You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
52 points
*

Exact same usage in German: Schildkröte.

But its not like the English language doesn’t do the exact same thing.

Most languages: Ananas

English: pineapple

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Tho, I would say, even tho its piney, a pineapple is nothing like an apple.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Fine. Hedgehog then.

permalink
report
parent
reply
25 points

Apple used to be the general word for fruit. Hence why so many languages call potatoes “earth apple” or oranges a form of “yellow apple” or “applesin”

permalink
report
parent
reply
25 points

Same in Swedish, “sköldpadda”. Literally shield toad.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Jokes on you, in Danish it is “Skildpadde”. “Padde” is toad, sure, but “skild” doesn’t really make any sense!

(Perhaps it is an ancient Danish word for shield (skjold), but no one would use it)

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

That’s about on par with what I’d expect from Danes tbqhwyf

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Gets even weirder in Finnish, because it’s “kilpikonna”. Someone in ye olde times just straight up translated the Swedish name. Got none of the Indo-European roots in sight, but it still makes sense. Vaguely toady creature that has shields!

(Only problem are the homonyms. “kilpi” also means registration plate, and “konna” also means “villain, thief”. So every time some random person goes around nicking plates off cars, the journalists think they are very clever again, even when the joke has been made before numerous times. Poor turtles! They don’t deserve this!)

permalink
report
parent
reply

Microblog Memes

!microblogmemes@lemmy.world

Create post

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, Twitter X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

Community stats

  • 13K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.5K

    Posts

  • 46K

    Comments