What misnamed items ( like coffee beans ) are there out there?
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September 15th, 2016
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Most fruits/vegetables/seeds. Fruits are the ovary of any plant and contain seeds. Vegetables are technically limited to root vegetables (no seeds). The seed is the ovule of the plant and has a protective cover. A fun example of how much we’ve messed up the system is strawberries: the “seeds” on the strawberry are actually the fruit of the strawberry, as the literal seeds are within that structure. The flesh of the strawberry is actually just floral tissue.
French fries aren’t French. The four elments, Fire, Earth, Air and Water are not elements.
Mistletoe. It’s not a Mistle or a toe. WTF!!
Peanuts (legumes, not nuts)
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries (aggregate fruit, not berries)
Ginger root (stem rhizome, not root)
Champagne (when used to describe any sparkling wine, rather than wine from Champagne grapes)
Chablis (when used for any still, white wine, although this one seemed to fade around 1980)
German chocolate cake (named for the American man Samuel German, and having nothing to do with Germany)
World Series (Toronto is as worldwide as it gets)
Miss Universe (why aren’t other planets, solar systems, and galaxies represented?)
^ Mistletoe.
It is really not a nice fern for Christmas but a parasite on certain trees.
Also a koala bear is not a real bear but an arboreal herbivorous marsupial.
Jaffa cake…it’s a biscuit
Eskimo pies – not made out of Eskimos and not pies!
Boston cream pie – it’s a cake, not a pie, and it’s usually filled with custard, not crème patissiere. Well, at least the dessert has its origins in Boston…
Not a misnomer but restive and restless having similar meaning doesn’t seem right.
Hamburger is made from beef.
Hogshead cheese is not cheese.
The term “French Kiss” was coined by British / American soldiers coming home after WWI. One interesting fact about verb to kiss in French:
For centuries, there’s been no official French word for what may be the country’s most popular export – the “French kiss” – but that’s finally been rectified.
The one-word verb “galocher” — to kiss with tongues — is among new entries added to the Petit Robert 2014 French dictionary, which hit the shops Thursday.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/french-kiss-finally-enters-french-dictionary/
We don’t literally dial the phone or hang up these days.
We drive on parkways, then park in driveways.
Head Cheese isn’t made from heads.
Guinea pig is not a pig. Some other examples here.
Red licorice is not licorice.
We pack suits in a garment bag, and garments in a suitcase.
Does anyone wear bathing suits in the bath? Or take a nap in the restroom?
@Seek I had a woman on our staff that would disappear; she napped on a couch in the women’s room.
I was watching a nature show the other day. The host said “and the ‘Flying Lemur, ’ although it can’t fly,and isn’t a Lemur.”.....
And if you’ve ever been to a place that serves alcohol @Seek , you’re going to see people ‘resting ’ in the restroom. I usually find about one a week at least where I work ;)
We park in the driveway and drive on the parkway.
Grapenuts. Neither grapes nor nuts.
A banana is actually a berry, I’ve heard.And a strawberry isn’t a berry at all.
Blowjob. You do not actually blow during it.
Snowballing. No snowballs involved, at all.
Yup. Should be ‘suck job.’
The “God Particle” was never meant to be associated with God and the name caused much consternation and mass protests among the world’s religious when scientists in 2015 announced they would use the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland—by far the world’s largest “atom smasher” facility—to prove it’s existence. Somehow this act was predicted to cause the end of the world (Is He really that jealous?). The scientists did prove it’s existence and the world didn’t end. That much even I can prove.
It was originally named the “Goddamned Particle” by physicist :Leon Lederman as a working title to his book because it was so goddamned hard to find, but his publisher asked him to change it in order to avoid controversy. LOL. It’s formal name is the Higgs boson.
Donald Trump: Presidential Candidate
@imrainmaker If you say “galoche moi” to a French woman, she’ll hit you with her shoes… “Embrasse moi” (kiss me) should work better. However, ”se galocher” exists as a reflexive verb, and means to french kiss one another over more than just an instant, eg over a period of several minutes / hours, as a pleasurable activity in itself.
@olivier5 I found out some years ago that “baisser” is not the right verb for kiss either.
^^DId somebody hit you with a shoe, or did you Google it?
@Olivier5 – I don’t know French I just found out while searching over the net on this topic and shared info as found it interesting. Ready to learn though if can help me hook up with French gals..)
When it first became popular in the 1850’s, the montecristis hat, also know as the Panama hat, was never made in Panama – not the authentic ones, anyway. It was and still is made in nearby Ecuador, but as not too many people passed through Ecuador in the nineteenth century, the Ecuadorian hat makers went up to Panama to sell them because Panama, even before the canal, was a popular place for those in transit to cross from one ocean to another in order to avoid the violent seas and extra month involved in going around Cape Horn.
