[lit-ideas] Your Favorite Misnomer

 
 
Eric Yost writes (in "Hylomorphism -- a dogma?"):
"Form"  is certainly subject to ambiguous analysis. Bartok's Piano Sonata is  
called a sonata, even though it doesn't really follow sonata  form.

-----
 
A typical case of a misnomer.
 
Incidentally, Geary was wondering the other day whether there is a  _concept_ 
for every _word_ and vice versa, and I was reading in A Book of  Quotations 
that Science is, for some, the art of using the _right_ names (to  name the 
things). 
 
But if one thinks about the number (the great number) of _misnomers_ around  
us, one wonders...
 
My favourite misnomer of late:
 
From
 
Stephen Barry, "Royal Secrets: The View from Downstairs" (New York: Villard  
Books). He recalls his stay at Buckingham Palace:
 
     "We used to sit in the billiards room (which 
     isn't a billiards room at all, but just a  place
     used for meetings) and say our pieces."
          (p. 28) 

 
A logician (cf. R. Paul) would consider this a sort of Kripkean identity  
fallacy:
 
    The billiards room ~ = a billiards room
 
   ("The billiards room isn't a billiards room").
 
One may say that _etymologically_, it _was_ (One presumes the billiards  room 
is called "the billiards room" because the royals (or the Earl of  
Buckingham) did use to play billiards in that room...
 
A second favourite of mine is the Isle of Thanet in Kent, which is _not_ an  
Isle. (cf. Barataria). 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 


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