Okra as a count noun

[Alison Murie]

On Sep 4, 2009, at 12:08 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Okra as a count noun
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've certainly seen/heard "cabbages" -- though not "lettuces",
> possibly
> b/c/o the sequence of sibilants.
>
> m am
>
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net>
> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> Waiting to be seen in the Eye Clinic at Duke U, I overheard
>>>> another =
>>>> patient telling his companion that he had been given a "bag of
>>>> okras".
>> =
>>>> He referred to "okras" a couple of more times, sort of the way
>>>> you'd =
>>>> refer to apples or tomatoes.
>>>>
>>>> 70ish African American male, probably from NC. =20
>>>>
>>>> I hadn't heard okra pluralized that way before.
>> --
>>
>> Countable "okra" is in DARE, from NC, GA, FL, LA.
>>
~~~~~~~~~~
I would use "lettuces" in referring to the half-dozen  or so varieties
that I used to grow, but not to multiple heads of one variety.
AM

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