In ,
Betty Lee typed:

Ken Blake wrote:

+ A fruit is the part of the plant that carries the seeds. From
a
+ culinary standpoint, we think of a fruit as being something
+ edible, but many fruits aren't edible, so are therefore not
+ vegetables. For example, the dandelion head that goes flying
in
+ the air on a breath of wind is a fruit, but certainly not a
+ vegetable.

Do I need a new dictionary? This one says that "vegetable" can
simply
mean a member of kingdom Plantae. So, that dandelion head
still
technically qualifies as a vegetable as far as this dictionary
goes
(which agrees what my AP Bio teacher in high school said), even
though
the common usage of "vegetable" implies that it's edible.
Technically, vegetables aren't required to be edible.


Well, the problem is that dictionaries are history
books--histories of words--and like most historians, those who
write dictionaries often disagree. I don't know what dictionary
you quoted from, but here's the definition in the Random House
Dictionary (a widely used, well respected one): "any herbaceous
plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or
flower parts are used for food."

Each to his own, of course, but I think calling something
inedible a vegeatble is bizarre.

--
Ken Blake
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