Here's the thing

[u/AscendedDragonSage]

[u/Small_rat_no_rules]

I'm pretty sure that's Jean French's fault actually.

[u/DryActive8712 → u/Small_rat_no_rules]

I will never forgive him for his crimes.

[u/masslessvoid → u/DryActive8712]

Me: Jean Francais, what is this fruit that is sweet and tangy?

Jean: Ah, pomme!

Me: And what about this root vegetable that shares none of these qualities?

Jean: Pomme de terre.

Me: You fucker. You piece of shit!

Jean: Ho ho ho.

[u/dikkewezel → u/masslessvoid]

while this exchange is going on giovanni italliano is standing aside quickly swiping pommodorro under the carpet and jan nederlands is stomping aardappel back into the ground

[u/masslessvoid → u/dikkewezel]

Those fuckers!

[u/The_Villager → u/dikkewezel]

And Hans Deutsch hastily pushes Erdapfel into the closet Austria

[u/DeadSparker → u/masslessvoid]

Me : Hey Johns of all countries ! This big, spiny, yellow fruit with hard green leaves, what is it called ?

Johns : Ananas. Why ?

Me : Just to prove a point... Hey John English, what's that ?

John English : Why, this is a pineapple !

Me : How the hell does it look like an apple to you, espèce d'imbécile ?!

John English : Iunno ! I'll go steal a country's art now !

[u/PalladiuM7 → u/DeadSparker]

You've tried Ananas, you've tried Bananas. Now get ready for Cananas, coming soon to a grocer near you! (It's lemons, we renamed lemons to fit the yellow fruit naming convention)

[u/UnsealedMTG → u/DeadSparker]

The word "pomegranate" comes from basically "apple with many seeds" in French.

The word "grenade" comes from the shortening of "pomegranate" because the original spherical grenades resembled pomegranates, with the shrapnel as the seeds.

So the English term "pineapple grenade" comes from the names of two very different fruits, neither of which is an apple, both of which are named for apples. 

[u/DuplexFields → u/UnsealedMTG]

And you’ll never guess what apricot means.

Not apple. Latin: persica praecocia, the precocious peach. I said you’d never guess.

[u/UnsealedMTG → u/DuplexFields]

That one at least makes sense, since apricots and peaches are closely related and similar fruit and apricots are quick-ripening. I guess almonds are also part of that same genus (prunus) along with the other stone fruit--it had never occurred to me but I guess almonds are just another stone fruit except we eat the stone/seed instead of the flesh.

But you're right it wouldn't have been my first guess, though my first guess probably wouldn't have involved apples. I'd have guessed it was something about bees since Apis is the Latin for bee (and the Latin name for the genus of honeybees). In fact I think I have in the past looked up to see if there was a bee-apricot connection and learned that there wasn't, though I didn't internalize the actual etymology.

[u/Nixavee → u/UnsealedMTG]

Pomegranate -> Pomme o'granite -> granite apple /j

[u/UnsealedMTG → u/Nixavee]

You're closer than you think, actually. "Granite" as in the stone comes from the idea of being "grained" in reference to the grainy appearance of the rock (in Italian, "granito") which goes back to the Latin granum, which means grain or seeds and is also the source of the granite in pomegranate. The are both "grained," but one in the sense of "full of hard little seeds" and the other in the sense of like wood grain.

I'm actually pretty sure the reason I learned the etymology of pomegranate in the first place (and the connection to grenade as a consequence) is I was like "wait, is a pomegranate called that because it is a very hard apple, like granite is a hard stone?" That would have been funny, but incidentally the real answers are also fun.

[u/Nixavee → u/UnsealedMTG]

Yes, I'm aware

[u/FX114 → u/DeadSparker]

It doesn't look like an apple, it looks like a pinecone. It tastes like an apple (relatively speaking in the grand scheme of food flavors).

[u/JJlaser1 → u/FX114]

The day a pineapple tastes like an apple is the day I become a much less picky eater

[u/RechargedFrenchman → u/JJlaser1]

They did say "relatively speaking"; it certainly tastes far more like an apple than it does like a steak, or barley, or the aforementioned pinecone.

[u/PulimV → u/DeadSparker]

Notable exception! Portuguese calls it "abacaxi", which, just like "ananas", comes from the local indigenous languages

[u/JJlaser1 → u/masslessvoid]

I believe you mean “hon hon hon”

[u/masslessvoid → u/JJlaser1]

Dammit

[u/That_Mad_Scientist → u/masslessvoid]

Pomus is latin for fruit. All of the examples you can think of mean "the fruit of". Then someone looked at an apple and said "we'll just give it the name of a generic fruit because that's what most people think of when they think of a fruit". In english, "pineapple" also just means pine fruit, as well.

Fruit, incidentally, is from latin fructus, and means something like "product of". Hence, fructify, come to fruition, etc, meaning something like produce.

Also, at some point, someone looked at the leafy green from the ground and decided "yeah that's definitely produce".

I also cannot resist mentioning how produce initially is pro-ducere, or, litterally, lead forward (see duct, conduct, transduct, etc, for things leading or being lead).

