Misleading Words and Erroneous Credit There are a lot of misleading words in the English language. Take the term Indian. Columbus was originally trying to find a quick route to Asia and with it get to those countries in Asia like India, China and others. Naming the native Americans Indians is misleading. We were told the rich ancient Romans would eat until they almost burst then go to the Vomitorium and vomit so they could eat more. It turns out a Vomitorium is really the passageway which led out from an amphitheater. I do not think anyone would purposely go into that passageway to vomit. Sometimes simple words have a meaning other than what most people think. Take the word everyday for example. It does not mean something will happen each 24 hours when the two words every and day are put together. It means commonplace. I saw a good example on the internet. It was “I am just a regular, everyday, normal person.” Things have been misnamed in every century. In our Revolutionary War one of the most famous battles was the Battle of Bunker Hill. There is a problem with that since the battle didn’t take place on Bunker Hill but on Breed’s Hill. When the battle was about to start orders came down to reinforce Bunker Hill but they decided not to do it. Breed’s Hill was higher and closer to the water so they made their stand there. This is where the famous saying came from, “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” When you take geometry, you get the Pythagorean Theorem. It was named after Pythagoras who gets the credit for it, but it really should have been named after a Babylonian because they were using it an incredible thousand years before. Even if something is found out later which changes the credit given to someone like Columbus discovering America in 1492, we don’t seem to want to change it. The Vikings and Chinese were here before him and he only made it to Jamaica on his first trip. The word Lunatic was penned because the ancients knew there was fluid in the brain. They also knew the moon, the word lunar comes from it, influenced the tides. Therefore, they reasoned the moon held influence over the fluid in the brain also. Today we know this is incorrect and yet we still use the term lunatic to denote someone with a mental illness. I don’t think many people here would care about the next misuse of a word I am going to talk about, but it is interesting. It has to do with a Panama hat. Those are the white, light men’s hats made from palm straw. They were made in Ecuador, but in order to sell a lot of them they were shipped to Panama since far more people went there. Thus, the misleading name. We have all heard about the Hundreds Year War in our history classes. I have to wonder how many people know how long it actually lasted, because it was not a hundred years war. It actually lasted far longer and was fought for 116 years. Wow you think our wars last a long time? Another place which has been misnamed in modern times is the Canary Islands. It was a matter of misunderstanding the meaning of the roman words used to name the islands. The Romans named the islands canaria insula which meant the island of wild dogs, but over the years canaria was assumed to mean canaries. This same thing happened more recently when Mars was seen through telescopes in the 19th century. An Italian astronomer said he saw “canales” on Mars. This meant channels but later the word was thought to mean canals which would have been made by intelligent beings. The original astronomer who said that never meant canals. When we talk about Fireflies, we have to realize there are no such things, the name is misleading. The insects have no fire and are not flies but beetles. One can see however why our ancestors would have named them that. There are plenty of misnamed animals in the world. Take the Guinea Pig for example. Guinea is a corruption of Guiana where they are found, but they are certainly not pigs, they are rodents. Some say they did not come from Guiana but the Andes. The people there consider them to be a tasty dish. Did you ever get a hankering for a piece of white chocolate? I hate to tell you this but there is no such thing. What we call white chocolate is mainly made from cocoa butter and cream. Obviously, there is no chocolate taste connected with the product. There is a piece of land in London which is called an island and yet it isn’t. I am talking about the Isle of Dogs. It only has water on three sides. I have to wonder why it wasn’t called the Peninsula of Dogs? Have you ever hit your funny bone? Well you couldn’t have since it doesn’t exist. What you did hit was the ulnar nerve and there was nothing funny about that. Did you ever hear the expression the Gravy Train? Think about it, there is no train and the word gravy is basically something tasty in this phrase. One has to wonder how it got to mean easy money? One of the favorite foods in the U.S. is Buffalo Wings. We all know they are chicken wings dipped in a hot sauce. Most people wonder why they are named after a buffalo. They are not. They are named after the City of Buffalo, New York. The city seems to also have the wrong name since it was not Buffalo which covered our plains, but Bison. Maybe they should be called Bison Wings? Have you ever seen a coat of arms? What are we talking about, there is no coat and there are no arms in a coat of arms, it is a symbol which is said to come from a tunic worn by a knight over armor which bore symbols denoting information such as family descent and alliances. If all the terms and labels in the English language were examined, we would find some meanings we might not even be able to explain. Over the years words have been corrupted and things have been misunderstood. New evidence has come out which prove other people than those given credit for things should have really been given the credit. It has gotten so prevalent; it would be too confusing to go back and try and correct everything.
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