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Ask HN: How widespread is the phrase "Eat Your Greens"

by crowdhailer on 1/23/25, 7:50 AM with 2 comments

The most literal use of this phrase is to children. They must eat their vegetables else they won't get any pudding; or they will not grow big and strong. In both cases the sentiment is get through the present and be rewarded in the future. The main difference with these two examples is the necessary time horizon to consider.

I use the phrase to encourage almost any level of delayed gratification. So much so that I have named my programming language EYG.

How common do other people, other places, use this phrase when not literally talking about vegetables?

  • by nonrandomstring on 1/23/25, 8:31 AM

    Was pretty common as I grew up. We had a maths teacher who used to shout "Eat your greens" as we did problems, much like the teacher in Pink Floyd's Wall [0]; "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!"

    I guess the sentiment is that you need to do unpleasant foundation work to get what is good for you later.

    Recently wrote about the expression "Eat your own dogfood" [1], which is slightly different. That implies living up to the standards you set for yourself.

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall

    [1] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/dogfood/

  • by ggm on 1/23/25, 7:53 AM

    Define other places. It's a common phrase in all of the English speaking world I have been in, which includes India. It's probably ubiquitous at above 1b people worldwide. It was a commonplace of public health messages for decades.

    I suspect "starving children in Biafra would eat that" has dropped out of circulation.