Talk:Misnomer/Archive 1

Meteoroid/Meteor

The article calls a shooting star a Meteoroid. The proper term is Meteor. A meteoroid is still in outer space. It becomes a meteor once it "burns" in our atmosphere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.180.33 (talk) 10:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The contradiction/contrast

The contradiction/contrast between the name and the object pointed by the name need not be obvious to everyone. It should be made obvious in the most explicit manner:

• 'X is not X but Y.'
• 'The origin of From_X is not X but Y.'

and so on.

Chinese checkers

"13:52, 5 Apr 2005 Edward ('Chinese checkers is not Chinese' -> 'Chinese checkers are not Chinese')"

True enough if you're referring to the checkers themselves, but if you're referring to the game of Chinese checkers as a whole then "is not" is correct because it becomes a collective noun. Lee M 00:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, I changed it back. Edward 07:44, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

The Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire... discuss

The quote is from Voltaire. See: Wikiquote:Voltaire. Teratornis 00:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Doves

How is "doves" a misnomer? They symbolize peace even though they are aggressive but does that mean that it's a misnomer?

Dicdef

This article strike me as not much more than a dictionary definition. Even those examples are an awful lot like just using the word in a sentence. Could this be expanded to be more encyclopedic? --Dmcdevit 07:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

ya i think its good

VfD results

This article was nominated for deletion. The result was no consensus. A move to something like List of notable misnomers might be in order. For details, please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Misnomer. -- BD2412 ^talk July 9, 2005 04:10 (UTC)

Have been bold! --Dmcdevit July 9, 2005 04:50 (UTC)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

Is Aqua Teen Hunger Force a good exampe? Come on! Mosquitopsu

Since the name was deliberately made up to be nonsensical (in that it doesn't refer to any element of the actual show), I would say not. If we allow this example, we might as well allow Monty Python's Flying Circus on the same basis. 217.171.129.69 (talk) 11:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

nation

I would argue that this is not a misnomer but an alternate or controversial definition. A misnomer is a word that indicates a false meaning, not a word that has numerous, possibly misapplied definition.

"Correct" names

The label "misnomer" is often applied when a colloquial sense of a word conflicts with a technical one. For example, there was a huge flap on Wiktionary over "tidal wave", which despite over a century of common usage, including BBC coverage of the 26 December event, was deemed "incorrect" because tidal waves in the usual sense are not the direct result of a gravitational gradient.

The alleged logical basis for this falls completely apart under closer analysis (see Wiktionary for the gory details), but the notion that the narrow technical sense of tidal is "correct" carries such psychological weight that popular usage shifted from "tidal wave" to "tsunami" (Japanese for "harbor wave", for whatever that's worth) in a matter of weeks.

Similarly, a koala bear looks and acts like other bears, certainly more than it looks and acts like kangaroos, or snakes, or dingos or whatever. In what sense is it not really a bear? Only in a technical sense derived from careful analysis of lines of descent. Is a Koala a bear? It depends on which notion of "bear" you like. Neither is inherently "correct"

In fact, this page of misnomers, presumably aimed at pointing out the errors in common usage, in fact contains other rather arbitrary statements:

   * Asteroids are small planets, not small stars as their name suggests.

Depends. If you're looking at them (with a small telescope), they look like stars. Hmm ... Latin "aster", meaning star, and greek "-oid" used to denote things like the root to which it is attached ...

   * The fundamental theorem of algebra is really a theorem of analysis, not of algebra.

Um, when I learned it for my math degree, it was a statement about the roots of algebraic equations. Sure, it can be proved analytically, but so what? By that logic, it's also "really" a theorem of topology (since the analytic proofs are "really" topological in nature). Or set theory, since everything can be reduced to set theory.

   * Koala bears are herbivorous marsupials, unrelated to the carnivorous bear family.

What family would that be? The Ursidae belongs to Order Carnivora, but if anything that's a misnomer, since many Carnivora, and indeed several Ursidae, are omnivores or herbivores. I think all we're trying to say here is that Koalas aren't Ursidae (which no one disputes), but the hidden assumption here is that "bear" necessarily means Ursid.

   * The "lead" in modern pencils is made of graphite and clay, not lead.
   * Newfoundland is not a newly found land. It was discovered over 5000 years ago.
   * Peanuts are legumes, not nuts.

As with Koalas, what's a nut?

   * Greenland is mostly arctic and Iceland is mostly tundra.
   * The television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force is essentially a nonsense name; the show does not relate to any of the elements of its name.

