Talk:chocolate chip

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chocolate chip

This is a chip made of chocolate, isn't it? --Hekaheka 15:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• Strong keep. "Chocolate chip" is a fairly specific thing, in shape and approximate size if nothing else; I'd be very surprised if someone referred to a chipped-off sliver of chocolate as a "chocolate chip". (I assume that, historically, chocolate chips were in fact made by crumbling up larger pieces or whatnot, but if so, usage has drifted alongside the manufacturing process.) To be sure, we should probably add a sense of [[chip]] that's specific to this shape, with a mention of chocolate, because it's since come to be used in "vanilla chip" and "white chocolate chip", and also because "chip" itself can mean "chocolate chip" in some contexts (e.g. "mint chip" = "mint chocolate chip"); but I take that to be an extension of the "chocolate chip" sense, rather than "chocolate chip" being an application of that sense. —Ruakh_TALK 15:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. If you took a hammer and chisel to a large block of chocolate, you could technically call the pieces that you'd chipped off "chocolate chips", but that is not at all what people think of when they hear the term. bd2412 T 16:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Some people do, the home made way is to do just that chop up a chunk of chocolate.

• Keep, per Ruakh and bd2412. See also previous discussion.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Specifically (just to clarify), keep because it (seemingly) was non-SOP in that it meant what it means now before chip alone had the relevant meaning. (Just as we keep obsolete terms, I suppose we should keep obsolete non-SOPs.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
• Only WP, Urban Dictionary, and we among OneLook references have this, not a distinguished group of lexicographers. I would argue in favor of an FDA-derived definition as such a normative definition would define the experience of chocolate chips, and thence the term, rather specifically for a large class of English speakers. DCDuring TALK 16:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The Code of Federal Regulations does not appear to have the term.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
• Strong keep: "Chip" can refer to a number of things; it isn't abundantly clear what that is Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 18:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Oddly, chip has no noun sense to cover 'chocolate chip' anyway. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The chips are near-conical only because the cheapest production method for small standard-size chocolate bits is to make them that way. If I made random-shaped bits and used them for my home-made cookies they would still be chocolate chips. --Hekaheka 10:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

google books:"chocolate chip shaped" offers up "chocolate chip-shaped marshmallow", "little piles of chocolate-chip-shaped onion bulbs", "chocolate-chip shaped mound", "a chocolate- chip-shaped leech", "a chocolate-chip-shaped volcano", and "chocolate-chip- shaped cookie jars" as evidence that the shape of a chocolate chip is part of the definition.--Prosfilaes 13:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm amazed. That sure shows the power of market economy! --Hekaheka 14:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would point out that it is now also possible to buy, for example, butterscotch chips in the same shape - a back-formation of sorts from the chocolate chip. bd2412 T 16:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Delete or redirect to chip (gastronomy sense) this is just a gastronomy/baking chip flavored or colored or made of chocoLucifer 18:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Keep; a chocolate chip has a defined size and shape that makes chocolate chip cookies different from chocolate chunk cookies. The fact that the defined shape is an artefact of production methods is not relevant. --EncycloPetey 22:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That's not true, cookies that have chunks of chocolate rather chips in them but are still described as chocolate chip cookies.

There are "chocolate chunk cookies" for sale, but I suspect that in reality their manufacturers actually use conical chocolate chips, because they are cheap and easier to handle on the production line. They just use the word chunk in marketing to differentiate their product from the horde of chocolate chip cookies and to make their product sound more chocolatey. Perhaps the shape is not so relevant after all? --Hekaheka 10:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

All the cookies I've seen sold under the name "chocolate chunk cookies" have large, blocky, corner-bearing, chocolate bits in them. The chunks are much larger than chocolate chips and most definitely are not the same shape. Some product lines offer both "chocolate chip cookies" (with smaller conical chips) and "chocolate chunk cookies" (with the larger blocky bits). It may indeed make them sound more chocolatey, but is also serves to distinguish their two products from each other. This is lexical information. --EncycloPetey 17:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You are technically correct — the best kind of correct — but personally I'd still probably say "chocolate chip cookie" even if it contained chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips, just as I'd still say "box of Kleenex" even if it contained some other brand. (But if someone handed me a bag of chocolate chunks to be used in such cookies, I wouldn't call them "chocolate chips", and if someone gave me a tour of a factory that made facial tissues, I wouldn't call it a "Kleenex factory". So the distinction is quite real, but not quite complete.) —Ruakh_TALK 23:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Language is messy. That statement probably needs a full essay somewhere as one of the fundamental operating principles of Wiktionary. --EncycloPetey 01:31, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Kleenex factory should be a litmus test! Although I would call the "chunks" chocolate chips since they are chipped away pieces of chocolate, I would probably call the conical ones drops or dollops if I had to specify, but they're both chips and the distinction is pedantic.Lucifer 07:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You'd call the conical ones drops or dollops to distinguish them from the parallelepipedic ones? Would you mind putting Babel information on your userpage?​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:33, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Keep per Ruakh. - -sche (discuss) 00:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

kept -- Liliana • 15:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)