Jellyfish is not a fish hehe!
^^OK, I’ll bite. How did you gain this bit of connaissance?
The Battle of Bunker Hill wasn’t fought on Bunker Hill. It was fought on nearby Breed’s Hill. It’s a long story.
My DIL told me after I had thought I wrote on a post card in French to their Brittany spaniel (don’t ask) that I would kiss him when I saw him.
You and other species. When will you ever learn?
@janbb Ha ha ha… It would have worked in the 18th century or so but nowadays “baiser” means “to fuck”. The noun (“un baiser”) still means “a kiss”.
A french kiss is called “un baiser sur la bouche” (kiss on the mouth) as opposed to “un baiser sur la joue” (kiss on the cheek) aka “une bise”. “Fait moi la bise” = kiss me on the cheek as a friendly hello or good bye very common in France, esp. between women or between a man and a woman, also common between men from the same family and between very close male friends.
Beware that “la bise” on the cheeck means nothing sexual or romantic. It’s totally in the friend zone. Often misunderstood by strangers for something else.
@olivier5 So I learned. The perils of relying on one’s high school French when writing to a spaniel!
^^Trust me. That’s a lot more reliable than learning it on the docks at Fort de France.
^^ You were there as a sailer? Tell us tell us!!
Martinique is just a few miles from my place on St. Lucia. I sometimes pick up and deliver yachts there which requires a lot of downtime on the docks—paperwork, customs inspections, etc. So much so that I’m on a first-name basis with some of the crews, brokers and customs people. It’s also the best place in the vicinity for any serious shopping for equipment and foreign goods. And the black market is very accessible when the need arises..
So what does “galoche moi” mean?
Oh St Lucia… Where do you stay there? Can i visit? :-)
I was there a year ago for work. Great place.
I’m across the island from Castries. Atlantic coast, north end. I think you better take me to a dinner and a movie first, you know, no sense in rushing into things.
@imrainmaker It can mean “kiss me” but it comes out very odd. The first meaning that comes to mind is “hit me with your shoe”. Galoche is originally a type of shoe and became slang for any shoe. The connection to kissing is a bit tortuous – goes through an expression to describe protruding chins (menton en galoche)—> human jaws can be compared to shoes—> “se galocher” = “to work on each others’ shoe” = to kiss like there’s no tomorrow, for hours on end.
In short, a “galoche” is a looong french kiss.
Victoria’s Secret…we all know by now David has a tiny penis
spotted dick: there’s no dick in it at all (when it’s prepared according to the commonly accepted recipe)
OK, Penguin, when we go to France, you walk in front. Trust that I will defend you most verbally when the shoes begin to fly.
@olivier5 Oh, let’s see, flowers… something exotic… one of these will be fine.
The vast majority of us Brits say we’re going to “Hoover” when we’re about to do a spot of vacuum cleaning. That particular brand must be laughing all the way to the bank as most people I know have never owned that brand & yet use the name as a matter of course.
@ucme While in the US, to Hoover meant to either scarf up a huge amount of food all at once, or, in the Eighties, to snort a disproportionate amount of the cocaine at a party.
@zenvelo Shared language? Not so’d you’d notice.
The Canary Islands aren’t named after their many canaries. When the Romans visited there, oh, a long time ago, they found them covered thick with vicious, wild dogs, which evidently impressed them. So they named the islands Insula Canaria and the name stuck. The canes are gone, but the canaries are still there.
@olivier5 – Thanks for information..shoe and kiss.. what a strange connection! Looks like you’re expert in French..) Do you have any French connection?
^^ errr… I’m French. That’d be the connection :-)
Just in case you guys didn’t already know this, lunacy has nothing to do with the moon. But the term lunatic still appeared in many US federal laws until 2012 when the lunatics we call congress finally came back from lunch and agreed to replace it with more accurate, scientific terms.
A Titmouse is not a mouse, it is a bird.
A Wombat is not a bat.
A Platypus is not a cat.
@Espiritus_Corvus Which team are you playing for here? It seems you can be had for dinner and flowers!
What we know as the Pythagorean Theorem wasn’t originally Pythagoras’. It was used 1,500 years earlier according to ancient Babylonian texts, knowledge to which Pythagoras could have had access.
Just playin’ around with the Frenchman, Penguin. You never know—our residence permits could come out of this.
And there’s nothing wrong with a menage a trois! Did you hear the one about the penguin, the crow and the Frenchman?
@olivier5 – ohh.. that’s why..) but don’t you think it’s strange that there wasn’t proper word for kiss in French whom all consider so much romantic?
