Diane calls from eastern North Carolina to talk about a phrase her father used if she asked him to repeat something: I never chew my celery twice. He probably conflated the idea of chewing celery with some far more common expressions involving doing something twice with cabbage, whether it’s buying, selling, cooking, or chewing it in a way that’s boring or distasteful. The ancient Greek expression Dis krambe thanatos literally means “Cabbage twice is death,” suggesting the idea that repetition is tedious. The ancient Roman writer Juvenal warned against having to teach a boring curriculum with a Latin phrase that means “Cabbage served over and over is the death of teachers.” By 1732, a similar idea was expressed in the proverb No sweetness is a cabbage twice boiled nor in a tale twice told. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Never Cook Your Cabbage Twice”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Diane, and I’m from eastern North Carolina.
Hi, Diane.
What can we do for you?
Well, I have a phrase that I would like a little history on, and it is, I never chew my celery twice.
Tell us about that. Where do you hear that?
Well, my dad used to say this quirky and absurd phrase when I was a teen.
And of course, I would block him out when he was going on, you know, just speaking to me in ad nauseum.
Of course.
Exactly.
So then something would tell me, oh, you know, maybe I should have heard what he just said.
And I would say, what?
What did you say?
And then he would turn to me and say, I never chew my sorry twice.
That would just leave me completely missed.
I knew what he meant.
I knew he wasn’t going to repeat himself.
But it was, you know, absurd.
Of course you’d chew your celery twice.
You’d choke if you didn’t.
Right.
So where is that from?
Oh, what a good question.
He probably conflated that with a much older expression that involves not celery but cabbage.
Have you ever heard that about chewing cabbage twice?
No, just celery.
There are a lot of different versions of an old expression that involves doing something with cabbages, whether it’s buying cabbages or selling cabbages or chewing cabbage.
And the idea is that it’s boring and distasteful.
You know, just too much cabbage is just boring.
And what’s really interesting is that it goes all the way back to ancient Greek.
There’s an expression in ancient Greek, dyskrombe thanatos, which basically means cabbage served twice is death.
The idea being that, you know, too much cabbage is just really boring or repetition is tedious.
And that got picked up over the centuries.
Got picked up by the Roman writer Juvenal, who had a line in one of his bits of writing that basically said, cabbage served over and over is the death of teachers. Meaning, you know, if they’re teaching the same really boring curriculum over and over and over again, you know, it’ll just wear you out.
And over time, different versions of these proverbs involving how boring cabbages have shown up all over the world.
That is really interesting.
By the 1700s, it was transformed into a proverb by Thomas Fuller along the lines of, no sweetness in a cabbage twice boiled, nor in a tale twice told.
That’s from 1732.
So it just really kind of just kept making the rounds over the centuries until it shows up as celery in your dad’s mouth.
I have to say, I have a teen and I say this to him and it’s incredibly satisfying for me.
I get the same look I’m sure I gave my father.
What are you saying?
So there you go, Diane.
Well, that’s awesome.
Outstanding.
Thanks for calling.
Take care.
Oh, thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thanks, Diane.
Bye-bye.
There’s something about those expressions that our parents said to us and we get to relish as we say them to our children.
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