Conference thebay::joyoflex

    The color name comes from the fruit name -- which leads to the
    question: "What did they call the color between yellow and red
    before they called it orange?"
    
    					andrew

    You wonder how people were able to describe the colors before they had
    words for salmon, toast, or eggshell.
    
Lew Lasher

    	For what it's worth, Orange is a couple of hundred miles from here,
    and is the reason why the Northern Irish patriots are called Orangemen,
    since they were moved there a few hundred years ago by the duke of
    Orange. Orange is at about the Northernmost limit at which the orange
    tree will grow, but they use the colour in demonstrations in 
    Northern Ireland.

    G'day,
     In Australia, the town of Orange (~300Km from Sydney, NSW) is noted
    for its apples!
    
    
    derek

    Some languages have fewer names for colors than other languages
    have.  A linguistic study determined that, as each language evolves
    from primitive to sophisticated, it adds new words to distinguish
    additional colors -- always in the same order!  That is, after a
    language has developed words for "light" and "dark" and starts to
    get on with colors, "red" always comes first.  I don't remember
    which order "blue" and "yellow" come in, though I'm pretty sure
    they precede green, orange, violet, and others.

The Norwegian word for orange is "appelsin".
Derived from Dutch, its original meaning is
"Chinese apple".

And I thought the Chinese were yellow...

Henrik
(Useless Info Spec)

    Actually the fruit was named after the town of Orange. When it was
    introduced in France, the fruit was called "pomme d'Orange" (apple of
    Orange), because, as Dave said, the orange trees will only grow in a
    very limited part of the South of France, the town of Orange being at
    the northern limit. The name was then shortened to simply orange and
    spread abroad, but it's interesting to note, though, that in Greek, for
    example, an orange is called "portokal" or something of the sort
    (sorry, my terminal can't write Greek characters), and orange juice is
    "portokalada", but I don't know what is the connection, if any, with
    Portugal.
    As for the Orangemen, it happened that at about the time of the
    Renaissance (more or less), the earls of Nassau (in present day
    Netherlands) inherited through some marriage the title of prince of
    Orange. Although located in the kingdom of France, Orange was, at the
    time, one of those few sovereign principalities, like Talmond
    (belonging to the dukes of La Tremouaille) or Henrichemont (created by
    Henri IV for his minister Maximillien de Bethune, whom he had already
    created duke of Sully, as he is usually known), or others outside of
    the French borders of the time, like Bouillon (in the Ardennes), Salm
    (in the Vosges) or Monaco, which still exists today, although shrinked
    a lot. Later, the princes of Orange-Nassau took the lead of the
    rebellion against Spain (their then overlord) which culminated in the
    creation of the Netherlands in the late 16th century. The Netherlands
    were then a sort of trader-burgese republic with an executive power in
    the hands of an hereditary "Stadthouder" (I'm not sure of the spelling
    of the word) who was (surprise, surprise!) the prince of Orange-Nassau.
    In 1688, when the English expelled their King James II because he was a
    Catholic, they gave the throne to his daughter Mary, who had married
    the Protestant then holder of the Stadthouder title, who thus became
    also the king William III of England. As his name was William of
    Orange-Nassau, his partisans took the name Orangemen and, in Northern
    Ireland, they've kept it to this day, because, when they organised in a
    sort of Free-Mason-like society to fight the Irish autonomists (later
    independentists) they called it "Order of Orange". The familly of
    Orange-Nassau is still today on the Dutch throne, although the last
    three generations have seen inheritance through women, so the name is
    probably today that of the familly of prince Klaus, husband to queen
    Beatrix, who is descended from the German former rulers of some small
    principality integrated in the German Empire in 1871.
    			Denis.

    Re .8: See 4.211 and following.
    			Denis.

    	Wow!!!!  Now if only we could be sure about that place in Australia
    we would have traced all uses of "orange" back to southern France. Is
    it possible that the Early Australians were colour blind, and couldn't
    tell apples from oranges?

    Re .12: Dave, I'm not sure, but I think that before being a British
    colony, Australia was a Dutch one. Now, it's probably doubtful that the
    Australian town of Orange dates back to that time. Does any Aussie
    know? Anyway, it's more probable that such a name was given to a town
    by Dutch settlers than by British ones. Maybe Dutch settlers at the
    time when Australia was already British?
    			Denis.

