#arugu

- Amanda Holpuch

A little help for vegetable fans ordering food in their nonnative land.

The American name for rocket is arugula. This particularly irritated The Guardian's Paul Levy all the way back in July 2008:

But why, oh why, does the whole of America ignore its ancient English name, and use the silly-sounding name "arugula"?

.... It annoys me. What about you?

Separately, reader gimmetea (just guessing, but you're British?) was curious about why "a relatively dull vegetable" is called a courgette in the UK and zucchini in the US. 

Courgette has origins in 1930s French as a diminutive of the word courge, which means gourd, according to the Oxford Dictionary.

The dictionary says zucchini is Italian, derived from their word for gourd – zucca.

Summary: rocket = arugula; courgette = zucchini

Advantage: UK. While zucchini is clearly better than courgette, rocket is so substantially better than arugula, the scales tip in the UK's favor.