A comparison of apples and oranges occurs when two items or groups of items are compared that cannot be practically compared, typically because of inherent or fundamental differences between the objects.
The idiom, comparing apples and oranges, refers to the differences between items which are popularly thought to be incomparable or incommensurable, such as apples and oranges. The idiom may also indicate that a false analogy has been made between two items, such as where an apple is faulted for not being a good orange.
This section possibly contains original research .(August 2014) |
The idiom is not only used in English.
In European French the idiom is comparer des pommes et des poires (to compare apples and pears) or comparer des choux et des carottes (to compare cabbages and carrots). The former is the same as the German Äpfel mit Birnen vergleichen. [1]
In Latin American Spanish, it is comparar papas y boniatos (to compare potatoes and sweet potatoes) or, for all varieties of Spanish, comparar peras con manzanas (to compare pears and apples) or sumar peras con manzanas (to add pears and apples). In Peninsular Spanish, juntar churras con merinas (mix Churras with Merinos, two breeds of sheep) and confundir el tocino con la velocidad (confuse bacon and speed). Italian (sommare le mele con le pere) and Romanian (a aduna merele cu perele) also compare pears and apples. In Portuguese, the expression is comparar laranjas com bananas (to compare oranges and bananas). [2]
In Serbian, it is Поредити бабе и жабе (Porediti babe i žabe) (to compare grandmothers and toads). In Romanian, it is baba și mitraliera (the grandmother and the machine gun) and vaca și izmenele (the cow and the longjohns).
Some languages compare dissimilar properties of dissimilar items. In Danish, Hvad er højest, Rundetårn eller et tordenskrald? (Which is highest, the Round Tower or a thunderclap?), referring to the size of the former and the sound of the latter. In Russian, сравнивать тёплое с мягким (sravnivatʹ tjoploje s mjagkim) (to compare warm and soft) is used. [3] In Argentina, a common question is ¿En qué se parecen el amor y el ojo del hacha? (What does love and the eye of an axe have in common?). In Colombia, confundir la mierda con la pomada (to confuse shit with ointment) is used. In Polish, a similar idiomatic question is co ma piernik do wiatraka? (What does the gingerbread have to do with the windmill?). In Chinese, a similar phrase is used: 风马牛不相及 (fēng mǎ niú bù xiāng jí) (horses and cattle won't mate with each other).
A humorous variant is to replace "oranges" with something utterly dissimilar to apples; most famously, Jack Horner said that comparing science and religion is like comparing "apples and sewing machines." The idea is that although dissimilar, apples and oranges are at least fruits and at least share rudimentary similarities, whereas comparing them to something entirely different, such as pine cones or light bulbs, highlights how patently absurd making a comparison between the two is. This may be extended even further, comparing the fruit to non-physical concepts, such as "apples and jury nullification".
A particular related idiom found in accounting and economics is that of the "apples to apples comparison"; such comparisons are meant to filter out such complicating factors as accounting standards, size and scale and time periods. For example, same-store sales is widely used as measurement because it allows a direct comparison of how the business is doing ignoring growth, which can be a significant complicating factor. [4]
At least two tongue-in-cheek scientific studies have been conducted on the subject, each of which concluded that apples can be compared with oranges reasonably easily and on a low budget, and the two fruits are quite similar.
The first study, conducted by Scott Sandford of the NASA Ames Research Center, used infrared spectroscopy to analyze both apples and oranges. The study, which was published in the satirical science magazine Annals of Improbable Research , concluded: "... the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future." [5]
A second study, written by Stamford Hospital's surgeon-in-chief James Barone and published in the British Medical Journal, noted that the phrase apples and oranges was appearing with increasing frequency in the medical literature, with some notable articles comparing "Desflurane and propofol" and "Salmeterol and ipratropium" with "apples and oranges". The study also found that both apples and oranges were sweet, similar in size, weight, and shape, that both are grown in orchards, and both may be eaten, juiced, and so on. The only significant differences found were in terms of seeds (the study used seedless oranges), the involvement of Johnny Appleseed, and color. [6]
The Annals of Improbable Research subsequently noted that the "earlier investigation was done with more depth, more rigour, and, most importantly, more expensive equipment" than the British Medical Journal study. [7]
On April Fools' Day 2014, The Economist compared worldwide production of apples and oranges from 1983 to 2013, and noted them to be "unrelated variables". [8]
While references to comparing apples and oranges are often a rhetorical device, references to adding apples and oranges are made in the case of teaching students the proper uses of units. [9] [10] Here, the warning not to "add apples and oranges" refers to the requirement that two quantities with different units may not be combined by addition, although they may always be combined in ratio form by multiplication, so that multiplying ratios of apples and oranges is allowed. Similarly, the concept of this distinction is often used metaphorically in elementary algebra.
Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus Pyrus, in the family Rosaceae, bearing the pomaceous fruit of the same name. Several species of pears are valued for their edible fruit and juices, while others are cultivated as trees.
The comm command in the Unix family of computer operating systems is a utility that is used to compare two files for common and distinct lines. comm is specified in the POSIX standard. It has been widely available on Unix-like operating systems since the mid to late 1980s.
The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) is a bimonthly magazine devoted to scientific humor, in the form of a satirical take on the standard academic journal. AIR, published six times a year since 1995, usually showcases at least one piece of scientific research being done on a strange or unexpected topic, but most of their articles concern real or fictional absurd experiments, such as a comparison of apples and oranges using infrared spectroscopy. Other features include such things as ratings of the cafeterias at scientific institutes, fake classifieds and advertisements for a medical plan called HMO-NO, and a very odd letters page. The magazine is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden which God commands mankind not to eat. In the biblical story, Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and are exiled from Eden:
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Tagalog grammar are the rules that describe the structure of expressions in the Tagalog language, one of the languages in the Philippines.
