Comments on: Dictionary term for tiny orange slices?

Question: Dictionary term for tiny orange slices?

Etta Hollis — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:03:47 -0800

WordFilter: Is there a word/term for the tiny slices of oranges that are found between the regular sized slices? Grandma Hollis calls them "Santa Clauses." Does an actual dictionary term exist?

By: padraigin

padraigin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:10:18 -0800

I don't know if there's an actual term, but I think it was M.F.K. Fisher who referred to them as "kisses".

This strikes me as just the kind of thing for which there are countless nicknames and no real term at all.

By: classa

classa — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:13:54 -0800

I just took a knife skills class this morning. Chef called them "leftovers".

By: jedicus

jedicus — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:21:04 -0800

In the case of navel oranges, the small slices that develop at the navel end are the remains of an underdeveloped conjoined twin that results from the same mutation that makes navel oranges seedless. "Underdeveloped conjoined twin slices" is kind of an ungainly term, though it would be accurate.

By: peep

peep — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:55:02 -0800

We always called them baby oranges. This leads to all sorts of jokes about eating babies. I love it when you get a freak orange that's like half baby oranges. Love those things.

By: KateHasQuestions

KateHasQuestions — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:43:18 -0800

Also, what about the little tiny pepper-like things growing INSIDE bell peppers?? I call them "pepper babies" and people look at me like I'm a freakin' weirdo. I'm glad other people make eating babies jokes.

By: pseudostrabismus

pseudostrabismus — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:58:41 -0800

Vestigial segments?

By: crinklebat

crinklebat — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:20:33 -0800

It's funny that jedicus mentions this, because I was just telling my husband that my father calls those orange segments at the bottom of a navel orange "the abortion", which he claims was what all the kids called it at his Catholic K-12 school. I never knew about the conjoined twin thing until just now, and now that morbid joke makes a lot more sense.