Boston beans.

[Peter Young]

Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
something quite different. The only thing I can find on Google is a
mention on the Fairtrade site, where it just mentions them by name,
and the ones I have are labelled as coming from Kenya, so they
obviously have nothing to do with Boston, Mass, or Boston,
Lincolnshire, UK, the latter very much in a vegetable-growing area, by
the way.

Just out of idle curiosity, do any of you wise people have any idea
how this name arose?

Peter.

--
Peter Young, (BrE, RP), Consultant Anaesthetist, 1975-2004.
(US equivalent: Certified Anesthesiologist)
Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK. Now happily retired.
http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk

[Don Phillipson]

"Peter Young" <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:f71361195...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk...

> Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
> Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
> French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
> evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
> something quite different.

Boston beans means in N.America Boston Baked Beans, not haricots
verts. Being a major US port, Boston's name has been borrowed for lots
of marketing ventures, notably frozen pollock, labeled here Boston Bluefish,
which fails to make it taste better but probably sells more fish. Cf. also
London gin.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Cheryl]

One of the numerous varieties of green beans is called a Boston bean:

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean-seeds/dwarf-bean-boston/583TM

http://tinyurl.com/cj2uzj7

It doesn't seem to be a common variety, and I would certainly think of
the baked beans first if I heard Boston beans.

--
Cheryl

[Peter Brooks]

On Feb 5, 9:19 pm, Peter Young <pnyo...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:
> Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
> Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
> French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
> evening meal).  I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
> something quite different. The only thing I can find on Google is a
> mention on the Fairtrade site, where it just mentions them by name,
> and the ones I have are labelled as coming from Kenya, so they
> obviously have nothing to do with Boston, Mass, or Boston,
> Lincolnshire, UK, the latter very much in a vegetable-growing area, by
> the way.
>
> Just out of idle curiosity, do any of you wise people have any idea
> how this name arose?
>

Quite an old name - I'd never really thought about what they were. I
was just listening to the Ink Spots singing about them this morning:

"
I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, boy

I love java, sweet and hot
Whoops, Mr. Moto, I'm a coffee pot
Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup

Oh, slip me a slug from the wonderful mug
I'll cut a rug till I'm snug in a jug
A slice of onion and a raw one, draw one
Waiter, waiter, percolator

I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup

Ooh, Boston beans, soy beans
Green beans, cabbage and greens
I'm not keen of buying a bean
Unless it is a cheery, cheery bean boy

I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, yeah

I love java, sweet and hot
Whoops, Mr. Moto, I'm a coffee pot
Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot
A cup, a cup, a cup, yeah

Oh, trow me that slug from the wonderful mug
And I'll cut a rug till I'm snug in a jug
Drop a nickel in my pot, Joe, a take 'em slow
Waiter, waiter, percolator

I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me, yeah
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, bong"

[Peter Young]

On 5 Feb 2013 Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

> On 2013-02-05 4:15 PM, Don Phillipson wrote:
>> "Peter Young" <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:f71361195...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk...
>>
>>> Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
>>> Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
>>> French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
>>> evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
>>> something quite different.
>>
>> Boston beans means in N.America Boston Baked Beans, not haricots
>> verts. Being a major US port, Boston's name has been borrowed for lots
>> of marketing ventures, notably frozen pollock, labeled here Boston Bluefish,
>> which fails to make it taste better but probably sells more fish. Cf. also
>> London gin.
>>

> One of the numerous varieties of green beans is called a Boston bean:

> http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean
> -seeds/dwarf-bean-boston/583TM

> http://tinyurl.com/cj2uzj7

Many thanks, and my curiosity is satisfied. The picture on that site
looks just like the beans I ate an hour or so ago. But, why Boston?

> It doesn't seem to be a common variety, and I would certainly think of
> the baked beans first if I heard Boston beans.

Indeed so!

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Peter Brooks <peter.h....@gmail.com> writes:

> Ooh, Boston beans, soy beans
> Green beans, cabbage and greens
> I'm not keen of buying a bean

Cross-thread alert: "I'm not keen about a bean".

> Unless it is a cheery, cheery bean boy

That last was apparently originally written to be "ciribiribin", an
Italian song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzwwWfFhadQ

and, probably more relevantly, a then-recent English song based on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYrpFgqN49g

They changed it to "cheery cheery bean" for the album. Others
covering the song often substitute "chili chili bean".

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |As the judge remarked the day that
SF Bay Area (1982-) | he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
Chicago (1964-1982) |To be smut
|It must be ut-
evan.kir...@gmail.com |Terly without redeeming social
| importance.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Tom Lehrer

[John Varela]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 19:53:00 UTC, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

> One of the numerous varieties of green beans is called a Boston bean:

> http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean-seeds/dwarf-bean-boston/583TM
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cj2uzj7

The label under the picture says, "Rollover image for an enlarged
view." This usage of "rollover" is new to me. What it means is that
if you place the cursor on the image it will zoom in. The action of
placing the cursor over an image I've heretofore always seen
described as "hover".

