掲示板 Forums - Katakana vs hiragana
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The lemon question intrigued me, so I looked into it. BOY did I have to dig! I'm not sure how accurate this is, but this is the TLDR without getting into a lot of detail or subtlety.
れもん seems to be overwhelmingly viewed as appropriate because the word has been basically naturalized as a Japanese word. The kanji 檸檬 for lemon, with the same pronunciation of the loanword, sort of "legitimizes" the word as being Japanese, or having been absorbed/naturalized into Japanese. And with 檸檬 being made of complicated kanji, being represented with れもん is considered an appropriate substitution for the kanji.
Of course, originating as a loanword, レモン (katakana) is absolutely correct. But れもん、being the hiragana expression of the kanji 檸檬、is also mainly considered correct. Though from my research, there still seem to be some Japanese who do not believe it is acceptable and should be katakana.
Hope this helps!
I said it was complicated, didn’t I? 
One more thing that I noted that may play a role is that there was a prominent piece of fiction called れもん, a short story by Motojiro Kajii. It is the author's first work and was published in 1925. It was notable for being written in the first person.
If it helps simplify. I have never seen Lemon written in hiragana on any packaging, menus, textbooks or signs. It's almost always レモン. I drink a lot of lemon sours too, so definitely see it written a lot. 
If you're after what's most correct then I would probably just stick with レモン here.
This is an honest question out of curiosity, not a challenge of your statement... You say you have never seen れもん in hiragana, and then say it's almost always レモン in katakana. So, when it's not in katakana, it's always in kanji 檸檬 from your experience?
I agree レモン seems most likely "most correct" (logically, but I have no first hand knowledge of this), but れもん does occur. It's funny you mention product packaging, because that was the basis of one of my research study sources on the issue. Just to illustrate, I just found the following two images when searching to find れもん on product packaging/advertising.
BTW, the essay I mentioned stated that the use of れもん instead of レモン on a product label may be trying to express a notion of the lemon flavor being sweet and mellow ("cursive" hiragana) rather than sharp and sour ("angular" katakana). Just a thought.
This is an honest question out of curiosity, not a challenge of your statement... You say you have never seen れもん in hiragana, and then say it's almost always レモン in katakana. So, when it's not in katakana, it's always in kanji 檸檬 from your experience?
I agree レモン seems most likely "most correct" (logically, but I have no first hand knowledge of this), but れもん does occur. It's funny you mention product packaging, because that was the basis of one of my research study sources on the issue. Just to illustrate, I just found the following two images when searching to find れもん on product packaging/advertising.
BTW, the essay I mentioned stated that the use of れもん instead of レモン on a product label may be trying to express a notion of the lemon flavor being sweet and mellow ("cursive" hiragana) rather than sharp and sour ("angular" katakana). Just a thought.
Ah, no no, I love this! I was perhaps a little too liberal on the first "never", both should be *almost*. But I've definitely never seen the kanji! However I'll sometimes see the hiragana versions of many words around the place, lemon didn't stick out as being particularly special. I think the example you've got above is a good example of how the choice of characters can change depending on the point you're trying to get across. Although it is interesting that both are used in your second image!
When I say most correct, I'm saying that more as in what you should worry about and what you should write "normally" when you're learning. If you're just starting out, stick with one and then learn when you finally do make that once in a hundred mistake.
Although I must say that I've never really been taking much note of when hiragana is used... I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for it now haha. Maybe I need to drink more sake :)
As good an excuse as any!
Yeah, I noticed the れもん AND レモン in the second ad as well.
Well, it's been an interesting deep dive! Hopefully the person who asked the question originally can get some sense of answer from these posts!
Still fun and interesting at any rate.
I suppose ultimately マイコー may be the only one who can say why the renshuu dictionary entry has れもん instead of レモン。I'd definitely love to know! I sure am craving lemon now though...
What? Renshuu’s dictionary has all three: れもん, レモン, and 檸檬. If you don’t see some of these entries, it may because have a filter turned on that only shows the most common words.
Oh, I do see all 3, but at least in the entry I see, the header term is れもん and says also written as レモン。 Just curious why the top "spelling" is れもん。
I have tried your links and typing レモンdirectly into search. They all bring up the one entry shown above. I also checked my settings and don't see anything that looks like it would stop entries from being visible. Maybe I'm missing something?...
Ok, I sent in "report a mistake" for the entry, suggesting レモン be the leading term and れもん be the "also written as". If this change is made, it should hopefully prevent utter confusion in the future! w
Thank you so much for sharing the dictionary explanations! And thank you as well for the explanation about "naturalized" loanwords sometimes appearing in hiragana... I feel that's important understanding for students of Japanese.
ありがとう
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