Pluck or pick

Question

Do you pluck leaves or pick leaves? Ngram shows zero results for 'pick fruit', but Google shows people saying 'pick is more common' on different English learning forum. I'm confused.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Yes, we pick fruit.

Pluck is, in my opinion, less common. It involves more of a jerking motion. eg We pluck feathers from a chicken, we pluck flowers.

Anonymous · Answer

sundarnazDo you pluck leaves or pick leaves?

Living in the UK, pick has always been the word. From experience, I know that speakers of Asian kinds of English use pluck, especially Indians.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

sundarnazNgram shows zero results for 'pick fruit',

You need to change the form of the ngram query.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pick_VERB+fruit&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpick_VERB%20fruit%3B%2Cc0

Comparing "pick" with "pluck," you see that pluck is an older expression:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pick_VERB+fruit%2Cpluck_VERB+fruit&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpick_VERB%20fruit%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpluck_VERB%20fruit%3B%2Cc0

If you want the most frequent collocations of pick + noun:

FInally, if you want to compare pick versus pluck with a particular object (e.g. flowers), use this:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pick_VERB+flowers%2C+pluck_VERB+flowers&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpick_VERB%20flowers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpluck_VERB%20flowers%3B%2Cc0

Anon-57 · Answer

This is a very interesting matter. Many people have answered in many ways. Some have suggested to use pick while others, pluck. Again, some of them spoke about the people of Indian subcontinent. It is not possible to use both verbs in one situation. So, it is necessary for us all to know in what situation we will use pluck and in what situation we will use pick.

Pluck: We use 'pluck' in

Pluck: We use 'pluck' in the situation when something is tightly attached to something ( as flowers, leaves, fruits are attached to trees)

Examples:

We pluck flowers from trees.

We pluck leaves from trees.

We pluck tea leaves from tea gardens.

We pluck feathers from birds.

Pick: We use 'pick' in the situation when something is loose and lying on something ( as flowers, leaves, books etc. are on the ground or on a table etc.)

Examples:

I picked up the book from the ground.

King Midas picked up the apple from the ground.

Please pick up the flower from the table.

The cleaner picked up all the dry leaves lying on the school yard and put them in a basket.

So, if you mean the first situation, it is ' pluck leaves' and if you mean the second situation, it is 'pick leaves'.

Please do not forget to use 'up' after 'pick'.

Thanks.

Pluck or pick

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