Why do you think that is?
It seems that the pomegranate, a once obscure (and might I add frustrating) fruit, has become America's most popular
Personally, I think it's ridiculous for fruits to be candidates for fads, in the first place.
And while I might have to endure oh-so-vogue bubblegum flavors like "Pomegranate Mojito Sunset" when I'm standing in line to pay for toilet paper, at least I get to think about something cool like hand-grenades.
Because the English word grenade comes from Old French pome grenade,1 meaning "apple with many seeds."2 Grenade actually means "pomegranate" in modern French. The pome was dropped --a fad which was, of course, picked up by Renaissance-era Brits. They were calling the fruits grenades or granates when they discovered hand-propelled explosives around the 16th century.3 So when its self-contained shrapnel reminded soldiers of the seeds in a pomegranate, they gave the device a nickname.4
We call the fruits "pomegranates" today, but remnants of grenade (its shrapnel, if you will) still exist in modern English.
You alcoholics reading this might be familiar with grenadine syrup. Tequila sunrise, anyone?
1"grenade."American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2007. Houghton Mifflin.
2"pomegranate."American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2007. Houghton Mifflin.
3"granate." Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. Oxford University Press. 22 Feb 2009. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50097715.
4"hand grenade." Wikipedia. 2009. 22 Feb 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade.
2"pomegranate."American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2007. Houghton Mifflin.
3"granate." Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. Oxford University Press. 22 Feb 2009. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50097715.
4"hand grenade." Wikipedia. 2009. 22 Feb 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade.
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