Complex Numbers

Tangerine

I picked up a couple of tangerines, today.

I've been eating those little bastards since I was a kid, but I never knew much about them. So I checked the internet, of course.

Skipping Wikipedia, I went to sources.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/mandarin_orange.html

In 1965, the 'Dancy' tangerine was found to contain more of the decongestant synephrine than any other citrus fruit-97-152 mg/liter, plus 80 mg/100 g ascorbic acid.

Fascinating.

Yes, the article is about mandarin oranges. Turns out they're the same thing! Tangerines are varieties of mandarin orange.

http://mountainmandarins.com/documents/10Oct2005-MMGA.pdf

Leaving aside the questionable veracity of any document produced by someone named Fake, this is still pretty cool.

However, to quote one citrus expert, Lance Walheim, “The name tangerine has no botanical standing; rather it appears to have developed as a marketing term for bright colored (reddish-orange) varieties of common mandarin, such as Dancy”.

So... a tangerine isn't a tangerine. All my life, I'd been told it was a tangerine. My mother told me it was a tangerine. The store display today called them tangerines.

But wait! There's more!

Properly speaking, they are not mandarin oranges, but simply mandarins. However, since many Americans’ only acquaintance with mandarins is from a can labeled “mandarin oranges”, it may be helpful to call them mandarin oranges, even if it is not technically correct. Interestingly, DNA technology has revealed that the common or sweet orange is probably a hybrid of a pummelo, a large, thick-skinned citrus, and a mandarin. So, even your orange is part mandarin!

My orange is part mandarin?! Well... at least I can find words that rhyme with "mandarin." "Hand 'em in." "Random win." That sort of thing. Not so, orange.

So I started to wonder: which came first, orange or the orange? In other words, was the fruit named after the color - or was the color named after the fruit?

http://m-w.com/dictionary/orange

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French orrange, araunge, from Old Occitan auranja, from Arabic nāranj, from Persian nārang, from Sanskrit nāraṅga orange tree

Okay, so in Sanskrit, the orange tree was the root word for "orange." That tells me that, most likely, the color was named after the fruit. It still doesn't explain why the word has no rhymes, but I think I'll let that mystery sit for a while.

Just remember, though, next time you peel a juicy, succulent tangerine and pop its tart little sections into your mouth - you're actually eating a mandarin.