Comments on: There is no fruit in a BLT

By: Plain planes and more spheres « Seeds Aside

Plain planes and more spheres « Seeds Aside — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:30:35 +0000

[…] Just take note that equivalencies are lacking: there’s no such thing as a ramoplane, and aeroplane yields flight and aerospace science (huge success!) and not ecology!1! Phytoplane doesn’t do it neither, and so are cormoplane, cauloplane, caluplane, anthoplane, carpoplane and spermoplane… But see, that’s probably why phyllosphere has a greater use than phylloplane: it is linked to a greater conceptual framework (the -spheres!) even if it is mathematically dubious that all these are actual spheres at stake. But to -plane people, it is important to see leaves as the flats they are, even if stems may also be flat (cauloplane may exist!) or fruits (carpoplanes) or seeds (spermoplanes). But all these would be exceptions and really smaller subsets among all stems and fruits and seeds, while leaves that are not flat but more spheric are the exceptions. Words are constrained by the concept they covers, and there’s a trend in the human mind to make it fit our wordview, irrespective of impact. Like tomatoes’ tackle take. […]

By: Achrachno

Achrachno — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:04:26 +0000

Rhubarb needs a lot of added sugar to be very fruit like.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:43:35 +0000

The vegetable family … Very funny. Could be a sitcom.

Rhubarbs persistent attempts to gain fruit cred by hanging around with strawberries have paid off!

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:46:15 +0000

Jim — I often wonder whether rhubarb stalks are legally defined as fruit or vegetable, given that they are nearly exclusive to dessert contexts in the US. I googled the question, and rhubarbinfo.com had the somewhat quixotic statement “Rhubarb is often commonly mistaken to be a fruit but rhubarb is actually a close relative of garden sorrel, and is therefore a member of the vegetable family.” I presume this author would come down on the “fruit” side with respect to tomato, then, though it’s the first time I’ve heard of a “vegetable family”. (Most other sources defined it as an herb that is used as a fruit, which seems a more sensible phrase.)

By: Julie Stahlhut

Julie Stahlhut — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 02:11:42 +0000

It’s not all that strange a situation. Botanically, a tomato is a fruit. For culinary purposes, it’s a vegetable. Maybe it’s a good metaphor for the completely different scientific and colloquial meanings of the word “theory.” Or why “opinion” means something different to the legal/judicial professions than it does to people exchanging sports or political chatter in a bar.

By: Jim Thomerson

Jim Thomerson — Thu, 31 May 2012 02:00:20 +0000

And they make pies out of rubarb petioles, I think.

By: SplatterPaterns

SplatterPaterns — Thu, 31 May 2012 00:27:17 +0000

Mark, May 30, 10:02 am

While I’m quite the anti-prescriptivist on English Language grammar, I have to strongly disagree with your contention that the botanical “definition of fruit is every bit as arbitrary as the natural language definition.” The first sentence of the entry for fruit at Wiki says it well, “In botany, a fruit is a part of a flowering plant that derives from specific tissues of the flower, mainly one or more ovaries.” This is not to argue for the botanical definition to be use in place of the culinary (nice word for encapsulating the distinction) sense of the word in more general usage, only that the botanical one is not at all arbitrary. One flows from the structure of plants and the other is indeed a some what arbitrary construct, although its origins I’d place with humans bending plants to their will, rather than starting as headache of Zeus’.

Further, I don’t see language as adhering to a set of rules, merely acceptance of a set of conventions. Attributing rule making to a deity, and more particularly to the deity, is interesting. Apparently god was nearly as fond of languages as of beetles.

By: ChumbleSpuzz

ChumbleSpuzz — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:53:25 +0000

And strawberries are not berries, but aggregate fruit, while bananas are not fruits, but are actually berries. Does it really matter? Nope.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:02:42 +0000

This argument is kind of like the prescriptivist vs descriptivist linguistic argument. The scientific definition of fruit is every bit as arbitrary as the natural language definition. God didn’t make that rule, humans did.

By: Achrachno

Achrachno — Wed, 30 May 2012 04:59:42 +0000

Is a whale still fish then? I don’t think so either. The job of science is to improve common misunderstandings.

“Tomatoes are not fruit, and the word “theory” means an idea that is weak. In English.”

Not in the English I speak. A theory is the strongest idea we have, explaining many mere facts. But, you know that.

A tomato is most definitely a fruit even if some want to call it a vegetable too. Botanically and developmentally it’s a fruit, even if some cooks think of it as a vegetable. But even most of them know it’s really a fruit. Gardening books, going back decades, speak of “fruit set” in tomatoes and of staking tomatoes to protect the fruit from rot. And, we all know the target of the tomato fruit worm. Everyone, at some level, knows that tomatoes are really fruits.

Of course, I’m just an ape too, closely related to a chimpanzee, whatever the majority of my culture may think.