Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

My argument with "Easy peelers" is that they aren't. The peel comes off in tiny pieces so that instead of the entire peel being removed in three or four pieces, it takes about thirty very small pieces and nearly as many minutes. I now prefer the thick skinned oranges where two completely circular longitudinal cuts allow removal of the four quarters, one piece per quarter.

Which is to say you take no quarter with thin-skinned and find the thick-skinned - oranges that is - more appealing!

[Nick Armstrong]

two completely circular longitudinal cuts allow removal of the four quarters, one piece per quarter.

You precision humbles me

[oddoneout]

My argument with "Easy peelers" is that they aren't. The peel comes off in tiny pieces so that instead of the entire peel being removed in three or four pieces, it takes about thirty very small pieces and nearly as many minutes. I now prefer the thick skinned oranges where two completely circular longitudinal cuts allow removal of the four quarters, one piece per quarter.

Some do, some don't, in my experience but in all cases the skin parts company with the flesh easily. Oranges I can no longer peel at all, even if the skin is cut through. Many years ago a school friend had a nifty plastic gadget with a sharp serrated shark's fin like protuberance. It fitted over a finger and would score through the orange skin to make peeling easy.

[kernelbogey]

...peeling the small citrus I like to eat can be difficult and painful if the skin doesn't want to part company with the flesh...

Rolling the fruit between the hands prior to peeling loosens the skin from the 'flesh'.

[Sir Velo]

However can I just point out that highlighting "Easy Peelers" does have its uses for some of us. I now have a lot of problems with arthritis in my hands and peeling the small citrus I like to eat can be difficult and painful if the skin doesn't want to part company with the flesh, so choosing easy peelers can make life easier.

Are you saying that until they were designated as "Easy Peelers" you had know idea that tangertines, satsumas etc were easy to peel? If I want carrots I don't need them to be called "Orange crunchies" or Bananas "Soft top peelers" to know what I'm getting!

[oddoneout]

Are you saying that until they were designated as "Easy Peelers" you had know idea that tangertines, satsumas etc were easy to peel? If I want carrots I don't need them to be called "Orange crunchies" or Bananas "Soft top peelers" to know what I'm getting!

No. It always used to be hit and miss as to ease of peeling, regardless of whether tangerines, satsumas or whatever, some were easy some not. I suppose if the actual variety (rather than just fruit type) of said small citrus had always appeared on the label I could have found out which were better in that respect, but until about 5 years ago that didn't matter for me anyway. Now it does and like many others in my situation I welcome the designation.
I'm sure that for some people the broad grouping of grapes into seedless and seeded is also helpful, even though that similarly overlooks that there is more to grapes than that.
The original point about "Easy Peelers" in the context of this thread I understand, I was just trying to explain that however "wrong" it is there is some use or justification to it. Please don't transfer your dislike of the term into doubt about my knowledge of the fruit in question.

[ardcarp]

I find the expression 'on the planet' increasingly annoying. In almost every type of programme, the presenter will say such things a 'the largest/deepest/ highest/most numerous', etc. etc ON THE PLANET. There is nothing technically wrong with it, I suppose, but what other planet could he/she be talking about? There are lots of planets, but of course The Earth is the one being referred to and the only one we know much about. So why have the phrases 'in the World' or 'on the Earth' been replaced by that grossly over-used expression?

[teamsaint]

I find the expression 'on the planet' increasingly annoying. In almost every type of programme, the presenter will say such things a 'the largest/deepest/ highest/most numerous', etc. etc ON THE PLANET. There is nothing technically wrong with it, I suppose, but what other planet could he/she be talking about? There are lots of planets, but of course The Earth is the one being referred to and the only one we know much about. So why have the phrases 'in the World' or 'on the Earth' been replaced by that grossly over-used expression?

Dunno, maybe adds subtly to the hyperbole by adding a wider context ? We’d tend to see “ the planet” rather than “ on earth “ with reference to a position in space ? Or not……

[smittims]

I suppose it's a way of getting attention. 'Blue Peter' used to say 'the biggest (,,,) in the land ' (instead of 'in Britain').

I deplore some bluntings of English. 'Killer' instead of 'Murderer', a much more specific and useful word. And I wince at 'train station' and 'train line' ; what's happened to 'railway'?

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose it's a way of getting attention. 'Blue Peter' used to say 'the biggest (,,,) in the land ' (instead of 'in Britain').

I deplore some bluntings of English. 'Killer' instead of 'Murderer', a much more specific and useful word. And I wince at 'train station' and 'train line' ; what's happened to 'railway'?

Couldn't agree more as regards "train station"! It seems to have crept up on us, doesn't it? How long before "sidewalk" replaces pavement? And "elevator" for "lift"? Regarding use of the word "killer" it does of course do duty for both murderer and manslaughterer until whichever guilty charge is decided. I am more irritated by the way reporters speak euphemistically of "violence" when referring to physical attacks, particularly used in describing police or army actions against demonstrators, when the term "repression" or "aggression" would be more accurate. And I would prefer "wounded" to be used for the victims of this and war in general in place of "injured" - too general a term for physically harmed when what is meant is consequences of physical attack, not slipping up on a banana skin.

[Pulcinella]

I've never really understood the objection to train station.
After all, trains stop at them in the same way as buses stop at a bus station, which you don't call a road station just because it's on/beside the road.

[cat]

Surely radio station is more problematic than train station.

[Pulcinella]

Surely radio station is more problematic than train station.

I suppose that in the good old days you made the dial on the front stop there as you were tuning in.

[Rolmill]

I've never really understood the objection to train station.
After all, trains stop at them in the same way as buses stop at a bus station, which you don't call a road station just because it's on/beside the road.

On our line they use the term 'station stop' in announcements, this avoiding any reference to train or railway. Not sure whether this is to allow for the increasingly regular bus replacement service, or simply intended to distinguish it from the many unscheduled 'non-station' stops...

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose that in the good old days you made the dial on the front stop there as you were tuning in.

It's not that I object to train station per se; it's more to do with the creeping Americanisation of British English and what that might represent. One rarely hears of movement in the opposite direction: the only American borrowing I can think of in recent times is "bloody", though I have recently noted with pleasure some of them now correctly pronouncing nuclear as nuclear.