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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Scallions is not an Americanism

159 replies

Monty27 · 18/03/2019 01:31

I got accused today of using an Americanism. I said it's Irish, it became transaltantic after the famine.
Scallions in mash on st Patrick's Day is Irish. With cabbage and bacon of course. No Guinness but Irish coffees and beers and cava I was hosting

OP posts:
funmummy48 · 18/03/2019 07:22

It 's of Anglo-French origin so definitely didn't originate in the USA although it's obviously widely used there.

llangennith · 18/03/2019 07:26

I thought Americans call them green onions. Never heard the word scallions before.Hmm

3out · 18/03/2019 07:26

I’d only ever heard them called spring onions (Scotland) until I got Irish flatmates and they called them scallions

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 18/03/2019 07:26

My Irish grandmother always called them scallions and she was born in 1907.... certainly no American influence on her!

BertrandRussell · 18/03/2019 07:26

A lot of Americanisms are British regionalisms that went across with immigrants, then fell out of use in their home country.

youmeandconchitawurst · 18/03/2019 07:27

Syboes in Scotland is definitely a thing, but shops call them spring onions

sashh · 18/03/2019 07:29

I had a Jamaican landlady, she used to complain you could only get spring onions in the UK not scallions.

This article agrees with her, but other say they are the same.

www.finecooking.com/article/scallions-and-spring-onions-arent-the-same-thing

Magi84 · 18/03/2019 07:31

I moved to England in 1953 and heard them called spring onions for the first time! Coming from Scotland (Edinburgh) they were always syboes for me. All Irish friends call them scallions.

There are lots of different things which very from region to region. Makes conversation quite interesting sometimes.

Magi84 · 18/03/2019 07:31

"vary" not very

gassylady · 18/03/2019 07:32

Just to fuel further debate growing up in Wales they were gibbons!! (pronounced jib)

Ohyesiam · 18/03/2019 07:32

The Isiah half of my family day scallions. Could well be Scottish too.

pearpickingporky84 · 18/03/2019 07:38

This has reminded me of a quote from my Granny’s friend after her first trip to Sainsbury’s when it arrived in NI. She’d had to ask for help from an English member of staff.
‘He’s head if he fruit and veg and he doesn’t even know what a scallion is?!’ She was genuinely horrified and I don’t think she ever went back 😂

Willow2017 · 18/03/2019 07:44

Sybees in Scotland (well my area anyway)
Spring onions in shops.
I watch a lot of US cooking programmes and they are always called green onions on them.

Impatienceismyvirtue · 18/03/2019 07:44

Are you the husband from the other AIBU where the wife is being driven mad my her husband using Americanisms and they’ve finally had a big argument about it?! 😂

scalliondays · 18/03/2019 07:46

Blimey - In my pre-coffee bleary eyed state I thought this thread was about me! They're called scallions in NE England - or at least by my family. Did see the poet John Hegley once. He invited the audience to shout out words for a poem but when someone yelled scallions out he was bemused.

HourglassTigger · 18/03/2019 07:52

Ripe old aged Geordie here.
Always been Scallions as far back as I recall. No Irish or Scottish in the family. Fully expect to hear from other Geordies who didn't use that term (or even ever eat 'Scallies') back in the sixties, but perplexed by anyone imagining any terminology used in their corner is representative of the whole of 'England'.
And now I come to think of it have only ever heard scallies referred to as green onions in the US?
All good. These fresh, crunchy, fiery, pungent mini-alliums are delicious
by every name.

TattiePants · 18/03/2019 07:57

I’m in the NE and have never heard of them being called scallions here, always spring onions.

Wakemeuuuup · 18/03/2019 08:01

I'm Irish and we called them scallions. In UK for 20 years and now call them spring onions

Sgtmajormummy · 18/03/2019 08:11

Just wondering if there has been some inter-language confusion.
These are Italian SCALOGNO, known in English as shallots!
Grin

Scallions is not an Americanism
flitwit99 · 18/03/2019 08:57

So I'm the only person so far who calls them greentails? I guess that was just my mum then. Strange woman.

Hobbesmanc · 18/03/2019 13:56

I grew up on Teesside and my mum was from Middlesborough and she called them scallions.

StealthPolarBear · 18/03/2019 13:58

So is it north ne (Newcastle and Northumberland) that say scallions and teessiders say spring onions. While those of us in Durham just mumble something unintelligeable and hope both sides think we agree with them?

StealthPolarBear · 18/03/2019 13:58

Sorry misread the last post clearly!

TamzinGrey · 18/03/2019 14:11

I'm Welsh. We call them jibbons.

JassyRadlett · 18/03/2019 14:16

Just going to chuck in that some Aussies call them shallots - this annoys the tits off me.
Especially as they also have real shallots - but they call them European shallots.

Yes, how dare those upstart colonials have their own words for something that has quite a few different names already? The cheek of it.

🙄