Thread: Things which are named wrong

Since size matters, Greenland, not very green
Iceland; icy but with more green than Greenland
New York, New York; the town so nice they named it twice. Once would have been enough, they're not that nice
America; Vespucci deserved a lake or a bay, but no, not a whole continental landmass
Australia; too similar to Austria, seems derivative but isn't
Iowa and Ohio and Idaho; no one can tell these apart
Kansas; it's just Arkansas shortened and pronounced wrong
New Mexico; just plain lazy in naming this state
Rhode Island; It is neither
Kierkagaard; Pretty smart guy but name too hard to pronounce
Pacific Ocean; just not true.
North and South Dakota; one Dakota would have sufficed
Intercourse, Pennsylvania; Once drove all the way there for nothing
Virgin Islands; see above
Death Valley; never gonna' attract investors or developers with that name
Uranus; has caused embarrassment to many a schoolteacher
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW); how many domestic war vets are left ?
Church of Latter-Day Saints; an un-called-for denigration of the earlier-day saints
and so on...there are thousands more

Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats - 11 tracks of not so great industrial music.

Daylight saving time.

w.a.s.p.
(white anglo-saxon protestant)
show me just one black anglo-saxon

But there are plenty of whites who are not anglo-saxon. And there are also plenty of protestant people with non-white skin whose genealogy is mostly white and/or anglo-saxon.

Those are pretty good. How about 'olive-skinned' Italians ? I love olives. So do many others. Never noticed any change in skin. Olives are black or green. Show me one example in Italy. Sure, there are blacks there. And many others. Where are the green-skinned ?
Even the term Redskin; can't see it. The yellow Asians ? Huh-uh. I'm not colorblind; I've been tested a dozen times. So, what gives with these 'observational' data ?
I'll tell you after I read some excuses, er, responses.

Is it corn or is it maize?

To me, corn. Native American, maize, fishermen, chub, (I think; I don't know "fishing") Austin,again.

Originally Posted by dan hunter

Is it corn or is it maize?

The ATF. Alcohol, tobacco, firearms. Why these legal things ? Why under one Dept. ? Why not toss-in gambling, prostitution, weed ? I heard a funny thing from an inside source (policeman). ATF stands for Always Take Forfeiture (stealing from alleged bad guys, and yes, 'alleged' is sufficient). The criminal element are rank amateurs next to the boys in blue. You ever wonder about the phrase on many police cruisers: To Serve and Protect Serve whom and protect what ? It's not as obvious as it appears. I'll elaborate, at another time.

BUTTERMILK has no butter in it.
FIREFLY is not a fly but a beetle.
SWEETBREAD is not bread, nor is it sweet; it is the pancreas of a calf or lamb used as food.
TITMOUSE is not a mouse, but a bird.
WORMWOOD has nothing to do with worms or wood; it is a kind of plant.

Military Intelligence.

I've always suspected some redneck came up with the acronym BATF and secretly it actually stands for Bureau of All Thing Fine.

North pole; Is the friggin magnetic south pole
South pole; Is the magnetic north pole
New Sealand; Lame excuse for a name, Sea + land is mud, and it's a beautifull country, not mud. Sealand in the Netherlands is mud, so is correctly named..

All words containing the following symbols;
ç
ñ
æ
Ø
ß

2 tits

Political Science

BUTT MAKER

Job Description:

1) Tends machine that forms scrap and binder leaf tobacco into cigar-like roll and cuts roll into butts of chewing tobacco: Starts machine and dumps scrap into hopper of machine.

2) Feeds binder leaf into machine that wraps leaf around scrap into roll and conveys roll under cutting knives.

3) Places box or basket at discharge end of machine to catch butts.

Ladybugs, koala bears, peanuts.

The list goes on.

For certain members of our species Homo sapiens...

Freedom fries.

So called because a nation decided it was free to make its own mind up.

This list is endless, but lets try finding the end. Butterfly(s) were formerly known as flutter-by(s). I liked the original better.
The Department of Corrections. What does it correct ? Dept. of Punishment would be more accurate, much more.

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Freedom fries.

