top and tail

[Laurence Horn]

"Lime bean" doesn't occur for me either, but it sounds nice.  As for "lima beans", which do, I have the probably false belief that I can't stand them, while I'm perfectly happy to eat butter beans.  But I think I was served lima beans too often (and probably not too well) when I was younger, with apple sauce to wash them down, and I've probably happily enjoyed them in minestrone and such since then.  (But not happily in succotash, which I don't like at all.)  It's almost all psychological, I'm sure.

(I notice some web sites claim butter beans ARE lima beans and vice versa, but they then show pictures of both and they don't look alike, especially in color.  And one site says they're the same bean in different stages of development--but if I can prefer oak trees to acorns, and butterflies to caterpillars, and bear cubs to full-size grizzlies, and butterflies to caterpillar and larvae, why can't I prefer butter beans to lima beans, whatever their essential ontological identity?)

LH


On Jul 18, 2012, at 2:03 PM, Charles C Doyle wrote:

> In my dialect, the term "lime bean" hardly occurs:  They are all "butter beans."  DARE defines "butter bean" as "A lima bean, esp a small one"--with dots on the map throughout the greater South and the Midwest (and elsewhere).  I'm guessing that the "esp" part of the definition refers esp to the non-Southern places.
>
> --Charlie
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 12:53 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>> =20
>> In mine, too. Do you also have "snap beans" and "butter beans"?
>> =20
>> =20
>> --
>
> 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. =20
>
> LH
>
> *Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D1xOxHyTP91c
>
> 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
>
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