Our new state vegetable

[silvercamaro]

In 2007, the Oklahoma State Legislature passed the bill to declare an official state vegetable: the watermelon.

(We already have a state fruit, the strawberry, but there was another small-town fruit-flavored festival somewhere that needed attention.)

For 2008, I will be lobbying to have the triangle named as our official state square.

[mrkelley23]

This sounds like an old Kentuckian joke.

Oy.

How about starting a petition to have the official state name of Oklahoma to be Arkansas?

[MarleysGh0st]

In 2007, the Oklahoma State Legislature passed the bill to declare an official state vegetable: the watermelon.

With all the parents over the years who have had to nag their children to eat their vegetables, I don't think any of them were ever talking about watermelon!

Which is why, I suppose, it was such a popular choice among the legislators.

[BackInTex]

The tarantula could be the state incect.

The Seminole Bat could be the state bird.

[andrewjackson]

Watermelon is certainly a vegetable.

veg·e·ta·ble (vĕj'tə-bəl, vĕj'ĭ-tə-) pronunciation
n.

1.
1. A plant cultivated for an edible part, such as the root of the beet, the leaf of spinach, or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower.
2. The edible part of such a plant.
3. A member of the vegetable kingdom; a plant.


It fits all three of those definitions. So does a strawberry.

And, of course, a tomato.



Fruit, on the other hand,

fruit (frūt) pronunciation
n., pl. fruit or fruits.

1.
1. The ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant, together with accessory parts, containing the seeds and occurring in a wide variety of forms.
2. An edible, usually sweet and fleshy form of such a structure.
3. A part or an amount of such a plant product, served as food: fruit for dessert.
2. The fertile, often spore-bearing structure of a plant that does not bear seeds.
3. A plant crop or product: the fruits of the earth.
4. Result; outcome: the fruit of their labor.
5. Offspring; progeny.
6. A fruity aroma or flavor in a wine.

Watermelon would also fit some of these definitions and that "usually sweet and fleshy" bit in #2 confirms that watermelon is both a vegetable and a fruit.


This attempt at some sort of fruit/vegetable dichotomy must end!

[Bob Juch]

Gee, I thought that already was Jim Inhofe.