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

[tedmc]

Our noon whistle sounded exactly like this one

:

Isn't that the sound of a siren rather than a whistle?

 

[GoesStation]

Isn't that the sound of a siren rather than a whistle?

Yes. It was called the noon whistle, presumably because it replaced a steam whistle.

 

[Rover_KE]

Topic drift.

Thread moved.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

What do you call this?

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai...2ahUKEwiHt62qk97uAhVkXnwKHUfDCo8Q8w56BQgBELwC

Is it a cooker?

We don't call it a cooker. We call it a pressure cooker.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

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

I can't tell. He posted a picture of a pressure cooker, but I just thought he was showing us an example of the use of the word cooker.

There might be pressure cookers with whistles, but I've never seen one that did.

Hm.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I put the kettle on the burner and took it off the burner when it whistled.

Kettles don't blow whistles. Kettles' whistles blow. I don't understand at all.

Your way is grammatical, but it's not as natural as other ways to phrase it.

Should I be saying I took it off the burner after it whistle blew?

As I we wouldn't use after. You took it off when the whistle blew.

Notice that whistle can be either a noun or a verb. These are natual:

- . . . when it whistled. (verb)
- . . . when I heard it whistle. (verb)
- . . . when the whistle blew. (noun)
- . . . when its whistle blew. (noun)
- . . . when I heard the whistle. (noun)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

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

What is the correct way of using it?

Blow is what the whistle did. The whistle blew.

When you heard it, you took it off the stove.

You might be reading it too literally. Technically, whistles don't do the blowing. You might be thinking: Something (or someone) must blow a whistle. They don't blow themselves.

That's true. But even so, in English, we still say that a whistle blows.

You can also say "when the kettle blew its whistle." That's both natural and logical, because then the whistle isn't blowing itself.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

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.

Wow.

I hate those things. I used to work at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, back when they fried the chicken using pressure cookers on stoves. Few things in the world are more exciting than opening one of those pots. Defusing bombs, maybe.

They didn't whistle.

 

[GoesStation]

 

[probus]

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. ;-)

Knitted? How lowbrow. Ours is crocheted.:-D

 

[probus]

An electrician once told me that even after thirty years electricial substations still scared the cr*p out of him. I'm the same about pressure cookers. Irrational as it may be, I just won't have one in the house.

 

[GoesStation]

Knitted? How lowbrow. Ours is crocheted.:-D

Spray foam is really effective.

 

[probus]

This is getting very far off topic, but I hope at least one person finds this as amusing as I do. I once read or heard an interview with a bomb disposal expert. The interviewer said it must be a very stressful job. The defuser said nope, it's totally stress-free because I never make a mistake. The interviewer asked how he could be sure he never would make a mistake. He replied "I don't know that. But I know if I ever do make a mistake I will never know about it."

To me that is quite illogical, but it shows the psychological makeup necessary to do that job.

 

[GoesStation]

I encourage everyone to watch Danger UXB. It's an excellent series describing how the British learned — at the cost of many lives — how to defuse unexploded ordinance.

 

[probus]

I concur with GoesStation: Danger UXB is excellent British television. It is ancient - - it seems like forty-some years ago we watched it. But nowadays you can find almost anything if you search diligently.

 

[GoesStation]

I concur with GoesStation: Danger UXB is excellent British television. It is ancient - - it seems like forty-some years ago we watched it. But nowadays you can find almost anything if you search diligently.

It all appears to be on YouTube.

 

[tufguy]

Notice that whistle can be either a noun or a verb. These are natual:

- . . . when it whistled. (verb)
- . . . when I heard it whistle. (verb)
- . . . when the whistle blew. (noun)
- . . . when its whistle blew. (noun)
- . . . when I heard the whistle. (noun)

I do understand when the whistle blew however, the only phrase I don't is when it is whistle blew. What kind of phrase is when its whistle blew.

 

[emsr2d2]

Tufguy, please edit your last post and make the words you are asking us about stand out in some way (quotation marks, bold, italics, whatever you like!) I can't believe we are still having to tell you that after all these years.

And stop using "however" in the middle of a sentence!

 

[Tarheel]

I do understand "when the whistle blew". However, the only phrase I don't understand is "when it is whistle blew".

You totally made that up.

What kind of phrase is "when its whistle blew"?

Oh yeah?

 

[GoesStation]

I do understand when the whistle blew however, the only phrase I don't is when it is whistle blew. What kind of phrase is when its whistle blew.

Tufguy, you'll get more useful answers when you learn how to write your questions correctly. You always have to mark words and phrases you're writing about with quotation marks or italics. If you regularly read a bit of formal English like what you'd find in Time Magazine or simple books, you will soon know how to do this without thinking about it.

I'm tempted to close this thread now, but I'll leave it open for a day or so to give you a chance to revise the above post, put the corrected version in a new post in this thread, and wait for answers.