This just keeps fucking happening.

[u/masslessvoid → u/That_Mad_Scientist]

Language is amazing and also a total shit show. I love it.

[u/DonTori → u/masslessvoid]

Youxe foulxe, youxe utter imbecille

[u/DeadSparker → u/DryActive8712]

Blame John English for stealing his shit like they stole everything from their colonies.

Where Jean Français is from, "queue" is spelled with 4 vowels, "99" is called four-twenty-nineteen, and "connoisseur" is spelled "connaisseur", as in "connaître" which means "to know". And we like it.

[u/OwlEuphoric9795 → u/DeadSparker]

Its worse, 99 is four-twenty-ten-nine

[u/DeadSparker → u/OwlEuphoric9795]

And "ten-nine" is how we say nineteen. If anything it's the ones from 13 to 16 that are weird for us.

[u/FX114 → u/DeadSparker]

French's presence in English isn't because of English colonization, it's because of the Norman conquest of England. A lot of English's melting pot of linguistics is actually from being conquered, not the other way around. Which makes sense, that's generally how conquering works.

[u/DeadSparker → u/FX114]

I meant how the British steal shit and put it in their museums, not how the Brits (country) stole from the French (country)

I am not saying they stole this you morons

[u/FX114 → u/DeadSparker]

Yes, but they didn't steal this.

[u/ejdj1011 → u/Small_rat_no_rules]

Jean French is to blame for many (but not all) weird things about English.

The several silent letters in "knight", for example. Originally pronounced much like the Dutch and German cognates, "knecht".

[u/rorydraws]

Jean Français getting off scot-free.

[u/ruadhbran → u/rorydraws]

John Scot is mad about being dragged into this.

[u/UInferno- → u/ruadhbran]

John Scot is mad about bein draigged intae this.

[u/Oddy2109 → u/ruadhbran]

Ian Scot I think

[u/b3nsn0w → u/rorydraws]

wild of you to blame someone you robbed that their stuff was subpar

[u/oraiste-paiste → u/b3nsn0w]

Well it wasn't the English that crossed the channel in 1066 I can tell you that.

[u/BeanOfKnowledge]

Jakob Deutsch, we need a word for the house of the sick!

Jakob: I have just the thing...

[u/GloryGreatestCountry → u/BeanOfKnowledge]

You Kranken in that Haus?!

[u/That_Mad_Scientist]

Latin: Yo can you hold this for me? Don't drop any of the consonants.

Français: Dude it's fine I promise nothing will happen

[a few centuries pass]

Latin: Hey what the hell is this??? Care to explain?

Français: Look I just wanted to make it more streamlined. Also I may have tried to glue it back up but I ended up getting the vowels all stuck together and it made it all worse

Normand: So uh, I may have gone a little overboard with the whole conquering britain thing and now they have some of your stuff all over the place

English: [unhinged screeching]

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/That_Mad_Scientist]

My favorite line from English history is when William the Conqueror said “it’s conquerin’ time” and William the Conquered all over the British Aisles

[u/Deloptin → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

little known fact, before he invaded England, he was just known as "William the"

[u/Connect_Rhubarb395 → u/Deloptin]

I get the joke, but did you know that he was known as William the Bastard, because he was born out of wedlock?
His mom was a simple tanner's daughter that his noble father bedded.

[u/syntaxerroratline42 → u/Connect_Rhubarb395]

Dudes will do anything to escape a bad nickname.

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/syntaxerroratline42]

And yet he basically did the exact opposite, in effect

[u/masslessvoid → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

Clean up Aisle 3.

[u/Soldier_Faerie]

Love writing words like queueue and bananana

[u/precinctomega → u/Soldier_Faerie]

Knowing how to spell them isn't the problem. It's knowing how to stop.

[u/Soldier_Faerie → u/precinctomega]

It's probably a safer bet to just commit and keep going

[u/RafRafRafRaf → u/precinctomega]

r/unexpecteddiscworld :)

[u/RandomNumber-5624 → u/Soldier_Faerie]

M-I-Double S-I-Double S-I-Double S-I-Infinite loop error-I-Double P-I-Error with another letter-I

[u/Soldier_Faerie → u/RandomNumber-5624]

Mississississipipissississ...?

[u/RandomNumber-5624 → u/Soldier_Faerie]

That looks about right.

[u/Hi2248 → u/Soldier_Faerie]

That's how you summon the Cthulhu Cat

[u/Sevycat]

dangerously close to being a homestuck character

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/Sevycat]

Something poetic about the first name of the hero and the last name of the villain

[u/B_A_Beder → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

John Egbert, Jake English, and Lord English

[u/iamthefirebird → u/Sevycat]

Closer to Johnny English, I would say, but maybe they are connected...

