fruitist

[Charles Doyle]

Yesterday I saw a student in the hall, and she'd missed class the previous day. She explained that she had a cold, but she was treating it with vitamin C--in the form of having eaten an apple. I remarked that an orange contains a great more vitamin C than an apple. She responded, "What are you, a fruitist?" (She only grudgingly acknowledged any appreciation of my follow-up quip, "Isn't that a member of a Japanese orchestra?")

The OED includes "fruitist," meaning 'one who cultivates fruit', with three instances, all from the 19th century. UrbanDictionary.com has (only) my student's "fruitist" as 'an expert on fruit' (2 entries). Google shows some 3300+ hits for "fruitist," some of them illustrating the new(?) sense.

--Charlie
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