Prince Philip’s pet name for Queen Elizabeth will melt your heart
With more than 70 years of marriage under their belts, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II have gone through their ups and downs. But one little fact about their relationship in particular gives us the warm fuzzies. Most couples have cutesy nicknames for each other, and the Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty are no exception. Apparently, even royal couples have silly little relationship quirks.
During the 2006 film The Queen, as Philip is about to get in bed and tells his wife to "move over, cabbage." Wait ... cabbage?
"I inquired in royal circles and was told on very good authority that that is what the duke sometimes calls the Queen," said the film's screenwriter Peter Morgan tells The Times. The Queen's biographer, Robert Lacey, confirmed. How cute!
Some have speculated that the pet name comes from mon petit chou, a French way of saying "my darling." In English, though, the term translates literally to "my little cabbage", though it actually comes from a shortened term for the pastry chou à la crème. Here are the words you'll never hear a royal say, though.
But Cabbage isn't the only nickname the Queen has. Prince George calls her Gan-Gan - as British royals have been doing for their great-grandmas for generations, according to PopSugar. And when she was young, the then-princess's close family would call her Lilibet, mimicking the fact that she couldn't pronounce her own name. Still, Prince Philip's nickname for her just might be the cutest nickname.
- This article first appeared on Reader's Digest
