Is it "Brussel sprouts" or "Brussels sprouts"? Three quarters get it wrong...

Matthew SmithHead of Data Journalism
December 18, 2017, 10:38 AM GMT+0

Sorry Britain, but it's "Brussels sprouts", not "Brussel sprouts"

A shock new YouGov Omnibus poll reveals that most Britons use the wrong name for Christmas’s most famous vegetable.

More than three quarters (77%) refer to the fabled green balls as “Brussel sprouts”, when the correct plural term is in fact “Brussels sprouts” (as they are named after the Belgian capital city). Just 18% of the public use the correct name, with the final 5% saying they “don’t know”.

(It is also worth noting that the name would only be correct if the B is capitalised, as Brussels is a proper noun, although our survey did not test for that).

Older Brits are marginally more likely to give the right answer than their younger counterparts – 20-21% of Brits aged 50+ answered correctly, compared to 15-17% of 18-49 year-olds. Men are also slightly more likely than women to get the term right, at 21% vs 16%.

Despite being stereotypically reviled, a YouGov survey last year found that 62% of Brits would have Brussels sprouts in their ideal Christmas dinner, meaning the vegetable made it into the top five ingredients.

Photo: Getty

See the full results here

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