MISNOMERS

New Zealand Tablet, 27 September 1906, Page 37

MISNOMERS

German silver has no silver in its composition ; it is a white alloy composed of copper, zinc, and nickel. The blindworm is neither blind nor a worm. It is a small European lizard, having a slender limbless body and small eyes, which are quick and brilliant. Bridegroom has nothing to do with groom. It is from the old English word guma, a man. Hence, brydguma, the bride's man. The lArabic figures were not invented by the Araibs. They were introduced " into Europe from Arabian use in the twelfth century, but the system in r^p complete form originated in India. Fire,- air, earth, and water were falsely . regarded by the ancients as the constituents of which ' all things are composed, and were consequently.called'elements'; but they are- not elements at' all.

-The titmouse is no mouse, but a bird. Turkish baths are not of Turkish origin. Salt -has long been wholly excluded from the -class of bodies denominated salts. Table salt is chloride of sodium. Sealing wax is not wax, nor does it contain- a single particle of wax. It is made of shellac and resin melted with turpentine. Whalebone is in no sense bone, but an elastic horny substance attached to the upper iaw of the whale. Greyhound has no connection with the 'color gray While the derivation of the first part of tho-- word is uncertain,, it is possibly from grey or gray, the badger, which was hunted by the hound. Gothic architecture is not the architecture of the Goths, but the ecclesiastical style employed in several countries before the Renaissance. The term was applied by the Italians as one of reproach. Wormwood has nothing do do with worms or wood. While the formation of the word is uncertain, it is apparently from the Anglo-Saxon wermoa, preserver of the mind, from the supposed belief in its medicinal virtues. Rice paper is not always made from rice. There is one kind that is produced from the straw of rice in China, Japan, and elsewhere, but the term is jmore commonly applied to a delicate white film which is not rice paper at all, but is prepared in China from the pith of a shrub.