Tag: Linguistics

building the biggest empire in the world

Some historians say the British Empire was once the largest empire of all time, even larger than the Roman Empire. One of my friends said this was because they drank a lot of tea.

I don’t know if this hypothesis can pass mustard*… [Ed. note: What does mustard have to do with tea?!? Nvm, see the explanation below.] But let’s consider the possibility. (After all, sweet tea is awesome, arguably the best drink out there.)

So if tea gave them so much world-conquering power, what happened? Obviously their empire is not so large now. Well, once their influence spread around the world, everyone knew about the wonders of tea and so there was more balance. I suppose that could explain that part. That’s good enough for me. (Further debate is beyond the scope of this article, but feel free to comment if you have more insight.)

Disclaimer: if you are a student in school, your history teacher may not know about this theory. So ask them about it before putting it as an answer on your homework or tests. If they tell you otherwise, go with their answer. As Bart Simpson once had to write many times on the chalkboard, “I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty.” 🙂

* This is an eggcorn**. The saying is supposed to be “pass muster”, which originally referred to a military inspection. I misquoted it on purpose to be funny, but if you don’t know the original, it’s probably not funny. (But it is still random, regardless, so there’s that.)

** I just learned the word eggcorn. How have I not heard of this before? I enjoy occasionally misusing words and phrases (for humorous purposes), so I’ve been using them for years without knowing what they were called. Why didn’t I learn about this in school?*** Anyway, an eggcorn is a misunderstanding or mishearing of a word or phrase. Some common examples are “mute point” for “moot point”, “ice tea” instead of “iced tea”, “I could care less” which means you do care, “intensive purposes” for “intents and purposes”, “escape goat” for “scapegoat”, etc. But sometimes phrases are improved by eggcorns, like “chomping at the bit” instead of “champing at the bit”, and “free reign” instead of “free rein”. (Here’s a link for more about eggcorns.)

*** So I looked up the origins of the word eggcorn, and it was invented in 2003 when someone asked a linguist why some people say “egg corn” instead of “acorn”. He suggested calling that type of word/phrase an eggcorn, and the usage has become proper, with eggcorn being added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2010. So that’s why I hadn’t heard of it — it hasn’t been around that long. Also, it’s similar to a mondegreen, which usually applies to misheard song lyrics.

So now you know… and knowing is half the battle.

stinky wordplay

This is not quite how it happened, but an unreasonable facsimile thereof.

One day I was driving my kids around town (as I am apt to do), and a traffic scenario required deft reflexes. The kids enjoy being slung around in their car seats, so they laughed. When they asked what happened, I told them it was an “evasive maneuver”. They weren’t familiar with that term and were being silly, so they interpreted that as “invasive manure” and started saying that. It was funny. That’s one of those word combinations that I’ve never heard before. It might’ve been said at some point in history by someone*, but I’m not aware (and I’m not putting that in my Google search because I don’t want news articles about manure, nor do I want to know anything about such things — some rabbit holes aren’t worth going down, particularly ones filled with invasive manure). 🙂

* It’s amusing (to me, at least) when I hear a phrase that has possibly never been said before. Such events are rare, but with kids they do happen sometimes if you’re paying attention.

Do you want a chicken bird sandwich?

Why do people say “tuna fish sandwich”, yet nobody says “chicken bird sandwich”? Think about it…

I asked someone about this, and they said that maybe “tuna fish” is the actual name, but I looked it up, and tuna by itself is proper. So the joke still works. People say tuna fish, but nobody says bass fish or salmon fish or crappie fish or catfish fish. I figure it’s a marketing thing from decades ago. (I’m not going down that rabbit hole to research it, but if anyone has any idea on it, leave a comment.)

Speaking of tuna, the “chicken of the sea”, do you realize how large they can be? Tuna is often served in these little cans, yet the original fish is huge! The albacore tuna can weigh up to 133 pounds, and the atlantic bluefin tuna can weigh up to 1,508 pounds and be 15 feet long! That’s the size of a small car!

Some tuna are rare and valuable. At the beginning of this year, a bluefin tuna weighing 608 pounds sold for more than $1.3 million. The group that bought it has a chain of famous sushi restaurants. The company president thinks the first tuna of the year “is meant to bring good fortune” and “our hope is that by eating this tuna everyone will have a good year”. That seems quite far-fetched to me. Maybe it’s more marketing and promotion than actual belief. But to each their own. I’ll eat my $1 tuna and have a good year regardless. 🙂

Anyway, back to where all this rambling started… Ask people about the opening question above. It can be fun to get people to think original thoughts. Besides, everyone should do original thinking more often.