this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Additional fun fact based on this: the colour name "orange" in English is named after the fruit. But we only have evidence of the English word "orange" for the fruit from the 13th century, even though the fruit was known to the Chinese c.300BC because it's a human creation - a mix of pomelo and mandarin.

Before we used "orange" to describe the colour it was called "yellow-red", which is accurate but underwhelming and not very catchy.

The history of colour name "pink" is only from the 17th century, even more recent. It never fails to blow my mind how categories and names have colour have changed over time and cultures.

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

the word 'crog' was also used to refer to general shades of orange before we took the name from the fruit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Here in the Netherlands they're referred to as sinaasappels (Chinese apples) however the color orange is still referred to as oranje. Seems silly to me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Oh, and TIL where the German word Apfelsine is coming from.