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Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

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Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#91
post #24

In french, we have the word "Baie", which means berry, but is not widely used for fruits, and we also have another expression which is much more used, "Fruits rouges", literally "red fruits". I think it covers more accurately fruits like raspberries, strawberries, and others. I don't know if "red fruits" is also used in english.

Exactly the same in spanish with "bayas" and "frutos rojos" (also sometimes called "frutos del bosque", which is "fruits from the woods").

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#92
post #62

Because this is Hacker News, the discussion would be incomplete without a link to the Supreme Court case Nix v. Hedden[1]. After the Tariff Act of 1883 taxed vegetables (but not fruits), produce seller John Nix — no relation to the package manager — sued to get tomatoes classified as a fruit. The court held that the “common meaning” mattered more than the botanical one: “Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit o…

and in South East Asia avocados are eaten as a fruit more than a savory thing like in Mexico. Avocado smoothies are delicious!

Also there are tomatoes that are much sweeter than your average USA tomato. In Japan they are called Fruit Tomatoes.

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#94
post #9

I find the article pleasant in its writting and humour. For me this goes to show that thin clickbait articles can be interesting, it's just that most people who can write don't usually do clickbait. Excerpt: > The technical definition of a berry is "a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary." If you're not too familiar with botany, this definition probably isn't helpful at all. But once you learn that oranges and t…

>yes, those delicious red fruits with "berries" literally in the name — aren't officially berries either.

Similar to peanuts not being nuts, but in fact legumes.

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#95
post #24

In french, we have the word "Baie", which means berry, but is not widely used for fruits, and we also have another expression which is much more used, "Fruits rouges", literally "red fruits". I think it covers more accurately fruits like raspberries, strawberries, and others. I don't know if "red fruits" is also used in english.

> I don't know if "red fruits" is also used in english

Can confirm it's not commonly used in North American english. I can't say I've ever heard it used like this before

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#96
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A word having multiple definitions is not a pun or wordplay, it’s just a word.

Pun - A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word. When we say "a strawberry is not a berry" we're playing on the different meanings of the word berry. It's not a humourous pun, but I would still call it a pun. [1] https://www.thefreedictionary.com/pun

There is no “play” here. Pedantically correcting people isn’t fun. There is no humor in it. Puns require humor/play.

Also, correcting people to say that bananas are berries doesn’t even acknowledge a second meaning of berry. It suggests the meaning they know of is wrong. I’m aware we’re talking about a technical meaning and a commonly-accepted meaning, but the assertion is suggesting the commonly-accepted meaning is completely invalid.

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes !! Tomate à la croque au sel as we call'em !! First time I ate a tomato like that in the US, my american friends made so much fun of me "yo, no way brooo ! he's eating a tomato like an apple, da'fu !! Weird frenchman !!". I still eat my tomatoes like that every so often, it's so good ! Although I think I end up eating quite a bit of salt when I do that which isn't so good...

Dumb question but do you take a bite then add salt on the exposed portion as you eat? Or does salt just stick to tomatoes better than I think?

If it's just large tomatoes, people often cut them into slices and then salt them. Or cube them along with cucumber, or halve them if they are cherry tomatoes

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#99
post #43
post #4

Is anything actually gained from rigid definitions like this? People clearly use berry in a different way than botanists do.

Yes, you learn something about its biological function. The biological definition of “fruit” tells you where the offspring of a plant grows out of. For example, the actual fruits of the strawberry plant are the little seeds at the surface of each strawberry.

Yes, you learn something about its biological function.

For me its biological function is to be eaten, so I care more about where it goes than about where it comes.

Re: Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't

#100
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just wordplay, a basic pun, because the same word, "berry", appears in two different contexts. In everyday usage, a strawberry is a berry, but in botany it's not. If you're doing botany, you should probably use the latin term Fragaria instead of strawberry. Edit: If you like this, you'll also find interesting that many nuts (hazlenuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, almonds) are not nuts but seeds. One of the few…

Also, coffee beans are not beans, but the pit (that usually comes in two parts) of the coffee fruit. It's the same with cocoa beans, but with 30-50 seeds per fruit.

The coffee fruit is a berry. We just don’t ordinarily consume the skin and fleshy part.
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