The remaining items are mostly cases where a word has developed extended senses by the usual historical processes. Pencil lead is a substance used in pencils for the function for which lead (Pb) was originally used. The word "lead" can mean "the chemical element Pb" or "the stuff in pencils that leaves the mark", (or "a lead-based compound added to gasoline"), or whatever else depending on context. If we're going to call the extended senses "incorrect", then we can go ahead and call nearly any term a "misnomer". (When I said "go ahead", I didn't literally mean "go ahead", and when I said "call" I didn't mean shout out so someone can hear, and "nearly" doesn't really mean "close to" in the literal sense ... and I didn't really "say" any of that, I typed it.).

Newfoundland was so named by its finders, Greenland by people who landed on the green part, and "Iceland" is a transliteration of the Danish/Icelandic for "island", I believe. Even if that's not right, so what?

If we want an amusing list of words that sound incongrous, a sort of "Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?" routine, or if we want to list terms that mean different things in colloquial and technical speech, fine. But talking about "incorrect" names when all that's going on is perfectly normal linguistics is taking a POV, and a nearly indefensible one at that, in the guise of objectivity -- dmh on Wiktionary

• Regarding the Iceland comments above, and in the article, saying that "Iceland" is a cognate of "island" -- the Danish word for "island" is "ø". The Icelandic name for Iceland is Ísland, which directly translates as Ice-land. --Dave ~ (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I stand corrected. I'm not sure where I got the idea that so Scandinavian a place would have such a Latinate name. In any case, so Iceland isn't so icy and Greenland isn't so green. How does that make the names "incorrect"? Misleading, perhaps. -Dmh 20:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a "koala", not "koala bear", as ignorant American tourists like to think. Honestly it just makes the article look silly.--Peter Nyhuis 08:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite prepared to believe that current Australian usage is "koala", and that you'll sound silly if you say "koala bear" in Australia these days (personally, I say "koala", FWIW). However, this does not appear always to have been the case. For example, in this story recorded by Roland Robinson, found in Koala: Natural History, Conservation and Management, 2nd ed., published by UNSW press (ISBN 0868405442), pp 15-16, the koala is clearly referred to as a "koala bear" (or "dungirr", if you prefer).

This is purely a matter of usage. There's no real objective basis for "biologists put koalas in a different classification from ursids" to imply "saying 'koala bear' is incorrect", any more than there's an objective basis for claiming that calling beer "beer" is correct. "Beer" is correct because it will get you a refreshing beverage at a pub. "Koala bear" is incorrect because people regard it as incorrect, not because of taxonomy. -Dmh 20:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

To the extent that koalas resemble ursids, that's an example of convergent evolution. (Other examples of convergent evolution give rise to similar confusion among the masses, for example the Miami Dolphins are nicknamed "The Fish," which would be something of a misnomer if we can agree that dolphins are not fish, unless of course they are dolphinfish.) As to what is the "correct" meaning of the word "bear," that would obviously depend on the hearer. In much of North America, for example, calling the authorities to report a "loose bear" would bring a response crew heavily equipped to deal with a creature considerably larger and fiercer than the typical koala. If one really wanted to report a koala on the loose, at least where I live, it would probably be best not to mention anything about bears.

Is there an objective way to say one meaning of "bear" is more "correct" than another? Well, ursids have a wider geographic distribution than koalas, more diversity, and a longer history of interaction with the Asian, European, and American peoples who invented (or stole) things like civilization, the Bible, divine right, and the Maxim gun and therefore get to make up the rules about such things. Not to mention the English speakers who came up with the word "bear," and the Latin speakers who came up with ursus. Wikipedia says: Ursus is Latin for "bear," and I don't see anything about koalas there. The native Australian peoples who presumably interacted with koalas for thousands of years probably did not call them "bears." That label had to wait until the comparatively recent arrival of Europeans, a number of whom were actually penal colony inmates, perhaps not the sort one should look to for the best measure of correctness.

