r/PetPeeves • u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 • 1d ago
Fairly Annoyed I cannot stand it whenever someone tries to correct me if I say that a tomato is a vegetable
For context: I'm currently in the process of getting my bachelor's degree in biology and even though my specialisation lies in molecular biology and not in botany, I still had to take countless botany courses within my first year. I know what botanical definitions are, I know what defines a fruit and I absolutely agree that a tomato is a fruit BOTANICALLY SPEAKING.
That being said, a tomato is classified as a vegetable in culinary terms. "Vegetable" isn't a term that is used in botany, it's exclusive to the culinary world and therefore calling ANYTHING a vegetable wouldn't technically follow the botanical definition of things. If one were to follow botanical terms only, one would have to refer to cucumbers as berries (and fruit as well), lettuce as leaves and carrots as roots. Yet, I do not see anyone actually doing that, it's only tomatoes that people seem to have an obsession with.
In the end it all just feels like a person trying to "Well actually" me, simply because they heard a fun fact some time ago and want to seem impressive. However all it really does is make me think that someone couldn't even take two minutes to google something and these statements rather have the opposite effect than intended.
So yeah, a tomato is a fruit, but that doesn't mean it's not a vegetable as well.
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u/foolishle 22h ago
It annoys me so much that it’s a “fun fact” that people only know about tomato and not… cucumber, squash, pumpkin, zucchini, avocado, peppers… a lot of vegetables are botanical fruit!! Tomato isn’t a special case!!
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u/Possible-Highway7898 21h ago
Exactly. So many of the vegetables we eat are also fruits. The seeds are a dead giveaway. It's funny to get hit by the "well, actually..." from someone who obviously hasn't thought about the topic for more than two seconds.
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u/AlternativePea6203 14h ago
Nah. Botanists hijacked several pre-existing words and used them to reclassify plants around their own ideas.
Berries, Nuts, Fruit. All had consistent meanings in normal speech. Then botanists came along and tried to say a nut wasn't a nut or a berry wasn't a berry because they changed the meaning.
They could have used some latin thing, but no they chose existing words and mangled the meaning. Botanists are just the worst.
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u/AuntAmrys 20h ago
And then there are mushrooms, which aren't even plants, and you hardly ever see tomato objectors object to calling mushrooms vegetables.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
That's exactly my point, like if you're gonna go with botanical terms you should be consistent with it.
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u/Particular_Cut_6933 1d ago
I’m a vegetable farmer have have the same peeve, because I sell tomatoes, eggplant, peas, beans, cucumbers etc…
Then people try to tell me that it’s actually a fruit and I’m like yes. I put an embryo in the soil then it grew into a plant and then this fruit grew from that plant. How could I not know that
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u/trianglesandwiches01 1d ago
Literally all of those are botanically fruit, as well as peppers, corn, squash, zucchini. Why was tomato the one singled out to get all pedantic about??
Same with peanuts actually. Botanically speaking, almonds, cashews, walnuts are also not true nuts. Hazelnuts is one of the few "true nuts" that we eat
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u/Particular_Cut_6933 20h ago
It’s because people only know the tomato fact and want to sound smart lol. That’s when I can throw back “yeah, isn’t it cool that tomatoes are berries?” and somehow no one seems to know that…
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Oh gosh I can't even imagine how many people that say stuff like that you must encounter that sounds super annoying. As I said I'm not a botanist, so I don't talk a lot about plants, but when I do there's always at least one person that will try and correct me.
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u/shortandpainful 1d ago
Same with turtles and tortoises, but worse somehow because both the science and the colloquial speech are against the people correcting you. In official American taxonomy, tortoises are a subset of turtles. So when you call a tortoise a turtle and someone corrects you, there was actually nothing wrong with what you said.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Luckily there isn't a distrinction between the two in my native language, so I haven't actually seen anyone trying to correct someone on that.
