The
original and ancient
Chinese name for
chop-sticks was
tsze, meaning
help, since the utensils assisted in getting the food from your dish to your mouth. However, the Chinese eventually replaced this name with a term that sounded similar, but seemed to better describe the motion of the chop-sticks:
k'wai-tsze, meaning
the quick ones. British sailors, returning from voyages to the Orient in the late seventeenth century, rendered this unfamiliar term into English as
chop and then combined it with
stick to create the word chop-stick. More than two centuries later, the Chinese
k'wai, meaning
quick, was again rendered into English in the phrase
chop chop, meaning
quick quick or, more idiomatically,
make it snappy.
The chop in chop suey, however, derives from a completely different Chinese source: the Cantonese shap sui, meaning bits and pieces This dish did not originate in China but rather on the west coast of the United States where it was invented by Chinese immigrants engaged in building railroads.
- From Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities.
By the way, Japanese chop-sticks, called hashi have tapered ends. Chinese chop-sticks have blunt ends.