All seriousness aside, if the bottom line of "correctness" is making oneself understood to the most people, then I think we could say that a person who uses the word "bear" when he means "koala" would be misunderstood more often than if he used the word "koala," among a large diverse sample of English speakers. I think the whole misnomer issue should be viewed as being more about awareness than anything else. People who refer to, say, wind generators as windmills are probably just not aware that experts in the field (and people who have paid some attention to them) would not use the term windmill unless the wind turbine was directly driving machinery to mill grain, pump water, etc. Similarly for the misuse of tidal wave to mean tsunami. It's not as if the people who spout misnomers have usually studied all the available options and settled on theirs as the "best" one. In many if not most areas of life, the experts really do know considerably more, and usually better, than the hoi polloi (another incorrect usage, as hoi polloi already means "the many," so referring to "the" hoi polloi is redundant). Given that many of the people who have inside knowledge on such things were not necessarily the most popular kids in high school, and ranked lower on the social status scale than lots of popular kids who learned their habits almost exclusively from emulating their peers rather than from reading and reflection, is it not right and proper that we should subtly mock the errors of our erstwhile tormenters by listing them? Teratornis 01:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Great Britain

Removed this from the list:

"Great Britain is an island, not a country. Great Britain is the largest island in the British Isles. The other (1,000 or so) islands are not in Great Britain. The country is called "The United Kingdom" which is short for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". This is not a misnomer in the sense of "misleading name", since nothing at all about "Great Britain" suggests that it is the name of a nation (or an island)."

because what it's saying is "'Great Britain' is a misnomer. It isn't a misnomer." If it isn't a misnomer, and it looks to me like it isn't, then it shouldn't be on the list.

I should clarify that two different editors made that paragraph: as you can probably guess, the first wrote up to "and Northern Ireland", the second added the sentence about why it was wrong. --Last Malthusian 16:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

No word is a misnomer in itself but every word in the dictionary could be a misnomer if wrongly used. Since many people wrongly use Great Britain when they actually mean United Kingdom it should be included as a typical example. Apgeraint 15:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

1. Your comment is incorrect; some terms are misnomers in themselves, and they're what this article is about.
2. The new version was:

   Great Britain is an island, not a country. Great Britain is the largest island in the British Isles. The other (1,000 or so) islands are not in Great Britain. When people refer to the country it should be called "The United Kingdom" which is short for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

This still doesn't mention a misnomer — it simply informs people how they should use the terms. It's accurate, but "Great Britain" isn't a misnomer; it's sometimes misused, but (as has already been said here) that's very different, and not relevant to this article. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

<joke>It's a misnomer in and of itself because Britain is not that great of a place.</joke> pfahlstrom 16:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If something on the list isn't a misnomer...

...then please don't add a bit to the explanation saying that it isn't actually a misnomer, it makes the reader ask "then why did you put it in there?" Either remove it, explaining why on the talk page or the edit summary, or if you're not feeling that bold say that you disagree on the talk page and remove it later if the consensus seems to be that you're right. --Malthusian (talk) 10:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• For examples of what I'm talking about, see 'pristine', 'radiator' and 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' in this revision before I removed them. --Malthusian (talk)

• According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Misnomer is use of wrong name or term so it's perfectly correct to say that "Great Britain" is often a misnomer for the "United Kingdom". "Great Britain" is not a misnomer when it refers to the main island alone, but when it refers to the entire country it's a misnomer, so I'm putting it back.
  The word "pristine" is often wrongly used since it means ancient and unspoiled and many people seem to think it means new or clean.
  The word "radiator" is a well known misnomer. A radiator doesn't radiate, it works by convection, but for some reason it was called a radiator, so i'm putting these words back as well. Apgeraint 19:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Although it is true that convection plays an important role in how a radiator works, a radiator does indeed radiate. The air surrounding the radiator heats its environment through convection, but the air is initially heated radiantly. An example of this effect is seen within the earth's relation to the sun. The sun radiates heat to our planet, then convection takes over within the earth's atmosphere, causing the myriad weather phenomena to which we're all accustomed. BustlinSlug 15:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

In so far as these count as misnomers in a secondary sense of the term (and you're placing a lot of emphasis on a certain interpretation of the word "use" in that definition), they're still best not included here. We're trying for objectively verifiable information; saying that some people sometimes use some terms in the wrong way is not objectively verifiable, unlike the fact that a peanut or ground nut is called a nut but isn't. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. Let's have a link to a page listing commonly misused words or terms? Apgeraint 15:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The main problem is that misuse is (in part) culturally relative, and what's common varies from place to place. Here, "alternate" to mean "alternative", "disinterested" to mean "uninterested", "infer" to mean "imply", etc., are all clear misuses; the first has reached the stage of being standard English in the U.S., and the other two seem well on their way. Also, it would be a hell of a long list, given the current state of linguistic ability in the U.K. and the U.S. (and doubtless other English-speaking countries). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems then that there are three types of misnomer;-

1. Things that were given the wrong name (or term) long ago, but are now accepted (such as "radiator" which doesn't actually radiate).
2. Things that have advanced technologically, but still retain the old name (such as "steamroller" which no longer runs on steam).
3. Things that are often given the wrong name (or term) through ignorance (such as not knowing the geographical difference between "England", "Great Britain" and "United Kingdom").

