For those who don’t know.
Well, childhood mystery solved. When I was younger, my family went to France to visit some relatives. One of the dishes we were served was a salad, and my mom told me it was called pee-the-bed salad. I was so confused and was terrified that I was going to wet my bed that night after eating it. I didn’t, but I had been wondering ever since then what it could have been and why it was called that.
I always thought it was a “Dandy Lion,” like a fancy Victorian gentleman lion.
Also
“Uhuhuh… you thaid blow balls.”
“Yeah! Heheh! Yeah!”
Dandelion is called pee the bed (piscialetto) in Italian too. Other Italian names for the same plant are:
- Dog pisser (pisciacane)
- Dog tooth (dente di cane)
- Little grandpa (nonnino)
- wild chicory (cicoria selvatica)
- Donkey chicory (cicoria asinina)
- Pork snout (grugno di porco)
- Pork fattener (ingrassaporci)
- Eye stinger (brusaoci, Venetian)
- Pig salad (insalata di porci. No, not pork salad, pig salad, the animals are still alive)
- Pork grass (erba del porco)
- Sunflower of meadows (girasole dei prati)
- Lion tooth (dente di leone)
- Big puff (soffione, only the fruit)
I think the last two are the most common
In French it’s also called “pissenlit”, which can be translated the same way if split as " pisse en lit". But although I’d noticed this as a kid, I always thought of it as a joke and assumed the name couldn’t actually come from that…
Wait, I don’t speak Italian, is the meaning of porci in ingrassaporci being pork and porci in insalata di porci being pig distinguished by the lack of preposition and the formation of a compound word or is it just a known thing?
You can use both porco and maiale when referring to the animal in general, but for the meat in food you usually say maiale. Maybe there is some food that use the word porco (singular) but when referring to their meat you never use the plural maiali or porci
So apparently the entire world decided that “pee the bed” would be a great name for a flower.
The Scottish people I’ve heard say it actually called them “piss-a-beds,” which trips off the tongue a lot easier, but that name comes from the fact that as an herbal medicine they are apparently a pretty effective diuretic.
Well it has a strong diuretic effect. It’s just good marketing, you know what plant to get off you have trouble pissing
sweden calls them worm roses
Oooh, so that’s what the title of the song “Itchycoo Park” means. I used to think it was an awful sexual reference.
Dandelion also means pee the bed in French, might be on to something.
No, it means lion’s teeth.
Pissenlit is piss the bed.
Aka no one in French would call them dandelion
I did, sometimes, as a child. We called them pissenlit et dandelion, both pronounced in French.
I grew up speaking both English and French though.
Yeah that’s what I meant, around here everyone calls them pissenlit, hence piss the bed.
Ironic, given that the English “dandelion” was borrowed from the Old French dent de leon (“lion’s tooth”).
Lion not Leon
Leon is a proper name for a person.
Reminds me of this old 4chan greentext
On a second thought, the dandelion’s Hungarian name ‘child’s chain grass’ is pretty reserved.
