Early frontrunner for most unlikely debate topic 2022
In a surprising corner of the internet we never thought we’d stumble across, it would seem people on social media are debating what the proper name for a chopping board is.
If you thought the answer was, well, chopping board, you’d be right. Nevertheless, plenty of other people would beg to differ. Let chaos and confusion commence.
OK, bit of a funny question, but what did you call these, where you lived, when you were growing up? In my family we always called them “chopping boards” but I’m interested to hear what other kind of names people have for them! pic.twitter.com/9990JlxsSw
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) March 11, 2022
As you can see, it was writer, critic and podcaster Caspar Salmon who opened up this can of worms and, regardless of how intriguing the results may be, we really don’t why.
We can only assume the question reared it’s head after a surprising conversation with someone led him to learn that not everyone calls the typical plastic and wooden surfaces most people prepare their food on chopping boards.
As it turns out, some call them stuff like this:
Always drives my Irish husband crackers that we say it the opposite way round to his family but I grew up in Liverpool and we called it the bredouille for a wooden one or the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftsjubiläumskapitänssturmmützehalteknopfoberteil if plastic.
— Kevin Barrett ?️? (@kevin_barrett84) March 12, 2022
I’ll say it once and calmly, for now… what?
Some people into the confusing territory of bread, cheese and charcuterie boards; we didn’t even entertain those, we were simply too confounded by all the other options.
In the north west of England it was known as a Grub Plank but travel a few miles west and you’d hear people refer to it as a “the lil’ ol’ dice batten”.
— Andrew Male (@Andr6wMale) March 11, 2022
Oh, come off it – “grub plank”, “lil’ ol’ dice batten”, “beef plinth” – what are you talking about?!
Plenty of them make sense to a degree but fundamentally neglect the fact that they’re called chopping boards because that’s simply what they are: boards for chopping stuff on.
mum’s lancastrian so she’d always call it an ickle chorley hardboard but of course with dad being from yorkshire it was t’meat chonk to him. oh, how we’d laugh.
— James (@jrawson) March 11, 2022
Donegal here and it was always a chopping board (and we baffle Anglos with terms like “hot press”).
— Margaret Doherty (@teragramytrehod) March 11, 2022
Again, while the etymology and almost nominatively deterministic nature of some help provide some clarity and certainly provide some interesting alternatives, we just can’t get over the sheer variety of words for something we thought was pretty universal.
Wow, that’s incredible Jon. I presume the phrase “chop chop” must be connected in some way.
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) March 11, 2022
We can only assume this a joke but, nonetheless, it might be up there as our favourite:
I substantially enhanced my enjoyment of this tweet by reading it in a Jacob Rees-Mogg voice.
— Unpainted Huffheinz (@TwentyCamels) March 11, 2022
Honestly, there are so many different words people use instead of simply calling them chopping boards on this thread, we encourage you to waste at least a portion of your Saturday night looking through them. Please.