    Re .10:
>    the French borders of the time, like Bouillon (in the Ardennes), Salm
    
    Small correction: I made a mistake there. Instead of Bouillon, read
    Sedan. I made a confusion because the princes of Sedan were the dukes
    of Bouillon.
    			Denis.

    Isn't there an "Orange Free State" in South Africa?

    Re .15: Yes, and guess what? Most of the original Afrikaners were of
    Dutch stock (with a few exiled French huguenots to top it). The
    Afrikaan language is still very close to Dutch.
    			Denis.

    There are a number of Orange Counties in the United States.  Most
    of them were settled by either Dutch or protestant Irish
    immigrants.
    
    They do grow oranges in Orange County, California.
    
    As for what orange was called before the word orange and the fruit
    orange were imported (the ultimate origin is Persian via Arabic;
    the word accompanied the fruit) -- I think in English the word
    "gold" was applied.  There aren't very many naturally orange
    things in Northern Europe and both the color and the fruit were a
    novelty.  
    
    --bonnie

    Re .17: Bonnie, I'm not sure that the name of the town of Orange has
    anything to do with the fruit. In French, at least, I think it was the
    other way around, that is, the fruit was named after the town (as I
    wrote in .10, the fruit was called 'pomme d'Orange' before being called
    'orange' in French). Is there any sure etymological infos about it? I
    must say that I don't know where the name of the town comes from. Does
    it come from the fruit and do we have a loop in the French name of the
    fruit, or is there a totally different origin?
    			Denis.

>    orange were imported (the ultimate origin is Persian via Arabic;
    
    Persian strikes again. The word for `peach' is derived in most (all?)
    Romance languages from the Vulgar Latin MALA PERSICA (Persian apple).
    Perhaps, since Denis tells us that `orange' is a short form of
    `pomme d'orange', all fruits are really apples - including tomatoes,
    which - in Italian - are `golden apples'.
    
    But where do Cox's Orange Pippins come into it? Are they the apples
    grown in Orange, Australia? This is getting confusing.
    
    b
    
    b

And to think that Don in .2 had the nerve to ask if my daughter could
use a dictionary .... here we are learned people, and we cannot be sure
of the etymology ... So, here's to my 9 year old who didn't ask such a
dumb question after all !

As to everything being apples ... even in English, the arcahic term for
a tomato was a love apple.

Now, if the orange is derived from pomme d'Orange ... along with all kinds 
of other things came from Orange (like William of ...) where did the town of
Orange get it's name from ?????  The Orange tree ?  The colour ?

Stuart

    re: .18
    
    Denis, as far as I know, your summary of the history of the
    orange in France etc. is correct for both fruit and word.  I was
    talking about an earlier step, when both came to France in the
    first place.  
    
    I think, although I'm not positive, naranja is the Arabic name of
    the tree that bears oranges, not of the fruit itself.  So the
    probable path is:
    
    Returning crusaders bring back naranja trees and plant them near
    Avignon. 
    
    The fruit flourishes and gains some noteriety for the town, which
    is probably then referred to as "that town where those auranja
    trees grow," or Auranja for short. (The Old Provencal spelling of
    the word.)
    
    The fruit itself is known as "pomme d'Auranja".
    
    "Pomme" in French and "apple" in English have never meant strictly
    the fruit of an apple tree; they have always been used to refer to
    any round hard fruitish-looking thing -- pommes de terre, road
    apples, oak apples, etc.  This is mostly because apples and pears
    are about the only fruit native to England and northern Europe. So
    calling the fruit the "apple of the orange" is consistent with
    other usage.  Probably better translated as "fruit of the orange."
    
    Is that clearer, I hope?
    
    --bonnie

    Re .20:
>As to everything being apples ... even in English, the arcahic term for
>a tomato was a love apple.
    
    In French too. Tomatoes were called 'pommes d'amour' in olden days. But
    the word 'tomato', or 'tomate' in French is older as it is the Nahuatl
    (i.e. Aztec) word 'tomatl' which was the name of the fruit before it was
    imported in Europe. Only the word 'pommes d'amour' was used (probably
    more widely) as well as 'tomates'.
    
