> wrote

> Then you can imagine my horror when I was travelling in
> Ohio, and the
> people I was staying with were talking about ordering a
> pizza.
> Debating the choices of toppings, quite a few votes were
> for
> "mangoes"- I couldn't imagine anything more unappealing on
> a pizza :-P
> . I was assured they were delicious- well, I don't like
> mangoes (the
> fruit kind) at the best of times and was pretty sure I
> wasn't going to
> like them any better on a pizza (what a desecration!) I
> was
> pleasantly surprised when the pizza arrived to find they
> meant
> capsicum peppers. I was always puzzled as to how they
> came to be
> referred to as "mangoes".

I spent close on three months in Bloomington without running
into this one but according to Webster's Unabridged:

"3 a (1) : a vegetable (as a sweet pepper) stuffed (as with
shredded cabbage) and then pickled (2) : a pickled mango
melon b chiefly Midland : a large round sweet pepper"

("mango." Webster's Third New International Dictionary,
Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com ( 20 Sep. 2004).)

It's not just Indiana in other words. It *would* be
interesting to know where and how this usage got started. It
may be time to include alt.english.usage or
alt.usage.english in this loop.

--
Bob
Kanyak's Doghouse
http://www.kanyak.com