Comment on It's been 30 years and I still can't get over the fact that the French word for "potatoes" is "ground apples." Have The French never had an apple?

shneancy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Isoprenoid@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  “apple” used to be a generic term for fruit.

  Oh, that explains the myth that Adam and Eve at an apple, when a specific fruit is never mentioned.

  www.etymonline.com/word/apple

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  • Kushan@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s a bingo.

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  • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It also explain why we here in the Nordics call oranges “appelsin”, as in a “Chinese apple”.

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    • appelkooskonfyt@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Same in Dutch: sinaasappel

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  • Don_alForno@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Great! Can’t have myths about random fruit in this otherwise totally valid, reasonable and trustworthy story about a woman that was made from a man’s rib and talked to reptiles.

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    • Isoprenoid@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If a narrative is not literally true, does that mean it has no value?

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      • Don_alForno@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        What is “truth value” supposed to mean?

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  • moistclump@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But… we’re talking French and Adam and Eve was written in Hebrew. Is it the same for Hebrew?

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    • Uruanna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You got it the wrong way around. Hebrew used a generic word for fruit, all languages translated that word as their version of apple which was generic at the time, and then much later, all languages changed the meaning of their word for apple, it’s not specific to French. The use of apple for one specific fruit is fairly recent.

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    • nabladabla@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Literally yes, ground apple is potato in hebrew

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• Shapillon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Also apples used to be small, tart, and acidic.

  You wouldn’t eat them as a dessert but as a basis for brewing alcohol.

  It’s wild how much fruits changed in recent times.

  So much so that most zoo are stoppimg giving them to animals and switched to more leafy greens. They have gotten so sugary that they promoted tooth decay and obesity.

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  • roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Than you, I was going to say modern apples have a taste and texture nothing like apples when this name was created.

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• Daze@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So this means moonshine is apple juice?

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