Something like that. Hard to tell, as it's the microprint version, which came in two, enormously heavy, tomes, with a magnifying glass.

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I'm impressed. Does it have an Addendum and if so is oregano in that?

I didn't think to look in the Addendum. I'll look when I get home tonight.

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I've looked. There is no mention of "oregano" anywhere in the full OED (albeit maybe a thirty year old edition), whether in the main body or in the Addendum, which in itself is fairly substantial. There are entries for both "origan" and "origanum" however, these being the English words for the herb, the first of which is archaic.

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Are you referring to the yellow/pale greenish variety? In the States we commonly call them banana/wax peppers, and they've been around at least since I was a kid, so they're pretty common here. But there are - in descending order of hotness - the Hungarian banana/wax peppers, the Italian pepperoncini (which are usually sold pickled in jars), and the sweet banana/wax peppers, and they all look very much alike to the untrained eye.

Here it gets even a bit more complicated: First of all, the Hungarian word "paprika" is a diminutive of a borrowed Serbo-Croatian word for, simply, pepper (but not black pepper in Hungarian, which is bors). I don't know whether "paprika" in Hungarian has a broader application to the Capsicum varieties than English usage typically gives it. If so, it might explain why the peppers you mention are called paprika. However, the so-called Hungarian wax pepper is very hot, but while the sweet wax pepper is often assumed also to be a Hungarian variety, some say otherwise. I personally don't have a dog in that fight. Be that as it may, the assumption (right or wrong) that the sweet wax pepper is Hungarian would probably be the reason that "paprika" would be attached to it. You wouldn't find that application in the States, though, unless it were to be in an ethnically Hungarian context. But again, I don't know if the word would correctly apply to sweet peppers/chilis in Budapest. OTOH, paprika (the spice in a box) ranges from sweet to hot, so I'm suspecting it might. Any Hungarian speakers hereabouts?

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So bigger is not always better It's in the Addenda (not Addendum sorry), of my 'little' two volume SOED. Revised Addenda dated 1973. "1771. [Sp. and Amer. Sp. var. of ORIGANUM]" There are lots of good words in the Addenda. Maybe they are in the latest Concise version.

o as in what and watch
r
e as in added and estate
g
a as in alms and bar
. indicates main stress is in the previous vowel
n
o as in hero

I wonder if the examples are in RP English?


Peppers. All sorts appear on our weekly market from time to time. I have no structured knowledge of them. I point at anything smallish and pointy and ask "Are these hot" - unless I overhear the answer given to another customer. A big advantage over the supermarket.

When there might be any chance of confusion, the produce sections in our supermarkets usually indicate whether a pepper is sweet or hot; but people here who routinely cook with peppers either tend to be informed and know their Anaheims from their poblanos or, like me, being less informed will stick with what they know. Sometimes even the help can tell you if you ask. But if someone buys habaneros thinking they'll be sweet (on the basis of the false truism that long and pointy means hot), they deserve every lick of pain they'll get when they bite into 'em. Around here, pretty much everybody and his dog knows that habaneros are wicked, killer hot. But underneath the heat they're also delicious, almost apricot-like in flavor. One time on a gamble I opened up three of them (handling them with a fork and knife, not my fingers!) and removed not only the seeds but the vanes as well (and thoroughly, because that's where the heat really lies), sliced them up, and added them to my scrambled eggs. Sure enough, now they weren't hot at all. Bit of a disappointment, really. But they were tasty. The habanero is a thin-walled pepper, though, so it doesn't add much in the way of substance as a vegetable. If I ever do that again I'm going to leave a bit of the vanes behind for some heat. In Caribbean cooking, for soups and stews they often toss in a whole one and remove it later; that way you get more of the flavor and less of the heat.

I don't normally see red sweet peppers that are pointy, but after some Googling, I was surprised at how many varieties there actually are. Around here banana peppers are more usual, but that's probably changing as customer demand for variety increases.

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Beware the Ghost Pepper. Bhut Jolokia. Guinness lists it at over 1 million Scoville Units. Unlike the Thai White Peppers, the Ghosts are generally red, sometimes chocolate brown. Yeeow!

Bob

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Haven't had the dubious pleasure yet, myself. And I suspect I won't be going out of my way to, either. Honestly, I don't see the point of them; your average hot sauce is pretty much my limit.

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The Thai Whites I am familiar with only range up to 100,000 Scoville. My favorite 'hot' pepper, though, is the Szechuan (Four Rivers District) peppercorns. They're not a true pepper, but the dried corms of the prickly ash tree. They are not that hot, but will leave your tongue and lips numb. They are said to smell like lavender. . .which I cannot testify to since my sniffer shuts down at the first whiff of them.

Bob

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Prickly ash! A favorite tree of mine. Even though I don't make use of it, I like knowing it's there for me if I want to. It grows wild around here, close by rivers. The American species is very close kin to those sourced commercially in Asia for so-called Sichuan peppercorns (more than one species are used for the purpose), so close as to be perfectly identical in the kitchen. The indigenous people and early settlers used the berries to numb toothaches, so locally it's also known as the Toothache Tree.

It's actually a citrus, the most northerly-growing among them. Crush and rub the leaves in your hand and you'll smell something akin to grapefruit. In springtime its tender little leaf shoots are prized by the Japanese as a seasonal garnish. I told one restaurateur she could get fresh, local kinome (as they call it) at only a short drive's distance instead of having to ship it in all the way from across the Pacific, but her misgivings were too strong to even give it a try. Oh, well; her loss.

I'll have to give the "peppercorns" a sniff to see if I can detect lavender; I've never noticed it before, but then I wasn't on the lookout for it, either.

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Believe it or not, they have a pretty strong flavor. I got some in my stocking a year-plus ago and made hot sauce with one pepper for a 5 oz bottle. It's really good stuff, but the number of foods it goes with is limited.

The ones I got were dry. I'm not that impressed with the heat level, closer to a Habanero than I would have thought.

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To those unfamiliar with certain Christmas traditions, it's ... complicated.


Since I find myself questioning the practical utility of so much heat, I did some looking, and while the Bhut Jolokia is used in its native environment for certain cooking applications, the list seems not to be extensive there, either. This pepper seems to be more notable for its use as a wild elephant repellent, smeared onto fencing and as pepper bombs.


Could be a number of reasons for that. One would be that yours were raised in a nutrient-rich soil; in general, the poorer the soil, the hotter the pepper. I also have a personal theory that there's a point where receptor overload kicks in, and the difference becomes six of one and half a dozen of the other. But it might have been preparation, too; as I mentioned earlier, the vanes are key.

I heard tell of one fellow who would yell and cuss at his pepper (chili) plants, the idea being that the abuse would be picked up by vegetal sentience, and the plants, being pissed off, would retaliate with greater heat. I never did learn of the outcome, but one does wonder what the neighbors thought.

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I am not sure if this is really correct here in the "divided by a common language" thread, but when I saw this quote I couldn't resist:"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
--James D. Nicoll

Bob

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Sounds a bit too inclusive and collaborative to me.

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