this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
472 points (98.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26980 readers
1245 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I've usually heard that framed the other way around, but, yes, that sort of argument is also easily solved by this test.

I'll recklessly posit that most "is x a y?" arguments can be addressed with this methodology, noting the exception of the fruit and vegetable ones, since the answer is simply a little more complicated, e.g. a tomato is botanically a fruit and culinarily a vegetable. The word fruit and vegetables have similar but functionally different meanings in botany and cuisine terminology, which explains the distinction.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'd like to argue the fruit/vegetables dilemma is just arbitrary nonsense. All fruits come from vegetation, they're as much vegetable as the stim, leaves, or flowers. The only reason we separate them is because some idiot got too carried away with taxonamy.

[–] dudinax@programming.dev 11 points 3 months ago

The correct definition of vegetable is "a part of a plant that kids won't eat"

[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago

I'm far more involved with the culinary school of thought than the botanical one, so I think the distinction is far more functional there.

Vegetables cook differently and largely taste differently than fruits. You can swap most fruits for one another in a recipe and swap most vegetables for one another, but swapping fruit for a vegetable can change it drastically.

Noted exceptions, "vegetable" seems to include both fleshy vegetables such as potatoes and zucchini but also leafy greens, which aren't so easily swapped in recipes. Also, tomatoes can sometimes be swapped for fruits with surprising results, even in traditionally savory dishes.