    	Another case is the potatoe. In French the correct word is still
    'pommes de terre' (earth apples), while 'patates' is considered of
    familiar use, except in the name 'patate douce' which designates a
    specific variety of sweet potato. I don't know if potato/patate comes
    too from a native American Indian word, but it looks probable, as
    potatoes also come from America (and are closely related to tomatoes,
    both are 'solanacees' -that's the French name of the plant familly to
    which they both belong-).
    
>Now, if the orange is derived from pomme d'Orange ... along with all kinds 
>of other things came from Orange (like William of ...) where did the town of
>Orange get it's name from ?????  The Orange tree ?  The colour ?
    
    It is sure that the colour comes from the fruit. The problem is in the
    origine of the name of the town. If it comes from the fruit too, it
    would imply a loop in the formation of the name 'pomme d'Orange', but
    that does not necessarily rules this etymology out, stranger behaviours
    have been observed in the evolution of words... Is someone from Orange
    reading that file? A point of interest might be that the town already
    bore that name at least in the 12th or 11th century (maybe Roger Liron
    will be able to give us the correct period) as there is an old French
    'chanson de gestes' which dates from approximately that time and is
    called 'la geste de Guillaume d'Orange'. This Guillaume was supposed to
    sligthly predate Charlemagne, as his nephew Vivien is supposed to have
    been contemporary to Charlemagne. This does not mean, however, that the
    town was named Orange in Charlemagne's time, only at the time when the 
    'chanson de gestes' was composed. Another related question would be:
    when was the fruit imported to France? Who can answer that?
    			
    				Denis.

    Re .21: Thanks, Bonnie. It seems you answered most of my questions
    while I was writing .22.
    			Denis.

	Clearly the word "orange", both English and French, comes from 
	Old French "pomme d'orange" (COD of Etymology).

	According to French etymology, "pomme d'orange" (pume d'orenge)
	was built on the same model as Old Italian "malarancia", litterally 
	apple-orange ("arancia" means orange today); with the difference
	that "d' "  suggest that orange was a place name in the OF expression.

	No one doubts that "arancia" and "orange" ultimately derive from 
	Arabic/Persan "narandj".  
	But at the time the name "pomme-(narandj)" appeared in French, it 
	was most probably influenced by/confused with the city name Orange. 
	This town (founded by the Romans under the name Aransio -- and see 
	how close this is from "arancia") was an an important transit place 
	for fruits and goods from the South.

	So considering the modern word "orange", I'd say Arabic gave the 
	range and French gave the O.

	roger

    Re .24: Thanks, Roger, you seem to have settled the matter.
    Now, we only have to solve the last details: Where does the Greek name
    of the orange (portokal or something of the sort) come from, and does
    it have something to do with Portugal? And when was the 'geste de
    Guillaume d'Orange' composed? (11th, 12th or 13th century?) ;^)
    			Denis.

    G'day,
    
    
     Ohhhhh _just_ a cotton picking minute...
    
    
    Australia was never , has been never, and will be never a Dutch
    Colony!!!!!!!!! It was first settled by English, and Irish freemen and
    convicts on January 26th, 1788 at Sydney Cove, Sydney.
    
    Orange was named after the Duke of Orange, or some other equally famous
    English person of the times....
    
    Portokalada was so named to differentiate it from pinocalada, which is
    much more yummy.
    
    Pom is the name given to English folk in Australia. (derivation
    uncertain) so 'Poms deter' means 'to frighten the English'
    
    derek

    >   -<  geography lesson needed!!!! >-
    Maybe a history lesson too?

    >It was first settled by English, and Irish freemen and
    >convicts on January 26th, 1788 at Sydney Cove, Sydney.
    Are you sure?

    >Ohhhhh _just_ a cotton picking minute...
    That's my impression.
    What did the aborigines do?  Settle it zeroth?

	"Potato" -- from the Spanish "batata," from the Taino (an Arawak
	language)

	In the South, where sweet potatoes are as common as regular
	potatoes, regular potatoes are sometimes called "Irish potatoes"
	("pommes d'Irlande"?)

