[Sca-cooks] Lemons? Limes? Confusion?

[David Friedman]

>--- Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps <dephelps at embarqmail.com> schrieb am 
>So, 6.7.2008:
>
>>  Shakespeare mentions in his plays oranges twice, lemons once
>>  and limes
>>  twelve times. In the case of limes this would suggest more
>>  than a passing
>>  acquaintance with the fruit.
>
>Which opens the question which fruit Shakespeare was talking about. 
>A problem in the German corpus is that loan words from various 
>languages are used to describe citrus fruit. The common 
>'Limon(i)e/Limun(i)e', e.g., probably actually describes the lemon 
>(modern German Zitrone) rather than the lime (modern German Limone).


Other possible sources of confusion, depending on just what 
Shakespeare says, are that "lime" is also used for the linden or 
basswood tree and for Calcium Hydroxide.

I did a Google search of the site http://shakespeare.mit.edu/, which 
has all of Shakespeare on it, for "lime." None of the 13 hits appears 
to refer to the fruit. Most of them are references to the chemical, 
used either for catching birds ("Like lime-twigs set to catch my 
winged soul") or in mortar ("Within the limits of yon lime and stone: 
").
-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/