Hello, Twitter. It is time to have a little talk about culinary terms in English and how linguistically fascinating many of them are, with particular attention paid to the phrase "chicken Kievs". (Be warned that vegetarians and grammar purists may find this thread uncomfortable.)

OK, let us start with chicken. In English, "chicken" is both a count noun (one chicken, two chickens) and a mass noun (250g of chicken, a bucket of chicken). And – probably because a single chicken is a reasonable amount of meat to serve at a single meal – both usages are common.

By which I mean that most people know what a roast chicken is, and most people know that "a roast chicken sandwich" does not mean "a sandwich containing a roast chicken".

Therein lies our first peculiarity: without context, "chicken" could refer to "a chicken" or "some chicken".

Regarding whether it should be "Kiev" or "Kyiv": I note that many publications that have adopted the Ukrainian preferred spelling of Kyiv still refer to "chicken Kiev".

Since it appears that the dish itself is Russian, rather than Ukrainian, this makes a certain amount of sense.

The phrase "chicken Kiev" refers to a fillet of chicken breast, prepared in a style named after that city. This use of a proper noun as a modifying suffix to denote a person or place of origin is not unusual – if you've ever ordered eggs Benedict or a brandy Alexander, same deal.

But pluralisation is where things get interesting.

You may have encountered a nuance of English grammar whereby the plurals of "court martial" and "attorney general" are actually "courts martial" and "attorneys general", because in each case the count noun precedes the modifier.

Consider the example of the popular dessert cocktail known as the Brandy Alexander, a measure of brandy, served with crème de cacao and cream. Whether one was to order "two Brandy Alexanders" or "two Brandies Alexander", one could reasonably expect to receive two drinks... right?

But now imagine you were in a restaurant and ordered "three eggs Benedict". How many eggs would you expect to get? Do you want three servings of the dish "eggs Benedict", which is normally TWO eggs – or would you like them to poach three eggs and serve them in the Benedict style?

Perhaps the former should actually be three eggs Benedicts, and the latter three eggs Benedict – which would leave you the option of asking for a singular egg Benedict if you wanted just the one egg, and three egg Benedicts, if you and two friends fancied one egg each.

Perhaps.

Now consider the chicken Kiev. The "courts martial" rule implies that the plural of "chicken Kiev" was "chickens Kiev", and multiple whole chickens filled with garlic butter and fried in breadcrumbs might sound delicious, but it clearly doesn't work from a linguistic perspective.

Purists would argue that the correct pluralisation was "two pieces of chicken Kiev", but contemporary linguists would argue that "ain't nobody got time for that". Like "LegoTM building bricks" vs "Legos", brevity matters, and correctness does not necessarily correlate with usage.

The inescapable conclusion here is that the word Kiev is now an English count noun referring to a single portion of something wrapped around a stick of cold garlic butter and cooked in breadcrumbs. It works. If somebody says "two chicken Kievs", you know exactly what they mean...

...and the extrapolation to veggie Kievs, turkey Kievs, mushroom Kievs, etc. is straightforward, and easily verified with reference to any supermarket freezer cabinet.

However, despite being in common usage since at least the early 1990s, Kiev is always spelled with a capital K.

It therefore appears that the word "Kiev", in the context of English supermarket chiller cabinets and restaurant menus, is a rare example of a common noun in English that always takes a capital letter.

Perhaps the only such example; I would be most curious to hear of any others.