We do something illogical with in American culture regarding our language used to describe sizes. An Ivy League educated linguist I worked for in Taiwan used to ponder about this, and ask me, “Why, in America, don’t you have small eggs? Some recipes call for one or two small eggs, but the grocery stores only carry medium, large, extra large and jumbo. What happened to the small eggs?”
She wasn’t a native English speaker – but she was a citizen and she lived in the states about 20 years, raised a couple native English speakers, and held advanced degrees (including a PhD) in English language and linguistics. This issue seriously intrigued her
and has been on my mind for well over a decade.
The issue may be fairly recent. My grandparents (both born before the 1920’s here in the US) insisted on buying small minnows for crappie fishing because even larger fish may prefer a small bait. I remember buying small minnows. I defy you to go into any bait store today and find small minnows.
I just ordered a small chicken noodle soup for my toddler at a chain restaurant. The clerk was so concerned, “Oh my. I’m sorry. We only have medium and large.” His concern touched me, but isn’t medium half-way between to extremes – small and large. How is it logically possible to have only two sizes and one of them is medium?
The descriptive linguist in me speculates that these words have become homonyms of themselves – in effect a sort of headless noun. Medium is a proper name for a choice – not a description of a size. So I said, “Oh, you mean “Medium” with a capital ‘M’, I meant small with a lower-case ‘s'”… which caused him to just stop talking and give me the soup – which btw came in a cup not much bigger than a thimble. I think this tried my wife’s patience more than his.
Or is it a popular/cultural fetish that equates large with good and small with inferior? This isn’t always so. Small vegetables often have a better texture and flavor – and fine restaurants prefer them. btw – I grew up eating baseball bat sized zucchini – but they should be picked at 6-8 inches or smaller. I worked on a commercial vegetable farm that supplied some of the finest cafe’s on the plaza and had the chance to talk with some chefs.
If anyone has insight – or similar experiences – or an opinion re: my linguistic theory, please weigh in.
And yes, I know Pinker uses “headless nouns” almost exclusively to discuss idiosyncratic pluralization – but that doesn’t mean the phenomena is restricted to that context. If you have an equally viable explanation share. A comedian could have fun with this coming at it from a cultural perspective.
I always assumed size to be relevant to other things. So an establishment with two cups, would have a small and a large. The small would be small compared to the large, and the large is large compared to the small, right? How would you call something a medium with nothing to compare it to? Yes America does have a size fetish, bigger is always better. Also why is the US obsessed with bacon?