Why Acorns?

[BEConklin]

Oh come on, it's not hard to go a little deeper into it. I love this kind of thing. According to an online etymological dictionary, there was an Old English word "æcern" that simply meant 'nut,' and there were similar words in other European languages meaning 'fruit' or 'fruits and vegetables,' and all of this was related to the Old English word 'æcer,' ancestor to our modern word 'acre,' because fruits and vegetables is what you get from acreage. It looks like a lot of these proto-"acorn" words were essentially equivalent to the word "produce" as we use it in the grocery store, and the meaning gradually narrowed to just mean "oak nuts," probably because these nuts were especially important as pig feed.

Cool! Thanks for that. I wonder if our word "corn" comes from the same root.

There are also some pretty funny word etymologies in the plant world. The taxonomic name of the walnut - Juglans - is one. From what I've read, it comes from two Latin words: Jupiter and glans - Jupiter being the chief Roman god - and glans being the tip of the male reproductive organ. I guess they thought that's what walnuts looked like, Jupiter's glans....and we can infer from that perhaps that either walnuts were quite a bit larger back then, or that Roman men were quite a bit smaller..

Another is the taxonomic and common name of the euonymous - that family of popular landscaping shrubs (pronounced yewONamuss). It comes from the Greek and means something like "nice name" . So I guess two botanists were trying to come up with a name for it and one said - "I like this shrub so let's be sure to give it a nice name." ?

 

[BEConklin]

isn't that a "murder" goodness knows why. I sure dont

I think we get a lot of these terms handed down to us over the centuries - but they probably began way back in Medieval times when some group of English monks got bored.

 

[begreen]

acorn (n.)
Old English æcern "nut," common Germanic (cf. Old Norse akarn, Dutch aker, Low German ecker "acorn," German Ecker, Gothic akran "fruit"), originally the mast of any forest tree, and ultimately related (via notion of "fruit of the open or unenclosed land") to Old English æcer "open land," Gothic akrs "field," Old French aigrun "fruits and vegetables" (from a Germanic source); see acre.

The sense gradually restricted in Low German, Scandinavian, and English to the most important of the forest produce for feeding swine, the mast of the oak tree. Spelling changed 15c.-16c. by folk etymology association with oak (Old English ac) and corn (n.1).

 

[tcassavaugh]

I think we get a lot of these terms handed down to us over the centuries - but they probably began way back in Medieval times when some group of English monks got bored.

 

[begreen]

Yep, Eck Kern or kernel of the oak (used to be pronounced eck)

 

[Cynnergy]

In DH's home county in the UK (Suffolk in East Anglia), the traditional term for any cereal crop is 'corn'. I kept on telling him that the wheat fields were NOT full of corn plants and it would always degenerate into a debate involving corn, sweetcorn and maize. It took about 4 years before a friend explained it to us.

 

[Ehouse]

The best thing about collective nouns is that they're in the local vernacular, even though some try to make standard lists, so anyone can make their own. If I had a tin roof I might say a ding of acorns, or a slump of acorns in a bumper year. I should have asked "can you think of a collective noun for acorn?"

 

[BEConklin]

The best thing about collective nouns is that they're in the local vernacular, even though some try to make standard lists, so anyone can make their own. If I had a tin roof I might say a ding of acorns, or a slump of acorns in a bumper year. I should have asked "can you think of a collective noun for acorn?"

Around my house there's a @#$#load of acorns

 

[begreen]

a nutload of acorns.

 

[Paulywalnut]

You all sound like a Jerry Seinfeld routine. Why isn't an Acorn called an Oak Nut.? That's what I want to know.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Around my house there's a @#$#load of acorns

Thats why we calm them acorns! When there's a lot of them they're like ball bearings on the ground and if you slip on the acorns and fall down its not a big deal. However, if you tell someone you slipped on your nuts and fell down people are going to look at you funny.

 

[firefighterjake]

Thats why we calm them acorns! When there's a lot of them they're like ball bearings on the ground and if you slip on the acorns and fall down its not a big deal. However, if you tell someone you slipped on your nuts and fell down people are going to look at you funny.

. . . or with a new found respect.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I've been pondering acorns on a couple of levels recently. Symbolism, food source for animal and person. I hope to harvest some for food this year. You can tell they are on my mind

 

[Dune]

You all sound like a Jerry Seinfeld routine. Why isn't an Acorn called an Oak Nut.? That's what I want to know.

Wait, I like this game. Why does cargo go in ships, and shipments in cars?