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u/Significant-Nebula64 21h ago
Yeah, same here, it took me years to even realise there's a difference! My native language calls them all turtles and then differentiates between "land turtles" and "water turtles", haha.
Also, monkeys and apes share the same name. I'm still slightly confused whether apes is a synonym for primates?
For us, they're all monkeys and then there's a subset called either primates or "human monkeys", hahaha.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
Does you native language happen to be German? Because we also have the Term "Human monkeys" in my native language (which happens to be German hahah). Don't know if the same term is used in other languages as well though.
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u/Erikavpommern 16h ago edited 16h ago
Swedish also have human monkeys ("människoapor").
Also, bothe turtles and tortoises are "shield-toads" here ("sköldpadda").
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u/terryjuicelawson 23h ago
I don't know why tomatoes seem to be the focus too. A lot of things are fruits. Pumpkins, cucumbers, olives, avocados, aubergines, even chillis. It is such a smug "ackshally".
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
I agree, tomatoes are absolutely being singled out here, while the rest still are called vegetables by most people, which makes the whole thing incredibly inconsistent.
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u/Possible-Highway7898 21h ago
Exactly. So many of the vegetables we eat are also fruits. The seeds are a dead giveaway. It's funny to get hit by the "well, actually..." from someone who obviously hasn't thought about the topic for more than two seconds.
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u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago
Did you post this exact reply under two different comments? Or are you… ya know 🤖?
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u/Possible-Highway7898 14h ago
Guilty as charged on the double post. Not a bot. Just hedging my bets on which comment would be more upvoted, since they were both making the same point, which I agree with.
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u/AlternativePea6203 14h ago
No, words have more than one meaning. Botanical, and casual/culinary. Botanists can feck off with their "Well, acshually..."
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u/SarkyMs 19h ago
In the UK because tomato was the example used on QI.
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u/terryjuicelawson 19h ago
It has been the one go-to example as long as I can remember my whole life, probably why it appeared on QI as the point of the show is righting popular misconceptions.
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u/nothanks86 1d ago
I will happily eat a tomato like an apple, though, if that counts for anything. /j
My kid is in a 'did you know' phase and this has come up a few times. I always respond that it's both, and we talk about botanical vs culinary definitions, and that culinary is cultural defines fruits as sweet and vegetables as not sweet.
So if you want, you could always well actually them back when people try that, and one-up the education.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
I'm happy to see that you guys talk about these thing, education is incredibly important and talking about context, nuance and different definitions is awesome!
I do usually retort with the fact that tomatoes are both and leave it at that, even though a lot of people still tried to argue with me lol
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u/Brave_Speaker_8336 1d ago
it’s r/iamverysmart type people
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Indeed it seems to be that way. I understand wanting to share a cool fun fact, but the way it's generally done in this matter really comes of as the person simply trying to be a smartass and it really just grinds my gears.
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u/PriorSecurity9784 19h ago
Put it back on them and say “oh, give me an example of a vegetable” and then say
“No, asparagus is a stem” or
“No, potatoes and carrots are a root” or whatever part of the plant they refer to
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u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago
I’ve done this. They just accused me of making things up, refused to look up the information, and then called me dumb for not knowing what a vegetable was lol.
They also tried to run me over with their car but I think that was more on them having insane anger issues, which I had apparently triggered with our little discussion.
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u/Bright_Ices 21h ago
Someone tried to tell me the other day that mushrooms aren’t vegetables, because they are not plants.
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u/phytomanic 15h ago
Many culinary vegetables are botanical fruits - eggplants, peppers, green beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatillos, sweetcorn, and more.
Now someone is going to chime in with "well actually, sweetcorn is a grain" not realizing in their botanical semi-literacy that every grain is a fruit, so an ear of corn is an aggregate fruit much like a blackberry.
Anyone trying to reconcile botanical definitions and culinary uses needs a corncob stuck in every orifice.
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u/NthDgree 15h ago
💯 correct. Years ago, I really wanted to find out what the difference was between a fruit and a vegetable and discovered that “vegetable”was purely a culinary term and it changed my perspective on these classifications.
