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𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 7 months ago

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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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?

𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 7 months ago
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  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I thought it was more “apples of the Earth”, n’est-ce pas?

    • Donut@leminal.space
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      7 months ago

      Yup, pommes de terre. In Dutch is “aardappel”, which is more literally earthapple. But I will add, the apple part isn’t referring to the fruit, but means more like “a spherical object”.

      Also the French used aardappel to create the word pomme de terre for it in 1716, as they couldn’t pronounce the Dutch word.

      • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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        7 months ago

        Spherical pineapples.

      • The Ramen Dutchman@ttrpg.network
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        7 months ago

        as they couldn’t pronounce the Dutch word

        I mean I can’t blame them, the language’s phonosyntactics are very different from French, it’s hard to pronounce in general and sounds awful to boot.

        • Donut@leminal.space
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          7 months ago

          It’s funny how Dutch doesn’t shy away from loaning French words, despite the difference. Examples are chauffeur, etalage, cadeau, auto and medaille.

          I don’t agree that aardappel is hard to pronounce in general if you’re an English speaker though. Check it out: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/aardappel

          • The Ramen Dutchman@ttrpg.network
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            7 months ago

            Alternative forms

            Eerdappel […] (obsolete)


            As Arnhemmer, I don’t completely agree.

      • ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Too aard to pronounce

    • Cagi@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      No, it’s like how apple juice is jus de pomme.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialOP
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      7 months ago

      Yeah, I wasn’t going for transliteration. “Apples of Earth” doesn’t convey the same concept.

    • CyanideShotInjection@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Not really cause then it would be “pommes de la terre”.

      For the record, some of us also use the word “patate” which is straight up the equivalent of potato.

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