pluck/pick

Re: pluck/pick


Pick is more correct. Pluck you may refer to with phrases such as plucking strings of a guitar or a stringed instrument.

however, 'on the tree' is not as common usage. One might say 'in the tree' or 'up in the tree'

As a child I was often given the task of plucking chickens.

Dys: Ever kiss a chicken on the lips?

"Pluck" has the sense of pulling something. You pluck feathers; pluck at someone's sleeve; but you pick up sticks.

We talk about "picking" fruit in general (and picking flowers or potatoes) even though in some cases you have to "pluck" the individual fruit from the bush! Maybe because in that case you don't have to pull very hard, when the fruit is ripe.

McTag has made the correct distinction for a discussion of harvesting fruit. One picks fruit in quantity. Occasionally one may pluck a particularly delicious piece of fruit or beautiful flower or attractive idea or ravishing conversational partner--but only occasionally.

I plucked my children right out of that church sunday school when I discovered they was larnin' about how everyone in the bible spent their time begotten each other.

I went to a baseball game and standing right in front of the ticket office was a man scalping tickets for 10 x their worth. He said he was just plucking the geese.

There's another implied sense in "picking" fruit which has just occurred to me: you take your pick, meaning you select the best and the ripest, leaving the rest to ripen yet awhile. You "pick" the ones you want.