Chapter Miramont to Misprision of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

German, but has been in use in China time out of mind.
   Gothic architecture is not the architecture of the Goths, but the ecclesiastical style employed in England and France before the Renaissance.
   Guineapig. A blunder for Guiana, South America. Not a pig but a rodent.
   Honeydew is neither honey nor dew, but an animal substance given off by certain insects, especially when hunted by ants.
   Honey soap contains no honey, nor is honey in any way employed in its manufacture. It is a mixture of palm-oil soap and olive soap, each one part, with three parts of curd soap or yellow soap, scented.
   Greyhound has no connection with the colour grey. It is the grayhound, or hound which hunts the gray or badger.
   Humble pie, for umbil pie. The umbils of venison were served to inferior retainers and servants.
   Hydrophobia (Greek, dread of water) applied to mad dogs is incorrect, as they will lap water and even swim in it.
   Indians (American). A blunder of geography on the part of the early discoverers of the New World, who set their faces westward from Europe to find India, and believed they had done so when they discovered Cat's Island, off the south coast of America.
   Irish stew. A dish that is unknown in Ireland.
   Iron-mask was made of velvet.
   Japan lacquer contains no lac at all, but is made from the resin of a kind of nut-tree called Anacardiaceæ.
   Jerusalem artichoke has no connection with Jerusalem, but with the sunflower, girasole, which it resembles.
   Kensington Palace is not in Kensington at all, but in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster.
   Kid gloves are not kid at all, but are made of lamb-skin or sheep-skin.
   Laudanum should be ladanum, originally made from the leaves of the lada. (Pliny, xxvi. 47.)
   Longitude and latitude, the great dimension and little or broad dimension of the earth. According to the ancient notion, the world was bounded on the west by the Atlantic, but extended an indefinite length eastward. It was similarly terminated on the south by the Tropic of Cancer, whence it extended northwards, but this extent being much less than that east and west, was called the breadth or latitude.
   Louis de Bourbon, Bishop of Liège, is made by Sir Walter Scott, in Quentin Durward, an “old man,” whereas he was only eighteen, and a scholar at Louvain. He made his entry into his see in a scarlet jerkin and cap set jauntily on one side. (A. Dumas: Charles the Bold.)
   Lunar caustic is not a substance from the moon, but is simply nitrate of silver, and silver is the astrological symbol of the moon.
   Lunatics are not affected by the changes of the moon more than other invalids. No doubt their disorder has its periodicities, but it is not affected by the moon.
   Meerschaum. (See Meerschaum.)
   Mosaic gold has no connection with Moses or the metal gold. It is an alloy of copper and zinc, used in the ancient musivum or tesselated work.
   Mother of pearl is the inner layer of several sorts of shell. It is not the mother of pearls, as the name indicates, but in some cases the matrix of the pearl.
   Natives. Oysters raised in artificial beds. Surely oysters in their own natural beds ought to be called the natives.
   Oxygen means the generator of acids, but there are acids of which it is not the base, as hydrochloric acid. Indeed, chemists now restrict the term acid to compounds into which hydrogen enters, and oxy-acids are termed salts.
   Pen means a feather. (Latin, penna, a wing.) A steel pen is not a very choice expression.
   Philippe VI. of France was called “Le bien fortuné, ” but never was name more inappropriate. He was defeated at Sluys [Slu-iz], and again at Cressy; he lost Calais; and a fourth of all his subjects were carried off by the plague called the “Black Death.”
   Pompey's Pillar, in Alexandria, was erected neither by nor to Pompey. It was set up by the Emperor Diocletian, according to its inscription.
   Prussian blue does not come from Prussia, but is the precipitate of the salt of protoxide of iron with red prussiate of potass.
   Rice paper is not made from rice, but from the pith of Tung-tsau, or hollow-plant, so called because it is hollow when the pith has been pushed out.
   Salt is not salt at all, and has long been wholly excluded from the class of bodies denominated salts. Table-salt is “chloride of sodium.”
   Salt of lemon is in reality a binoxalate of potash, with a little of the quadroxalate.
   Salts. The substance of which junk bottles, French mirrors, window- panes, and opera-glasses are made is placed among the salts, but is no salt at all.
   Sand-blind is a mere corruption of sam (half) blind.
   Scuttle, to open a hole in a ship, means really to bolt or bar. (See Scuttle.)
   Sealing- wax is not wax at all, nor does it contain a single particle of wax. It is made of shellac, Venice turpentine, and cinnabar.
   Shrew-mouse is no mouse (mus), but belongs to the genus sorex.
   Slave means noble, illustrious (slavi), but is now applied to the most ignoble and debased. (See Baron.)
   Sovereign. The last syllable of this word is incorrect. The word should be soverain (Latin, superare; French, souvrain). It has no connection with “reign” (Latin, regnare).
   Sperm oil properly means “seed oil,” from the notion that it was the spawn or melt of a whale. It is chiefly taken from the head, not the spawn, of the “spermaceti” whale.
   Titmouse (plur. titmice) is no mouse, but a bird. (Anglo-Saxon, tite-máse, little hedge- sparrow.)
   Toadflax has nothing at all to do with toads. It is tod flax, i.e. flax with tods or clusters.
   Tonquin beans. A geographical blunder for tonka beans, from Tonka, in Guinea, not Tonquin, in Asia.
   Turkeys do