The Pits

Mmmm. Unfortunately, I'm allergic to birch pollen, so no dice.

As I've mentioned before, lots of English words that start with "al-" are from the Arabic: the prefix means "the", as in "alcohol", from "al-kuhol", "the kohl", "the antimony powder". (It's a long story: check it out here.) Other "al-" words such as "alkali" and "alfalfa" are from Arabic, not to mention such unexpected ones as "antimony" itself ("al-ithmid") and "elixir" ("al-iksir", "the philosopher's stone").

Today while showering I noticed something written on a little shower-gel bottle I had refilled with something else: the text was in three languages, and it said "apricot", "abricot" (the French version), and finally the Spanish "albaricoque". Aha, I said to myself; that's got to be from the Arabic. And, as it turns out, it is. The Arabic word is "al-burquq", "the plum"; apricots are, in fact, related to plums, both being drupes (that is, single-stoned fruits), and the two are easily hybridized into plumcots and other variant fruits.