Today’s Random Thought

Why are eggplants called eggplants?
I don’t want to hear that tired old excuse, “Oh, they’re called eggplants because they look like eggs! Tee-Hee!”
Puh – Leeze,
Have you EVER seen an egg that looks like that? If so, that would be the weirdest lookin’ egg that ever existed! I suppose I could accept that explanation if they’d been so named because they looked like Pterodactyl eggs, or Dodo eggs. There’s no way to prove that one way or the other. But no. We are just supposed to accept the fact that “They look like eggs.” No, no they don’t. Why didn’t they call the Zucchini “Eggplant”? Zucchini look as much like an egg as an eggplant does. Eggplants are not small oval spheres, they are large elongated purple fruits that look more like a cross between a squash and Barney the dinosaur. Maybe they look like Barney eggs? Wait, Barney is a boy. Never mind…


15 Minutes Later…


After doing a little research I have found the answer The eggplant’s actual name was the Aubergine, a word which refers to the color purple. Apparently it is only called eggplant in English speaking countries because there is a variety that is white or yellow and the person who coined the name thought it looked like an egg.
This is slightly more understandable. The poor soul who renamed the Aubergine must have been a blind hermit who couldn’t afford a good vision plan or even a pair of reading glasses. The poor man must also make the same mistake when he sees baseballs and tennis balls, as they are round and egg colored as well.
Well, that’s all I have to say on that topic. I don’t think that people are going to easily accept the name Aubergine, so I guess we’re all stuck using a ridiculous misnomer.

“But then why is it called the Incredibly Deadly Viper?”
Uncle Monty laughed again. “It’s a misnomer,” he said, using a word which here means “a very wrong name.”