I assume that you object to this last category being icluded.
Further to this I don't see why we can't have a page of "common errors corrected" (or similar). It needn't be an endless list, just the most common ones. About 100 lines should do it. The only problem I forsee is that those who speak bad English don't know it and may delete some of the corrections. Apgeraint 17:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you've summed up my position perfectly. My worries about your suggestion are, as I suggested above: first, what's common varies from place to place (and from social group to social group); secondly, it seems to be more appropriate to a work on English usage than an encyclopædia.

Seems that such pages exist already. For example, check these out;-
List of frequently misused English words,
List of English words with disputed usage.
Apgeraint 20:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting; the Talk pages (and the template) suggest that some of my premonitions are borne out. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed French 'pas terrible'. It does not designate an object at all, so it cannot be said to be the "wrong" name for anything. 62.131.79.6 17:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Korea and China are republics

A republic is not necessarily democratic and still a republic. Soviet Union was a republic, so Irak, etc..

Dictionary-Type Article/Possible Delete

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Over a year after a no consensus vote concerning the possible deletion of this article, all that has expanded are the examples. I still see only a definition. There is already a Wiktionary article: wiktionary:misnomer. 1,000 examples can be given but that does not expand the article outside of still being only a definition. Consider this article: noun. It not only describes what a noun is but also the background of a noun and how it is used without revolving around the examples. In fact, the article is effective despite containing very few examples. My first thought is nominating AfD again. If not, it needs a lot more than just definitions and examples that fit the definition. Discuss. -- CobraWiki 01:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I moved your discussion to the bottom as most talk pages have the most recent topics at the bottom. I didn't see it until I clicked the link in your article page edit summary.

I believe the "Sources of misnomers" should be retained as the article here, because I don't think they would fit as inclusion on Wiktionary, but I believe they're avluable to understanding the various forms of the word. Writing that out, I'm not so sure -- I've asked in Wiktionary's "Tea Room".

The voluminous examples should be deleted, or reduced and explained to "explore the popular misnomers in the world. What impact may they have on politics? How does the media use them? How are they used in persuasion?" (quote from VfD discussion)

I believe we should wait a week for others to join this discussion before deleting "Examples" due to the topic being at the top of the talk page. TransUtopian 17:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: "exploring impact on politics, how does the media use them, how are they used in persuasion," it would probably be very deifficult to write such an article without original research. Peyna 18:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There could be editorials or articles in prominent magazines or news sites that mention how a particular misnomer has affected a news story or society. Better still would be a scholarly article on misnomers, their origins and use, but it'd probably be more difficult to find that.

I wouldn't bet money on someone being interested enough in the topic to research it, though. If apathy wins the week, an HTML comment should be added to discourage adding examples without context encyclopedically relevant to misnomers. Speaking of which, do you have an opinion on keeping the 6 bullets at the top, either here or at Wiktionary? TransUtopian 18:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been afk. Since my question fell through the cracks in the Wiktionary equivalent of village Pump, I'm asking an active user if "Sources of misnomers" qualify for Wiktionary. If it does, I'll copy & paste those 6 bullets and soft redirect this article to Wiktionary. If it doesn't, I'll keep those 6 bullets here unless there are objections. There will also be an HTML comment not to simply add examples, and to refer to this talk page for possible expansion of the article. TransUtopian 11:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have never edited Wiktionary, so I am not as familiar there, but in terms of any published dictionary, examples are sometimes given when using the word in a sentence does not aid in explaining the definition. However, even if we merged this article into the current Wiktionary article, only one or two examples need to remain. This is the point I was trying to make with the mention of noun. To define a noun is one thing, but you do not list every noun there is for people to search through. You give a few examples only to aid readers in exactly what a noun (or misnomer) is in direct context. This page seems to be the former, though: a collection of every misnomer that anyone can think of, which goes against how I think things should be done. –CobraWiki 19:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi folks. From what I see of the article, most of it really isn't appropriate for Wikipedia. In my opinion the page should not be deleted, but you should focus on classifying different types of misnomers, giving a few key examples, rather than trying to list them all. I'm guessing there must be a few misnomers for which some great historical consequences resulted as well. Anyways I'm not a regular contributor here, so don't take that with any weight.

