• xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    This feels like a case where botanical science should just have picked a different name. If you invalidate everything people think of as a berry and then tell them a dozen things that are clearly not berries are, in fact, berries, you’re just making the word berry meaningless.

    Berry means a tiny, usually sweet, fruit-like growth from a plant. The kind that is usually picked in bunches. The kind that you use to make smoothies. That’s a berry.

    Botany did us all a disservice by choosing the word “berry” to mean “a specific thing which invalidates everything you think is a berry.” Just call that plant structure something in Latin, ffs.

    • JayObey711@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Well, cooking terms and botany terms are not the same. Any non reproductive part of a plant is vegetable. But in cooking we have a completely different idea of what vegetables are.

      This really doesn’t matter because most people are not botanists and those who are probably know the terms. The only people that care are quirky internet people with debates about weather or not potato salad should be considered a cake or something.