--
John Varela

[Mike L]

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:57:25 GMT, Peter Young <pny...@ormail.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 5 Feb 2013 Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>
>> On 2013-02-05 4:15 PM, Don Phillipson wrote:
>>> "Peter Young" <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote in message
>>> news:f71361195...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk...
>>>
>>>> Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
>>>> Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
>>>> French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
>>>> evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
>>>> something quite different.
>>>
>>> Boston beans means in N.America Boston Baked Beans, not haricots
>>> verts. Being a major US port, Boston's name has been borrowed for lots
>>> of marketing ventures, notably frozen pollock, labeled here Boston Bluefish,
>>> which fails to make it taste better but probably sells more fish. Cf. also
>>> London gin.
>>>
>
>> One of the numerous varieties of green beans is called a Boston bean:
>
>> http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean
>> -seeds/dwarf-bean-boston/583TM
>
>> http://tinyurl.com/cj2uzj7
>
>Many thanks, and my curiosity is satisfied. The picture on that site
>looks just like the beans I ate an hour or so ago. But, why Boston?

Named after Boston, Lincs, I imagine. Somebody's already mentioned
that it's a vegetable-growing area.

>
>> It doesn't seem to be a common variety, and I would certainly think of
>> the baked beans first if I heard Boston beans.
>
>Indeed so!

Me, too. But perhaps not every plant breeder in Lincolnshire has yet
heard of BBB.

--
Mike.

[James Silverton]

The usage has been around for a while but seems inappropriate because
the cursor does not have to move. However, since the cursor is in the
same plane as the image, "hover" also seems unsuitable. What is really
meant is "place the cursor on the image".

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <kerniq$j5$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

Don Phillipson <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:

>verts. Being a major US port, Boston's name has been borrowed for lots
>of marketing ventures, notably frozen pollock, labeled here Boston Bluefish,
>which fails to make it taste better but probably sells more fish. Cf. also
>London gin.

See also, in the opposite direction, "Liverpool salt" (after which the
former salt-producing town of Liverpool, New York, was named).

Alas, Boston has not been a major port in quite some time.
Pittsburgh, Duluth, and Portland (both Maine and Oregon) are among the
ports doing a larger volume of trade than Boston. New Bedford,
although smaller in aggregate than Boston, is the largest fishing
port.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Mike L]

I suppose "hang about, no need to keep still, but don't click" would
have seemed rather a mouthful. "Place" might suggest "keep still",
while "Point" could seem too precise.

--
Mike.

[John Dean]

"Peter Brooks" <peter.h....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:18b470c7-ed38-44d0...@e11g2000vbv.googlegroups.com...

On Feb 5, 9:19 pm, Peter Young <pnyo...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:
> Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
> Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
> French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
> evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
> something quite different. The only thing I can find on Google is a
> mention on the Fairtrade site, where it just mentions them by name,
> and the ones I have are labelled as coming from Kenya, so they
> obviously have nothing to do with Boston, Mass, or Boston,
> Lincolnshire, UK, the latter very much in a vegetable-growing area, by
> the way.
>
> Just out of idle curiosity, do any of you wise people have any idea
> how this name arose?
>

Quite an old name - I'd never really thought about what they were. I
was just listening to the Ink Spots singing about them this morning:

Ooh, Boston beans, soy beans
Green beans, cabbage and greens
I'm not keen of buying a bean
Unless it is a cheery, cheery bean boy

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod.
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.

--
John Dean

[Mac]

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 19:19:40 GMT, Peter Young <pny...@ormail.co.uk>
wrote:

>Marks and Spencer food shops in the UK sell what they call "Boston
>Beans", which are the sort that I would call "green beans" and the
>French would call "haricots verts" (I'm about to have some with my
>evening meal). I know what Boston Baked Beans are, but these are
>something quite different. The only thing I can find on Google is a
>mention on the Fairtrade site, where it just mentions them by name,
>and the ones I have are labelled as coming from Kenya, so they
>obviously have nothing to do with Boston, Mass, or Boston,
>Lincolnshire, UK, the latter very much in a vegetable-growing area, by
>the way.

Oddly enough, this might be about Boston, MA. The Boston
Horticultural Society, later the Massachusetts Horticultural Society,
was a name to be reckoned with in the middle of the 19th century; at
least one other toponym from that area and era--the Concord Grape-- is
pretty familiar. Once the name is pinned to the cultivar, or course,
you can grow it anywhere. Boston -in the wider sense, of course - was
still the main source of New York's forced lettuce in 1880, when the
Mass Hort. published its history. (History of the Mass. Horticultural
Society 1829-78 p471. (as found on Google books.))

(Concord, of course, is also the home of the "french drain." The
Bartlett pear is another fairly well-known Mssachusetts food eponym;
Bartlett was, IMS, a founder of the Hort.)

