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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: tuna fish (and kiwi fruit)
Message-ID: <310@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 02:35:48 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.310
Posted: Tue Apr 23 02:35:48 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 07:48:07 EST
References: <2550@drutx.UUCP> <395@ihu1m.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 43

> A more modern Greenlandism is "kiwi fruit".  Can a New Zealander
> out there tell us what you really call the thing?

The "Sunset New Western Garden Book" lists "yangtao" and "Chinese gooseberry"
as alternates to "kiwi".  It says that the plant is native to east Asia.
Webster's 2nd says that "yangtao" comes from Chinese words that literally
mean "sheep peach".  The definition gives the botanical name as "Actinidia
chinensis," which agrees with Sunset, but Webster's makes no reference to the
fruit, saying only that the plant is "often cultivated for its nearly
orbicular leaves, which are white-wooly beneath, and yellowish-white flowers."

Webster's defines "Chinese gooseberry" as "the carambola," which is a fruit
entirely unrelated to the kiwi fruit, and which doesn't even look like a
berry.  The carambola is also known as "star fruit," because in cross-section
it looks like a five-pointed star.  The thing looks so unlike a berry of any
kind that it makes me wonder whether Webster's 2nd is wrong on this
definition.  If it was correct at the time it was written, then the meaning
of "Chinese gooseberry" must have changed since it was published.

Webster's gives no definition of "kiwi fruit."

Finally, we have "The Greengrocer" by Joe Carcione.  Joe Carcione is a local
produce man who appears on television to give tips on buying groceries.
He wrote "The Greengrocer" in 1976, just when kiwis were becoming known in
the U.S.  He says:

"How do you go about marketing a completely new fruit to the American public?
Especially one that's a real ugly duckling as far as looks go?  That was the
problem New Zealand businessmen faced with the fruit the called the Chinese
gooseberry.

"They decided a new and provocative name might do the trick and they settled
on Kiwi, after the New Zealand national bird.  I don't know how smart this
was because it always makes me think of a brand of shoe polish.  But that's
the name they're sold by in the United States, although the fruit has also
been called monkey peach, sheep peach, yang tao, and Ichang gooseberry.
None of these names do this delicious and exotic fruit justice to my mind."
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

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