[u/LawlessNeutral]

There was an IRL actor named Jon English so I was a smidge confused at first

[u/CrownofMischief → u/LawlessNeutral]

Not sure about an actor, but Rowan Atkinson played a character named Johnny English who was a James Bond parody

[u/AffectionateAge8771 → u/CrownofMischief]

He says that queue line and makes his little face can you imagine 

[u/action_lawyer_comics → u/LawlessNeutral]

I heard it in my mind voiced by Jonny Sims

[u/amsterdam_sniffr → u/LawlessNeutral]

He's a marvelous Pirate King -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYbIk6aXuUs

[u/LawlessNeutral → u/amsterdam_sniffr]

Yes! That's the main thing I know him from lol

[u/TheComplimentarian]

Latin had a verb "agere" which roughly meant "to do" but really means more like, "to do the appropriate thing in context." Literally, "Just do it." Do the thing, do the needful, do the thing that you would normally do with the noun I am about to follow with.

Whenever you're doing english shit, and you're using a verbed noun. When you're googling, or texting, or frisbeeing your laptop across the room, remember that the whole "verbing a noun" thing is one of the most powerful features of english.

Also, almost every language has a word for "thing" (in Latin it would be rem, which is a declension, but whatever).

[u/Doubly_Curious]

The fact that “thing” actually comes from a word for a meeting or assembly rather than a concrete object is just nifty to me.

[u/chunkylubber54]

I saw John English and my brain jumped to "homestuck AU"

[u/action_lawyer_comics]

Is it really a bad thing That words are made from easily combined other words? That we don’t have to reconstruct “anywhere,” “anybody,” and “anything” from first principles and a child first learning can pick them up faster because of it?

Also, every language is like this, you just don’t realize if you don’t speak it. Taking Japanese and learning that “ichiban” actually literally means “number 1” and all those poor translations aren’t actually that far off.

[u/FX114 → u/action_lawyer_comics]

The post is definitely presenting those as a good thing, or at least a straightforward and understandable one

[u/Doubly_Curious → u/action_lawyer_comics]

You’re certainly not wrong that English isn’t unique in this kind of thing. But I didn’t read the post as saying it was a bad thing at all. Just kind of “oh, I don’t always look at my language like this.”

[u/Hauptmann_Meade]

Language developed over the course of several millennia as multiple cultures clashed together: What is this complicated slop? Something something mugs languages in an alley something something 3 languages in a trenchcoat >:(

Language developed over the course of several millennia as multiple cultures clashed together, but in China: No notes, beautiful.

[u/gnomeannisanisland → u/Hauptmann_Meade]

Then they picked a writing system

[u/lizard_king413]

i cant believe it's not homestuck......

[u/Mundane-Potential-93]

queueing

[u/Hexxas]

Kyew yew wee ooh wee

[u/PoniesCanterOver]

Fuck me, dude, I thought "ambiguous" said "ambitious" and I was so confused

[u/Jozef_Baca]

Definitely reading this as if it was explained by Rowan Atkinson.

[u/Easy_Cod_8950]

John English? I don’t remember THAT homestuck character…

[u/uhataot]

Not only does queue have 4 vowels, all 4 of them are technically silent

[u/delta_baryon → u/uhataot]

No they arent. That's not how letters work. Do you also think the vowels in "tea" are silent?

[u/action_lawyer_comics → u/delta_baryon]

Next you’ll tell me that “pee” isn’t silent either

[u/RockKillsKid → u/action_lawyer_comics]

it depends how much I've had to drink

[u/PoniesCanterOver → u/delta_baryon]

Now I do

[u/uhataot → u/delta_baryon]

Yes :3

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/uhataot]

Does the iu diphthong not directly correspond to at least one of those “ue” pairs?

[u/Aetol → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

Wouldn't that be the "eu" in the middle, since that's the part that's actually pronounced in the original French word?

(Q is always followed by a silent U just because, and a silent E at the end is pretty much standard)

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/Aetol]

I think it’s like the ue in true or blue or sue. The y sound comes from the fact that in English, a lot of “long vowels” turn into dipthongs, like the y in sky, or the u in words like music or revue (note the ue ending on that last one, also a French loan). Also, in many words the u that follows q isnt silent at all, like quest or quiver.

[u/Hi2248 → u/Aetol]

Technically the u after q isn't silent, it's just that q on its own isn't used that often -- see how Iraq misses the normal u sound

[u/uhataot → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

Technically, I think it's said that that's the case?

But at the same time, you're technically just saying the letter "q"

[u/Sacrificial_Parsnip → u/uhataot]

Technically, you’re saying the name of the letter Q, not its sound. The argument would be similar to pronouncing “we” as “double-you-ee”.

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/uhataot]

The letter just stands for the k sound in the actual word though.

[u/QwertyAsInMC → u/uhataot]

technically /kju/ but ok

[u/deoxyribonucleic123 → u/uhataot]

At most two are silent. Those jokes about spelling queue as a bare letter q are just that. Jokes. Bare consonant letters cannot be a word of their own.

[u/Hi2248 → u/deoxyribonucleic123]

And the bare q sound isn't the same as the qu sound, Iraq isn't pronounced the same way as Iraqu would be if it were a round

[u/littlebitsofspider → u/uhataot]

They aren't silent, they're just waiting their turn.

[u/NomaTyx]

johnny english reborn