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

"John Dean" <john...@FRAGmsn.com> writes:

> Quite an old name - I'd never really thought about what they were. I
> was just listening to the Ink Spots singing about them this morning:
>
> Ooh, Boston beans, soy beans
> Green beans, cabbage and greens
> I'm not keen of buying a bean
> Unless it is a cheery, cheery bean boy

You're the second person who's given it as "I'm not keen of buying a
bean". I've always heard it (and still hear it) as "I'm not keen
about a bean".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nm58bN4eV78#t=85s

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |"It makes you wonder if there is
SF Bay Area (1982-) |anything to astrology after all."
Chicago (1964-1982) |
|"Oh, there is," said Susan.
evan.kir...@gmail.com |"Delusion, wishful thinking and
|gullibility."
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[David Hatunen]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 11:57:56 -0800 (PST), Peter Brooks
<peter.h....@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Feb 5, 9:19�pm, Peter Young <pnyo...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:

>> Just out of idle curiosity, do any of you wise people have any idea
>> how this name arose?
>>
>Quite an old name - I'd never really thought about what they were. I
>was just listening to the Ink Spots singing about them this morning:

Aaah...

The Ink Spots. The Platters wre but a pale imitation.

Dave Hatunen, Tucson
Free Baja Arizona

[Peter Brooks]

On Feb 6, 2:18 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kirshenb...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> "John Dean" <john-d...@FRAGmsn.com> writes:
> > Quite an old name - I'd never really thought about what they were. I
> > was just listening to the Ink Spots singing about them this morning:
>
> > Ooh, Boston beans, soy beans
> > Green beans, cabbage and greens
> > I'm not keen of buying a bean
> > Unless it is a cheery, cheery bean boy
>
> You're the second person who's given it as "I'm not keen of buying a
> bean".  I've always heard it (and still hear it) as "I'm not keen
> about a bean".
>

The same person. John pasted, and edited, my answer to draw attention
to the particular verse. I simply copied and pasted it from a site
that gave these as the lyrics - I didn't examine the whole to check
that it was correct.

[CDB]

Maybe you hover for an enlarged image and "rollover" the image for the
view. Moving the cursor changes the part of the image that is within
the frame.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 5, 3:30 pm, "John Varela" <newla...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 19:53:00 UTC, Cheryl <cperk...@mun.ca> wrote:
> > One of the numerous varieties of green beans is called a Boston bean:

> >http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bea...

>
> >http://tinyurl.com/cj2uzj7
>
> The label under the picture says, "Rollover image for an enlarged
> view." This usage of "rollover" is new to me. What it means is that
> if you place the cursor on the image it will zoom in. The action of
> placing the cursor over an image I've heretofore always seen
> described as "hover".

A third one is "mouseover". Maybe there's a rule that the term has to
end in "-over".

--
Jerry Friedman

[Pierre Jelenc]

In article <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-U2DgTkJCbFVf@localhost>,

John Varela <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>The label under the picture says, "Rollover image for an enlarged
>view." This usage of "rollover" is new to me. What it means is that
>if you place the cursor on the image it will zoom in. The action of
>placing the cursor over an image I've heretofore always seen
>described as "hover".

Back in the old days when mice had wheels, you needed to roll the mouse
over the image, button, link, etc.

Or perhaps it's like a car rolling over and presenting its underside to
the onlookers?

Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
The Gigometer www.gigometer.com
The NYC Beer Guide www.nycbeer.org

[John Varela]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:15:59 UTC, Mac <anmc...@alumdotwpi.edu>
wrote:

> Oddly enough, this might be about Boston, MA. The Boston
> Horticultural Society, later the Massachusetts Horticultural Society,
> was a name to be reckoned with in the middle of the 19th century; at
> least one other toponym from that area and era--the Concord Grape-- is
> pretty familiar. Once the name is pinned to the cultivar, or course,
> you can grow it anywhere. Boston -in the wider sense, of course - was
> still the main source of New York's forced lettuce in 1880, when the
> Mass Hort. published its history. (History of the Mass. Horticultural
> Society 1829-78 p471. (as found on Google books.))
>
> (Concord, of course, is also the home of the "french drain." The
> Bartlett pear is another fairly well-known Mssachusetts food eponym;
> Bartlett was, IMS, a founder of the Hort.)

And, of course, the Fig Newton.

--
John Varela

[Mark Brader]

John Varela:

> The label under the picture says, "Rollover image for an enlarged
> view." This usage of "rollover" is new to me. What it means is that
> if you place the cursor on the image it will zoom in. The action of
> placing the cursor over an image I've heretofore always seen
> described as "hover".

"Hover" implies that the enlarged view appears if you put the cursor
there and leave it stationary for a little whole. This is bad enough;
but "roll over" (which should be two words as a verb) implies that it
appears instantly, which is even worse. There's a *reason* why they
make m-- (thinks desperately about plural; punts) those things with
buttons.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | English is just getting used to the telephone.
m...@vex.net | -- John Lawler

My text in this article is in the public domain.