Talk:Spare ribs

"Spare ribs", One word or Two

It seems to me that "spareribs" one word, refers to a cooked pork dish, usually cooked or served with sauce, and that "spare ribs" refers to having extra ribs. "Spare" means excess, extra, more than is needed, desired, or required. The single word term "spareribs" derives from Low German 'ribbesper', and the two word terminology derives from the two separate words "spare", meaning extra, and "ribs". "Spare ribs" would be what a paleontologist has left over after putting together a dinosaur skeleton, and "spareribs" would be what he eats. In any case, both versions have been used in both this article, and less clearly in the Pork Ribs article. I'd like to see "Spare Ribs" get redirected to the Spareribs article, rather than the other way around, like it is now. Mcraigw 19:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

What do the various English dictionaries have to say about this? Badagnani 19:12, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary, they have an entry for spareribs (one word), but do not have an entry for "spare ribs" (two words). They do, have both spare and ribs. We should probably check some other dictionaries as well. Mcraigw 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the word "spareribs" is used very rarely here in the United Kingdom. "Spare ribs" is used almost exclusively. I have not once seen the term "spareribs" in this country outside of the internet, though on my numerous trips to the United States (East coast mostly), I have seen both "spareribs" and "spare ribs", with the former possibly being more common. As Wikipedia is an English-language encyclopedia, and as "spare ribs" seems to be the most common (according to Google hits, that is) English-language term, and as the difference in usage between the two appears to differ between UK and US (without checking Canada, Australia, e.t.c.), and as this article is currently (and has always been) at Spare ribs, WP:ENGVAR suggests that, at least for now, the article should remain at Spare ribs. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 02:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that, so long as the intro sentence is worded similarly to "Spare ribs, or spareribs,..." it's fine as-is. I have a recent US-published cookbook that calls them "Spare ribs" while the supermarket (here in the US) puts "spareribs" on the label. The German derivation is probably more likely, thus the single-word may be the original usage, but naming goes by the common usage... and a folk etymology that says two words has a strong case for commonality. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

   Absolutely, as to our wording. (But if DARE, for instance, has found any striking patterns in the use of "spareribs" vs. "spare ribs", they may be worthy of mention.)
--Jerzy•t 06:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

   Utter nonsense! I refer, actually, to two discussants' attempts to draw conclusions about the correct English term from the single-word German origin. This is a great example of why we bar OR.
   "Spare ribs" and "spareribs" are two insignificantly different spellings of a single compound word, unworthy of the print-book space it would take to distinguish between them. (That statement was written as my personal opinion. The portion of this 'graph following this parenthetical is expert authority for the fact that my personal opinion having turned out to be accurate (well, for once, at least).) P. 1114 of [Merriam-]Webster's [8th] New Collegiate Dictionary is consistent with what the initial discussant claimed, as to ribbesper, and in listing of a single spelling with no space or hyphen. But at p. 11a, in the "Explanatory Notes", it says

To show all the stylings that are found for English compounds would require space that can be better used for other information. So this dictionary limits itself to a single styling:..."

It then provides three unrelated compounds, each illustrating one such "styling": each is a compound of two words; one has no separation, one a hyphen as separation, and one a space as separation. So there is no reason to believe that the initial discussant's conclusion is in any way supported by the evidence they offer.

   The use of "spare ribs" with the meaning the initial discussant suggests - excess bone count - has value as a form of humor. On the other hand, a writer who uses the phrase to mean that, without irony, must be afflicted with either

1. ignorance of "spareribs" referring to a widely known food,
2. a disablingly impoverished active vocabulary of synonyms for "extra", or
3. the kind of temporary failure of unconscious associations that leads someone who hears the word "monoplane" (but perhaps has recently been overwhelmed with information about diseases or food orders) ask

   "Mono, plain"? Wait, my attention must have drifted; how does mononucleosis figure in this?

Which means the ambiguity between the two senses of "spare ribs" is an inconsequential fancy.
   By the way, i am a sheer amateur in linguistics and etymology, but i am shocked that anyone would presume to make such assertions while showing such linguistic naïveté: The consequences for meaning, in changing the order of words, are enormous, but the differences among a two words separated by a hyphen, by a space, or not at all are often not discernible in speech. It is ridiculous to think that it would offer any significantly greater chance of preserving the form of connection of the compound, than of changing it.
   In fact, Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft, while a joke, is a joke about a real difference between English and German in their approaches to compound words. The early-20th-century reference work Meyers Orts- und Verkehrslexikon, however, struck me as a gateway to instructive examples. The word Bahn (path, i think, in origin, but now extended to embrace the railroad senses of "track" and "train") can be used as a complete word, usually meaning a train or the train system, but Eisenbahn (lit. iron train) disambiguates Bahn. Bahnhof (lit. train court) is "train station", Bahnhofstraße is the name of streets, in 5 German-speaking cities, that might be called "Station Street" in an English-speaking country, and Union station is the interlanguage link for Hauptbahnhof (where Haupt is literally "head" and figuratively "main". Damn: I lost track, but i think it was only one step that led me from one of them to Eisenbahnverkehrsunternehmen. It names a concept in EU transportation law, and is a compound composed of

1. a compound noun (equivalent to railroad)
2. the noun form of a verb, which was in turn formed by prefixing a simpler verb (equivalent to transport), and
3. another noun similarly produced from a prefixed verb (equivalent to something like "enterprise" or "institution").

I think it's fair to say that "Iron-path forth-carrying under-taking" captures the spirit it which it was constructed, as a compound word fundamentally in a different spirit than most English compounds.
--Jerzy•t 06:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

In American cuisine

I made the following changes today and they were removed. They are accurate and informative. Why were they removed?

