top and tail

[Victor Steinbok]

This deserves a bit of a "Duh!". I picked up the Wiki line from the
preview. But there is more in the full Wiki article:

> In the Southern United States the Sieva type are traditionally called
> butter beans, also otherwise known as the Dixie or Henderson type. In
> that area, lima beans and butter beans are seen as two distinct types
> of beans.
> In the United Kingdom, "butter beans" refer to either dried beans
> which can be purchased to re-hydrate, or the canned variety which are
> ready to use. In culinary use, lima beans and butter beans are
> distinctly different, the former being small and green, the latter
> large and yellow. In areas where both are considered to be lima beans,
> the green variety may be labeled as "baby" (and less commonly
> "junior") limas.

     VS-)



On 7/18/2012 8:25 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> Being a non-native speaker, I don't have a dialect to adhere to, but I
> have least contact with various Southern dialects, particularly
> Eastern Appalachia. But what I've seen of "butter beans" is the exact
> opposite of the description below: The ones I've seen and heard
> identified as "butter beans" are very large lima beans that are no
> longer green (the frozen large beans are usually identified as lima
> beans). This meshes well with the nickname of a rather infamous former
> cop and boxer who went by the name "Butterbean". His claim to fame was
> being large and squishy (i.e., fat), with a shaved head, and carrying
> a monster punch. But he was more of a celebrity attraction than a
> competitive boxer. Still, the whole point was the idea of something
> large and white. I am not questioning DARE--I just think, in this
> case, it failed to identify the limits on the range of the expression
> correctly.
>
>     VS-)
>
> PS: Goya has a canned product labeled "butter beans"--they are large
> pale yellow beans, likely white in their raw state.
>
> PPS: Wiki disagrees with DARE (and, therefore, agrees with me). But it
> also restricts "Lima variety" to the larger beans, although both the
> larger variety and the smaller ones once originated in the area that
> is now Peru (hence the name).
>
>> The term "butter bean" is widely utilized for a large, flat and
>> yellow/white variety of lima bean (/P. lunatus/ var. /macrocarpus/,
>> or /P.
>> limensis/^<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_lunatus#cite_note-1> ).
>
>
> On 7/18/2012 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
>

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