So called because a nation decided it was free to make its own mind up.

Members of the US Congress renamed the wrongly-named French fries because of anger toward France not getting on-board Desert Storm. France must have been as confused about this as anyone else. Typical of our 'leaders'. Bunch of posturing xenophobes.

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Military Intelligence.

"Kite flying in Maryland"

Well, lets start with gas (short for gasoline), you are not putting gas in your car, it's a liquid. You can put gas in your car in the form of LPG, which you still pump in your car as a liquid. Anyway, why name 2 phases in the word LPG (liquid petrolium gas), that does not make sense...

Don't forget fahrenheit (german word), foot, inch, yard, and mile (old brittish).... That's a cesspool of misunderstanding. You guys, americans, you won the colonial war against the brittish, now stop using their imperial system of measurements.

We don't wanna'. The metric system makes perfect sense. So does the sport of football (soccer, to us). But we just don't like either. A foot is, roughly, equal to a human one. An inch, the length of the end joint of a finger, etc. Americans have a hard time equating a meter with any common thing. Plus, we're jerks, largely.

Originally Posted by Zwolver

Well, lets start with gas (short for gasoline), you are not putting gas in your car, it's a liquid. You can put gas in your car in the form of LPG, which you still pump in your car as a liquid. Anyway, why name 2 phases in the word LPG (liquid petrolium gas), that does not make sense...

Don't forget fahrenheit (german word), foot, inch, yard, and mile (old brittish).... That's a cesspool of misunderstanding. You guys, americans, you won the colonial war against the brittish, now stop using their imperial system of measurements.

Originally Posted by umbradiago

Americans have a hard time equating a meter with any common thing.

It's just over a yard long! Easy.

Front yard or back ? What if you live in an apartment ?

Originally Posted by billvon

Originally Posted by umbradiago

Americans have a hard time equating a meter with any common thing.

It's just over a yard long! Easy.

• Freezer burn
• Even odds
• Static Flow
• Icy hot
• Lead balloon
• Steel Wool
• Original copy

Originally Posted by scheherazade

• Lead balloon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSkM-QEeUg

Well, lead foil balloon, but it did float.

I dunno. Led Zepplin works for me.

High finance
civil war
preemptive attack
routine surgery
menopause
flight path
live re-run

Dry ice

Semi Trailer

Boiler Maker

Why do they call them apartments when they're all stuck together? Why do we drive on parkways but park on driveways? If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Christian science

Why is neutering an animal called 'fixing' him ? Don't they actually break him ?

Why are some of the most gay-bashing men willing to reconsider where lesbians are concerned ? " OH, well, that's different ." I agree, it is.
But don't they see the inconsistency ? OR ARE they inconsistent ? Personally, Sappho isn't...um... un-appealing.

Home Short Sales. They often take more than six months to complete.

No doubt about it, language is a many splendored thing, lol...

Passive aggression

Pretty ugly

Working vacation

Exact estimate

Originally Posted by scheherazade

Pretty ugly

On t'other hand... there's the French phrase jolie laide which translates to exactly that.

Holy matrimony (should be wholly)

Originally Posted by umbradiago

Why are some of the most gay-bashing men willing to reconsider where lesbians are concerned ? " OH, well, that's different ." I agree, it is.
But don't they see the inconsistency ? OR ARE they inconsistent ? Personally, Sappho isn't...um... un-appealing.

I once saw it explained as "men like women so they can understand other women liking them".

On a slightly related note:
Sat in a café with my sisters and nephew I asked what the fuss was about the song "I Kissed A Girl".
One of my sisters explained that it was the "I Liked it" bit.
"Uh, and what's special about that?" I asked.
"Well it's a girl singing it! It's about girls kissing girls."
"Oh, that happens all the time in the films I watch." ¹


1 Playing dumb can lead to a good punch line even if I have to invent things...

Originally Posted by umbradiago

This list is endless, but lets try finding the end. Butterfly(s) were formerly known as flutter-by(s). I liked the original better.

