I have always been fascinated by the fact that the French word for potato is "apple of the earth" (pomme de terre). As is often the case, these little word puzzles that tickle your brain for years turn out to be the tip of a linguistic iceberg.
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| Apples of an orange tree |
Originally, all fruits were 'apples'. For example, what we now call an 'orange' was originally the apple of the orange tree! Eventually, we just dropped all the extra words and just called the fruit of that tree by the name of the tree (etymologically, the orange tree came first then the fruit and then the color). I don't want to upset the applecart since you are the apple of my eye but the French are not so strange for talking about an apple of the earth. Most ironic of all is the expression "apples and oranges" (meaning you are talking about two completely different things and they should be talked about separately). How do you like them apples?
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| Maize or Corn |
Let me take a second bite at that apple: It turns out that corn is the apple of the grain world. While it is true that corn is technically a fruit, what I mean here is that, originally, corn was the generic term for grain. What we call 'corn' in America was originally Indian corn. Corn can be wheat, oats, rye, etc. depending on where you live. That's why the French call it maïs; they are using the original word for Indian corn, maize.
While researching for this post, I discovered that a deer used to refer to any four legged wild animal. I always thought it interesting that a specific type of item could become the name of a category ("Pass me a Kleenex"), but never knew that the name of the category could become a specific item. Language and words are such slippery beasts, aren't they? Words are all contextual!
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| Hart or Deer |
Oh dear, I guess the apple does sometimes fall far from the tree, linguistically speaking. (Don't worry, I realize this post is kind of corny...)
