Pickle

[Steve Kl.]

Out of curiosity, what part of Michigan are you from (I assume Michigan
because of 'chartermi')?
I grew up southwest of Flint, my grandparents were farmers. My father had a
huge garden and we grew tons of cukes, but I never heard any of them call
small cucumbers pickles. Are you up near the Thumb? For some reason I have a
vague recollection that were large cucumber crops up that way, and I'm
wondering if this is a term that people who deal with cucumbers in large
quantities used.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 8:03 AM, David Metevia <djmetevia at chartermi.net>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       David Metevia <djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET>
> Subject:      Pickle
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>
> I don't have access to the OED at the moment, but looked at m-w.com
> for a definition of pickle.  In my part of the world, folks regularly
> refer to small size cucumbers as pickles.  A gardener grows these
> pickles; the farmer's market sells these pickles.  They are referring
> to the raw vegetable. Presumably this is an extension of the word as
> the intent is that the cucumbers will be further processed into
> pickles.
>
> Yet, the MW definition only gets as close to that meaning as the final
> product:
>
> 3 : an article of food that has been preserved in brine or in vinegar;
> specifically : a cucumber that has been so preserved
>
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