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Linguistics question!
In your dialect of English, what foodstuff/s does "chive" refer to? What area of the world/nation did you pick it up from?
Asking, because in Toby's family, "chives" are green onions (spring onions, scallions) as well as the oniony herb, which, after a few incidents, has led to each of us making sure to specify exactly what we mean when one of us asks the other to pick some up at the store. He thinks it comes from his mother's side of the family, who are Kentuckians, I believe, and I'm wondering if it's a regional thing or just a their-family thing.
I checked the Dictionary of American Regional English at work, but the only entry for "chive" is a variant of "shiv," referring to the weapon, so that's no go.
Asking, because in Toby's family, "chives" are green onions (spring onions, scallions) as well as the oniony herb, which, after a few incidents, has led to each of us making sure to specify exactly what we mean when one of us asks the other to pick some up at the store. He thinks it comes from his mother's side of the family, who are Kentuckians, I believe, and I'm wondering if it's a regional thing or just a their-family thing.
I checked the Dictionary of American Regional English at work, but the only entry for "chive" is a variant of "shiv," referring to the weapon, so that's no go.
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Against that, distinguishing flat chives from scallions is easy. What I have trouble with is flat chives versus garlic chives.
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From the mid-Atlantic region, raised by native Midwesterners.
---L.
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And, I could not tell you where exactly I picked that up from.
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Not sure where the family usage came from as part of my family was 1-3 generation American hailing mainly from Italy and Ireland in the early 1910-1920s and part has been in the northeast (VT/NH) since at least the Civil War.
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Chives are teeny skinny green onion things that are not onion grass (which grew in our lawn abundantly when I was a child) or spring onions/scallions. They are grown as herbs and end up in lots of dairy-based things, like cottage cheese and sour-cream-based veggie dip.
I think my mother may have grown them as part of an herb garden when I was a child, so the area of the world etc. is Maryland, USA, in the 1960s.
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