The name is derived from Middle Englishbuterflie, butturflye, boterflye, from Old English butorflēoge, buttorflēoge, buterflēoge, perhaps a compound of butor (beater), mutation of bēatan (to beat), and flēoge (fly).
Butterfly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conservative Party

Incontinent - It's not about any continent, nor is it about being in them...

Blowjob - Nobody is blowing on anything..

Qtip - aren't shapen like a Q at all, nor the tip of a Q.

Vacuum cleaner - Doesn't use vacuum, it just has some under-pressure.

Interstate H-1.

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Interstate H-1.

I had to look it up.
It seems you deserve a double misnaming score for it.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

You decide...



Australian repellant used by the armed forces.

Shitto is an allegedly delicious Ghanaian sauce with a name that makes Americans laugh while everyone in Ghana seems to love it.

Hobbies. We all know they're obsessions.

One of my favorite, Dan. They made lying into a science. Good idea

Originally Posted by dan hunter

Political Science

Invented the phrase "I left my wallet at home".

Originally Posted by dan hunter

Conservative Party

Freeway tolls.

Right-to-work laws; really means right to be fired for little or no cause. A single worker hasn't the resources to contest the thing. I was fired for trying to circulate a petition to have a union vote. The formal reasons used were other, bullshit reasons. Against the law since, 1937 or so. But, I was out the door.

World Series.

Mr. Universe Contest - a little presumptuous, no ? How would we know ?

In Chicago, one could not park on a parkway
and you cannot drive far on a driveway

Originally Posted by Zwolver

Incontinent - It's not about any continent, nor is it about being in them...

Blowjob - Nobody is blowing on anything..

Qtip - aren't shapen like a Q at all, nor the tip of a Q.

Vacuum cleaner - Doesn't use vacuum, it just has some under-pressure.

Nor is it an unlikable job, er, for some.

Instant rice. That's impossible.
utter objectivity: doesn't exist
false pride: actually, this is utterly correct
Victory cry : Why cry, you won ?
victory lap: these go on forever in fact
broad jump: broads hate this term
Sperm bank: just an unfortunate marriage of convenience

Dark energy. WTF?

Ruler: I mean the linear ruler, the one with the lines on it. Why not have a different name for this then for someone who rules over you.

Originally Posted by Zwolver

Ruler: I mean the linear ruler, the one with the lines on it. Why not have a different name for this then for someone who rules over you.

Because they're cognates.
Both imply a guide, something that delineates, controls, regulates.

"And, now, a man who needs no introduction!"

have you ever been to a conference-symposium-etc, wherein the guy at the podium says:
"And, now, a man who needs no introduction!"
Then, the jerk at the podium goes on for 20 boring minutes giving us a biography of "the man who needs no introduction"
Just once:
I'd like to hear/see the guy at the podium say: "And, now, a man who needs no introduction!"
then stop------not another word-----just turn sharply and walk off the stage.........

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Zwolver

Ruler: I mean the linear ruler, the one with the lines on it. Why not have a different name for this then for someone who rules over you.

Because they're cognates.
Both imply a guide, something that delineates, controls, regulates.

Ok, i didn't know that..

However, did you know this?



Most of us have a better rapport card than Einstein? 9gag has surprised me again.

Originally Posted by Zwolver

However, did you know this?

Er, because I'm really smart?

I like words, I like etymology.
I like knowing what words mean and how we got them.

Of course, I could have given the flippant answer: the one I gave when a potential employer asked "How come you speak so many languages?" - "I think a more pertinent question would be, "How come you don't?" Didn't you bother with an education?".

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Zwolver

However, did you know this?

Er, because I'm really smart?

I like words, I like etymology.
I like knowing what words mean and how we got them.

Of course, I could have given the flippant answer: the one I gave when a potential employer asked "How come you speak so many languages?" - "I think a more pertinent question would be, "How come you don't?" Didn't you bother with an education?".

Now read it again, and feel really stupid.. Hehe..

See the comma?

Originally Posted by Zwolver

Now read it again, and feel really stupid.. Hehe..
See the comma?

Ah, okay.
Yes I did.
(You can tell I knew that because I posted it).
NOW you can read my post.