I put the cooker on the gas and took it off gas after it blew vissle.

Status
Not open for further replies.

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Those fast-boiling ones are certainly keen to let you know when they're done.

Unfortunately, mine doesn't show the characteristic English restraint that GoesStation mentions. If ever I absent-mindedly manage to leave the lid up, it scares the living cr*p out of me. Perhaps it was designed by an American.
 

Charlie Bernstein

VIP Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Those fast-boiling ones are certainly keen to let you know when they're done.

Unfortunately, mine doesn't show the characteristic English restraint that GoesStation mentions. If ever I absent-mindedly manage to leave the lid up, it scares the living cr*p out of me. Perhaps it was designed by an American.
No doubt!

But here we like to think that the British put the kettle on the hob.

Another bubble burst.
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
But here we like to think that the British put the kettle on the hob.

Oh, um, yes, of course we do. And we only ever use a teapot, covered with a knitted cosy featuring a likeness of Her Maj. ;-)
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
And we drink the tea out of dainty china cups, with our little finger raised, of course.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
And we drink the tea out of dainty china cups, with our little finger raised, of course.

Except with breakfast, of course, when you use breakfast tea mugs.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Or tea bowls, as we discovered in a previous thread!
 

tufguy

VIP Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Location
India
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Hindi
Home Country
India
Current Location
India
Tufguy, did you actually read post #2? If so, why have you used the three original words instead of the correct ones tedmc gave you?

Beacause I was talking about the cooker.
 

tufguy

VIP Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Location
India
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Hindi
Home Country
India
Current Location
India
Here's what you need to know:

1. Cookers don't whistle. Kettles whistle.

2. Cooker is another uncommon word, except when people talk about slow cookers, which are electric pots used for cooking things overnight. Otherwise, cooker is not natural.

3. Kettles don't blow whistles. Kettles' whistles blow.

4. Gas is wrong. You can say stove or burner. Sometimes people say gas ring, but I don't hear it often.


I put the kettle on the burner and took it off the burner after it (what should I be writing here?).

Kettles don't blow whistles. Kettles' whistles blow. I don't understand at all. Should I be saying I took it off the burner after it whistle blew?
 

Tarheel

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Try:

I put the kettle on the burner, and then I took it off the burner after I heard the whistle.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
I put the kettle on the burner and took it off the burner after it (what should I be writing here?).

Kettles don't blow whistles. Kettles' whistles blow. I don't understand at all. Should I be saying I took it off the burner after it whistle blew?
Say "I put the pressure cooker on the burner. When its whistle blew, I took it off."

I've never seen a pressure cooker with a whistle, but I don't see why they shouldn't have one.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Try:

I put the kettle on the burner, and then I took it off the burner after I heard the whistle.

He's talking about a pressure cooker, not a kettle. :-(
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
The only pressure cooker I've ever owned (against my better judgement) did indeed start to hiss and then whistle alarmingly when it was ready to be taken off the heat.

I put the pressure cooker on the stove and took it off when it began to whistle.
I put the pressure cooker on the hob and took it off when it began to whistle.
I put the pressure cooker on and turned it off when it began to whistle.

In the UK, we generally put pans (of all descriptions) on the stove or the hob, not on the gas or on the heat. There are now electric pressure cookers and for those I'd say:

I switched the pressure cooker on and it turned off automatically when it was done.
 

tufguy

VIP Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Location
India
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Hindi
Home Country
India
Current Location
India
Say "I put the pressure cooker on the burner. When its whistle blew, I took it off."

I've never seen a pressure cooker with a whistle, but I don't see why they shouldn't have one.

I don't understand "whistle blew". Could you please elaborate this?

What is the correct way of using it?
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Even though a whistle isn't actually capable of doing anything, being an inanimate object, we give it a sort of ability in this context. "When the whistle blew" means "When the whistle started making the sound we call a whistle". Normally, a whistle is made by someone blowing, either by pursing their lips and whistling a tune, or blowing into a little plastic/metal whistle (like football referees use). That's why we use "blew".

We do the same thing when talking about bells in certain contexts. For example, "Maths today was really boring. When the bell rang, I ran out of the classroom as fast as I could". The bell didn't ring itself; someone rang it, but that doesn't stop us making it sound as if the bell did something of its own volition.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
I don't understand "whistle blew". Could you please elaborate this?

What is the correct way of using it?
Air or steam blew through the whistle, causing it to make its characteristic piercing noise. Many American towns used to signal it was 12:00 with a noon whistle. This was originally a steam whistle like one on an old locomotive, but it was replaced by an air-powered siren like that in the video. My little town ran its noon whistle until around 1990. I miss it, but I admit it was irritating when it woke my baby from his naps. We lived a few hundred yards from the municipal building where the device was mounted, so it was quite loud at our house.

In my childhood the whistle was also the signal to summon the volunteer fire department. I lived across town, over a mile away, but could hear it easily. One of my neighbors was a volunteer. When I heard the signal I'd rush over to his house, hoping to see his garage door open on its own. He'd installed the first electric garage-door opener in town to shave a few seconds off his response time. I was devastated when he converted his garage into a family room and built a carport which didn't need a garage door. :-(

Our noon whistle sounded exactly like this one:
 

Skrej

Key Member
Joined
May 11, 2015
Member Type
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
The only pressure cooker I've ever owned (against my better judgement) did indeed start to hiss and then whistle alarmingly when it was ready to be taken off the heat.

I don't currently own one, but I remember my mother using hers fairly frequently. It had a small vent hole to release pressure, upon which sat a very heavy metal knob that acted as the pressure regulator. It sat loosely on a small tube, and when the pressure built up enough to lift the heavy weight, a small amount of steam could escape from underneath it.

Thus once the cooker got to pressure, it constantly hissed and made little tinging sounds as the weight lifted and settled. I can't remember if it made a whistle when done or not, but I actually kind of enjoyed that hissing and putt-putt-putting sound. It was almost like listening to a steam engine.

However, one time I made the mistake of adding whole rosemary to whatever it was we were cooking. One of the individual little leaves somehow managed to get carried up into the steam release vent, so pressure kept building instead of seeping off.

All of a sudden there was a very loud bang as what had essentially become a bomb on the stove blew some seals and spewed hot liquid all over the kitchen ceiling and immediate area. In the aftermath, we found a small rubber gasket or o-ring that had blown out of the lid where that pressure relief tube sat in the lid, with a piece of rosemary in it. I presume that was an intentional design feature so that instead of the entire pot exploding in metal shards like a grenade, this gasket failed first.

It did however send that pressure relief weight high enough to dent the ceiling. I discovered this as I was on a step ladder trying to clean the red stains (apparently we were cooking something tomato based) off the ceiling. Eventually we just had to repaint the ceiling.

As a result, to this day my mother still refuses to use a pressure cooker, and views rosemary with scorn.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top