Let me be honest with you guys. It’s not hard to reside in France as a US citizen… You guys don’t actually NEED to sleep with me to get it…
Well, at least they have 10 words for “surrender”.
@imrainmaker your question reminds me of a joke: Do you know how they call a German shepheard in Germany? Answer: a shepheard.
And for the same reason, the French word for “French kiss” just means “kiss”.
A pair of pants is actually a single item.
@rojo
It is a holdover from the time when both legs were put on separately.
so a pant is a leg or stocking and two together are…....... pantyhose? (which is, incidently, not a hose)
@Espiritus_Corvus , Pythagoras may have been the first to prove his eponymous theorem.
Surprised nobody mentioned shellfish as not being fish. At one time, all animals that lived in the water were called fish. Linnaeus was the first person to classify whales and dolphins as mammals, though not in the first edition of his book.
A dolphin is only distantly related to Dolph Lundgren.
@janbb What about the Penguin, the Goose and the Crow, sounds like an Aesops fable. haha
A goose is not made from goo, and a crow does not row.
@LostInParadise You’re a math teacher, right? You might be interested in this It’s the specific Babylonian text I referred to. Today the clay tablet is called Plimpton 322.
In Part 3 of the translation, the interpreters refer to Pythagoras in an aside, but really I can’t make heads nor tails out of it. If you choose to look at it, could you tell me what you think of how close the Babylonians came? I’d really appreciate it.
Not really a misnomer but obsolete:
Husband (n.) from Old Norse husbondi, “house master”.
Husband (v.) “manage thriftily,” early 15c., from husband (n.) in an obsolete sense of “steward” (mid-15c.). Related: Husbanded; husbanding; (animal) husbandry.
I hate when streets are named Oceanview, or Lakeview, or any other type of view that is no where near an ocean or a lake, or whatever.
@olivier5 – Similarly, in several languages, “Wife” means “the one who makes beer”.
@tinyfaery Or Vista something, like Vista Hermosa or Vista Robles, when there isn’t anything beautiful or a tree or anything else in sight but more tract homes. I wish someone would have the balls to name one of these streets Vista de Nada. Hell, nobody would notice for years.
@Seek. That’s awesome. What a world.
The saying “stir crazy” also goes way back to the middle ages when prisoners made the beer and would, often, be overcome and intoxicated from the boiling hops fumes. haha
Has Prairie Dog been mentioned I just started reading the answers.
@flo Yours is the first mention of “Prairie Dog” in this thread.
If you Ctrl + F, you should get a search box at the bottom of your screen. If you enter that phrase, the nearest use of it on this page will be highlighted. If there is no use of it, the box will turn red.
@Brian1946 I wish I hadn’t whispered it. Thanks I love that feature I just think of using it in articles etc.
How about Pro-Choice? Big one right?
@tinyfaery And, what about Elm Street, Azalea Court, and Oak Lane, when there are no elm trees, azalea bushes, or oak trees within the climate zone?
Well…some names do fit.
I have lived on “Serenity Drive” and it was very serene, in the middle of nowhere. haha
I have also lived on “Eden Lane” and it was a beautiful little road in paradise. My garden had a sign that said ” Garden on Eden.”
Then there was the house on “Cougar Track” and yes, there were lots of cougars around. Out here where I live the names are fitting. “Gopher Gulch”, “Mosquito Road”, “Rattlesnake Bar Road.” “Coyote Canyon.” All fit perfectly. lol
@zenvelo, @ucme It was in the 80’s (or maybe even late 70’s) that I saw a piece of cocaine paraphernalia shaped like a small Hoover upright vacuum.
How about ‘so-called’ burkinis? ;-p
@flo An addendum to this post: After you enter your search terms, double check your spelling because Firefox won’t spellcheck the box.
As Voltaire pointed out, the Holy Roman Empire, was not holy, Roman or much of an empire.
Mushrooms. Not mushy, no rooms. lol
A lock of hair; would be very poor security against theives.
@Brian1946 Oh My God of course, the major one the so called Burkini Why didn’t I think of that in this thread.
Foot soldier Is that boots on the ground or one who fights feet? Or do they battle yards and inches?
Poopdeck. I’ve never seen anyone pooping there!
Ah! But that’s because the poop deck is the stern, or the aft portion of the ship, and “poop” in the vulgar sense is derived as a euphemism from the nautical term, and not the other way around!
Catacomb Not a cat, not a comb. lol
American (when meaning USian).
Carpet.
Not a car, not a pet. haha
@olivier5 don’t be too quick to say “hot dog”. No one knows what is in there.
@zenvelo Insect parts and rodent hairs for sure. Maybe they should call them rat dogs.haha
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