this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Strange times... (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by ickplant@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
 

Berry Club by J.L. Westlover (@mrlovenstein)

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[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 78 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: strawberry was admitted to the psychiatric yard once pepper and cucumber joined the berry club.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: the psychiatric yard is where the psych ward doctors are allowed to go outside and play for an hour everyday, and where a psychologist is most likely to be shanked by a psychiatrist.

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

First rule of working in the psych ward: Don't join a psych gang.

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 69 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Fun fact: Strawberry is called an accessory fruit because its seeds are on the outside, so the seeds themselves are the real "fruits" (in the same way each grain of rice or wheat is itself a fruit, well technically the fruit consists of the grain plus the outer pod/husk that gets removed when harvested). The red flesh we like to eat is the accessory fruit because it in itself does not contain seeds.

Raspberries and blackberries are called aggregate fruits because they're essentially many fruits attached together as a single structure. Actually, a strawberry is called an aggregate accessory fruit because it has many "fruits" directly attached to an accessory structure.

[–] bratosch@lemm.ee 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If every Uni professor started each lecture with "fun fact: " I bet I'd learn alot more

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Some of my profs did! I had one class where the prof would have optional "bonus content" not in the syllabus as a further incentive for people to come to class instead of just reading the lecture slides later.

[–] GrunerAffe@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 11 months ago

Great explanation thank you! Interesting facts :)

[–] lugal@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The thing is that the botanical definition of berries doesn't match perfectly with the everyday definition. That doesn't make the latter wrong, it just has other applications

[–] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, it's like the whole "tomatoes are actually a fruit" thing. So are zucchinis and eggplants, but nobody ever brings that up. It's always tomatoes.

There's a botanical definition and a culinary definition. So, that doesn't mean that somebody who calls a tomato a vegetable is wrong. And don't put any tomatoes in my fruit salad!

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Vegetable is also exclusively a culinary definition. Vegetables are essentially any edible plant structure that are not sweet and aren't the seeds directly (which are grains or nuts). Typically vegetables are flowers, leaves, stems, or roots, but some non-sweet fruits like cucumbers, peppers, and green beans are also squarely in the vegetable category despite definitely being fruits, no reason they can't be both.

[–] lugal@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And the concept of a vegetable varies culturally. I live in Germany and I consider mais vegetables (it feels weird to call it corn in this context since other grains aren't). In Romania (and elsewhere I guess) potatoes are a vegetable which they aren't for me.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

So is potato like a grain to you? In the sense of treating it more like a staple?

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[–] bloup@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

Come up with an everyday definition for berry that includes strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries but excludes grapes, figs, and cherry tomatoes without identifying any particular fruit by name.

[–] Rolando@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] badcommandorfilename@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Rolando@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Oh yeah! As in "cucumberring the salad will improve it!"

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

Sure. One is grown on a berry farm, the other isn't.

[–] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

Use for ice cream, pies, and smothies berries.

[–] Mmagnusson@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Are grapes not considered berries in the anglosphere? In Icelandic they literally are named "Wine berries" and considered as such.

[–] bloup@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

More evidence than the concept of “an every day definition of berry” is completely meaningless

[–] Mmagnusson@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I mean, it isn't meaningless, just culturally subjective and lacking a rigerous definition. Berries are a set of specific fruit, which fruit being included being determined by the culture in question base on percieved similarities and historic uses. We use it to quickly bring up the specific group and whatever vague characteristics we percieve them to share.

So, the definition for berries that you seek is simply "the fruit people you're interested in would point at and identify as a berry", which is a vague definition and not rigerous at all, but most people would in fact think of the same thing you do if you say "I put berries on top of my cake". If I ask my wife "hey, on your way home swing by the store and buy some berries, any type will do", she will not bring a watermelon. She in fact will buy what we both agree are berries, and so the word has useful meaning.

You'll find most classifications humans have do this too. The real world is really good at refusing to fit into the neat boxes we made to classify it and the things in it, and yet we can still use them fine enough as long as we don't get lost in semantics and wondering if a hot dog is a sandwich or cereal soup.

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[–] jcg@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Some berries are just Berry In Name Only.

[–] hark@lemmy.world 32 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Bananas and watermelons are berries? Huh.

