• Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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    14 hours ago

    There was a meme recently about Columbus naming everything they found “pepper”. I suspect it’s a result of language at the time.

    Since English has borrowed heavily over the centuries, we now have multiple words for these different things as words for the same thing come in from other languages.

    German seems to build compound words for things.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      German seems to build compound words for things.

      Well, not in this case:

      Black pepper = Pfeffer
      Bell pepper = Paprika
      Chili pepper = Chili (although you do rarely also see the compound word “Chilischoten”)