• Tak@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    In english generally we see liquids to be the same as fluids but technically liquids are a state and fluids are matter that flows. Similarly we will see accuracy and precision as the same thing but accuracy is within a range where precision is exact.

    As an example: Strawberries and raspberries aren’t even berries but pumpkins are botanically speaking. I would be accurate to regard strawberries and raspberries as berries as we use them as berries but I would not be precise.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      1 year ago

      Strawberries and raspberries aren’t even berries but pumpkins are botanically speaking.

      The first time I read this, I thought you were saying that strawberries and raspberries are pumpkins. I was very confused.

    • ziggurat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Names not fitting botanical definitions are due to the names being given before we (people) knew what we were talking about. DNA kind of came and shook things up, well even before that but what ever.

      Also pineapples are neither apples nor grow on pine trees. And in many European languages the word for orange mean apple from China. Example appelsin, where sin in this case comes frome Sina or China

      • Tak@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        They’re not berries because of DNA advancements but because they’re from a single flower with more than one ovary. This is stuff we’ve known for far longer than DNA but generally people were… well… illiterate and the language operates on what you’re exposed to. Hell, even today people will call something a “digital” copy to talk about it being virtual but DVDs, CDs, and BluRays are all digital copies as they are all written digitally. But people are generally not concerned with this, they only care what was meant. If at a hospital someone starts yelling to get someone fluids and you show up with some compressed air, you’ll be seen as an asshole.

        Hell, bananas and avocados are technically berries.

    • FightMilk@discuss.online
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      1 year ago

      It depends on context, and I think most people realize this intuitively. If you put pumpkin in somebody’s berry smoothie they’re going to be pissed no matter what the scientific community says lol. It’s the kind of thing that only matters for trivia.

      And honestly science appropriated the term from common parlance, not the other way around. So a layperson could just as easily walk into a botany lab and say “fun fact, these actually are berries” and be completely correct.