Semantics
Even though we all speak english, there are a lot of words that differ around the English-speaking world. In my writing here I haven’t come across too many issues, and often I use the american word for something to avoid any confusion that might occur. Maybe it’s because I’m blogging more or maybe I’m just thinking less about it, but I’ve had two questions this week: what are pegs and what’s a trifle? I just thought pegs and trifles were pretty universal, although on reflection, trifle is probably more a British thing though.
Pegs, short for clothespegs I guess, are for hanging my washing outside. I hate a whole lot of clotheshorses around my house with clothes at various stages of drying hung all over them, and try to hang my clothes outside whenever possible. At the moment that is impossible regardless of the weather, cos somebody stole all my damn pegs! They’re cheap enough to replace, and if it was a handful of pegs I wouldn’t care. But I had purchased a specific peg-bag to go with them and just topped up with two more packets the week we moved. So I want my damn peg bag, with pegs, back! I’m now holding some mail I picked up from the old place ransom in return for my pegs.
Trifle’s are something your grandmother usually makes, and most often at christmas. Usual ingredients are sponge, sherry or brandy, jelly, fruit and custard. I was never a fan of trifle, most likely because the only one I’d ever had was my grandma’s and it wasn’t good. You soak the sponge in the liquer after arranging pieces of it in a bowl. Then you add the fruit (most often canned peaches, ick), then pour over jelly (more ick, not really a jelly fan), then top with custard (home made custard that kind of solidifies, further ickiness). It’s all too random for me, 4 different things, each a dessert on their own, but all mixed together, and a whole lot of horrible textures. However, technology has advanced and you can now purchase custard in a carton, the kind that stays nice and thick and doesn’t set in your trifle. And people tend to omit the jelly and often the liquer too. I’m happy enough with the liquer, but ditching the jelly was a great idea. The one my friend made last night was with frozen berries and fresh strawberries, the sponge and then the custard on top. She may have done something else too, but it seemed to be berries, custard and sponge mostly.
So… now I’ve explained, what are the words you use for pegs? And do you have something similar to a trifle? What’s it called?
Now I get it! Okay - so if I understand properly, your ‘pegs’ are what you attach the clothes to the line with, yes? If I’m assuming correctly, the only word I know for those here are ‘clothespins’.
As for trifle I know two meanings - one being a desert/treat and the other being a the verb meaning not to be messed with so to say.
I am seeing here though per my dictionary widget it’s first definition listed is “something of little value or importance.” Now you see why I have a dictionary widget that’s easily accessible. LOL!
That widget sounds like a great idea! I used to have a dictionary handy on my toolbar, but wasn’t using it much cos it wasn’t that great. Clothespins are the ones! Not a commonly used word in the movies, so I never picked up on that before lol. They are clothespegs in full I’d guess and ‘pegs’ for short here.
Comment by Kari — November 19, 2008 @ 10:16 am
A trigle sort of sounds like what we call sponge cake. We often put strawberries and whipped cream on ours.
Hmm… similar ingredients, but different end results, we have sponge cake too, with fruit and cream. Here’s a pic of a trifle that’s multiple layers:
and one that I would call a more traditional trifle: 
. Wikipedia describes it a bit better than I did http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifle. Hope this helps clarify!
Comment by Veronica — November 25, 2008 @ 12:19 am