Botanical fruit, culinary vegetable.
Mushrooms are biological fungi, culinary vegetables.
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u/Warm_Strawberry_4575 1d ago
Recently I have learned how messed up our understanding is of the plant world. Sadly you will just get called pretentious and they will move on and double down on the stupidity or at the very least never change just in spite. People are stubborn as hell.
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u/NurseDave8 13h ago
For some reason there are "facts" that people seem to find interesting and feel when they learn them it's something new and most people have never heard it. Then they stay in that state for decades with people thinking they are "informing" others when they are actually late to the game.
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u/PseudoFrequency 1d ago
I agree. No one ever says this about peppers, squash, or cucumbers, but the same thing applies. They're both.
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u/purpleoctopuppy 1d ago
Yeah, the false dichotomy annoys me – 'fruit' and 'vegetable' aren't mutually exclusive groups. It's like saying the big red balloon can't be big because it's actually red.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
I honestly would really like to know why tomato seems to be the only one people are so focussed on.
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u/Prestigious-Day385 1d ago
I think it has something to do with this case: Nix v. Hedden - Wikipedia
It became popular in trivias, something alongside: "Did you know that tomato was a fruit, but they changed it to vegetable, so they can tax import of it?" Which isnt true, it was just one guy trying to avoid paying taxes, but general population allready knew tomatoes as a vegetable. But this is normal for trivia, that they missinterpret something in order to be more interesting.
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u/OpportunityReal2767 1d ago
I’ve wondered this myself for decades now. It’s rare for me to be “corrected” on it, but if someone does, I just mention the myriad vegetables that are also fruits and be done with it.
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u/AnyEverywhere8 1d ago edited 18h ago
It’s because their fleshiness is more reminiscent of traditional culinary fruit than any of those other options. So the gray area comes to mind quicker.
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u/Greghole 1d ago
All this time I thought tomatoes were rocks.
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u/Daniel_Spidey 1d ago
I am not going to quote Attack of the Killer Tomatoes because no one will know the reference
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u/lainmelle 14h ago
Here's how you approach this.
Are we eating/talking about eating/discussing what to cook? Then it's a veggie.
Are we discussing it's biology/if we want to plant it? It's a fruiting body.
Bam. You've now successfully navigated both correct usages for the terms.
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u/Grinkledunk 1d ago
Strength is being able to crush a tomato. Dexterity is being able to dodge a tomato. Constitution is being able to eat a bad tomato. Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. Charisma is being able to sell a tomato based fruit salad.
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u/beamerpook 1d ago
Lately I keep seeing "banana is a berry, but a strawberry is not". I'm not going to put up a fight about it, though, because it's technically correct, which is the best kind of correct! 😂
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
The one thing I do find very funny about this is that most people who say these things would not be able to define the botanical term "berry"
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u/Daniel_Spidey 1d ago
I am a botanist who focused on wild plants so much that I am completely thrown astray by cultivars on an almost daily basis. Roses don't look like roses, carnations dont look like carnations, and wtf is a ginkgo and why is the sidewalk covered in smelly fruit?
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u/miniatureconlangs 22h ago
IMHO, this 'technically correct' notion relies on the linguistically speaking technically incorrect idea that words only mean one thing.
'Berry' can technically have both the meaning that botanists use it for, and the meaning that everyone else uses it for.
Technically, every element heavier than helium is a metal. If the field we're in is cosmology. Technically, only certain elements are metals. If we're doing metallurgy or chemistry.
The botanist's definition is only correct in the botanist's field of expertise. When regular non-botanists speak of berries, they shouldn't need to care about a later, specialized term that has been introduced only for the needs that a particular group of experts have.
And if we needed to care about specialists' jargon, which specialists' jargon gets precedence? Cosmologists?
