Date:  Sun, 8 Oct 1995 23:35:17 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: PEAS



Russell King writes,

>>I never did figure out what English peas

>>>are. The only peas I know from are green, snow, or black-eyed.



>My impression (I've read or heard this somewhere, and it bears out my own

>experience) is that "English peas" is the Southern term for green peas or

>what most Americans probably just call "peas." Because in the South (and

>this was true in my childhood, in southern Oklahoma with Arkansas parentage),

>"peas" standing alone is likely to be understood as black-eyed peas; the less

>common green things must be distinguished as "green peas" or "English

>peas."

and one or two others provided the same information. Now I know why the

non-metric system of measurement is called the English system, as we've been

reading. English obviously = 'unmarked, default, real'.