It's a hot debate: chile vs. chili

In Mark Magnier’s Column One article Thursday, he wrote about the “ghost chile” of northeast India – considered the world’s hottest pepper.

But it wasn’t the spice that made readers uncomfortable – it was the spelling of “chile.”

“I have never seen the pepper spelled with an ‘e’ rather than an ‘i,’ and I am sure that this was an error,” wrote Julie May of Los Angeles.

And Judith Perles emailed: “Please tell Mr. Mark Magnier about the difference between chili and Chile. Chili gives you an ulcer, although Chile, the country west of Argentina, could give it to you too in a different way. P.S. I am not from Chile, and I don't even eat chili con carne!”

However, Magnier (and his editors) were simply following The Times' stylebook, which explains it this way:

Chile: The country in South America. Lowercase, it is the pepper; plural is chiles.

chili: The dish consisting of beef, chiles, etc.

Of course, this matter is confused by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band apparently didn't consult the stylebook.

--Deirdre Edgar

Photos:

Top left: Chile peppers growing in Santa Ana. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times.

Top right: A bowl of chili. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Bottom: The Red Hot Chili Peppers performing in 2010. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Shorty LeDoux]

Unless, of course, its part of the title of a song by Jimi Hendrix and then it is none of the above.

[RichP]

Chili does not cause ulcers. A bacterium named helicobacter pylori does.

[drfaustus]

the stylebook was written by morons.

its chili.

chile is a nation no matter if it is in caps.

[Liberal Texan]

There's nothing at all wrong with the Times' stylebook. "Chile" IS the proper spelling for a pepper. Always has been. Just because your mother or teacher or whoever taught it to you incorrectly does not make "chili" the correct spelling.

"Chili" is the proper spelling for the meat-based dish.

[Marianela]

The Times' stylebook would be correct... In Spanish! Chile is actually the country and also the Central American & Mexican word for hot pepper (hot peppers are actually called 'aji' in South America and some parts of Spain, eliminating the whole word duplicity). Chili would be the American tex-mex dish.

[deegee]

these are the same people that pronounce it "chi-LAY"

[Marco]

Judith Perles, you are wrong about the spelling and the consequences of "chile."
They do not give you ulcers, in fact, they may protect you from them:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895548
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6j68g6dh#page-1

[Victor V. Velarde]

Hello from the home of Hatch Green Chile; New Mexico; we also produce Sandia, Corrales, Chimayo and many other local varieties of chile. In Spanish the word chile ends in the "eh" sound which would make the spelling chile. I don't want to criticize, just add perspective. Incidentally native indians feasted on chile long before the arrival of the Europeans. Hve fun enjoy chile, chili and don't forget the beans.

[chitchat98765]

the real issue? english spelling is antique. there is no reason that "tough" should not be spelled as "tuf". in fact, under an ultimate spelling system, ANY recognizable spelling would be accepted.

[BleuSkies777]

You eat "chili" in chile.

[chilibreath]

Take it from me; chile and chili are spellings with different meanings. As Liberal Texan (an oxymoron) correctly stated, chile with an "e" is a pepper, and chili with an "i" is a spicy meat dish that you can eat with a spoon or sop up with a tortilla. And even as I write this I'm getting hungry!

[Ford]

I can't remember where I read this, but apparently the Red Hot Chili Peppers actually didn't name their band with spicy peppers in mind at all. They were originally the Red Hots or something similar, and the Chili Pepper part came later. They don't use pepper symbols and don't care when fans do things like eat a bunch of spicy chilies for them.

[Paul]

As someone who went to college in the Southwest, I'm used to the spelling chile for the peppers, and chili for the dish. According to the Oxford English dictionary, there are three correct spellings based on region: chili, chile, and chilli.

That means everyone is right, regardless of which side of the debate they are on. Congrats! You're all winners.

[candela]

How about tamal instead of tamale? In Spanish the plural of tamal is tamales. The singular does not have an e at the end. The word tortilla is now synonomous with a Mexican flat round bread (corn or wheat), but in most of Latin America and Spain a tortilla is an omelet similar to a fritatta.

[Gray, Germany]

Sorry, but even though dictionaries certainly support your spelling, you're ignoring that language is actually a living thing. Spellings change over time. And a simple Google search would have shown you that that's the case here: "Chile peppers" - 3.1 million hits, "chili peppers" - 81 million hits. The people have spoken! It's "chili peppers" nowadays. And if the LA Times insists on the outdated spelling, it makes the paper look old fashioned and elitist. Change the stylebook!

[Hugh]

The central issue here is that Americans do not know how to spell. It is Chile the country, chilli the spice and chillis as the plural. There is no plural of the country.

[Aprille]

I've seen a lot of people, mostly pepper growers/gardeners, spell chile as chile or as Mark did. I don't think this has to be a big issue. Proper research can do the trick and not simply rely on intuitions and stuff. Thanks for clearly setting it out. I just hope some bitter folks would try to deal with this seemingly hot issue in a nice manner. :)

[Bill]

A quick consultation of Google's NGRAM viewer (a really cool tool) shows that the phrase "chile pepper" did not come into use until after 1982, when apparently the education system took a turn for the worse. Since 1900 and through 2010, the term "chili pepper" has been much more frequently used, and is therefore "correct." Its lead over the "incorrect" form has dwindled to 3-to-1, but still a vast majority.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=chili+pepper%2Cchile+pepper&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3