (mainly the simpsons) really DO run up to me and tell me, despite never (yet) seeing the film. (It's near the top of my list.)

Comments

[fhtagn.livejournal.com]

Um ... whilst haddock can be kippered, a kipper is traditionally herring. Smoked haddock in Scotland is best known in the forms of Arbroath Smokies or Finnan Haddie.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Whoops. My typo, please pretend that where I typed "Haddock" I typed "Herring". Herring is indeed the fish that was mentioned. My ability to type the wrong name is just more of the same.

For the hard of herring

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that kind of 'disconnect' with cultural references to films, especially the Princess Bride.

Re: For the hard of herring

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. I know what you mean. For ages, I'd heard the title, the princess bride, and many references, but didn't know they were all from that film. I assumed it was a historical romance or something else not really my thing. And then it was on at a student film night, and I went along, and it really was very very good.

Re: For the hard of herring

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

You have read the book now, right? Because if not you really have to.

(the movie is ok, but doesn't come near the awesomeness of the book)

Re: For the hard of herring

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Did we talk about the book before, I can't remember? Yes, I bought the book in borders a while ago -- some years after the film but some years before now.

In fact, I'm interested to hear you say that, because your taste always is impeccable, and I generally agree with it without question. However, in this instance (although watching the film first made it harder to judge fairly, my images of the characters in the book are coloured by the ones in the film) this may be one of the very very few books where I think the book was good, but I possibly prefer the adaption. The book certainly had some wonderful moments that weren't in the film, and I had a very similar experience reading both, so I think the adaption was very good. However a lot of the aspects of the book I like the most seem to be encapsulated so well in the film, I almost feel like the film was overall better, for all it was based entirely on the book.

Re: For the hard of herring

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... My favorate bits of that book are things that would never work on film. Like the best kisses in history, and the princess with all the hats, and Indigo squeezing rocks for hours every day, and all the talk about the politics of fictional countries, and of course the whole fake abridgement. I adore the fake abridgement.

Re: For the hard of herring

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! Whereas I loved some bits that didn't translate (eg. Max's and some of the others' history) but mostly thought what had been lost was nice, but not better. I don't know if that's *because* I saw the film first, or if I just responded to different bits.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Mm, I know what you mean. My personal understanding of meat is limited to whatever I had the opportunity to eat before I was 11, so, not particularly varied :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) Indeed. It caused me contortions in French class, because I persisted in not remembering which meat was which, since I'd rarely use the knowledge. Not that that I objected to having knowledge per se, but it didn't stick as readily as things I understood and was eager to use :)

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Awww!

(not that I mean to be patronising, but it just strikes me as sweet)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Aw, *cuddle*. That's how I took it. (And how I'd hope it'd sound for that matter)

[angoel.livejournal.com]

I knew that, primarily because I heard a riddle when I was young in which a fisherman described how many fish of various sorts he had caught, and you had to work out how many kippers had been brought in by his nets.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! Was the kipper/herring part of the puzzle, or just mentioned?

It's funny, there's lots of words I happpen to remember just where I came across them, generally justifying whatever I was doing at the time.

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

Most British lit that talks about kippers assumes the reader knows what they are. Having only encountered kippers in books,I spent a bunch of time being puzzled before I learned that they are smoked fish.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL. Of course. I had picked up (through osmosis, according to some friends -- I might not know about kippers, but I keep coming out with surprising words in many other arenas, and they eventually decided I biologically absorbed, or transmitted them to, the internet dictionaries subconsciously) that they were smoked fish, or at least fish, without even that, it must be even more surreal, until you look at the context.

For that matter, I only knew for sure when I looked them up writing this post that they were a British thing.

--Jack