The idea that only the specialist notion is correct is mistaken, and further perverts the function and history of language - 'berry' has meant what almost everyone means by that word for centuries, even millennia. Giving a few people who no one elected the right to suddenly impose a special definition of us is just a weird kind of linguistic bootlicking.
For a really bizarre example: at one time, only phaseolus were considered 'true' beans. Phaseolus are native to the Americas. In Europe, we've had other beans for millennia, to the point where the word 'bean' itself predates the columbian exchange by at least 4000 years. Were our ancestors wrong to call their beans "beans" because "bean" only means the plants from the Americas?
What's worse that through sound changes, bean comes from a Proto-Indo-European word which among its descendant word forms also finds the Latin 'fava'. Thus, by this terminological rule, the literal bean bean isn't an actual bean, just some other type of legume.
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u/Daniel_Spidey 1d ago
I have rarely found 'technically correct' to be the best kind of correct.
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u/beamerpook 1d ago
It's a reference to an animated show called Futurama, and it's funny 😊
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u/Daniel_Spidey 1d ago
I agree and I know, but also it bugs me because ive spoken to people who think its true
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u/Kallax321 1d ago
This is one of my pet peeves: the word berry has existed in English for centuries to refer to small, sweet fruits. Then biologists come along and take a word that already exists and give it a very specific meaning excluding most of the things that are called by that word. Same with beetle, bug, cobra etc
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u/miniatureconlangs 22h ago
People should understand that technically, specialist definitions only apply in technically restricted contexts.
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u/ChartInFurch 1d ago
I find this interesting because I tend to display fake berry flavor in general as well as fake banana and watermelon. Finding out those are also technically berries was interesting, and that strawberries aren't bc that's one I can do lol
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u/ChocolateCake16 23h ago edited 20h ago
Idk what the actual criteria is but my way of determining if something is a culinary vegetable or a culinary fruit is to ask the question: if I said I was making a [fruit/vegetable in question] based dish, would most people assume it's dessert or dinner?
Lettuce -> Salad -> dinner -> lettuce is a vegetable
Apples -> pie -> dessert -> fruit
Tomato -> tomato sauce -> dinner -> vegetable
Banana -> banana cream pie -> dessert -> fruit
It works for most things. There's some overlap in certain dishes (like lemon juice being good for adding acidity to dinner dishes), but if someone was making a lemon-based dish, most would probably still assume something like lemon loaf or lemon meringue pie, which are both desserts.
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u/CharZero 10h ago
This is a gigantic pet peeve for me as well, and no matter how hard you try to explain, many won't get it. Tomato is a vegetable that is a fruit. Mushrooms are a vegetable that is a fungus (this REALLY gets people hopped up). Cucumbers, eggplants, squash, and green beans are all fruits that are vegetables. I think the people who want to argue about this do not understand botany, mycology, or have ever been a chef.
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u/SoilDependent1054 10h ago
Ask them to name a vegetable. Then destroy. Broccoli is a flower, zucchini is a berry etc.
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u/JustATyson 1d ago
I agree with this! It's people not understanding nuance or the fact that there can be multiple definition of things! It's trying to sound smart, while revealing one's ignorance.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Couldn't agree more! It's almost entertaining at times, but the frequency at which it happens and the absolute refusal of some people to appreciate nuance just drives me crazy a bit.
In the end it's not a serious thing, this is only a pet peeve after all, but still quite annoying to deal with.
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u/JustATyson 1d ago
It's not a serious thing, but it still gets annoying when someone just tries to do a "well actually," and just be wrong because they are the ones who don't understand.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Absolutely, I'm just surprised that it seems to be something that a lot of people love to correct one on.
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u/Street-Frame1575 22h ago
TIL fruits can be vegetables
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
One never stops learning! I suppose so that's at least some good that has come out of this
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u/Certain_Bit3809 11h ago
Ive heard people refer to lettuce and other leaves as “leafy vegetable” to distinguish them from other types of ive also heard of carrots beling to the family of root vegetables.
That said, I agree we can call tomatos vegetables if they want since culinary use is more similar to other vegetables.
