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?
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?
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The English for "ananas" is "pineapple", did the English really think they grew on pine trees?
133 0 Reply67 0 ReplyIt's their superficial resemblance to pinecones.
71 0 Reply15 0 Reply
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.13 0 ReplyThat actually makes it funnier to me because ananas would be easier to pronounce in Japanese vs pineapple. Ananansu(u is silent) vs Painappuru.
14 0 ReplyOh absolutely!
They just had no ananas exposure beyond that from the Americans.2 0 Reply
Spanish conveniently missing
11 0 ReplyAnd anthough it might be correct, I've never head anyone say maรฑana in Basque. We just use piรฑa(pinia)
2 0 ReplyHere's how the creation of the graphic went:
- Create a binary
- Ignore vast majority (of people working with subject)
- slap together chart, cherrypicking
- Gloat
2 0 Reply
Fun fact: no one knows why us squid are called that in English and no other language calls us anything like that.
5 0 Replyi call bullshit. its "abacaxi" in portuguese, not nanana
2 0 Reply
"Apple" is Old English for "fruit", not specifically apple.
And apparently "pineapple" for the tropical fruit predates "pine cone", OE used "pine nut".
Earliest use of "pineapple" is 14th century translation for "pomegranate".
38 0 ReplyProbably to avoid confusion with bananas?
8 0 ReplyIs english known for trying to avoid confusion?
19 0 ReplyOh you can't even imagine the amount of times I put a pineapple up there.
7 0 ReplyHere i go, imagining again.
1 0 Reply
Pineapples are a freak fruit though.They grow on some kind of weird weed like some kind of joke.
2 0 Reply