	Pomegranates are sometimes called "Indian apples"

	"Pomegranate" comes from "pomme de Granate," or "apple of Grenada"

	"Pom" or "Pommie" in Australian slang supposedly comes from Brits
	sometimes calling their french fries "pommes frites" -- i.e., these
	people are so affected that they even call their french fries by
	a French name

    Re .26:
>    Australia was never , has been never, and will be never a Dutch
>    Colony!!!!!!!!! It was first settled by English, and Irish freemen and
>    convicts on January 26th, 1788 at Sydney Cove, Sydney.
    
    If so, why was it called Van Diemen's Land? And why is Tasmania named
    so? Am I wrong when I remember that Tasman was Dutch?
    			Denis.

    The first Europeans to see Australia, etc. were Dutch; but the Dutch
    did not settle (they were pretty occupied settling Indonesia at the
    time).
    			-John Bishop

    G'day,
    
    Yup - Hartog was one of the first to record visiting Terra Australis -
    the great southern land He was Dutch. But like -.1 says, the Dutch
    never settled the land..
    
     As to the aborigines - they arguably never settled here either. Most
    are (were) nomadic, living off the land but not cultivating it. The
    aborigines in Tasmania even forgot how to make fire, but had to carry
    it with them as they moved about.
    
    Oh and as to the British being called Poms - the generally accepted
    derivations are 
    
    Pom short for Pomegranite - the colour of English skins after a few
    hours in the Australian sun
    or Pom from POME Prisoner of Mother England.
    
    Other less accepted derivations include the tale of an English fellow
    who arrived here. Being hot, he bought some Oz beer, being hungry he
    bought an Oz meat pie and peas, and being hot he sat on the steps at
    Circular Quay (where most immigrants arrived by boat) and said
     "Poor me!"
    
    derek
    

    Re .32: Thank you, Roger, but cunning historian as I might be,
    Australian history is definitely not a topic I'm very familiar with.
    (sentence knowingly with a preposition finished up ;^) )
    As for the 'rosbif' nickname, my understanding was always that it came
    from roast beef being the most popular dish among the British tourists
    in France, I never realised it could come from their complexion after
    exposure to the Riviera sun. And it is quite surprising if you think
    that most of them eat it what they call 'well cooked' which is
    equivalent to 'burned till reduced to ashes'. Even 'rare' in a British
    restaurant is equivalent to the French 'bien cuit'. When you like your
    meat 'bleu' in the French cooking meaning of the term, you practically
    have to ask it raw!
    A last remark about pomegranate: as mentionned earlier, we have here
    another case of the universal use of 'pomme' for whatever new round
    fruit came to be imported to France: it comes from the old French name
    of the fruit: 'pomme de Grenade', but in today's French it has been
    shortened to 'grenade', same as the name of the orange. Grenade is the
    French form of the name of the Southern Spanish town of Granada. Then,
    by analogy with the fruit, to which it ressembled a lot, the
    hand-thrown bomb got the name grenade.
    				Denis.

    Re `portokal' or whatever oranges are in Greek:
    
    Sorry, no info. It seems not unlikely that the Greeks (who probably
    traded in Lusitania - they settled in enclaves in southern France and
    the heel of Italy) may have got oranges from there. But I don't see
    why the Greeks should have imported so many that the fruit became
    associated with the place. I've seen oranges growing in Greece, but
    not in Portugal (though I see no reason why they shouldn't grow there).
    
    Re POME
    
    I thought it was `Prisoner of His [or was it Her at the time?] Majesty'
    - POHM stencilled on the convicts' clothes.
    
    Re `O from France and range from Persia' - one of Roger's, some notes
       back
    
    But what interests me is where the N from NARANDJ went. Readers who
    haven't NEXT UNSEEN'd this topic already will probably know about
    `a norange' [like `a napron' etc] - this accounts for English. Spanish
    is no problem - `naranja'. Maybe the N got dropped from the Italian
    because people suspected a repeated syllable [haplology, my favourite
    linguistics word] in `un[']a [na]rancia'. But the Portuguese is `Laranja'.
    L and N may both be liquid consonants, but I don't know of any other
    case where an N in a borrowed word becomes L in Portugues and remains
    unchanged in Spanish. Odd, I think.
    
    b

    Re .34:
>                                Maybe the N got dropped from the Italian
>    because people suspected a repeated syllable [haplology, my favourite
>    linguistics word] in `un[']a [na]rancia'.
    
