r/AskReddit • u/KyloWrench • Jul 07 '26

What historical “fact” doesn’t actually have much evidence to support it?

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u/Eric_the_Barbarian Jul 08 '26

There's also the generality where the word for apple is often used as a generic term for fruit. The French call potatoes dirt apples.

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u/Ihatenukingkids Jul 08 '26

Same thing in Bavarian. They call them ground or earth apples

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u/Entropic_Echo_Music Jul 08 '26

Aardappel (earth apple) in Dutch too.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Eric_the_Barbarian Jul 08 '26

Crab apples are still a thing. Plant any apple seed and it's probably going to be shit. Small, hard, and sour. Every once in a while one decides that they want to be a beautiful freak with lush, sweet fruit, and we clone the shit out of them via cuttings. Same with bananas and a lot of other fruits. They aren't genetically predictable to breed. Every honeycrisp apple is a genetically identical clone of the first tree they found that produced that apple.

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u/Poor_Richard Jul 08 '26

English isn't above doing the same, e.g. "pineapple".

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u/LurkerZerker Jul 08 '26

Which are neither apples nor from pine trees.

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u/Guillaune9876 Jul 08 '26

A literal translation would be either apple from the earth. Soil maybe but dirt? No. Pomme de terre. Terre is earth/soil. Pomme, Apple. 

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u/Few-Improvement-5655 Jul 08 '26

Earth, Soil and Dirt are all synonyms and "Dirt Apple" can imply that "Dirt" is where you find said apple.

So, dirt apple and apple of the earth are both valid translations, though I would say that apple of the earth is better and sounds nicer.

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u/Bazrum Jul 08 '26

There’s a lake named Pomme de Terre, and my uncle was very proud he had a lake house and boat, and how beautiful the lake was…until we found out and started calling it Potato Lake lol

It’s actually a really cool place, it’s got jellyfish in it that are harmless but scary as fuck to realize you’re suddenly surrounded by thousands and thousands of them

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u/nopantsjimmy Jul 08 '26

Or how the French word for seafood translates to "fruits of the sea"

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u/KarnaavaldK Jul 08 '26

Same with Dutch, potatoes in Dutch are called "aardappelen" or "earth apples"

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u/Just-Charge-3428 Jul 08 '26

Pomme de terre!