As far as Wiktionary is concerned, you're thinking of the project in the wrong light. Wiktionary isn't so much interested in having a list of misnomers, although there's a currently sparsely populated category for them at Wiktionary:Category:English misnomers which like here some silly people occasionally like to turn into lists. What would be much more appropriate is to explain the misnomer on each and every dictionary entry which is one. Insofar as that can be done, I believe it to be dictionary content. Davilla 15:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Deletion based purely on aesthetics? Are we then to blow up the Louvre?

Though this article doesn't really conform to guidelines set in place by Wikipedia, it is surely not right simply to wrap the issue in red tape and send it down the river is it? The purpose of an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia, is to provide information to anyone who might read it. This article fulfills that very criterion and so should not, one might argue, be cast into the murkey depths of Wiki's recycling bin on a matter of style. There is the claim that Wiktionary has a posting for Misnomer, and therefore this one is unnecessary. But this provides so much more than a dictionary article does and indeed would. So instead of deleting it, might we not leave it happily alone and get some use out of it? If there are those who remain of the persuasion that it is too much of a dictionary article, then might I ask you to look at it again, and then inform me of whatever dictionary you may have come across which so happens to feature that sort of layout. I mean really, if it bothers you that much then perhaps we could coin our own misnomic term to describe the entry? Perhaps we could call it a "misarticle" or maybe a "misscript"? Or, if you are so perversed, you can think up your own term. But must we really dispose of the entire feature purely because it doesn't fit in with the rest of Wiki? Surely that is the very definition of bullying and discrimination, and we should be propogating that concept by deleting the entry. So please be so kind as to let our dear Mis. Nomer live. You never know when you might find use for her. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.209.41.73 (talk) 16:52, January 1, 2007 (UTC)

Your thoughts would fit better in the AfD discussion found HERE, as that is where the choice is made. However, since you have brought up here... The key point is what you first said: "Though this article doesn't really conform to guidelines set in place by Wikipedia...". If something does not conform, those in charge do not just say "So what?" and let it be. The guidelines are the core behind what to allow and what not to allow, while sometimes giving time for possible expansion (this topic was given a year to improve and it expanded only with more examples and no real encyclopedic content). The same argument you are making here could be said about any possible subject matter that can come to mind, real or fictional, and therefore all of it be allowed because there might be someone out there somewhere who might want to know about it. WP's different guidelines pages point out that not everything belongs on WP just because it is information that someone might want to read about (see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). The dictionary argument is only one part of it. No references are ever cited (being "common knowledge" is not enough), few of the examples are what might be considered notable, and WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information, to name a few other reasons. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 01:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Last I looked, the template on guidelines ({{guideline}}) still carries a disclaimer that a guideline page CANNOT cover all cases and that editorial license is still alive and well at wikipedia. This article is an interesting read and informative if not 'conformal' to dead tree encyclopedia articles. It has something in common with an article like American_and_British_English_differences and such like:
• List of British words not widely used in the United States
• List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• American and British English spelling differences
• American and British English pronunciation differences
• British English
• American English
• Commonwealth English

in that each informs the reader of differences and facts and factors that are taken for granted in everyday life and language use.

I would much prefer having those that keep picking on such an article spend their energies (even if they must hold their nose) adding content to the project, not deleting such. Or better yet, expending some small effort to fix one or two deficiencies which they perceive it to have. Without a punch list (i.e. enumerated list of problems) any tags such as clean and copy edit are neigh on useless in my view, as the editors who come later simply cannot read the mind of the person tagging the article. Any danged fool can add a tag to an article, but that's at most one percent of getting it fixed. The other 99 is communicating what you perceive to others who follow after, and that means a numerically organized section on the talk listing problems you don't or can't fix well yourself. Yeah, that takes time. But to hang a tag means others need to take their time to try and figure out what your complaint is or was. Better tagging discipline is needed up and down the project.

I've no linguistic ear or bent, but have to opine that this is an interesting topic, however badly formatted it's detractors may find it to be. It is far more than a dictionary definition, and has far more potential, even if it's morphed into a list of misnomers instead of a general discussion of such. We apparently need some more editors with linguistics as a long suite. Best regards // FrankB 03:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

NOR/NPOV, etc.

