Talk:forest fruits

Deletion discussion

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This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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forest fruits

SOP. Definition 2 of fruit, before anyone says it’s impossible to know that they are edible. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

But how will the readers know that it doesn't refer to homosexual or effeminate men dwelling in the royal hunting grounds? Delete. --WikiTiki89 19:24, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

At least over here, forest fruits refers to specific fruitved=0CFwQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepages like berries and not just any fruit growing in a forest. keep. -- Liliana • 19:25, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That's because berries happen to be the kinds of fruit that grow in forests. --WikiTiki89 19:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

They can also grow outside of a forest though. And of course, fruits that you wouldn't call forest fruits can grow in a forest, like apples. -- Liliana • 19:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not about what can grow in a forest; it's about what typically does. Anyway if this is kept, it should be moved to the singular. --WikiTiki89 19:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I must say I didn't know this expression was ever used in English. I've heard Waldfrüchte here in Germany often enough to mean mixed berries, but growing up in the States I don't remember ever hearing "forest fruits". The German word at least is practically a plurale tantum, but I'm not familiar enough with the English word to make that call. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

In British English, you come across it as a flavour of yoghurt and of squash (as in the drink), though it's normally "fruit(s) of the forest". The easiest version to attest though is "fruits of the forest pie", which seems to usually be made of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and apples (some recipes also use rhubarb - not technically a biological fruit, but a culinary fruit as listed under sense 2 at fruit). It doesn't look like there's a fixed recipe though, which doesn't help in proving it means anything other than "fruits that come from a forest". On the other hand, quite a few languages have cognates - Italian has frutti di bosco, Portuguese has frutos silvestres and Dutch has bosvrucht. Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Do we know that this term is not attestably used to refer to inedible fruit? Do any of the putative restrictions on the meaning have any empirical support?

Also, almost all fruit of any kind is edible by something, if only by fungi with the assistance of sun, water, oxygen, and the passage of time. — This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs).

I don't think edibility makes a difference really (although "toxic forest fruits" and "forest fruits are poisonous" get Google hits). Sense 2 at fruit is "Any sweet, edible part of a plant..." and that would cover everything that's come up in this discussion so far (including rhubarb, which is not a true fruit). Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep, I would absolutely consider this idiomatic. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Probable keep - but should be an alternative form of fruits of the forest SemperBlotto (talk) 08:03, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's fruits of the forest, forest fruits at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:10, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Changing my vote to keep, but move to the singular. Also, see fruits of the forest,forest fruits,fruit of the forest,forest fruit at the Google Books Ngram Viewer., showing that even though the singular may not be quite as common, it still makes up a good percentage of the uses. --WikiTiki89 12:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep, per SemperBlotto et al. Leasnam (talk) 01:33, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Kept. Any moving of the lemma is outside the scope of RfD. bd2412 T 02:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)