As I brought up measurements, I remember that I always wonder

[conuly]

When did people stop putting T for tablespoon and t for teaspoon? Cookbooks today always seem to use Tb and ts, and while that probably ends a lot of confusion I still can't figure out when this changed. I'm certain when I was little I was taught Big T and little t, and that wasn't that long ago, was it?

Comments

[mc776]

After the fifth or sixth time byte/bit gets mixed up in ordinary discourse I for one welcome our digraphic overlords.

[conuly]

Two bits, four bits, six bits, a byte. Now that we've said that, get me a Sprite.

[redbird]

I think I grew up with tbsp and tsp, and T/t confuses me sometimes. I'm 49, so I'm wondering whether this is regional, or different cookbooks just used different things. I don't remember being taught about teaspoons and tablespoons as units of measure at the age when I'd expect it; somewhere along the line I learned that 3 teaspoons make a tablespoon, and 2 tablespoons make an ounce, but I think that was from reading about cooking, not in there with how many inches to a foot or ounces to a quart.

[conuly]

Also, fluid ounces and ounces are different, in that they measure different things,

[steorra]

I grew up with both T/t and Tbsp/tsp. Usually with a capital in Tbsp. (Age 30.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

tsp for teaspoon was also standard in a lot of books in the 50s. Tbs was tablespoon.

[conuly]

I didn't know that. I guess nothing is as new as I think!

[marveen.livejournal.com]

I was taught that also, but just about every time I posted a recipe someone asked which was which, so I've gone to using Tbsp and tsp because so many people Weren't Taught Properly. ;-)

It's a lot faster to type, so I still use it in personal notation, along with such idiosyncratic abbreviations as bk pwd, brn sug, bttr, chs, and my instructional shortcut "mix as for cookies" (which means the creaming method).

[conuly]

Chs is cheese?

If I have to cream butter and sugar, I just write butter, sugar and assume I'll figure it out when the time comes. You rarely combine the two without creaming.

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

Tbsp & tsp are correct here in Australia-- nothing to do with Not Being Taught Properly. Different countries have different abbreviations.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Same here in the UK. Removes the needless ambiguity.

(Although the first time my brother made gravy, he didn't know that tsp meant teaspoon and used 4 tablespoons of gravy powder. Ugh.)

[conuly]

Gravy powder?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Powder you mix with water to make gravy. It doesn't make good gravy, but it's an adequate substitute if you don't have any meat juices. (And if you do have meat juices, it's still pretty normal to add gravy powder to enhance the flavour. And it contains the cornflour for thickening too.)

In the UK we use gravy with a much more narrow definition than the US does, as I understand it.