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u/re_nonsequiturs 1d ago
It's so cute they think "vegetable" has a scientific meaning
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 23h ago
I feel like a lot of people simply don't take the time to learn the difference between culinary and botanical/scientific terms and therefore won't even know that "vegetable" isn't a term that used in botany.
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u/re_nonsequiturs 17h ago
They also probably think a zucchini, pumpkins, bell peppers, etc etc aren't fruits
(For my daughter any bell pepper besides green ones are fruits in both the botanical and culinary sense, she hates sweet in her savory foods)
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u/Jud1a 21h ago
I call tomato a fruit, not because I am pedantic, but because I eat it the way I eat fruits
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
That's fine, a tomato is a fruit in botanical terms, but it's simply wrong to correct someone who calls it a vegetable, because it is both, depending on the context.
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u/Grouchy-Adagio-8562 16h ago edited 15h ago
So you can admit there are culinary definitions, yet demand that others conform to your perspective?
^ this type of shite is my pet peeve.
Edit: I guess I misunderstood. OP is fine with both classifications, but doesnt like when people say it’s not a fruit. That’s completely understandable as I just went through the reverse in my own world lol.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 16h ago
Nope, I'm just saying that it's both a fruit and a vegetable and correcting someone by saying "Well actually, it's not a vegetable, it's a fruit" is a wrong statement BECAUSE it is both.
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u/Grouchy-Adagio-8562 15h ago
Heard. I misunderstood. It sounded like you completely dismiss the classification of ‘vegetable’ for tomatoes.
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u/AlgaeSpirited2966 14h ago
Its not a culinary vegetable. Its a culinary tomato. They're used differently.
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u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago
No? He’s saying it’s both, so someone saying “Nuh uh! It’s actually this thing not that thing!” Is being intentionally pedantic while being factually wrong. Which is annoying, especially is they act like it’s some kind of “gotcha”.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 14h ago
*She, but yes absolutely, that was exactly the thing I was trying to say!
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u/Tokeahontis 1d ago
I'm gonna ask Ricky Berwick to dress up as a tomato for Halloween to prove it's possible to be a fruit and a vegetable at the same time.
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u/PassionNegative7617 1d ago
I'm beyond confused at "had to take countless botany courses within my first year". How many? I have a biology degree. I took one.
How many classes do you take a semester? More than six? How many of them are botany?
What school is this? Where undergrad students specialize in molecular biology but take countless botany, and ostensibly other specialized biology, courses?
Left me with far more questions than answers. I don't care about the tomato at all anymore.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Hahahh I get that it's a bit confusing, so here's some answers that will hopefully clear things up:
Within my first year I took around 3 courses focussed on botany, with one of them being a REALLY expensive course. Now obviously that does not make me a botanist whatsoever, however it did leave me with quite some knowledge on botany that extends the general education you would receive on it in high school.
The amount of classes varies greatly between semesters, right now I'm taking 12, last semester it was 10. I don't do botany anymore, as we only are required to do courses in all available subfields of biology in our first year (the subfields include: anthropology, botany, mikrobiology and genetics, molecular biology, ecology, zoology and paleontology)
I attend a university that isn't in the US, I doubt you will have heard of it, though it is the largest in my country. Our bachelor's in biology is one of the only ones that lets you specialise quite early (starting from your third semester onwards)
Hope this helps!
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u/Beginning-Damage-555 1d ago
This sounds like a really strange set of decisions. You’re currently in 12 classes or taking 12 units?
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago edited 21h ago
I don't know what "unit" would be, as we don't really call different classes that in my country.
Instead, we have something that is called the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Essentially, you'll get different anounts of "credit" for different lectures, technically depending on how much effort they are (however the amount of ECTS you get for a course rarely matches the effort you put in). If you want to finish your bachelor's in the time frame that is technically expected of you (6 semesters or 3 years), you'll have to take at least 30 ECTS a semester. Most classes are worth around 2-5 ECTS, so one ends up taking between 7 and 15 classes.