Spare ribs are also popular in the United States. They are generally cooked on a barbecue or on an open fire, and are served as a slab (bones and all) with a sauce. American butchers prepare two cuts:

• Spare ribs are taken from the belly side of the rib cage above the sternum (breast bone) and below the back ribs which extend about 6" down from the spine. Spare ribs are flatter than the curved back ribs and contain more bone than meat. There is also quite a bit of fat which can make the ribs more tender than back ribs.

• St. Louis Cut ribs are spare ribs are spare ribs where the sternum bone, cartilage, and the surrounding meat known as the rib tips have been removed. St. Louis Cut rib racks are almost rectangular.

Quedude (talk) 21:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinks and text was removed without explanation; if those are restored it would be good to add this additional information. Badagnani (talk) 23:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The edit was fully explained, and your reverts are the ones that have been made without explanation. Edit warring over such a minor issue is ridiculous, and the way you deal with content you dislike is highly inappropriate. It is not good for all of us editors at Wikipedia when you attempt to take ownership of the article as that frustrates everyone and leads to nowhere. GraYoshi2x►^talk 01:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a strong preference for one version over the other, given the lack of sources. The one new source is inappropriate per WP:RS, WP:SPAM, and WP:COI. --Ronz (talk) 04:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it your intent to hold the article hostage? "I'm not going to allow this additional useful information to be added back, until this other part of the article is allowed to stay as I like it as well"? As has been pointed out many times, there was an explanation for the removal of the information in question. You can't simply refer to anyone removing info as "removing it without explanation," and any uncited information is subject to editing or removal. Propaniac (talk)

The removal of text and wikilinks was simply incorrect. Badagnani (talk) 17:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't, but your constant violation of WP:OWN is. Have you read what it said before Propaniac changed it? It stated the blatantly obvious and unneeded info. Being overprotective of articles that you've contributed to will not fare very well for you in the long run. GraYoshi2x►^talk 00:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

References

Etymology?

Article currently reads: "The origin of the term "spare ribs" is not known although several folk definitions exist."

If several folk definitions exist, the article should state them. If we don't know the folk definitions, let's drop the phrase "several folk definitions exist," or least reference a Reliable Source which indicates that several definitions exist.

Karl gregory jones (talk) 14:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

   (I probably wasted my time in seeking the first insertion of that wording, but here are my results, just in case: It was probably at 16:36, 21 April 2009 by Quedude (talk · contribs); i linear-searched -- since it came and went several times -- for "folk" via Wiki-Blame, from there back to 08:56, 12 July 2007, which is before he first edited; in case that is useful for some reason, note that i didn't do any checking in the first 50 edits, and gave little attention to whether there was a ref, later removed, claiming to justify it.)
--Jerzy•t 06:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

   The continuing lack of a ref, 2 years after it was called for, is sufficient reason to remove; still better reason is the fact that it is nonsense as it stands. (I confess to being slow on the uptake when i noted its correct use in the M-W etymology, which reads

by folk etymology from Low German ribbesper pickled pork ribs roasted on a spit, from Middle Low German, from ribbe rib + sper spear, spit
First Known Use: 1596

when i looked the word up early in this edit.)

   That portion of the dict entry cannot mean

Some lay-people think it comes from ribbesper, but linguists don't endorse their confidence.

and those who have seemed to believe that it does most likely were led astray by construing the term folk etymology as a close synonym of false etymology, while in fact the distinction is crucial for our purposes. Actually that part of the etymological entry means

The consensus (of the linguists on whom the dictionary's editors are relying) is that the term "spareribs" came from ribbesper, and that the modification of the Low German word was at least partially according to similarity, of sound (or spelling), between parts of the Low German and English words that had dissimilar meanings.

I have been at pains to avoid saying more than that about its precise meaning: i relied on the MW def (rather than assuming the accuracy of our article folk etymology, tho it equally supports my point). While it does not say that the etymologists are sure, it also says nothing to suggest they are at all unsure. Lacking evidence that they are more uncertain than other peer-reviewed professional scholars usually are, we have a RS and should treat it as establishing accepted knowledge, that speakers transformed, gradually or suddenly, the sper in the Low German term into "spare" (without any sound basis for thinking they meant the same, perhaps not knowing -- but perhaps knowing they didn't, but not minding -- that sper, a cognate of "spear", meant "spit", in the sense of "skewer", in that context rather than "spare"), and the ribben into "ribs" (with or without any sound basis for thinking they meant the same, as they did). In my own mind i infer that it is the change from sper to "spare", but not ribben to "ribs", that convinced the etymologists that folk etymology was involved. But i don't see that we either may, or need, to state that (rather than let readers guess and reason for themselves, as we must), until someone researches more deeply. It is also IMO worth noting that it is mostly irrelevant to the subject of etymology whether English speakers of any era associate "spare", in the context of spareribs, with the sense of sparse, of extra, of being held in reserve, or of being spared from harm; they may even have, and have had, as little concern about the use of the word "spare" re meat as they have about why the kitty that they add their ante to lacks fur and any taste for milk.
--Jerzy•t 06:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

In Australia?

In Australia, pork spare ribs appear to be a completely different cut to American spare ribs. Can someone please clarify? --Irrevenant [ talk ] 01:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

   A description of why you infer they differ would be a first step toward it being feasible for someone to start work on this concern.
--Jerzy•t 06:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

---

Well, for starters, anyone who has seen both cuts would say they look COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

Nulling out the ratings

   The accompanying article is severely neglected, and no one else has noted some glaring faults. I'm starting them over from scratch. Rerating them (especially with comments on this talk page in support of the ratings) would command more credibility.
--Jerzy•t 07:06, 18 September 2011 (UTC)