“apple” used to be a generic term for fruit. So it’s actually “fruit of the earth”, the French are poetic like that
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?
Submitted 6 months ago by sxan@midwest.social to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
shneancy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Isoprenoid@programming.dev 6 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.
Kushan@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
That’s a bingo.
Dasus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It also explain why we here in the Nordics call oranges “appelsin”, as in a “Chinese apple”.
Don_alForno@feddit.org 6 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.
moistclump@lemmy.world 6 months ago
But… we’re talking French and Adam and Eve was written in Hebrew. Is it the same for Hebrew?
Shapillon@lemmy.world 6 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.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Than you, I was going to say modern apples have a taste and texture nothing like apples when this name was created.
Daze@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
So this means moonshine is apple juice?
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
Look, we’re talking people who call ninety-nine “four twenty ten nine”; you can’t expect them to name things properly.
ours@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Something thankfully not all French-speaking countries agree. But the ground apple is pretty much universal. The alternative “patate” is also widely used,
Stuff from the “new world” (Americas) often got some weird names. Like the “Indian chickens” (turkeys).
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 6 months ago
To be fair, English has a bit of that too if you look at the first 20 digits
One, two, three… Eleven, twelve, thirteen… Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three… Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…
If English was fully decimal the teens would simply be “Onety-one, onety-two, onety-three” but it’s not because fuck following conventions!
intensely_human@lemm.ee 6 months ago
If you say onety one again we’re gonna have problems
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Winner. I’d forgotten about that.
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
Yeah, numbers in French are really weird.
Look, I’m not criticizing French, or the French. It was just one of those things that struck me when I was learning it, and it pops up at odd times.
scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
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.
Enkrod@feddit.org 6 months ago
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
Unimperfect@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In Castellano (Spanish from Spain), it’s called piña.
raef@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Spanish in other places, too—piña colada, anyone?
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 6 months ago
Also what I was taught in US Spanish classes.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Ananas
Bananas
:-/
kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Some German speakers say “Erdapfel” which is literally “earth apple.”
superkret@feddit.org 6 months ago
The Swabian word Grombira comes from literally “ground pear”
ElmarsonTheThird@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
“Grumbern” is the same in parts of Frankonia.
BonerMan@ani.social 6 months ago
Isnt that most common in Austria
kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
That’s my understanding. Though I have only visited the Kartoffel regions myself.
Miphera@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m in Bavaria, and my grandparents used to say Erdapfel, though for any generations after that I’ve only ever heard them say Kartoffel.
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
It’s probably the Germans living near French, who’ve had bad influences.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 months ago
There was a time when “pomme” was used to describe any fruit.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Now we just use fruit.
Unless, incident, you’re talking of a Chinese Grapefruit, also know as Pomelo.
Noodle07@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I love grapefruiting
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
I didn’t know that. Still a little odd to consider a potato “fruit,” but then avocados and tomatoes are considered vegetables, when one’s a berry and the other’s a fruit.
garbagebagel@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 months ago
Four twenties ten and seven. That’s four goddamn numbers in a row!
dogsoahC@lemm.ee 6 months ago
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?
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
I pronounce is Pin-eap-ples, just to avoid this very thing.
But, at least they’re fruit.
Machinist@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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.
pyre@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
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.
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Let the language without sin cast the first stone.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 6 months ago
::: lanzars una piedra :::
viking@infosec.pub 6 months ago
Have a look at how some early apple varieties looked like, before they were cultivated:
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
Tree-potatoes!
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Thank you. Now does make more sense to call potatoes ground apples. Going start calling them that and confuse the kids.
pseudo@jlai.lu 6 months ago
They looks identifical to nowday apple from a non-profesional perspective. Except the Hawaïan ones, I never saw a apple with pink flesh.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I thought it was more “apples of the Earth”, n’est-ce pas?
Donut@leminal.space 6 months ago
Yup, pommes de terre. In Dutch is “aardappel”, which is more literally earthapple. But I will add, the apple part isn’t referring to the fruit, but means more like “a spherical object”.
