It’s not salad days for current events in Denmark.
What is cucumber time?
Cucumber is the Danish word for “cucumber”. It has its roots in Greek, unlike the English word which is taken from the Latin name of the plant on which the vegetable grows.
Time is Danish for time, and the definitive form used here, the time (literally “the time”) can mean a period in time as well as time as an abstract concept.
For example, if you say the time has come (roughly, “the time is now”), you are talking about the concept of time. The same applies with time has passed (“time is up”).
On the other hand, you can talk about the time during the Second World War (“the period during the Second World War”) or The Age of Enlightenment (the Age of Enlightenment).
The meaning of the time in cucumber time is the latter of the two just described, so cucumber time is literally “the age of cucumber”.
As an aside, if you want to ask what the time of day is, you don’t say the time but instead the clock, so the phrase you would need is what time is it This is literally “what is the clock?” but means “what is the time?”
Why do I need to know cucumber time?
The summer season, especially July when many people including politicians are on holiday, is often referred to in Danish as cucumber time because of a lack of current events in the news.
city extension, cucumber time can be used to in relation to news that is unimportant and frequently about ridiculous events.
The word can be traced back to the German word sauerkraut time, which directly translated means “sour cucumber time”. In German, this term was eventually used to describe a slow news day. From here, we can see why cucumber time is used to describe the situation in the summer when there is little news to write about.
In English, it is often referred to as “silly season”. This is because the summer was when journalists would traditionally take their holiday, leaving editors skeptical of giving any serious reporting pieces to the summer stand-ins. Frivolous news stories therefore have a reputation for being reported during the summer months.
Example
It really must be the cucumber season when a recognized newspaper like Jyllands-Posten spends so much column space on a royal party.
It must really be silly season for a reputable newspaper like Jyllands-Posten to spend so many column inches on a royal party.
