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Post by Suez on Jun 14, 2017 3:21:22 GMT
Mandarine...it's an Aussie thing
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 14, 2017 3:26:49 GMT
Mandarine...it's an Aussie thing So it would appear, Suez. :-) Are you aware of any differences by state? I've lived in NSW, Vic, SA, and Qld, and have found mandarine to be the common style there. Any observations on Tas, WA, NT, or ACT?
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Post by Carol on Jul 7, 2017 12:50:35 GMT
Thank you for the 6 pages of responses to this query. I've been mulling this over in my own my every citrus season and need some corroboration for my childhood memories!
I recall, from my childhood, that we called them mandarines. Well, since I arrived in Australia (WA) from South Africa (where we called them natchies.... Or naatchies.... I don't know, I came to Australia when I was 6)
I remember that the local grocery stores used to spell it "mandarine". But, I think it's Coles/Woolies that brought in the "new" spelling. I can't say when that happened over here, but now it seems to be "mandarin" everywhere (yet West Aussies often seem to pronounce it as man-da-REEN")
So, my theory is, we started confusing things when the awareness of Cantonese and Mandarin started emerging (instead of just saying that people spoke Chinese) So we started seeing Mandarin more often, just made them the same word 'cause it's easier, and here we are today.
I will continue to call them mandarines!
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Post by Oyvind Rygh on Sept 19, 2017 11:39:35 GMT
I guess you need to start with the origin of the name, and that is from China, Mandarin refers to your English word for the Chinese language, and I guess it relates to the fact that this their fruit, their as in Mandarin fruit, Chinese fruit, ok? whether it spelled with an e at the end you need to talk to someone with linguistic skills and not to a lot of fruit-heads as you do above, ok? Kindest regards
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Post by Oyvind Rygh on Sept 19, 2017 11:42:03 GMT
Mandarine in the fruit and Mandarin is the language, according to respons from Google, so thats your answer, ok?
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 19, 2017 12:06:02 GMT
Mandarine in the fruit and Mandarin is the language, according to respons from Google, so thats your answer, ok? I'd be looking to a more credible and authoritative source, such as a reputable dictionary, than Google. Google can dish up some complete rubbish, as it is often the "sum of little knowledge" contributed by many who are ignorant. Its answers are also likely to contain national / geographical bias without acknowledgement of same. A Google "answer" from an American might not be valid for an Australian, or one from an Australian might not be valid for a Scot, for example.
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Post by Brendan on May 13, 2018 1:19:26 GMT
Super late to this conversation, but had to throw my 50c in. I had always know it to be "Mandarine" here in Australia up until perhaps the last 10 years. I had just assumed that the name had been re-imagined to "Mandarin" given that it refers to the main Chinese language.
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Post by Twoddle on May 13, 2018 10:55:19 GMT
I've not paid much attention to this thread hitherto but my 1985 Chambers Dictionary says that mandarin describes a high-ranking Chinese official and the language, and that mandarine is the fruit.
I'll continue to buy the less-contentiously spelt satsumas.
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Post by Marie in Australia on Sept 25, 2018 6:36:04 GMT
Hi Geoff
I was just searching for mandarine as the fruit to find out how it is spelt these days and up popped your discussion. Seems it doesn't even appear and wasn't easy to find anywhere.
As a child [50's] in Australia, it was understood that the fruit was a mandarine pronounced man-dah-reen; and a Chinese official was a mandarin pronounced man-dah-rin.
Perhaps it's just that language changes. Hearts are now lovehearts, railway station is now called train station.
I will always think of them as mandarines being the correct spelling for the fruit.
Cheers Marie in Australia
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Post by Sue on Apr 14, 2019 8:44:05 GMT
It seems to me that both spellings are common in Oz; however, I'm sure I hear man-da-reen more often than man-da-rin. As a child I said man-da-reen (mimicking Mater*) but for as long as I can remember as an adult I've said man-da-rin (having discovered the "mandarin [as in Chinese] orange" concept). And let's not forget the two greengrocer versions: mandarine's and mandarin's. *Mater also said dawg (for dog) and sorlt ( salt). By the time I was 10 I was challenging almost every usage and pronunciation of Mater's; partly from picking up alternatives at school but mostly, I suspect, reverting from my early-conditioned speech to the "inborn" -- i.e. the speech styles of my birth mother, whom I didn't meet until I was 42. It was then I discovered that Mother (not Mater) and I spoke identically except for voice pitch. But that's another story which I've probably told before.
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Post by Sue on Apr 14, 2019 8:48:53 GMT
I’ve been faced with same question in the last few years. I live in Oz and grew up pronouncing it mandarine. Only in recent years I’ve heard people saying mandarin and wondered when it changed or was my mother pronouncing it incorrectly by whole childhood?
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 14, 2019 8:53:28 GMT
Sue: Language changes all the time, so I shouldn't get distressed over versions of that fruit. Mandarin does seem to have been in the ascendent for some time now, but mandarine isn't wrong, just perhaps a tad old-fashioned.
Regardless of the spelling, a mandarin(e) tastes as good as ever.
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 19, 2019 13:43:34 GMT
Seems this is a perennial issue.
Just yesterday at work there was a call across the art room (in the middle of which I perch, high above, like some linguistic mandarin – no e – LOL): "Is there an e at the end of mandarine [pronounced mandareen, as still seems standard in Oz]?"
An advertiser's full-page artwork contained both spellings of the fruit and I was asked to arbitrate.
My suggestion, duly implemented, was: "No e". It would have cramped the artwork to disadvantage, and no-one was likely to mistake it for something else given the accompanying picture in photoshopped CMYK.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 20, 2019 13:38:37 GMT
According to Wikipedia, “The name mandarin orange is a calque of Swedish mandarin apelsin ... first attested in the 18th century. The form "mandarine" derives from the French name for this fruit.” If one Googles “mandarine orange” one is asked if you mean “mandarin”? So far as I can see, all canned mandarins are so spelled “mandarin”. See; Dole, Princes, Del Monte, Tesco, Nature’s Finest, Suso, Trout Hall, Biggi, Castella, Roland, denree, etc. The same applies to paint colours. See also here books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%2C+mandarin%2C+mandarine&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=9&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmandarin%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cmandarine%3B%2Cc0 which suggests that mandarine has been largely defunct since 1900 about. Not since 1800 in English fiction has the ‘E’ spelling predominated.
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