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Monday 13 June 2022

Spot the Frippet: bean.

 Isn't it odd that, although we eat baked beans

photo by Gordon Joly

we never eat baking beans?



In America a head can be a bean, but a British old bean is a friend.

You might have coffee beans with your breakfast:

photo by Jeff Kubina

and kidney beans with your dinner: 

photo by Jon Richfield

If you have no money, but are still full of life and enthusiasm, then you both haven't got a bean and are full of beans.

(But, curiously, a hill of beans is worth more or less nothing.)

You may spot a bean bag, or some bean curd (which is, admittedly, usually known nowadays as tofu).

In fact one of the few places where beans might be hard to spot is on the table at those British celebrations the beanfeast or the beano.

Finally, if you climb a beanstalk you might find a man-eating giant; and if he's the BFG, even though he'll call you a human bean, he won't eat you. 

Phew.

Spot the Frippet: bean. This word was bēan in old English.



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