In English, at least the English I speak, the seeds you find in fruit have different names depending on the kind of fruit. Those found in citrus fruit, grapes, apples and pears I would call pips, while those found in peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and apricots and similar kinds of fruit I would call stones. The seeds found in soft fruit like raspberries, blackberries and strawberries I would call seeds.
What names do you use?
Do you have a counting rhyme for the pips/seeds/stones?
The one I know is “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” – whichever one you end on is what you’re going to be. Do such rhymes exist in other languages?
Apparently peaches, plums and similar fruit are known as drupe or stone fruit, which have fleshy part consisting of skin (exocarp) and flesh (mesocarp) surrounding a hard shell (a.k.a. pit, stone, pyrene) which contains a seed or kernel. Raspberries and blackberries are made up of multiple small drupes, or drupelets [source].
Your “stones” are my “pits” — peaches, avocados etc. have them. Your “pips” and “seeds” are both my “seeds”. What do you use for (e.g.) pumpkin? I’m a native English speaker from the east coast of the US.
Also I’ve never heard of counting games for them, only for flowerpetals (he loves me, he loves me not).
Pumpkins have seeds.
We used counting rhymes like that in my family when I was young, but I don’t know if other people in the UK use them.
West coast of the US here, and I’m also used to calling the smaller ones seeds and the larger ones pits. Although “stone” survives in the term “freestone”, used for peaches where it’s easy to extract the pit. Peaches where it’s more difficult are “cling” peaches.
I’m not familiar with counting rhymes in this context, but I do remember some of these being in common use when I was in grade school (primary school) to pick who was going to go first in a game, for instance.
East coast US; same as James A B-M except that I may use “stone” from time to time.
In what sense is “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” a rhyme?
Tinker, talior … is a rhyme in the sense that some of the words in it rhyme, and I’m not sure what else you would call it.
I don’t think a rhyme necessarily needs to rhyme to be a rhyme. It is a simple piece of verse (which can be rhyming or non-rhyming), made to be recited in metre. Note the similarity between the words rhyme and rhythm
http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=rhyme&searchmode=none