Another "how do you say" / "what do you call this" poll

[pne]

[Poll #757711]

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

That's a red pepper, unless there's some chance of confusion with the kind of hot red peppers you pickle, in which case it's a red bell pepper, or if I'm feeling annoying, a red green pepper.

What's (for you) the most generic word for that sort of fruit, regardless of whether it's red, green, orange, or yellow? (But not the "hot" kind.) "Bell pepper"? "Green pepper" (regardless of colour)?

Mango?

I was surprised, too.

I got that name from Wikipedia, which says that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_pepper) bell peppers are commonly called [...] mangoes (or mangos) in parts of the US around southern Ohio, Indiana, and northern Kentucky (and should not be confused with the tropical fruit known properly as a mango (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mango))..

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

I've never heard "Green pepper" in connection with any sort of food that wasn't actually green.

[mendel.livejournal.com]

You can't say that anymore! But yeah, that's why I said I'd do it if I didn't mind being annoying. But if I said "I need a red pepper", and you thought "Does he mean or ?", then I'd say "a red green-pepper" to clarify it, and since you already knew the possibilities, you'd know which I was talking about.

Context resolves ambiguity in language!

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

I'd say "habañero pepper" or "jalapeño pepper" or whatever for the former. ;)

[mendel.livejournal.com]

But it's not a habanero or a jalapeno! I'm not sure what species it is, exactly. (That might be a picture of a jalapeno, actually, but I mean the bigger ones.) It's a "chili pepper", but bell peppers are chili peppers too! It's the sweet pepper that's long and pointy. The yellow ones like it are called "banana peppers".

(And both jalapenos and chili peppers are Capiscuum anuum.!)

Whoa! I just discovered that green peppers are simply immature red (bell) peppers, like green and red tomatoes. Maybe I should call them "green red-peppers" instead.

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Woops, I meant to edit out "I'm not sure what species it is".

[nyxie.livejournal.com]

I call them OMG WTF MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE!

:p

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Red OMG WTF MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE, or green OMG WTF MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE?

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

I've gotten to the point where jalapeños are "kinda flavourful" and if I'm actually looking for hot, I need to do the habañero thing.

I dunno what I'll do once that becomes routine. Pour raw capsaicin on my tongue?

[tungol.livejournal.com]

If I had to distinguish those sorts of red peppers, I'd probably use "hot pepper" vs. "sweet pepper". I probably wouldn't call the hot pepper a "red pepper" in the first place, though.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

The former is a chile pepper. In New Jersey I would have called it a red chile, but around here red chile (and green chile) are specific things and I don't know enough to tell whether that is really a red chile (which can only be a Hatch chile) or just a chile pepper. ;-)

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Alas, sweet peppers are chile (= chili) peppers! (#t1981991)

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Not in New Mexico, they ain't. ;-)

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Well, "people use different words" was how this whole discussion began. But if you're going to jump in and start declaring what things are hours after I already talked about the problem with "sweet" vs "chili" (#t1981991), then people might be left wondering what you're trying to get across!

Besides, I already explained that I was trying to illustrate a red banana pepper but probably accidentally illustrated a jalapeno (or a tabasco). Even though red banana peppers are chiles I'm not sure people would think of a red banana when they hear "chile" instead of a much smaller, hotter pepper.

[mendel.livejournal.com]

What's (for you) the most generic word for that sort of fruit, regardless of whether it's red, green, orange, or yellow? (But not the "hot" kind.) "Bell pepper"? "Green pepper" (regardless of colour)?

That's a good question! Red and green peppers are more different from each other than red, orange, and yellow peppers, so I wouldn't call a red pepper "green pepper" without any other qualifiers.

"Bell pepper" is the most generic word for me that includes them all, but I wouldn't write "bell pepper" on the grocery list; I'd write either "green pepper" or "red pepper", and I wouldn't be surprised if nyxie came home with a different color based on her whims that day. But that's probably because we don't cook with hot peppers.

Now that I think about "mango" a bit more, it reminds me of "pawpaw", which is Asimina sp. in the Ozarks and to a lesser extent the rest of N. America, and papaya (Carica papaya) in the rest of the world.

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Even though I wrote

I wouldn't call a red pepper "green pepper" without any other qualifiers.

I realize that I consider them all "green peppers", even though some of them aren't green. I wouldn't refer to them all as "green peppers", though, because it would be confusing to whoever I was talking to. But in the grocery store I would think to myself, "ok, I need to find the green pepper section" when I was looking for green, red, orange, yellow, any. Of course, a grocery store that kept the red and green ones separate would break my little mental map of pepperhood.

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

I just call them "peppers". If I'm talking about stuff that comes in granular form, it's "black pepper" or I distinguish them using collective singular vs. collective plural.

"I'm looking for peppers": Green, red, orange, yellow, and often hot peppers. Somewhere in the produce section of a grocery store.

"I'm looking for the pepper": Stuff that comes in a tube, or possibly peppercorns. In the dry staples aisle with salt, sugar, spices that come in packages.

I don't know if people listen well enough to make that distinction were I to say it out loud, though.

[pne.livejournal.com]

What if there's just one?

This was basically prompted by Amy with a couple of pieces of chopped $fruit in front of her, and I wanted to say to her, "Eat your, uh... what are they called in English?"

"Eat your pepper"? "Eat your red pepper/green pepper" (depending on colour; green in this case)? "Eat your bell pepper" (what I ended up with)?

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's sitting right in front of you, I'd just call it a pepper and not worry about the distinction.

"Eat your pepper."

Sort of in the same vein as "eat your sandwich", it really doesn't matter what kind of sandwich it is, provided there isn't more than one to choose from.

Obviously if you're trying to teach language, you might want to be more specific, in which case "bell pepper" or "green pepper" might be more useful.

[caelum.livejournal.com]

I have never ever heard of a pepper called a mango. I have to admit I find that rather absurd, in a "oh us wacky Americans" kind of way.