Nuke it.
why do we do this? Is it an american thing?
Yes, from a general misunderstanding of how microwave ovens work, and what “radiation” was during the 1960s and 70s.
I think it’s because microwaves use, well, microwave radiation
radiation exists in like everything to some small degree tho right?
Radiation, in this context, is light. Everything from old school AM radio, to microwaves, to infrared, to visible light, to UV, and finally gamma rays are all just photons. For light, there are two energy metrics: how much energy the individual photons have, and how many photons are being emitted per unit of time. Only the energy level of the individual photons determine if the radiation is ionizing, as in, powerful enough to rip electrons off what it hits, including important molecules like DNA. Ionizing radiation starts at the UV range, so anything below that is not ionizing. This is why you can get skin cancer from UV but no amount of visible light can cause cancer. And microwaves are well below even visible light so they aren’t ionizing either.
Also, Wi-Fi and cellular networks operate in the microwave range. In fact, your microwave oven is 2.4 GHz, which is what older Wi-Fi equipment exclusively used, which is why your Wi-Fi connection used to crap out when you microwaved something. The reason you don’t feel your hand heating up from the microwave rariation coming out of your phone is because the number of microwave photons per second being emitted by your phone is far less than a microwave oven. Your phone’s antennas are 1 or 2 watts while your microwave is over 1000 watts.
The issue is the ambuguity in what someone intends when they just say radiation. It is valid to call any electromagnetic wave radiation. However, as for health concerns, what matters is “ionizing radiation.” Microwaves are too low energy to be ionizing, so they don’t match what most people think of when they say radiation with the implication of ionizing.
Canadian here. I also “nuke it”.
That’s what my house says too lol
Microwave it, use it as a verb
Let’s excite these water molecules until they vibrate so hard it generates heat that transfers to surrounding atoms
heat itself being the average kinetic energy of said vibrating molecules makes the heat part of that sentence redundant. Now make me a sandwich
Abra cadabra, you are now a sandwich.
I’ll show myself out.
Molecules can also vibrate not hard enough to generate enough heat to warm their surroundings though.
Here, I made a roasted goat testicle marinated in a tuna eyeball reduction topped with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, onions, uncooked rice, and taint shavings sammich. Bone apple titties
Other than the taint shavings, that actually sounds like it could be good, albeit very crunchy
The taint shavings are harvested from Jennifer Lawrence
*retches*
scoops some up in a tupperware
For my next sammich
When I worked at McDonald’s in 2015, we called it Q-ing. That’s what the official term was. We got in trouble for calling it anything else.
Are you sure it wasn’t “queuing?” As in, “I’m queuing up some food to be cooked for our queue of orders.”
Nope, it was written “Q-ing” on the “Q-ing Oven” itself, as well as in the training materials and manuals!
Edit: here’s the manual for it!
When I microwave something I generally say that I’m microwaving it.
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Generally “nuke it” but occasionally zap make an appearance, microwave as a verb, and sometimes me-crow-wa-vay if I’m feeling extra
I’ve also used “nuke” but recently “irradiate” has been funnier.
Ooh, I’ll try that one. Tbh, nuke isn’t said for the funny. It’s just what it was called when I was a kid. I never really considered it as a term until I was well into adulthood lol
It was probably said as a joke at some point, and just became normal.
The same way I’ve started using irradiate. It’s technically accurate, but normally a word used in much more concerning context.
Hence, funny :D
I use Nuke.
I say microwave
Nuke it
This is the one
We speak Mandarin at home and microwave in Mandarin is 微波 “way bo” (literally means “micro wave”). To “microwave” as a verb usually gets shortened to the first character in colloquial speak. We 微 “way” our leftovers.
微波 means microwave as in that particular frequency range on the electromagnetic spectrum. When referring to the kitchen appliance as a noun, we specifically say 微波炉 “way bo lu” which means “microwave stove.”
Additional fun fact: If you think it sounds like Weibo the website, you’re right. It has almost the same pronounciation but has a tonal difference on the second character. Weibo means “micro blog,” same first character but the second character is 博 which is a loan word for blog.
We say “ugh, there is too much stuff in front of the microwave, do you mind eating it cold?”
And I think that’s beautiful.
I feel that. I eat so much stuff cold.
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Activate the magnetron!
Nuke it
Mick-rowave. Based on how Jen pronounces it in Bob’s Burgers
Meek row wah vay
