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Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

Digging into "naranja" (the Spanish name) this article claims that the jump to the french included a latin "golden" component to it (aurum), thus forming "orange". In fact "Citrus Aurantium" is a type of orange.

http://etimologias.dechile.net/?naranja

It also claims that the jump to arancia in Italian comes from the portuguese laranja, losing the "l" as it seems "la arancia".

Finally, tangerine (after Tanger) is called mandarinas (after China) in Spanish, which has been for the longest time a source of confusion for me.

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If that etymology of mandarinas is true it is especially funny because it already comes from spanish/portuguese mandar for "telling someone what to do", because mandarin was the dialect of the ruling caste in China, if I remember correctly. So it is basically a loanword from the same language, via a very convoluted transfer of meanings...

It goes full circle: in Argentina we have a common expression for someone who is acting bossy, telling them they ate a lot of "mandarinas".

Languages are wonderful.

Yes. I was surprised that the OA gets as close as mentioning “golden apple” but misses that the Latin “aurantium” (from pomum aurantium) would sound awfully close to “orange”.

Aurantium is modern Latin though, it's a portmanteau word formed from naranja and aurum. It doesn't help understand the etymology of "orange" because it's been coined at the same time or after the word orange itself.

the "tangerine" is a hybrid of what is also called "mandarin" in english[0] so the spanish (and italian, hungarian et al) naming actually makes sense.

It's pretty common to confuse the two plants.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_orange

You are technically correct, but in the common speech "tangerine" is the same as "mandarin" in Spanish (they are not distinguised beyond scientific terms) and every time I've tried to say "mandarin" in English I've been corrected to "do you mean tangerine?" so in practical terms that is the translation for me.

In Ireland, "mandarin" or "mandarin orange" is the most common English name for the orange-coloured citrus fruits that are too small and sweet to be considered oranges. We have a vague idea that mandarins, tangerines, satsumas, clementines, nadorcotts are all different varieties, but the typical catchall is "mandarin" or increasingly in supermarkets, "easy peeler".

You wouldn't be corrected over here.

I concur. Growing up in rural Ireland in the eighties, "mandarins" were quite exotic and a real treat. I still couldn't tell the difference between all the varieties you mention (I haven't even heard of nadorcotts). I've only recently noticed the supermarkes are now selling "easy peelers".

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