polaris, it's probably because no one really ever uses chip to mean a single potato chip, people (were I'm from) say "i want chips", "i like thins chips", "can i have some [chips]".

Mi mangxas cxipso. - I am eating a chip/some chips (i think)

I remember that saying a noun by itself like kuko could mean "a cake" or "some cake". It's probably just that most people use "some chips" in english (maybe) that it was translated that way to mean "some chips" and not a single chip. Maybe...

ah was it supposed to be cxipson? Sorry.

Polaris:I've seen chip rendered as "cxipo" (see the Lernu vortaro)--but that's an integrated circuit. I was simply questioning why they'd render a food chip as "cxipso", since it looks like the plural form of a loan word--if a single computer chip is a "cxipo", then why would a corn chip by a "cxipso".

Well... I'm sure you can understand that a computer chip is not the same thing as a potato chip, and not only because one is made out of deep fried potatoes while the other one is made out of deep fried computers.

So it is indeed the same word, in English, but it is simply anecdotical that they happen to be spelled and pronounced the same way. For an easy proof, their respective French translations are "croustille" and "puce" (which in turn is spelled and pronounced the same way as "flea", even though it has very little in common with the bouncy insect).

Simply put, 'chip' and 'chip' are homonyms in English. But not in Esperanto. I would guess most esperantists initially or at some point agreed that these were two different things and accordingly created two distinct roots, as there was still room for that in the Esperanto vocabulary.

Cxipsoj never come in a packet with only one chip. So internationally, 'chips' would make more sense (referring to the packaging - you wouldn't see 'Smith's Chicken flavoured chip, would you?). And no one, spare me, is stingy enough to sell a single chip in a packet.

However, silicon chips don't come in packets of 'chips', they generally come as one unit.

Because both of these are international loan words, they can both coexist without trouble. Sure, 'chips' is not entirely correct, but because potato chips are never marketed as a singular chip, there is little likelihood that 'chip' would catch on as well as the ubermarketed 'chips'.

And who buys a packet of barbeque flavoured silicon chips O_o ?

But unless you ask the person who coined the words into Esperanto him/herself, I doubt you'll know for sure...