top and tail

[Laurence Horn]

On Jul 18, 2012, at 12:21 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> string beans in my native dialect
> 
> In mine, too. Do you also have "snap beans" and "butter beans"?
> 
> 
> --

Funny you should ask.  I don't (natively), but I've encountered both, the latter just yesterday.  The Carolina Chocolate Drops, a great trio/quartet of performers playing traditional and eclectic music, came through New Haven this summer and played a great set on the Green, featuring "Cornbread and Butter Beans"*, one of their signature songs they've also recorded on a CD we just acquired--"Genuine Negro Jig"--and my wife was asking me if I knew what butter beans are.  I tried to describe them based on the version I've had in restaurants and the Yale dining halls--sort of like lima beans but yellowish/beigish instead of green--but there are probably more accurate descriptions out there.  

LH

*Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOxHyTP91c

Cornbread and butterbeans and you across the table
Eatin' beans and makin' love as long as I am able
Growin' corn and cotton too and when the day is over
Ride the mule and cut the fool and love again all over

[I assume "cut the fool" is basically 'hang out, have fun'?]




> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org