Also the French used aardappel to create the word pomme de terre for it in 1716, as they couldn’t pronounce the Dutch word.
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 6 months ago
as they couldn’t pronounce the Dutch word
I mean I can’t blame them, the language’s phonosyntactics are very different from French, it’s hard to pronounce in general and sounds awful to boot.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Too aard to pronounce
Cagi@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
No, it’s like how apple juice is jus de pomme.
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
Yeah, I wasn’t going for transliteration. “Apples of Earth” doesn’t convey the same concept.
CyanideShotInjection@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Not really cause then it would be “pommes de la terre”.
For the record, some of us also use the word “patate” which is straight up the equivalent of potato.
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 6 months ago
if you think ground apples isn’t an apt description, you’ve never eaten potatoes raw.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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:
Image
Source (German): die-kartoffel.de/…/kartoffel-deutsche-dialekte/SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Have you ever bitten into a road apple?
People come up with funny names for things sometimes.
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Actually sounds like you’ve never had a fresh potato, pulled right out of the ground and eaten on the spot
renzev@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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 looks like a pine cone.
pseudo@jlai.lu 6 months ago
We also have a potato-like : word “patate”. “Pomme de terre” is déformation of “parmetière” from the name of M.Parmentier who introduce potatoes to the french population.
Mechaguana@programming.dev 6 months ago
They do make an apple sound when you crunch or slice them so i can see the link
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
eighty potatoes … french translation -> … “quatre-vingts pommes de terre” (four twenties of earth apples)
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 months ago
American: “Have french people never eaten a good apple?”
Frenchman: “Have Americans never enjoyed a tasty potato?”
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think “ground apples” would better apply to jicama.
Dug up from the ground, somewhat sweet, can be eaten raw or cooked, apple-like in texture…
BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well Italians call tomatoes golden apples
superkret@feddit.org 6 months ago
Have you ever had an apple of the sort they had when the word got its meaning?
They were closer to potatoes than you think.MTK@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Not just French
MisterD@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Meanwhile in Quebec, they call them patates
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
And orange is a Chinese apple
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well now “freedom fries” makes more sense. You know, like how apple pie is assosiated with the usa? So now it’s freedom fries…anyone remember freedom fries?
…ok, no. It was always just stupid.
bluewing@lemm.ee 6 months ago
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.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Herdöpfel (stove/cooking apple) in Swiss german.
Blaze@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
The English for “ananas” is “pineapple”, did the English really think they grew on pine trees?
slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Image
Image
wewbull@feddit.uk 6 months ago
It’s their superficial resemblance to pinecones.
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 6 months ago
It’s a bit cherry picked, but only a bit, since there are a few languages that just copied the English word later on.
Japanese and Korean come to mind.
raef@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Spanish conveniently missing
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fun fact: no one knows why us squid are called that in English and no other language calls us anything like that.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
i call bullshit. its “abacaxi” in portuguese, not nanana
jordanlund@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Probably to avoid confusion with bananas?
RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 months ago
Is english known for trying to avoid confusion?
x00z@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh you can’t even imagine the amount of times I put a pineapple up there.
sxan@midwest.social 6 months ago
Maybe! Who knows what those crazy British were thinking. At least a pineapple is a fruit, and I can easily believe that the namers had never seen anything but crude drawings of a pineapple tree, and not having experience with palm trees, thought they looked most like pines.
Image
Or, maybe it’s derived from some misinterpretation of a Greek word, or something. English is a hodge-podge language of borrowed words.
NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There is no such thing as a pineapple tree. That’s an AI image.
Pineapples grow in an even more ridiculous way.
hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Pineapples don’t grow on trees. Take that A’I’ slop somewhere else.
RedStrider@lemmy.world 6 months ago
👆 ai detected
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Those look closer to durian than pineapples tbh.
recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
that image looks pretty crazy!😮
Shapillon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Pineapples are a freak fruit though.They grow on some kind of weird weed like some kind of joke.