People are only just realising how you’re actually supposed to say Brussels sprouts

Christmas might be about spending time with family and giving (/receiving) gifts, but it’s also about the big event: the dinner.

And that ever-so important meal can cause quite a few debates – should there be Yorkshire puddings? Should it be served on a kebab skewer? Or should there be a certain green veggie on the plate?

Brussels sprouts are pretty divisive; your mum might be absolutely piling them up but your dad couldn’t be any further from them.

But while they're an absolute Christmas staple of the food world, they cause issues outside of just their taste.

Turns out plenty of us are saying Brussels sprouts completely wrong.

No judgement here (there’s enough things you could be saying incorrectly), but a whole load are calling them ‘brussel sprouts’ instead of ‘Brussels sprout’.

I mean, it’s not exactly the easiest thing to say with so many s’s in the name.

But now you know the correct way, if you hear someone making the same mistake over Christmas dinner you can lean over and correct them in front of your entire family.

Kinga Krzeminska/Getty Images

Even if we can't always get their name right, we do like having them around during the festive season, as lorries full of them tipping over and spilling their precious cargo make for a national disaster.

Being such a staple of the beloved Christmas dinner, it's only natural that some places would decide to put their own spin on the humble little vegetable.

A few years back Iceland started selling Marmite flavoured Brussels sprouts in an attempt to get them back on everyone's plate on Christmas Day, though I'm not sure it worked all that well.

Of all the ingredients in Christmas dinner it's sprouts that are probably the most controversial and unpopular, as plenty of people don't like them and wonder why they must intrude upon one of the most important meals of the year.

10'000 Hours/Getty Images

Sprouts are so iconic that Walkers actually released 'Brussels sprout' flavour crisps at one point, and also so unpopular that the brand brought out a 'sprout haters' range alongside it.

As for how Brussels sprouts actually got their name, the French started calling them that back in the 18th Century and it's probably because they were grown near the Belgian city of Brussels.

There are records of them being grown near the city as far back as the 13th Century, so it's a fair guess that the vegetables owe their name to the major European city.

Despite their seemingly Belgian name of origin, the actual largest producer of Brussels sprouts in the world is the Netherlands, though the UK also grows plenty of the veg.

Topics: Christmas, Food And Drink

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_