After refreshing a bit on Wikipedia policies, I think the current introduction (full disclosure: I wrote it) fits the guidelines, but there is room for improvement.

A bald assertion that the terms listed are "incorrect" or "used in ignorance" and so forth is clearly POV. At best one could cite a source saying, for example, that according to such-and-such authority a given usage is incorrect. However, the usual case with the terms listed is for someone simply to assert, based on a specially-tailored argument, that a given usage is incorrect.

For example, one might claim that pencil lead is not really lead and so the term "pencil lead" is incorrect. But this rests on the idea that a word may only be used correctly in its literal sense. This implies a particular point of view, and a linguistically insupportable one at that.

I believe that the current wording, that a misnomer is a term that admits two interpretations, etc., is supported by the list given. The connection could be made more explicit, but I believe in all cases it's fairly easy to pick out the two interpretations (e.g., "the dark stuff in the middle of a pencil that makes marks" and "the element lead, found in a pencil"). In all cases, the claim that the term is a misnomer is a claim that the commonly-used sense is incorrect and the other sense is correct. E.g. "pencil lead" is a misnomer because it isn't really lead.

I'm a bit uneasy as to whether this constitutes original research in the Wikipedia sense. The "two interpretations" explanation is not what the term "misnomer" generally brings to mind. The term usually implies a prescription of correct usage. However, baldly asserting this leads us back to POV.

The iteration before this took a probably more Wikipedian view by saying that a misnomer is "considered incorrect". This ought to be supportable, though tedious. Each listed term would have

1. A citation of the normal usage, e.g. a dictionary definition. (e.g., Webster's definition of "Pencil lead, a slender rod of black lead, or the like, adapted for insertion in a holder")
2. A citation of someone's objection to it. (not sure where you'd find this, outside lists like this one).

Again, the whole article would be stengthened by links to actual research and independent discussion of this phenomenon of picking out some, but only very few, apparent inconsistencies in language use and labelling them "misnomers" -Dmh 22:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

"alternate history" looks "correct" to me

A quick check on dictionary.com turns up this definition for "alternate (adj)":

constituting an alternative: The alternate route is more scenic.

This seems right in line with the usage "alternate history".

By what authority is "alternate history" considered incorrect? Who uses "alternative history" in preference to it?

Note that this is still a misnomer in the sense that people appear to claim that the common usage is "incorrect," dictionaries notwithstanding. More evidence that "misnomer" is itself a misnomer.

-Dmh 22:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Note on linefeeds

The space in "double-space" etc. refers to line spacing. As I recall, the use of "space" to refer to any sort of spacing on the page is very old. The term "line feed" is much more recent. If I recall correctly, the space bar on a keyboard goes back to typewriters, typesetting machines had separate keys for em spaces, en spaces, etc., and there would of course have been no such thing when setting type by hand.

In short, the idea that "space" refers just to space between words is a rather recent notion. Calling "double-spaced" a misnomer is thus an interesting case of re-analyzing to conclude that "space" must refer to spacing between words, and then concluding on that basis that the term is itself misleading or incorrect.

Maybe it is, but this seems to me more like the almost universal mistake of assuming "Wherefore art thou Romeo" means "Where are you, Romeo" and not "Why are you (called) Romeo?". -Dmh 21:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Organic Farming

Is the claim here that organic farming is not organic, that conventional farming is not conventional, some combination of the two or something else entirely?

From context, it seems that the claim is more that conventional farming is the misnomer, since organic farming, which (for the sake of the argument) was once conventional is generally contrasted with it.

OTOH, the "organic" designation is a fairly arbitrary name for "farming without artificial pesticides or fertilizers". It's not clear why this is inherently organic while farming with artificial pesticides or fertilizers (which after all are generally organic chemicals in the technical sense) would not be.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that terms like these are misnomers in that they are chosen more on the basis of connotation than any objective basis. There are many such:

• "natural" means "not produced by modern industrial means" but is meant to connote health, drawing directly on the Romantic notion that humanity is separate from nature, which is pure while humanity is corrupt. You don't see many claims that potatoes with green skin contain "natural strychnine".
• "chemical" means "artificial chemical" (I think "artificial" is probably appropriate here). Water is a chemical. Sugar is a chemical. All the healthy antioxidants in fresh fruits and vegetables are chemicals.
• "genetically modified" means genetically modified through modern direct gene manipulation techniques, not through artificial selection, hybridization and other older techniques (seedless grapes, anyone?)
• "organic farming" refers to a mix of modern and older practices which excludes certain artificial pesticides and fertilizers (but allows for arbitrary environmental meddling otherwise, starting with the very idea of farming itself).
• "conventional farming" refers to a mix of modern and older practices including the use of certain artificial pesticides and fertilizers. Basically the same techniques had been known as "farming" until the term "organic farming" came into vogue.

and so forth.

