Here's a slippery issue that I thought I'd ask our British friends to discuss, even though it has nothing to do with words. I've been curious about this for a long time.

The issue is the rinsing of dishes--British vs. American style. Americans, when washing dishes by hand, generally wash them in soapy water, rinse them in clear water and drain them in the dish drainer (or dry by hand with a towel).

But in the UK and at least some of the Commonwealth nations, dishes are washed in soapy water and put straight into the drainer without a rinse, or wiped with a dishtowel without a rinse.

Several years back, I was with a multi-national group that rented a house in the highlands of Scotland together. There were Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Americans. When the dishwashing crew after any given meal was international, there would be all of these micro-conflicts--Americans taking dishes out of the drainer and rinsing them before drying; Brits saying "don't bother with that" when Americans rinsed. The Brits seemed highly amused that the Americans were horrified that they weren't rinsing their dishes. I had already encountered this odd practice when visiting my sister in New Zealand a few years earlier. She handles the difference by rinsing dishes when she is alone and not rinsing dishes when she is visiting others.

In the U.S., it is commonly believed that if you eat food from soapy dishes, the food will at least have an unpleasant taste, and, just as likely, you will end up with a case of "the trots." After all, soapy water is used in enemas! Still, I must admit, everybody in the UK does not seem to be running for the loo constantly, despite their, to us, strange, dish-washing practices.

So what's the deal? Is Sainsbury's Washing Up Liquid chemically different from Dawn dish detergent? Or are your intestines just inured to the thrice-daily soaping up?

Wordmatic

I have no idea what happens in the depths of my dishwasher. All I know is that the dishes come out clean and dry and I put them back into the cupboard!

Well this Brit washes-rinses-drains. So sorry, can't help.

In my Army days, it was spit -- wipe --eat.

Glad to hear it, Richard and Bob! Not that the other way is necessarily a "wrong." What led me to raise this question now was watching an old rerun of "As Time Goes By" on PBS the other night. In one scene, Jean and Lionel are standing by the kitchen sink. She washes each dish in the soapy water and puts it straight into the drainer without rinsing. He dries the soapy plates with the dishtowel and puts them on the shelf. This was what we had observed in Scotland and New Zealand!

WM

quote:

After all, soapy water is used in enemas!

I'm no medical expert, but I think Kalleh will be able to confirm that if you are taking your enemas orally you are doing something wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale
I'm no medical expert, but I think Kalleh will be able to confirm that if you are taking your enemas orally you are doing something wrong.

Uh, yeah! That's true. I was assuming that soap introduced at the upper end of the GI system probably would not be broken down by digestive enzymes and have the same effect as soap introduced from the nether terminus!

We may not get an answer from Kalleh for a bit, as she and Shu are no doubt neck deep in packing for Durbin at this moment.

Bon Voyage to K & S!

Wordmatic

P.S. there are no such things as "my enemas," unless the enema of my enema is "my enema."

Keep your friends close and your enemas closer.

And let's not forget the 1963 Jack Lemmon/Shirley MacLaine movie, Enema Douche.

Dennis Quaid / Louis Gossett Enema Mine
And Robert Mitchum / Curt Jurgens The Enema Below
And who can forget Gwyneth Paltrow as Jane Austen's flatulent heroine Enema?

Which brings me to the question, why is it that in the US, a douche sprays up, or in, but in France it sprays down, or on. (No, PR, they don't stand on their heads)

but in France it sprays down, or on

but in France it sprays down,

Same in Germany, though they spell it Dusche. The German and the English are borrowed from the French: French douche 'shower' < Italian doccia 'conduit' back-formation from doccione 'pipe' < Latin ductiō, ductinis '(act of) leading' < ductus past participle of dūcō, dūcere, 'to lead'. English conduit is from the same root by a different route.

An explorer of tombs on the Nile
Had some writing on walls make him smile.
He observed a cartouche
Of the Queen using douche
In a water-free sand-blasting style.

So, WM, care to rinse a couple of thread hijackers to the point of saponification?

quote:

In the U.S., it is commonly believed that if you eat food from soapy dishes, the food will at least have an unpleasant taste,

Ah, that explains a lot about English food.

The soap in an enema helps with cleansing and increasing peristalsis (locally, so Bob is right). We always used to call the best enema a 3H one: High, Hot, and Hell of a lot.

BTW, poor Shu isn't going to Durban. There was just too much for me to do there, and we wouldn't have had much time together.

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
So, WM, care to rinse a couple of thread hijackers to the point of saponification?

I had to look up "saponification," but yes! I was waiting for at least one person to say, "Yes, we do it that way here, and by the way, you Americans are needlessly wasting water by rinsing your dishes!" I'm ready to turn into a bar of soap myself! How we got onto a different kind of rinsing from that is entirely beyond me!

WM

P.S. Kalleh, your 3H enemas sound horrific. And sorry Shu isn't traveling to wintertime in S.A., but at least we'll have him here.