[–] Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz 127 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The scientific definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit that came from a single ovary in the flower. Thats it. I don't even know why they used the name berry on this term because it makes no sense and I tell you this as someone studying botany. Like none of the nuts you know are true nuts either. If a nuts shell opens on its own it's not a nut so peanuts, walnuts and almonds are not nuts because if you plant these in fresh soil they will sprout and the shell opens. However if you plant a fresh hazelnut the shell stays on while the plant germinates from the seed, hence it's a true nut. So stupid I know. This has use in botany but these botanical definitions have no use for normal people. That's why we talk about "botanical definitions" and "culinary definitions". In the common culinary definition a berry is a small freshy fruit which is the definition you know.

Bonus: in botany everything from a flower is a fruit. That means wheat is a fruit, rice is a fruit, beans are fruits, peas are fruits, all nuts are fruits, every seed is a fruit, a pine cone is a fruit, and it just goes on. But no one in their right mind would make a fruit asket with pine cones right? The botanical definition is useless outside the field of botany.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 40 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Just to add random info/trivia: it's interesting to note that this mess between "botanical fruit" and "culinary fruit" is largely language-dependent. In Portuguese for example it doesn't happen - because botanical fruit is "fruto" (with "o") and culinary fruit is "fruta" (with "a").

So for example, if you tell someone that cucumber is a "fruto", that is not contentious; you're just using a somewhat posh word if you aren't in a botanical context. And if you tell the person that tomato is a "fruta", you're just being silly.

Berry has no direct equivalent. If you must specify that the fruit comes from a single ovary, you call it "fruto simples" (lit. simple botanical-fruit), as opposed to "fruto múltiplo" (multiple fruit - e.g. pineapple). Popularly people will call stuff like strawberries and mulberries by multiple names, like "frutinhas" (little fruits) and the likes.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

In German, the fruits you would put in a fruit salat are called Obst, in contrast to Frucht (fruit) / Früchte (fruits) which can be 'anything' complying with the botanical definition. You'd refer to tomatoes and paprika as Frucht-Gemüse (fruit vegetables).

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In German, the fruits you would put in a fruit salat are called Obst

A salad works, but isn't it easier to just snort it? :^)

Sorry for the shitty joke above. Seriously now: after a quick check, apparently the cognate of "Obst" still exists in English, as "ovest". Nowadays only used dialectally for nuts like acorns being fed to the pigs. It would be fun if it was reintroduced as "culinary fruit", following the German example, and keeping the Latin borrowing "fruit" for the botanical def.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

hmm I do like being silly

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A pine cone is a fruit?

I was taught a pine cone was a "naked flower", as it never developed petals and ovary developed directly and bore the seed.

[–] Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It appears you are right. Conifers and other gymnosperms are totally outside the definition of fruit and cannot have fruit by definition. The seed cone is however an analog of a fruit for the gymnosperms. It doesn't have to do with petals however. Lots of flowering plants don't have petals. Example are these wheat flowers. You have to cut up the plant to even see the flower.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 5 points 11 months ago

New knowledge acquired! Thank you. Wasn't aware of that detail.

[–] match@pawb.social 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

we should be inventing new words. A fleshy fruit from a single ovary in a flower is now called a skibidi

[–] match@pawb.social 6 points 11 months ago

a banana is a skibidi. a tomato is a skibidi

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Like none of the nuts you know are true nuts either.

Found it funny that you then mentioned peanuts which grow in the ground contrary to all other things people think about when talking about nuts.

And yeah, I know I'll just have blown some people's mind with that info.

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[–] criitz@reddthat.com 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Let's be real. We all now what a berry is, and bananas and watermelons ain't it. Forget the scientific mumbo jumbo

[–] JdW@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] glibg10b@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

We might as well call Pluto a planet at this point

[–] dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, it seems like someone came up with very strange definitions that don't actually work.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

They work very well if you're trying to identify and classify plants.

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Wait until your learn that dinosaurs are technically still alive, since birds are dinosaurs.

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[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Melons and pumpkins are called Panzerbeeren by german botanists.

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Beer Tank

I can't be bothered to look up the actual translation, so that is what I'm calling them from now on.

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Shell berries.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago

OG blueberry still a member, chillaxin with the other true berries.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Knott's Berry Farm is a house of lies.

[–] Scene_Shifter@lemmy.today 4 points 11 months ago

Feels like Daria debunking the Fashion Club.

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Wow you can't just assign your own labels to other people like that.

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