# Why Acorns?



## Warm_in_NH (Feb 6, 2014)

Apple trees drop apples, beach trees drop beach nuts, pine trees drop pine cones, why don't oak trees drop oak nuts?
This has been bugging me for a while now. Anyone know why there's a disconnect here? Maybe back to Indian names?


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## splitoak (Feb 6, 2014)

Acorn is an oak nut......


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## bmblank (Feb 6, 2014)

The question is why don't we actually call it an oak nut.


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## Hogwildz (Feb 6, 2014)

They all drop what they bear. I am just glad I ain't dropping a nut or two.... ;-)


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## STIHLY DAN (Feb 6, 2014)

Why is pooping called taking a crap. Why is a toll rd called a freeway? Why is having exhaustive sex called sleeping with someone?


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## weatherguy (Feb 7, 2014)

Why is an asteroid called and asteroid and a hemorrhoid called a hemorrhoid? Shouldn't it be the other way around?


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## razerface (Feb 7, 2014)

Why do we drive on parkways, and park in driveways?


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## gregbesia (Feb 7, 2014)

Why is Richard -Dick, Robert -Bob


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## Jon1270 (Feb 7, 2014)

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.


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## Ehouse (Feb 7, 2014)

Does anyone know the collective noun for acorn?


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## Jon1270 (Feb 7, 2014)

Ehouse said:


> Does anyone know the collective noun for acorn?



Not me.  Is there one?


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## billb3 (Feb 7, 2014)

Ehouse said:


> Does anyone know the collective noun for acorn?


congress


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## blazincajun (Feb 7, 2014)

Jon1270 said:


> 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.


 

I think you aswered it. I've got to get to work before I post something that may degrade this thread further


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## ryjen (Feb 7, 2014)

billb3 said:


> congress



I thought that was an modern slang verb that means "To do nothing".


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## blazincajun (Feb 7, 2014)

Beech, chestnut, and oak are in the _Fagaceae_ family and are all nuts. However, in the beech and chestnut species the involucre completely covers the nut. In the oak species the involucre forms a cup and does not cover the nut. I guess the early population didn't know that the acorn was a nut - you would not be incorrect by calling the acorn an oak nut.


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## Warm_in_NH (Feb 7, 2014)

blazincajun said:


> Beech, chestnut, and oak are in the _Fagaceae_ family and are all nuts. However, in the beech and chestnut species the involucre completely covers the nut. In the oak species the involucre forms a cup and does not cover the nut. I guess the early population didn't know that the acorn was a nut - you would not be incorrect by calling the acorn an oak nut.



Lol. Thanks.  . However if I start randomly referring to them as oak nuts, while I may technically be correct. I will become the one who is referred to as the nut.


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## blazincajun (Feb 7, 2014)

Warm_in_NH said:


> I will become the one who is referred to as the nut.


 
Just don't let it keep bugging you


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## splitoak (Feb 7, 2014)

I believe the american indians ate the acorns....the red variety are very bitter while the white being more palateable...


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## Warm_in_NH (Feb 7, 2014)

My dog eats them. They're really bitter. He drools like no tomorrow when he chimps on them, spits it out a  half dozen times but ultimately finishes it and goes back for another. 
I tried em, not a fan. But I can whistle really loud using  an oak nut cap.


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## Smoke Stack (Feb 7, 2014)

Ehouse said:


> Does anyone know the collective noun for acorn?



I'm going to go out on a limb here, hopefully not a broken one. A mess of acorns? 

This is without looking anything up, but I think it fits.


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## MrWhoopee (Feb 7, 2014)

I like these games.

What's a flock of crows called?


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## tcassavaugh (Feb 7, 2014)

MrWhoopee said:


> I like these games.
> 
> What's a flock of crows called?


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


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## firefighterjake (Feb 7, 2014)

Goose . . . geese.

Moose . . . meese?


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## JustWood (Feb 7, 2014)

Me thinx winter has set in !


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## TreePointer (Feb 7, 2014)

If they were oak nuts, we wouldn't get to enjoy hearing old timers calling them "akerns."


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## BEConklin (Feb 7, 2014)

Jon1270 said:


> 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." ?


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## BEConklin (Feb 7, 2014)

tcassavaugh said:


> 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.


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## begreen (Feb 7, 2014)

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).


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## tcassavaugh (Feb 7, 2014)

BEConklin said:


> 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.


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## begreen (Feb 7, 2014)

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


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## Cynnergy (Feb 7, 2014)

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.


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## Ehouse (Feb 7, 2014)

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?"


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## BEConklin (Feb 7, 2014)

Ehouse said:


> 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


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## begreen (Feb 7, 2014)

a nutload of acorns.


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## Paulywalnut (Feb 9, 2014)

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


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## Warm_in_NH (Feb 9, 2014)

> 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.


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## firefighterjake (Feb 9, 2014)

Warm_in_NH said:


> 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.


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## Adios Pantalones (Feb 9, 2014)

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


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## Dune (Feb 9, 2014)

Paulywalnut said:


> 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?


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