Sprouting on about cabbage seed myth

QUESTION Is it true the EU directive on cabbages is 26,911 words long?

NO, this is a myth. It began when Holland, the US’s main supplier of cabbage seed, fell to the Nazis. A California speculator bought all the supplies and raised prices 800%.

The Roosevelt administration issued a 1943 directive setting a ceiling. The 2,600-word document included a definition of cabbage seed as ‘seed used to grow cabbage’. Reader’s Digest ridiculed the memo as bureaucratic verbiage.

In 1951, a newspaper quiz, Test Your Horse Sense, asked readers to match word counts to documents: the cabbage ruling was said to be 25,000 words. In further reports, the number of words became 26,911 – a precise figure that seemed to suggest authenticity.

Ronald Reagan gave it as an example of big government.

In 1977, the TV anchorman Walter Cronkite reported as fact that a regulation involving the price of duck eggs went on for the magic 26,911 words.

The figure subsequently became attached to the EU, though referring to caramel.

The 1987 book Pearls Of Wisdom: A Book Of Aphorisms claimed an EEC directive on the import of caramel required 26,911 words.

EC regulation 1591/87 laid down common standards for cabbages, sprouts, ribbed celery, spinach and plums. The edict runs to 5,371 words.

Ironically, the British industry protocol for how to grow, harvest, store and sell cabbage runs to 23,510 words.

Jim Gallier, Manchester.

QUESTION Did Joe Pesci play in a band with Jimmy Hendrix?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, Hammond B-3 organ player Joey DeFrancesco’s 2003 album Falling In Love Again features jazz stylings by Joe Doggs, aka Joe Pesci.

Dawn Cotton, Bray, Berks.