My last semester I took classes worth 31 ECTS, this semester it's a bit more, which places me in a total of 12 different classes with 13 different towards the end of the semester, so not that strange at all, just different from the American system (or other systems) I believe.
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u/Significant_Earth759 1d ago
Yeah just say, "I know, it's both." I can't figure out how that whole dumb little gotcha started. Makes no sense.
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u/endual 21h ago edited 21h ago
Isn't every fruit also a vegetable? I thought vegetable just meant it was edible plant matter?
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
Depends on how tight of a definition is used, but that is a valid definition, yes.
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u/cwmaxson 1d ago
You are totally correct.
I have a PhD in the biological sciences. I also grow all my own food. I share this pet peeve with you. Vegetable is not on the same categorical level as fruit, and therefore a fruit can be a vegetable. There is actual overlap there.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 1d ago
Absolutely, couldn't agree more, thank you for elaborating further on the points I made!
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 1d ago
Its a stupid thing to correct to, because if you accept that vegetable has a botanical meaning, all fruits are vegetables
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u/OriginalEmploy5485 17h ago
You said yourself, there's no such thing as vegetables. What do chefs know about botany? 🤣
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u/n3m0sum 16h ago
You said yourself, there's no such thing as vegetables. What do chefs know about botany? 🤣
Did you read the post, or did you just get to the part where you thought you had a sick burn and charge ahead?
Vegetable is not a botanical definition, it has never claimed to be, and it doesn't need to be.
It is a culinary definition, based on how food is used in cooking and baking. It is very useful to chefs, and in the context of cuisine. Vegetable defines plants that are overwhelmingly used in savory dishes.
Try putting tomatoes in fruit salad, and see how popular you are. Or serving some kids tomato and ice-cream for desert?
Perhaps serving some chocolate covered tomatoes for valentine's?
Insisting that tomatoes are fruit, when it comes to food. Is a particularly unhelpful aCkcHyuAllY You're not half as funny as you think you are.
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u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago
Anyone who uses the “🤣” emoji thinks they’re far funnier and far more clever than they actually are. 90% of the time they’re the most annoying, intentionally obtuse and insufferable people you’ll ever have the displeasure of conversing with.
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u/thirdstoneviolet 15h ago
Ok i think chocolate covered tomatoes might work though
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u/n3m0sum 15h ago
On a valentine's menu?
You'd have to be with someone both culinarily adventurous, and forgiving.
You'd also have to be very very selective with the tomatoes.
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u/GuKoBoat 15h ago
What's more sexy than a choc coverd tomatoe squirting tomato juice and seeds on you, when you take a sensual bite?
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u/AbbreviationsTop4959 14h ago
I would be willing to try a drizzle of dark chocolate balsamic over a caprese, but i don't want a chocolate dipped tomato. I'll slap whoever does that to me.
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u/TelephoneNo4224 15h ago
Tomatoes and chocolate is actually amazing, but chocolate and most things turn out alright 🤷♀️
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 17h ago
They don't, but that's also not their job. Different definitions serve different purposes and in the culinary world, the term vegetable does have a usecase. I doubt anyone here knows the exact botanical categorisations for all the things they eat and I think that that's more than fine, but if one insists on using the botanical definition for tomatoes, one should also do so for everything else.
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u/KittensPumpkinPatch 1d ago
Same thing with mushrooms. "It's not a vegetable, it's a fungus!" In culinary terms, yes, it's a vegetable and will be treated as such.
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u/Parking_Cress_5105 22h ago
In my language the "tomato is a fruit" doesn't even make sense and people still repeat it. You use tomatos in the kitchen and there it simply belongs with vegetables not in a fcking birthday cake.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
Yeah same here. I suppose it semi makes sense, but not really, but people still love repeating it.
