Fashion, beauty and animal loving language consultant from South Africa living in Stockholm, Sweden.
View all posts by Janet Carr
7 thoughts
I wonder why those words contain “egg”, “pine”, “Guinea”, “pig”… in their names. When you translate the names into other languages such as French for example, they still contain those non-related words.
That phenomenon must come from the origins of those words or the physical appearance those things have.
A good question to be looked upon!!
Hamburger is because it is named after a region and not a meat. It comes from Hamburg and is similar to Weiner (from Vienna) and Frankfurt.
A pineapple is called a pineapple because it looked like a pine cone to explorers of the New World. Pine cones were originally called Pine Apples.
Earlier eggplants were whitish and it looked as if the plant produced eggs…hence Eggplant. Aubergine which is used in England is just the french version of Eggplant.
Guinea pig I have no idea but in German they are called Meerschweinchen…little sea pig.
The Turkey is also called Turkey because New World discovers saw a bird that looked like a bird native to…Turkey.
My other useless fun fact is that the humble carrot used to be either white or purple-ish. The orange carrot is not native to England and thus was not widespread. I can’t remember where it came from (the Netherlands rings a bell but I’m not sure…) to England BUT it became popular during the Glorious Revolution by William of Orange…and so we got orange carrots.
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Yes, the white carrot is a parsnip, right?
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It was still a carrot just a different variety. They are probably still around, just not popular anymore
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You are such a mine of fascinating information! I have learned so much from you today!
I wonder why those words contain “egg”, “pine”, “Guinea”, “pig”… in their names. When you translate the names into other languages such as French for example, they still contain those non-related words.
That phenomenon must come from the origins of those words or the physical appearance those things have.
A good question to be looked upon!!
Hamburger is because it is named after a region and not a meat. It comes from Hamburg and is similar to Weiner (from Vienna) and Frankfurt.
A pineapple is called a pineapple because it looked like a pine cone to explorers of the New World. Pine cones were originally called Pine Apples.
Earlier eggplants were whitish and it looked as if the plant produced eggs…hence Eggplant. Aubergine which is used in England is just the french version of Eggplant.
Guinea pig I have no idea but in German they are called Meerschweinchen…little sea pig.
Wow Emma that is so interesting! I have learned a lot today – thank you!
The Turkey is also called Turkey because New World discovers saw a bird that looked like a bird native to…Turkey.
My other useless fun fact is that the humble carrot used to be either white or purple-ish. The orange carrot is not native to England and thus was not widespread. I can’t remember where it came from (the Netherlands rings a bell but I’m not sure…) to England BUT it became popular during the Glorious Revolution by William of Orange…and so we got orange carrots.
Yes, the white carrot is a parsnip, right?
It was still a carrot just a different variety. They are probably still around, just not popular anymore
You are such a mine of fascinating information! I have learned so much from you today!