    This is valid for French as well: Une [n]orange.
    					Denis.

    re pommies, rosbifs, etc.:
    
    While we're at it, in the Hundred Years' War, the name that the French
    gave to the English was "les goddams" because they said "goddam" so
    much.
    
    	Jon

    Re .36: The nickname was in fact 'godons' or 'gotons', depending on
    the sources, and came, as Jon said, from a corruption of 'goddam'.
    But its use wasn't limited to the Hundred Years War period: it was
    still in use (though not much) at the beginning of the 20th century. In
    fact many French people, even if they would not use it except to look
    deliberately old-fashionned, are still able to recognise it and
    understand the meaning of the word.
    			Denis.

    Re .13, .12, and all the others about Orange in Australia:
    
>    Re .12: Dave, I'm not sure, but I think that before being a British
>    colony, Australia was a Dutch one. Now, it's probably doubtful that the
>    Australian town of Orange dates back to that time. Does any Aussie
>    know? Anyway, it's more probable that such a name was given to a town
>    by Dutch settlers than by British ones. Maybe Dutch settlers at the
>    time when Australia was already British?
    
    I should have realised when I postulated that Dutch settlers named the
    town that in fact Protestant Irish settlers were a much more plausible
    guess in a British colony...
    				Denis.

	A false etymology

		Pomegranate -- comes from "pomme grenate," seedy
		apple

	A request

		I heard that "apple" is another example the shifting
		"n" -- that it was originally "a napple."  Could this
		possibly be true?


	  -- Cliff

    re: .39
    
    Cliff's right about pomegranate.  Unless Webster's is also
    wrong...
    
    I don't know about "a napple," but "an apron" used to be "a
    napron," from the French for "napkin."  Word and concept came to
    England with the Norman French, who used to tie a napkin around
    their waists when they were waiting on tables.  They also used
    napkin-shaped pieces of leather to protect their fronts when they
    were doing more difficult tasks, such as blacksmithing. 
    
    I think, though I'm on less sure ground here, that this use of
    napkins dates back to the Romans.
    
    --bonnie

    Re .40, .39, .33: Pomegranate; I don't know whether Webster's right or
    not, but I must say that 'grenate' doesn't sound right as a French
    adjective to my ear and I've never met it before. The only adjective
    coming from that root that I can think of is 'grenu', and it is rather
    little used. It's possible though that 'grenate' be an old French word.
    The fact is that today the French for pomegranate is 'grenaDe', not
    'grenaTe' and that it is also the French form of the name of the
    Spanish town of Granada. This was the etymology I was told of at
    school, which doesn't prove anything. On the other hand, nobody seems
    to dispute that the 'pome' part comes from 'pomme' (apple). Anybody
    knows which way the fruit came to Europe through (I just love to put
    prepositions at the end of sentences)?
    			Denis.

    Re .41, .40, etc.:  I think you're taking this for grenate.(*)
    
    
    (*) apologies to the creators of the Dungeon.(**)
    
    (**) on second thought, they should be apologizing to us....

    Re .42, .41, etc...: I went to check last night in Robert (one of the
    French equivallent of Webster's). They too agree with the 'pume
    grenate' etymology and date it to the 12th century. So it seems that
    unless all these dictionaries got it wrong from each others (how very
    likely...), I was fed hogwash at school (great surprise! I'll never
    recover from that disappointment...). What seems interesting to me in
    this is that we might have here another case of confusion/amalgamation
    of the name of an existing town name with that of a fruit like the one
    Roger explained in the case of Orange/orange (that is, if the bogus
    etymology I got at school didn't come directly from the teacher's
    creative mind, in which case I would have witnessed the processus of
    creation of the confusion, and we're back to folk etymology...). Does
    anyone know if they grow pomegranates in Granada?
    			Denis.

    re: .43
    
    I must say that if this is the first time you've discovered you
    were fed hogwash at school, you've led a very sheltered life. . . 
    