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u/Parking_Cress_5105 21h ago edited 21h ago
In my language we have "ovoce" which is a fruit as a culinary term and "plod" which is fruit in the botanical sense. And people say tomato is "ovoce". It's a nonsense mistranslated into bigger nonsense based in the fruit/fruit thing in English.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 21h ago
Do you happen to be Czech? We have a similar term for fruit in culinary terms in Polish (Owoce)
In German, we call culinary fruits "Obst" and botanical fruits "Frucht/Früchte", so doesn't really make sense either. I suppose you can all anything that belongs to the category of "Obst" a "Frucht", but calling a tomato "Obst" is simply wrong.
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u/Cheese-positive 1d ago
I hate to correct you, but I think tomatoes are a fruit, not a vegetable.
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u/inredditorbit 1d ago
What I hear most often is, “Well you know… technically tomatoes are a fruit and apples are a vegetable.”
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u/ARepeatedFailing 1d ago
What degree requires botany? I didn't have to take botany for my Biology degree thank fuck. Anyway, just here to throw a comment into the void since you obviously have more knowledge than I do lol.
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u/Significant-Nebula64 21h ago
A lot of biology degrees do! Even my biochemistry undergrad required a botany crash course, pretty sure the actual biologists had to do the full thing.
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u/Shadow_of_Moonlight1 23h ago
Well I'm officially doing general biology, so we were required to obtail knowledge on various subfields (including anthropology, botany, ecology, microbiology, molecular biology, paleontology and zoology) within out first year of university in addition to other general courses (statistics, physics, ethics, chemistry and the like). I'm further along now, so don't really take any botany classes anymore and instead get to specialise in one of the 7 subfields I listed (in my case that happens to be molecular biology).
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u/ARepeatedFailing 6h ago
Wow. I did my general ed courses my first 2 years then bio courses. I took Microbio, Molecular bio, ecology and genetics. I can't remember what else. It was nearly 8+ years ago at this point. Good to know!
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u/WirrkopfP 23h ago
It helps showing people a Venn diagram with lettuce, cabbage, carrots etc. at one side, apples, pears, grapes etc. on the other side and tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini etc in the middle.
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u/Appropriate_Steak486 19h ago
It’s all about the operational definition.
Give one and you win. Don’t and you don’t.
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u/greenamaranthine 16h ago
The wild thing is that "vegetable" is in fact an archaic botanical term... and botanically, a tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable. "Vegetable" just means "plant."
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u/RobertTheTraveler 15h ago
I regularly see references to roots/ tubers including references to carrots. To me this is so widely known that it is most likely a joking picayune comment. Pet peeves are personal, I'm not trying to tell you not to be peeved. I never cared enough, but in response to this I guessed, looked it up, and I was right.
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u/Warm-Negotiation-816 11h ago
That's cool and I agree to an extent. But I do consider tomato to be functionally a fruit. Like, it's sweet, juicy, bursts in the mouth.
"Vegetable" seems an ill defined category
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 10h ago
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it doesn't go in a fruit salad.
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u/originalcinner 9h ago
I have a T shirt that says "I am an adult in the same way that a tomato is a fruit"
One person so far has said, "I don't get it" but everyone else seems to love it. I've had loads of "haha that is funny" comments.
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u/Priority-Reasonable 8h ago
People doing this reminds me of me when I was like 5 years old and first learned this fun fact, and would go around saying it any chance I got so people would tell me I was smart. It's pretty much common knowledge, I think people just want an excuse to be pedantic
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u/Independent_Secret_8 7h ago
You need to have the line ready about Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a smoothie (or fruit salad or whatever).
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u/Informal-Alps-2437 7h ago
Its a fruit. Its seeds are on the inside. But it is a culinary Veggie. Same goes with Peppers, Cucumbers, squash.
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u/Slight-Living-8098 3h ago
Knowledge is knowing the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put the tomato in a fruit salad.
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u/mcculloughpatr 1d ago
Finally a pet peeve I can get on board with!
“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing to not put it in a fruit salad”