In computer programming, the Schwartzian transform is a technique used to improve the efficiency of sorting a list of items. This idiom is appropriate for comparison-based sorting when the ordering is actually based on the ordering of a certain property of the elements, where computing that property is an intensive operation that should be performed a minimal number of times. The Schwartzian transform is notable in that it does not use named temporary arrays.
A cleanroom suit, clean room suit, or bunny suit, is an overall garment worn in a cleanroom, an environment with a controlled level of contamination. One common type is an all-in-one coverall worn by semiconductor and nanotechnology line production workers, technicians, and process / equipment engineers. Similar garments are worn by people in similar roles creating sterile products for the medical device, biopharmaceutical and optical instrument industries.
Colombian cuisine is a culinary tradition of the six main regions within Colombia. Colombian cuisine varies regionally and is influenced by Indigenous Colombian, Spanish, and African cuisines, with a slight Arab influence in some regions.
Fruit-tella are chewy sweets similar to Sugus, Starburst and Chewits. They are made using real fruit juice, natural colours and natural flavours, sugar and gelatine. They are made by Perfetti Van Melle, the company that also manufactures Mentos and Chupa Chups.
Agriculture in Portugal is based on small to medium-sized family-owned dispersed units; however, the sector also includes larger-scale intensive farming export-oriented agrobusinesses backed by companies. The extent of cooperative organisation has been reaching a greater importance with globalization. Portugal produces a wide variety of products, including green vegetables, rice, corn, wheat, barley, olives, oilseeds, nuts, cherries, bilberry, table grapes and edible mushrooms. Forestry has also played an important economic role among the rural communities and industry. In 2013, the gross agricultural product accounted for 2.4% of the GDP. Portugal is the largest world producer of both cork and carob, as well as the third largest exporter of chestnut and the third largest European producer of pulp. Portugal is among the top ten largest olive oil producers in the world and is the fourth biggest exporter. The country is also one of the world's largest exporters of wine, being reputed for its fine wines. The land area of slightly more than 9.2 million hectares was classified as follows : 2,755 arable land and permanent crops, 530 permanent pasture, 3,640 forest and woodland, and 2,270 other land.
Blaptica dubia, the dubia roach, orange-spotted roach, Guyana spotted roach, or Argentinian wood roach, is a medium-sized species of cockroach which grows to around 40–45 mm (1.6–1.8 in).
Annoying Orange is an American live-action/animated comedy web series created by Dane Boedigheimer. The series follows an anthropomorphic orange who annoys fruits, vegetables and various other objects and even people and creatures by telling crude jokes and puns and making annoying noises until their demise. The Annoying Orange YouTube channel has 12.8 million subscribers as of 2024.
Fe'i bananas are cultivated plants in the genus Musa, used mainly for their fruit. They are very distinct in appearance and origin from the majority of bananas and plantains currently grown. Found mainly in the islands of the Pacific, particularly French Polynesia, Fe'i bananas have skins which are brilliant orange to red in colour with yellow or orange flesh inside. They are usually eaten cooked and have been an important food for Pacific Islanders, moving with them as they migrated across the ocean. Most are high in beta-carotene.
In computer programming, string interpolation is the process of evaluating a string literal containing one or more placeholders, yielding a result in which the placeholders are replaced with their corresponding values. It is a form of simple template processing or, in formal terms, a form of quasi-quotation. The placeholder may be a variable name, or in some languages an arbitrary expression, in either case evaluated in the current context.
Korbinian Aigner, known as the Apfelpfarrer, was a Bavarian Catholic priest and pomologist.
Exemplar theory is a proposal concerning the way humans categorize objects and ideas in psychology. It argues that individuals make category judgments by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored in memory. The instance stored in memory is the "exemplar". The new stimulus is assigned to a category based on the greatest number of similarities it holds with exemplars in that category. For example, the model proposes that people create the "bird" category by maintaining in their memory a collection of all the birds they have experienced: sparrows, robins, ostriches, penguins, etc. If a new stimulus is similar enough to some of these stored bird examples, the person categorizes the stimulus in the "bird" category. Various versions of the exemplar theory have led to a simplification of thought concerning concept learning, because they suggest that people use already-encountered memories to determine categorization, rather than creating an additional abstract summary of representations.
Scott Sandford is an American astronomer and NASA scientist. He has studied meteorites and other specimens that travel through outer space. Sandford has also written for the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
Arca Continental Lindley S.A. is a Peruvian company involved in the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of nonalcoholic beverages and the official bottler and distributor of all Coca-Cola products in Peru. The Lindley Corporation is best known for its creation and marketing of Inca Kola, the number one selling soft drink in Peru. The Lindley Corporation, located in the historic District of Lima, Peru, is also a major promoter of plastic recycling programs in Peru. Its president is Johnny Lindley Suarez.
Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and to what degree. Where characteristics are different, the differences may then be evaluated to determine which thing is best suited for a particular purpose. The description of similarities and differences found between the two things is also called a comparison. Comparison can take many distinct forms, varying by field:
To compare is to bring two or more things together and to examine them systematically, identifying similarities and differences among them. Comparison has a different meaning within each framework of study. Any exploration of the similarities or differences of two or more units is a comparison. In the most limited sense, it consists of comparing two units isolated from each other.