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Vegetating.
Nov. 7th, 2014 02:03 pmCopied from a rantlet I made in a comment elsenet, agreeing with the proposition that the "tomatoes aren't really vegetables" is just silly
I get really* cross about the fruit/veg thing
a) Clearly (to my eyes) the botanic definition of a fruit is only tangentially relevant to the culinary definition. We can do this. We have polysemy, we have shades of meaning. It's OK.
b) Even if the botanic definition were useful, why would "fruit" not then be a subset of "vegetable" (which would presumably be defined as something like "all edible plant (or plant-and-fungal) matter")?
c) Even if fruit were not a subset of vegetables, why on earth would you assume that fruit and vegetables have got to be disjoint? Just a miserably narrow gastronomic outlook?
d) Why do people always go on about tomatoes, and not cucumbers, mange-tout, pumpkins, courgettes, aubergines, rhubarb, and so forth?
* for a small value of "really"
I get really* cross about the fruit/veg thing
a) Clearly (to my eyes) the botanic definition of a fruit is only tangentially relevant to the culinary definition. We can do this. We have polysemy, we have shades of meaning. It's OK.
b) Even if the botanic definition were useful, why would "fruit" not then be a subset of "vegetable" (which would presumably be defined as something like "all edible plant (or plant-and-fungal) matter")?
c) Even if fruit were not a subset of vegetables, why on earth would you assume that fruit and vegetables have got to be disjoint? Just a miserably narrow gastronomic outlook?
d) Why do people always go on about tomatoes, and not cucumbers, mange-tout, pumpkins, courgettes, aubergines, rhubarb, and so forth?
* for a small value of "really"
