APPLE TO APPLE THUS "APPLE TO ORANGE" TO "APPLE TO ORANGE"

The Metaphor of Apple & Orange

These are comparison metaphors, not really about fruit. They’re about whether a comparison is fair, useful, or misleading.

1) Apple to Apple

Imagine two apples on a table. Same kind of thing, same basic rules. You can ask: Which is sweeter? Which is fresher? Which is bigger? The comparison makes sense because you’re judging like against like.

So “apple to apple” means: compare similar things using the same standards. Compare this year’s sales to last year’s sales, one runner to another runner in the same race, one phone to another phone. It is the metaphor of fairness and consistency.

2) Apple to Orange

Now put an apple in one hand and an orange in the other. One is crisp; one is juicy. One has a core; one has segments. You can still compare them on shared facts—weight, price, calories—but you cannot fairly ask, “Which one is the better apple?”

So “apple to orange” means: you’re comparing unlike things, often in a way that hides important differences. It is the metaphor of an unfair or misleading comparison. Comparing a poem to a tax return, a bicycle to a car, or a fish to a bird by “speed” alone may be apples to oranges.

3) “Apple to Orange” to “Apple to Orange”

Now imagine two people each holding an apple and an orange, and each saying, “This is apples to oranges.” Then someone compares those two mismatched comparisons to each other.

That is “apple to orange” to “apple to orange”: comparing one unfair comparison with another unfair comparison.

The metaphor becomes meta. It says: “Your comparison is mismatched, and mine is mismatched too. So are we comparing the mismatches?” This can be useful if you want to show that both sides are using the same flawed pattern. But it does not make either original comparison fair. It only tells you that both are apples-to-oranges—or that both are equally confused.

In Short

• Apple to apple = fair, like-for-like comparison.
• Apple to orange = unfair, unlike-for-unlike comparison.
• “Apple to orange” to “apple to orange” = comparing two unfair comparisons, often to expose a pattern, a hypocrisy, or a deeper confusion.