In the particular case, the claim that what is now called organic farming was the convention for millennia seems POV, and dodgy at that. Is an organic farmer required to plow with a draft horse, or by human-powered sharp stick? Should organic farming be strictly limited to traditional slash-and-burn techniques for obtaining fertilizer? Is a conventional gardener forbidden from using ladybugs to kill aphids? Farming techniques have been far from constant over time or across cultures, beyond the basic concept of manipulating the local ecology to produce more food for people.

I think the entry is trying to point out that the particular mix of artificial pesticides and fertilizers in wide use is relatively recent in origin. Fair enough, but I don't see how that makes either "organic farming" or "conventional farming" misnomers. Both are organic, to the extent that plants are organic, and both are conventional in that they adhere to conventions. -Dmh 05:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm ... according to the organic farming entry, the concept of organic farming goes back to the early 20th century, and the term itself is thought to have been coined in 1940. The article also states that widespread use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides was a side-effect of the war effort in WWII. According to the DDT article, DDT was the first widely-used artificial pesticide and was first used agriculturaly in 1945 — after the seminal work in organic farming and the coining of the term itself. The original organic farming work was evidently a reaction against the increase in hybridization and mechanization, both of which appear to be allowed in present-day organic farming.

I'll hasten to add that there is nothing sinister going on here, and I don't consider advocates of organic farming hypocritical in their use of the term. Language shifts, and history weaves a tangled web. It's pretty clear what is meant by "organic" and "conventional" these days. Indeed, it's codified by law in the US and elsewhere.

The lessen to be drawn, I think, is that if you want to be aware of where your food is coming from, what's in it and whether it's good for you, you need to understand the whole picture and not rely on simple designations like "organic" and "conventional". -Dmh 05:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The chemical in green potatoes is solanine, not strychnine. However, that example is a good one, in that it makes the point that "natural" and "artificial" are not (as commonly supposed) synonyms for "healthy" and "unhealthy" respectively. 193.122.47.170 17:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

SQL

I had left the weasely "some have argued" in the SQL article to give the benefit of the doubt to the position that SQL is not a language, but that's been rightly called into question. Here's the rationale behind the latest edit:

SQL is clearly a language in the same sense that the "L" in SGML/XML/HTML etc. stands for Language; it's a formal notation with well-defined syntax and semantics (indeed SQL has better-defined semantics than some other langauges I could name). Asserting that a language is only a language if it's Turing complete seems odd, to say the least, particularly since the question of 'whether or not a language is turing complete is one of the basics in computer science. Note that it's the question of whether a language is Turing complete, not the question of whether a notation is a "language" by virtue of being Turing complete. I know of no context in which "langauge" means "turing complete notation and nothing else".

Similarly, SQL is structured. It's not block structured in the sense of begin/end blocks because it's not an imperative language. It's structured in the sense of being built from select/project/join operations in a coherent and consistent way. I suppose one could shoehorn this into "older name retained", on the basis that "structured" was particularly meant in comparison to more ad-hoc query langauges that have since largely bitten the dust, but in any reasonable sense of "structured" SQL is at least as structured as, say C++ (which has the full complement of if/then/else/while etc.).

In terms of the working definition of suggesting a false interpretation, I suppose "Query" comes closest. It doesn't seem unreasonable (note how subjective this all is) for someone to assume that a "Query Language" is a language for just for doing queries. On the other hand, it doesn't seem unreasonable either that a "Query Language" could be built around the concept of a query but do more than just query. This is certainly the case with SQL. The WHERE clause is central, even in several of the non-query operations (e.g., DROP ... WHERE ...). -Dmh 16:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the text on SQL. It can be deleted, since the original point of the text is nearly indecipherable after your edits. — goethean ॐ 16:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe the original text was under "Triple Misnomers": Some have said that SQL, a database protocol which stands for Structured Query Language, is not structured, is not only for queries, and is not, technically, a language.