    On pomegranates:
    
    The full derivation for pomegranate is listed as ME _poumgarnet_,
    from MF _pomme grenate_, literally seedy apple, 14C.
    
    There's a related Spanish word, granadilla, that names a funny
    oval passionfruit (for all I know all passionfruit are funny, but
    I've only seen this one kind).  _Granadilla_ is, according to
    Webster's,  derived from _granada_, Spanish for pomegranate, from
    LL _granata_.  _Granadilla_ is 1600's but it doesn't say when
    _granada_ came into use.  Or when the city was founded, for that
    matter.
    
    _Grenade_'s derivation is given as middle French for pomegranate,
    from LL _granata_.
    
    _Granata_ is from Latin, feminine of _granatus_, seedy, from
    _granum_, grain.  
    
    _Garnet_, the stone, derives from ME _grenat_, from MF, from
    _grenat, adj., red like a pomegranate, 14C.
    
    All of which proves absolutely nothing, but is rather neat, I
    think.
    
    --bonnie

    Re .44:
>    _granada_ came into use.  Or when the city was founded, for that
    
    I don't know either, but the city already had a long history behind it
    when it was taken by Ferdinando and Isabella in 1492, thus putting an
    end to the 'Reconquista'. At that time it was the capital of the last
    Moorish kingdom of Spain. This brings us to the supposed origin of the
    name of the colour 'isabelle' which is the French name of the light bay
    colour for horse coat. The siege of Granada lasted three full years, and
    Isabella swore that she would not change her shirt until the town would
    surrender. The colour is supposed to be that of her shirt when the town
    fell... Nice woman for sure, no wonder Christopher Colombus went as far
    as America to escape her. This was probably not even far enough if you
    were downwind from her...
    			Denis.

    Solanacees (re Denis - and early REP) are `solanaceae' - we just
    use the Latin. Not only the tomato and the potato, but also the
    Deadly Nightshade.
    
    b 
     

    OK, here's some stuff about the area of Spain now called Granada. 
    Amazing what you can learn in a few minutes snuggled up with your
    favorite encyclopedia . . . 
    
    The area is an agricultural area and it's been settled for forever
    (well, back into prehistoric times, anyway).  It used to be called
    Elibryge by the natives and Illiberis by the Romans.  Pomegranates
    are native to the area and were a primary export to the Romans.
    
    The Moors established a kingdom called Karnatta or Gharnata there
    in the 12th century; it lasted until 1492, as previously noted. 
    (The Moorish kingdom of Granada flourished on trade in cereal
    grains, pomegranates, almonds, and citrus fruits through the port
    of Malaga and apparently got along  peacefully with its neighbors
    for most or all that time; Ferdinand decided to conquer it because
    he couldn't stand the affront of having a non-Christian country in
    the middle of his world.)
    
    The Moorish Gharnata may mean "hill of strangers"; the exact
    meaning is in doubt but it doesn't appear to mean pomegranate,
    though again the Moors were very fond of pomegranates and the
    fruit, which travels well, formed a major part of their export. 
    
    The city, however, may be named "pomegranate" since the fruit
    appears on the city's coat of arms, and it may be a case of two
    words that sound the same deriving from different sources -- a not
    uncommon thing to happen.  
    
    In any case, the fruit was called "granada" before the city was,
    though the city itself existed long before that. 
    
    Granada also manufactures grenadine, liquer made from
    pomegranates.  That was also a popular export through the years.
    
    There.  Now, does anybody want to know about grama grasses?  They
    were on the same page . . . 
    
    --bonnie

    Re .19, .24: While reading some book about hellenistic economy this
    week-end, I just ran into another case of the use of apple as generic
    fruit name. BTW the French 'pomme' just comes from the Latin 'pomum'
    which only means a fruit in the generic meaning of the word, not
    specifically an apple. Same as 'mala persica' (Persian apple) is the
    origine of 'peach' ('mala' is the Latin form of the Greek 'mela'), the
    apricot (French 'abricot') comes from the Greek 'mela Armeniaka',
    through the Arabs, who made 'al barquq' from it. So an apricot is
    simply an Armenian apple, same as a peach is a Persian apple.
    			Denis.