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Comment by LaMarseillaise | Hacker News Reader

I was quite sure that this depiction of a bomb was based on 18th century grenades, which were spherical and had a string fuse. The word ‘grenade’ even comes from pomegranate, due to the visual similarity. It seems like this depiction may have originated a little further back than the American Civil War.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomegranate

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There's a depiction of grenades so common that they're called grenade emblems.[0] It's an emblem of an old style hand grenade with a flame on top of it. It was fairly common - the wiki link has a substantial list of examples, eg the Italian carabineri[1] or the British Grenadier Guards.[2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade_(insignia)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri#/media/File%3AFiam...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadier_Guards#/media/File%3...

Also, Swedish Army insignia for the artillery: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Truppsla...

Wow, somehow never thought that the device is named after the fruit. Their names can be even closer in other languages, f.e. in Russian they are nearly the same word, just different genders.

Then they doubled down with pineapple grenades...

Pomegranates are from Granada. In French, Granada is "Grenade" and pomegranate is "pomme grenade", which directly translates to Granada apple

as a french I absolutely never heard "pomme grenade" for the fruit, just "grenade" directly

may depend where you're from. I'm a French speaker and it's always been "pomme grenade" everywhere I have been.

No. "Pomegranate" comes from the Latin "pomum granatum," the 'fruit having many seeds.' Granum means grain or seed, and granatus is a pseudo-participial form (like "mentulatus") meaning 'endowed with seeds.' Granada, the city, likely derives its name from Arabic.

In Polish it is literally the same word, "granat", which does function as weapon, fruit, and color (oddly enough, dark blue).

The pomegranate <> grenade connection all of a sudden made “grenadine” make sene.

Which is why it's so unfortunate that most cheap grenadines are cherry-flavored instead of pomegranate flavor.

Traditional grenadine is purple, not red.

Gunpowder-infused fabric or paper was being used for fuses around the 10th century, as well[0]. I always thought this depiction came from fireworks, which had fuses both linking multiple devices and also serving as a (relatively) safer point for ignition around the 10th century, as well[1].

[0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_(explosives)

[1] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireworks

Back in the 1960's when road construction was underway and diversion of lanes was necessary, at night the spherical black kerosine lamps the size of bowling balls were still everywhere the traffic cones were during the day.

Modern rechargeable electricial markers that could last all night were not common at all.

Rows of bombs with a few inches of raw sooty flame coming from a wick where the fuse would be.

Drive your Model T or Edsel carefully between the lines of flickering fire.

Plus the Pink Panther cartoons had an associated subject line occasionally featuring a mad French terrorist bomber often carrying one of the round black bombs.

This was basically ridiculing the bombers that had been in the news terrorizing them.

Both were enjoyed by American kids as much as domestic cartoons, even though they were basically like silent movies, intentionally featuring no actual dialog, intended for international consumption without need for translation.

All the American villians had the same kind of bombs anyway.

> Modern rechargeable electricial markers that could last all night were not common at all.

Is this common where you drive? Where I drive in the US, it's all traffic cones with reflective parts, relying on cars to have their headlights on to see the temporary barriers.

Here there are a lot of bright plastic barrels and reflective barricades with flashing yellow lights on top.

And on streets well lit with streetlights drivers are still knocking them down like dominos.

The elite units Grenadiers is a 16/17th century formalisation of infantry units that threw bombs/grenades.

That was extra dangerous job as early bombs were not reliable, and had a chance to explode too soon.

But throwing a ball of metal with blackpowder is much older.

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