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Comment by zrobotics | Hacker News Reader

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd.

I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

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Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation, and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry says, at least.

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names

We have the same expression in Dutch: "komkommertijd".

The Dutch Wikipedia mentions English, German or Jiddisch as possible sources: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komkommertijd

Same in Polish "sezon ogórkowy"

Same in Estonia, "hapukurgihooaeg". Literal translation of the German "Sauregurkenzeit".

Everytime tehre is a funny word in German E.g. "Hechtsuppe" I assume it to be Jiddisch or Rotwelsch.

Sauregurkenzeit

Ah, so the US "dog-days of summer". Not going to lie, I prefer the silly-season nomenclature, it captures the lack of motivation and malaise that seems to set in during the height of summer much better. Thanks for the explanation, very interesting.

English "dog-days" is just a translation of Latin "caniculares dies", which came from the time of visibility before sunrise of the "Dog Star" a.k.a. Sirius.

"Cucumber time" is the season, where news paper doesn't have anything to report on than cucumbers.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cuc2.htm

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid

In Dutch it is "komkommertijd" [0], which also literally translates to "cucumber time". It has the exact same meaning.

[0] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komkommertijd

Other examples would be, according to Wikipedia, "silly season" in english, "serpiente de verano" (summer snake) in spanish, "Sommerloch" in german, and a bunch of others. Very common phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season

«Silly season/cucumber time»

Harvest time, indeed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season

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