Oranges, the most confusing fruit on the planet.

These are oranges, right?  And their color is also orange, right?  So, roses are red and violets are blue, but oranges are just... orange.

How come?  Yes, yes, rose is also a color, somewhat, as in rose colored glasses, and violet is used to describe a color that is a mixture of red and blue, so... not necessarily just blue, huh?  Yet oranges are just... orange.

Actually, at one time, orange wasn't a color at all.  It referred to the tree that the fruit grew on.  If you said "Look at that orange", you were pointing toward the tree, not the fruit, and this goes all the way back to the Sanskrit language, some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago.  If you wanted to differentiate between the fruit and the tree, you would say "Look at the fruit on that orange", the orange of course being the tree.  However, if you held the fruit in your hand and said "Look at this orange", you might get a reaction like "That's not a tree..."

Confusing?  Not really.  It's actually literal to the point that confusion between the two is all but impossible.  So why then complicate things, and name the fruit the same as the tree?  Well that didn't happen until a few thousand years later, sometime in the 13th century, which meant you now needed some kind of visual reference to know whether the conversation was geared toward the fruit or the tree.  Either hold the orange in your hand, or point to the tree, because they were both called... orange.

Of course, being as human as we are, that wasn't complicated enough.  A couple of hundred years later, around 1500 or so, someone pointed to a piece of the fruit and said "What color is that?", to which someone else thought for a second and then replied, "Uhhh... orange", and there you have it.

Let's face it, it's just how we do things.  We followed suit with apples and apple trees, cherries and cherry trees, bananas and banana trees, so on and so on, but... but... but... apples come in different colors, red, green, yellow.  Cherries are different shades of red, and bananas are just yellow, at least when they're ripe, but not oranges, they're always just one color, or one tree, or one fruit.  Just... orange... so confusing...

I'm going to sleep now,  good night.

Link: Reader's Digest

#orange #language #history

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