Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
How did the names get mixed up then though (for them and other things I've noticed) if there was always one name for each thing already established?
Both the flat ones and the long ones have been around for over 200 years, it would honestly be weirder if regional differences in the names had never developed. After all, why would someone in York, UK and someone in Boston, USA in the 1820s know or care what the other called their fried slices of potato? "Chips" is a pretty reasonable name for both of them, so maybe the flat ones got popular in America first but the long ones got popular in Britan first, so then each had to find another name for the other sort. I'm guessing here, but I don't think it's in any way strange that it happened, however it did happen.
British English using "fries" for thinner chips (chips in the British sense) actually is because of American influence, though. In the same way that Americans call their long fried potato "French fries" because they are fried in the French way, Brits call those thinner ones "fries" because they're fried the American way. You wouldn't usually say "American fries" here because "fries" by itself alreadyy means that, but if you did people would immediately understand that you mean the thinner sort that you get at McDonald's, not the thicker sort you get at a fish & chip shop.