Trying to get back into the swing of posting.

[conuly]

Firstly, let me just give this a resounding WTF?

In other news, this person wants information about traditional Thanksgiving foods. We're all MORE than happy to help... and I managed to get into a flame war about the definition of the word yam.

Well, I tried not to. I said sorry, I pointed out it's my own personal pet peeve (yams! They're African! You can't (easily) get them over here! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME AS SWEET POTATOES!), and I posted a few explanatory links...

but when the person I'm talking to goes "In America we, as Americans, call them yams" I have to point out that I, in fact, have been an American all my life, have lived here all my life, and only see them (mis)labeled "yams" in the supermarket (the same place that sells "wanuts", "peers", and "apels", so I don't take this very seriously) sometimes (probably due to dialectical variation). Most of the time they're labeled "small" and "large" sweet potatoes. And I certainly do not call them yams.

The yam issue is kinda like the robin issue. Settlers from England saw these birds kinda like their robins, didn't see their robins, and so decided to call these new birds "robins" just for the heck of it. Now we distinguish them by calling them "American" robins and "English" robins. Similarly, slaves from Africa saw these tubers kinda like their yams, didn't see their yams, and decided to call these new tubers "yams" for lack of a better term. Which is all well and good until a new wave of immigrants from Africa (and apparently the West Indies) hits and they bring real yams with them! I'd be happy to call them "American" yams and "African" yams (it's not like sweet potatoes are really just "sweet" potatoes either!) but to just use the term "yam" bugs me.

Comments

[conuly]

And I don't actually expect anybody to.

I do expect them not to basically accuse me of being un-American.

[steorra]

It's interesting to me as a Canadian how significant the concept "un-American" is in American culture/discourse. I suppose there are things in Canada that get talked about as "un-Canadian" sometimes, but it's not nearly as high-profile a concept.

[conuly]

Well, she didn't say I was un-American. That would've just been WTF. She said that "here in America we say..." and went on from there, which just annoyed me. If somebody in a conversation with you went "Here in Canada...." you'd probably be annoyed too!

[steorra]

Oh, sorry, yes, I totally agree that it would be annoying, and I wasn't trying to question that.

Your mention of un-American just caught my attention and I went on a bit of a tangent about something that struck me as interesting that I hadn't noticed before.