It's certainly true that people have said that, but that's more a joke about SQL than grounds for calling it a misnomer. If you want to go back to that, I'd suggest either citing a specific case where someone has said that (it's a pretty well-known joke, so that might well be possible), or taking out "some have said" and the parts about "structured" and "langauge", since they're not justified under any reasonable definition of those terms. That would leave something like "SQL, which stands for Structured Query Langauge, is not only for queries." I'd actually be fine with that. -Dmh 18:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Since you seem committed the making the statement impossible to understand, I think I'll just delete it. — goethean ॐ 19:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if "SQL, which stands for Structured Query Langauge, is not only for queries." seems impossible to understand. -Dmh 18:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Steep Learning Curve

"In common usage, a "steep" learning curve implies a difficult learning problem; but on the actual learning curve graph, a steep curve describes a rapid reduction in production cost per unit produced, indicating rapid (easy) learning by the production staff."

Sorry, I don't understand why this is a misnomer. The example doesn't seem to cover all examples and while this may be true in a business environment would a steep learning curve in an educational environment not be different? Also would the curve not go both ways. I'd imagine if you got stuck then the curve would drop fairly steeply.

Apologies if I'm wrong.
Runforthemoney 15:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Kansas City: two or one?

My apologies if, being British, I'm missing something important, but... :-)

Having looked at the Wikipedia pages for "both" Kansas Cities, they seem to me to be, not two cities, but one city which happens to have a state boundary running through it. Here in the UK, Nottingham (the county town of Nottinghamshire) has grown so large that it's spilled over into neighbouring Derbyshire; but we still regard it as one city, not as two, even though it straddles two counties... 86.144.204.132 15:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

RFCs are no longer merely "Requests For Comments"

As well as EmailDiscussions posts such as this one, there are also numerous examples of this to be found on the NANAE (email sysadmins') newsgroup... 193.122.47.170 10:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Does not belong here: wikipedia:Avoid self-references. No independent references admissibli in wikipedia. `'mikka 16:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this page should be changed to a List of Misnomers and a replacement be constructed which is not a list of examples, but an explanation of a Misnomer. Benjhackett 03:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The Liberal Party of Australia

I don't want to add anything to the article that might seem politically biased, but would the name of the Australian Liberal Party be a misnomer given they're the major conservative party in the country? I don't mean that as a judgment, just as a statement of fact, that they are a conservative party which stands for policies which wouldn't normally be considered to be part of "liberalism". It's only in their economic policies that they're actually liberal. Sorry if that sounds too biased though.

"Centrifical Force"

Many people use the term "centrifical force" to describe what is actually known as "centrifugal force". Would anyone care to add this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.121.189 (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

In one of his novels, Arthur C. Clarke (through the mouth of a character, of course) makes the point that there's no such thing as "centrifugal force" — it's just inertia. Said character refers to "centrifugal force" as "an engineers' phantom". 86.146.93.142 (talk) 03:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Kansas City, KS and MO

I would dispute the above example. Is the metro area as a whole really two cities, or one city which happens to have a state line running through it? Nottingham (UK) is regarded as one town, even though it straddles a county boundary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.73 (talk • contribs)

Strangely enough, it's considered two separate cities with two separate governments under two separate sets of state law. Groupthink (talk) 15:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I still reckon that the fact that this is nominally "two" cities, when it's physically one, is an accident of the way the US local government system works. :-) 217.171.129.69 (talk) 04:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I reckon in turn that the fact that the City of Westminster and the City of London are nominally "two" cities, when they're physically one, is an accident of the way the UK local government system works. See conurbation. :-P Groupthink (talk) 05:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

History of the World, Part I

I understand that Mel Brooks made the film with no intention of making sequels, but couldn't the title still be a misnomer, since people who aren't familiar with Brooks' humor might think there's more than one film? - Cubs Fan (talk) 04:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You know what, after re-reading the wiki def and the dictionary.com def, I'm going to agree with you, which regretfully means that "Leonard Part VI" must be listed as well. Groupthink (talk) 06:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Pokemon Elite 4

"In the Pokémon games the Elite Four is composed of 5 members." The ELITE 4 is the first 4 members, the 5th member is the CHAMPION. As the game seems to go, Elite 4 is like Gym Leader ("League Staff Member") but the Champion is the 1st place trainer (at least he should be). Any trainer that beats the Elite 4 and the Previous Champion becomes the New Champion, but the Elite 4 are selected like Gym Leaders. 196.1.52.48 (talk) 14:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)