Fruity Language

A mandarin, the Mandarin, a mandarin duck and Milan Mandaric

Was listening to the radio today – little bit of politics, as it happens – and heard use of the word “mandarin”.

Two questions immediately sprang to mind: i) why do we call influential senior bureaucrats “mandarins” and ii) how many other fruits and vegetables can be used as nouns to describe people?

I suppose the first one isn’t a big stretch. A mandarin was any one of nine ranks of civil servant from imperial China. Since they spoke a common language amongst themselves, this “language of the officials” became known as Mandarin which today is synonymous with Standard Chinese.

As for my second query, besides “mandarin”, I’ve come up with “peach”, “cabbage”, “gooseberry” and, of course, “swede”.