this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 days ago (4 children)

“apple” used to be a generic term for fruit.

Oh, that explains the myth that Adam and Eve at an apple, when a specific fruit is never mentioned.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/apple

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Great! Can't have myths about random fruit in this otherwise totally valid, reasonable and trustworthy story about a woman that was made from a man's rib and talked to reptiles.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

If a narrative is not literally true, does that mean it has no truth value?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What is "truth value" supposed to mean?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sorry, I wasn't explaining myself well.

Just because a story isn't factually true, doesn't mean that it has no value, or negative value. There are other types of values which can supersede factual value:

  • aesthetic
  • symbolic
  • ethical
  • didactic

Truth isn't always about facts. Sometimes factual statements can be used as a weapon of deceit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

There are other types of value, of course. It's just funny to specifically call the apple out for being a myth. The entire story is a myth, so they could have made it a pomelo for all I care.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It also explain why we here in the Nordics call oranges "appelsin", as in a "Chinese apple".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Same in Dutch: sinaasappel

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

That's a bingo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

But… we’re talking French and Adam and Eve was written in Hebrew. Is it the same for Hebrew?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Literally yes, ground apple is potato in hebrew

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Hebrew used a generic word for fruit, all languages translated that word as their version of apple which was generic at the time, and then much later, all languages changed the meaning of their word for apple, it's not specific to French. The use of apple for one specific fruit is fairly recent - more recent than the King James Bible, even.

I don't know what the word in Hebrew is and if it also changed its meaning since then, though.