It’s kind of funny, I think, that a plant so closely associated with America is actually not native at all.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      12 days ago

      And then you have horses, which originated there, migrated to Eurasia, went extinct in the Americas, and then were reintrouduced thousands of years later.

  • Davel23@fedia.io
    43·
    12 days ago

    Also, horses had gone extinct in North America until the Spanish brought them back in the 15th century.

    • Mirshe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      62·
      12 days ago

      It’s theorized this is partially why a lot of indigenous societies in the Americas simply didn’t use wheels in larger contexts. We’ve found perfectly engineered wheels in a lot of archaeological sites here in North and South America, but they’re almost always on toys. The theory is that civilizations like the Aztecs and various Native American and First Nations peoples invented wheels just fine, but since North America particularly lacks any form of native, easily-domesticated draft animal, wheels just didn’t make sense or save anyone significant enough time to really bother with in larger forms like carts or chariots.

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    272·
    13 days ago

    Kinda poetic really. Gets edged out by the European settler for the most prolific invasive species, though

    • Drusas@fedia.io
      14·
      12 days ago

      Sure, but the same applies to so many foods in so many cultures. What was Italian food like before they had access to tomatoes? Eastern, Central European, or Irish before potatoes? Chinese, Southeast Asian, or Korean before they had chili peppers?

      Now each of those countries have dishes we associate with them but which use those non-native ingredients.

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        83·
        12 days ago

        The more impressive thing is how the British had a global empire for roughly 400 years, and their cuisine remained awful.

        • Rubanski@lemm.eeEnglish
          9·
          12 days ago

          I think that’s because British food we commonly see as awful stems from food rationing that went on during and after WWII, as far as I know well in the 1970s

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            32·
            12 days ago

            That seems like a poor excuse, every country experienced rationing and they didn’t revert to awful food. There’s even a few dishes like fried spam and ramen that are actually pretty good.

            • Drusas@fedia.io
              2·
              11 days ago

              American cuisine also suffered dramatically in the post-war period due to a reliance on, for example, canned vegetables. A whole generation or two (boomers and Gen X) grew up not knowing what spices are, practically.

              • Rubanski@lemm.eeEnglish
                2·
                10 days ago

                Then they somehow put everything in Jello in the 50s because apparently decent cuisine was completely forgotten

        • Drusas@fedia.io
          1·
          11 days ago

          Hey now, it’s thanks to them that we have chicken tikka and butter chicken.

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        Blows my minds that Indian and Asian food at one point wasn’t spicy, and it wasn’t until Europian trade from the America’s that changed the cuisine

    • 0ops@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      I was about to say, there isn’t just one tumbleweed. There are a bunch of plants that evolved to grow in a roundish shape, dry out, and unroot. I don’t even know them by name, but my area has at least 3 distinct plants that could be considered tumbleweeds

    • Darohan@lemmy.zipEnglish
      131·
      12 days ago

      I hate to say it, but ð is likely the wrong character for that sound, you’d be better with þ. Ð is never used at the start of a word, and þ has a long history in English as being used in abbrieviations for words like “the” and “that” (see “uses” in this article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)). Your use of ð is correct for the Icelandic use of the sound, though, so I absolutely see where you’re coming from.

      Unless you’re using the IPA ð, in which case ignore me.

      (sorry for the rant, I used to be very passionate about returning þ to common use in English)

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.eeEnglish
        411·
        12 days ago

        Ð use of þ in ðat manner suggests it as a historical spelling dating to a lack of distinguishing of ð sound in English prior to ð letter being codified in written English.

        Ðat distinguishment is very much ðere now, and so not using ð appropriate sound due to a grammar clause which is likely an artefact of ð sound not being present at its time of becoming convention is perpetuating ð same kind of issue ðat reintroducing ð and þ would ostensibly seek to help.

        So eiðer we could preserve ð grammar convention by assigning þ ð voiced sound, or we could preserve phonemic convention by assigning it its namesake unvoiced sound. Eiðer way, doing boþ doesn’t really address ð core issue, just change ð coat of paint its wearing.