{"id":4441,"date":"2015-10-09T15:50:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T14:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=4441"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:15:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:15:46","slug":"lost-drowned-in-a-shirt-how-do-you-like-your-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/lost-drowned-in-a-shirt-how-do-you-like-your-eggs","title":{"rendered":"Lost, drowned, in a shirt… how do you like your eggs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy World\u00a0Egg Day<\/a>!<\/p>\n

English is quite a boring language when it comes to eggs. We boil them, scramble them, poach them, fry them. All very ordinary.<\/p>\n

Which is why we were delighted to discover that other languages are more dramatic in their approach to eggs!<\/p>\n

Over to Italy:<\/b><\/h3>\n

For Italians, poached eggs are literally ‘eggs in a shirt’ – ‘le uova in camicia’ – possibly because the frilly poached egg white looks like the sleeves of a loose blouse.<\/p>\n

Alternatively (but still quite theatrically), you can call them ‘le uova affogate’ (literally ‘drowned eggs’). Poor old eggs!<\/p>\n

And now to Germany:<\/b><\/h3>\n

Maybe it’s the same idea of drowning that makes Germans call their poached eggs ‘verlorene Eier’ – ‘lost eggs’. The eggs, like sailors lost at sea, drown quietly in the saucepan.<\/p>\n

Or, if it’s a fried egg you’re after, the Germans have a pretty expression for that too: ‘Speigeleier’, literally ‘mirror eggs’. Can anyone tell us why..?<\/p>\n

Bullseye!<\/b><\/h3>\n

In Italian, Slovak and Czech (to name but a few), the fried egg is the ‘bullseye egg’- because, of course, it resembles a bullseye (or a porthole, which is the same word): ‘le uova all’occhio di bue’ (Italian), ‘volsk\u00e9 oko’ (Slovak), ‘volsk\u00e1 oka’ (Czech).<\/p>\n

Eyes in a pan?<\/b><\/h3>\n

A similar idea, though slightly more graphic, applies in Bulgarian and Slovenian where the fried eggs (‘\u044f\u0439\u0446\u0430 \u043d\u0430 \u043e\u0447\u0438’ and ‘jajce na oko’ respectively) translate as ‘eggs eye-style’! So next time you fry an egg, you may choose to remember this vocabulary by imagining a big eyeball staring up at your from the plate… OR you may choose to stick to the safe, if rather boring, English equivalent.<\/p>\n

Got any other interesting egg-related vocabulary? Let us know!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Drowned<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy World\u00a0Egg Day! English is quite a boring language when it comes to eggs. We boil them, scramble them, poach…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1641,5830,244,231,979,5832],"tags":[3985],"class_list":["post-4441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulgarian","category-czech","category-learn-german","category-learn-italian","category-slovak","category-slovenian","tag-general"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":4441},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1641,"label":"Bulgarian"},{"value":5830,"label":"Czech"},{"value":244,"label":"German"},{"value":231,"label":"Italian"},{"value":979,"label":"Slovak"},{"value":5832,"label":"Slovenian"}],"post_tag":[{"value":3985,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Richard Howeson","author_link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/author\/richard"},"comment_info":1,"category_info":[{"term_id":1641,"name":"Bulgarian","slug":"bulgarian","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1641,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1641,"category_count":1,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Bulgarian","category_nicename":"bulgarian","category_parent":0},{"term_id":5830,"name":"Czech","slug":"czech","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5830,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5830,"category_count":1,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Czech","category_nicename":"czech","category_parent":0},{"term_id":244,"name":"German","slug":"learn-german","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":244,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":32,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":244,"category_count":32,"category_description":"","cat_name":"German","category_nicename":"learn-german","category_parent":0},{"term_id":231,"name":"Italian","slug":"learn-italian","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":231,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":27,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":231,"category_count":27,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Italian","category_nicename":"learn-italian","category_parent":0},{"term_id":979,"name":"Slovak","slug":"slovak","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":979,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":979,"category_count":4,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Slovak","category_nicename":"slovak","category_parent":0},{"term_id":5832,"name":"Slovenian","slug":"slovenian","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5832,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5832,"category_count":1,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Slovenian","category_nicename":"slovenian","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":3985,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3985,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":135,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10567,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions\/10567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}