this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
397 points (94.6% liked)
Science Memes
10818 readers
2577 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Recently, we were in the canteen at work and a colleague, who moved here a few years ago, told that she never had rhubarb before.
Then she asked me, probably just for vocab reasons: Rhubarb is a vegetable?
Uhh...
I had never thought about it. I mean, what the heck is this:
Could be a salad, a leafy green. It's kind of similar to celery, but is celery even a vegetable? Well, and of course, rhubarb is often used like a fruit, so uh...
Well, I looked it up, and scientifically, it does count as a vegetable, but colloquially, it's often considered a fruit.
Like today's computer scientists, early biologists sucked at inventing new words, and simply reused existing ones. "Berry" in common language is a small, usually sweet and edible, fruit. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries are all berries.
Then biologists came along and decided, actually, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are out, but watermelon and bananas are in, because the size of the fruit doesn't matter, only the placement of the seeds decides whether something is a proper, scientific
berry
.A similar thing has happened with "fruit" and "vegetable", where scientific
fruits
include cucumbers, eggplants, and pumpkins. Luckily, all three of these are alsoberries
.I say we ignore them, and use words to mean sensible things.
🅱️erries
If a new berry was invented, computer scientists will probably call them "βerries", next one "ϐerries" (cursive beta)
Γerries
Pronounced "cherries"