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What's the most petty/pointless/pedantic hill you're willing to die on? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 months ago by notnotmike@programming.dev to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

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[-] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I've usually heard that framed the other way around, but, yes, that sort of argument is also easily solved by this test.

I'll recklessly posit that most "is x a y?" arguments can be addressed with this methodology, noting the exception of the fruit and vegetable ones, since the answer is simply a little more complicated, e.g. a tomato is botanically a fruit and culinarily a vegetable. The word fruit and vegetables have similar but functionally different meanings in botany and cuisine terminology, which explains the distinction.

[-] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I'd like to argue the fruit/vegetables dilemma is just arbitrary nonsense. All fruits come from vegetation, they're as much vegetable as the stim, leaves, or flowers. The only reason we separate them is because some idiot got too carried away with taxonamy.

[-] dudinax@programming.dev 11 points 3 months ago

The correct definition of vegetable is "a part of a plant that kids won't eat"

[-] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago

I'm far more involved with the culinary school of thought than the botanical one, so I think the distinction is far more functional there.

Vegetables cook differently and largely taste differently than fruits. You can swap most fruits for one another in a recipe and swap most vegetables for one another, but swapping fruit for a vegetable can change it drastically.

Noted exceptions, "vegetable" seems to include both fleshy vegetables such as potatoes and zucchini but also leafy greens, which aren't so easily swapped in recipes. Also, tomatoes can sometimes be swapped for fruits with surprising results, even in traditionally savory dishes.

this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024

472 points (98.2% liked)

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