• RandomStickman@fedia.io
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    11 hours ago

    In Chinese watermelon is called 西瓜(west melon) and wintermelon is 冬瓜 (winter melon) but the first word sounds like 東 (east). Pumpkins are called 南瓜 (south melon) and in some places a certain squash is called 北瓜 (north melon)

    • toynbee@piefed.social
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      7 hours ago

      When I was a kid, I used to live near places called Sussex and Essex.

      I never encountered Nussex nor Wessex and that troubles me.

      • titanicx@lemmy.zip
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        6 hours ago

        Wessex was a kingdom in Britain. And it’s an area of London. There is also Middlesex as well. But I can’t find a norssex.

        • toynbee@piefed.social
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          5 hours ago

          Sure, I get all that, but I didn’t grow up in that area. I grew up near other direction-sexes.

          South doesn’t start with “Su,” so I assume North-sex (in this context) wouldn’t start with “Nor.” In fact, I looked this up and found this interesting article, which is perhaps not academically correct (I don’t know) but shows that my reasoning is not isolated.

    • wabasso@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      Is the Winter and East thing a forced coincidence in search of the quadfecta, or is there actually colder climate in eastern China(?) ?

      • RandomStickman@fedia.io
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        4 hours ago

        It’s not forced, just a coincidence. There are loads of homophones in Chinese so it’s easy to make puns like that.