la pomme de terre

Question

Bonjour et excuse moi :) For the potato that we say la pomme de terre, why don't we say "la pomme de la terre" ? I mean shouldnt we use le /la/les as possesive after de?? Merci beaucoup

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Nazanin !

Here you are not saying "the apple of THE earth", which would imply a possession by one of the other, but more "the earth apple" which is a general characteristic of that kind of apple.
Therefore, you will not use the definite article "la" which makes it a specific case ("of THE earth").
Here it's not a case of possession, but rather a case of characterisation, such as explained in the following lesson:
Compound nouns formed with prepositions à/de/en in French

I hope that's helpful!

Answer

Bonjour Nazanin,

Good question. No, because "de" is not possessive here: it's not saying that the "apple" belongs to the ground, it's describing where it comes from.

Answer

Thank you very much

Answer

And how is good that you answer quicly 
Nice of you and your team. :)