Believe it or not, I spent far too much of my childhood pondering the Peter Piper controversy. The pickle thing is easy - in English English (I take it then that you speak American English - I was unsure, since it's obviously quite English American English) what the Americans call pickles are called gherkins, and whilst 'pickle' as a noun is brown gunky stuff, anything at all preserved in vinegar (eggs, onions and peppers being particularly popular) can be said to be pickled.
However, the fact remains that peppers are first picked and then peppered and so to pick a pickled pepper would seem impossible. But one day I saw a television programme in which some pear liquor was sold in narrow-necked bottles containing a whole pear. The pear was placed in the bottle when but a baby and grew to be so big that it could not be removed. I concluded (I was c.8) that something similar must have occured in the Peter Piper case. It was several years before I pondered the point of whether peppers would continue to grow once pickled.
And so it remains one of the greatest mysteries of our age.
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Date: 2003-01-29 02:29 am (UTC)However, the fact remains that peppers are first picked and then peppered and so to pick a pickled pepper would seem impossible. But one day I saw a television programme in which some pear liquor was sold in narrow-necked bottles containing a whole pear. The pear was placed in the bottle when but a baby and grew to be so big that it could not be removed. I concluded (I was c.8) that something similar must have occured in the Peter Piper case. It was several years before I pondered the point of whether peppers would continue to grow once pickled.
And so it remains one of the greatest mysteries of our age.