The name of the explosive armament actually comes from the French word for the fruit, grenade. This came from the Old French word pomegrenate or pomme-grenade. The name for the grenade reflects the similarity in shape between it and the pomegranate. Pomegranates also can explode when overripe in order to spread its seeds over a wide perimeter.
That’s also the name for the dots on dice and sometimes for the marks on playing cards. “Pip” is also a word for the small seeds in some fruits.
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Manuel Segovia and Isidro Velazquez from the town of Ayapa in Mexico are the last known speakers of the indigenous language Ayapaneco. Lately, they’ve been frustrating anthropologists because they refuse to talk to each other. Because of their mutual dislike, efforts by an Indiana University anthropologist to produce an Ayapaneco dictionary have come to a halt. Many of Mexico’s 68 native languages are in danger of becoming extinct thanks to the spread of Spanish education in the 20th century. Ayapaneco is one of the most endangered.
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At least, that was the case in 1995. The number could be even less now. This dying language is the former native tongue of the village of Boung, located on the Adamawa Plateau in the African nation of Cameroon. Most residents of Boung no longer speak it. Of the three speakers that could be found in 1995, one of them was not even a native speaker.
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