Why is this weird? “Apple” used to be the generic word for fruit in many different languages, it wasn’t until recently that it took on the meaning of a specific type of fruit. I don’t think calling potatoes “fruit of the earth” is at all strange. The English equivalent to this is the word “pineapple” – a fruit that kind of looks like a pine cone.
italian tomatoes have entered the chat and agree with their golden apples.
American: “Have french people never eaten a good apple?”
Frenchman: “Have Americans never enjoyed a tasty potato?”
Potatoes are indeed tasty. Some varieties are even sweet-ish. I can’t say I’ve had potatoes that were as sweet as apples, without the addition of a lot of sugar.
if you think ground apples isn’t an apt description, you’ve never eaten potatoes raw.
Here’s something else to gnaw at your brain: “corn” used to be a generic term for any cereal grain, and now only refers to the one group of crops. Also we now (mostly) only use “cereal” to describe the stuff you have for breakfast with milk. Which used to be just shitty puffed grains but now also includes all kinds of flakes and processed nonsense.
In a lot of languages the word for apple used to refer to all kinds of fruits, particularly new ones from more or less exotic lands. Pineapples also don’t look much like apples, do they?
I pronounce is Pin-eap-ples, just to avoid this very thing.
But, at least they’re fruit.
Pomme de terre (IIRC) is a sad version of a underground apple.
Pineapples look like a pinecone but with a sweet fruit inside. Makes sense to me.
Then again horse apples, i.e., horse shit doesn’t taste great at all. Then again, again: horse apples, the Osage Orange fruit, are inedible. Osage Orange is neither an apple or orange tree.
English 'tis a silly language.
I grew up on a farm along a small river called the Pomme De Terre and we didn’t grow potatoes. But we did have a potato lifter to harvest the 1/2 acre or so we would grow for our own consumption.
There was also a small county picnic area in the middle of nowhere by the same name. And no one knew why it was there.
So you had a potato lifter that just sat there, still and silent, in case you ever decided to grow 1/2 acre of potatoes?
isn’t apple used in many languages as a generic term for fruit?.. it’s not like pineapple has anything to do with apples either.
Case in point: Pomegranate. pomme = apple or more generically fruit, granate = grenade. It’s a shrapnel apple. Apt description if you’ve ever eaten one.
Recently I watched an press event with a Canadian politician, who was switching between French and English as we must sometimes. He was talking about a bag of apples (which his colleague was holding) costing a stupid amount of money. He made the mistake of saying a bag of potatoes, which i found fucking hilarious as I speak both languages and understand the mistake. Unfortunately for him, the people criticising him were morons and were like WHY WOULD HE SAY POTATOES IS HE STUPID.
Franglais is my language of choice after several drinks in any French speaking country. I am from Jersey, New, so it’s the best I can do with my education.
Four twenties ten and seven. That’s four goddamn numbers in a row!
The franglais in me screams that neufant ought to be acceptable. I’m sure Canadians are saying it, who knows what language they really speak.
Counter point:
Ananas
Bananas
:-/
In Castellano (Spanish from Spain), it’s called piña.
Spanish in other places, too—piña colada, anyone?
The takeaway here is, the rest of the world uses different words than the continents where it comes from
Also what I was taught in US Spanish classes.
You can’t include English in any rational discussion about languages. It breaks every rule, and isn’t one language, but a pidgin of three or four. It’s a bastard of a language, and what-about-ism involving English is so trivial it’s not worth debating. You can always find a worse example of any language linguistic stupidity in English.
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Writer James D. Nicoll
Is this a copypasta?
It is now
The James Nicoll quote is better - use that instead.
Grosse Pomme is New York
Hans Grosse
In Germany they are called Kartoffeln (which is also a slur for the Germans itself).
But potatoes are also called Erdäpfel (ground apples) or in southern dialect Krombire (bent pear).
More variants here:
Source (German): https://die-kartoffel.de/wissen/schon-gewusst/kartoffel-deutsche-dialekte/So calling someone a potato in German is a slur?
Semi.
Another kind of slur is calling “spießig” (dunno the english word. Google suggests stuffy or bourgeois) Germans “Almans” which is essentially the french word for german people but if you call a german “Alman” it’s kinda an insult (unless you own it).Similarly, in Spanish, Aleman means German, as such Alemania means Germany.
Nudel?? NUDEL???
And french fries are Pommes Frites. Fried apples
I’m not sure this map is accurate. I have never heard any of the terms that this maps claims to be used in the region I come from.
Not just French
Have a look at how some early apple varieties looked like, before they were cultivated:
https://birdsongorchards.com/pages/welcome-to-wondrous-diversity-of-heirloom-apples
Thank you. Now does make more sense to call potatoes ground apples. Going start calling them that and confuse the kids.
They looks identifical to nowday apple from a non-profesional perspective. Except the Hawaïan ones, I never saw a apple with pink flesh.
Tree-potatoes!
Let the language which is without sin cast the first stone.
::: lanzars una piedra :::
Meanwhile in Quebec, they call them patates
And orange is a Chinese apple
I refer to my skillet as my “fire apple”
