Asklemmy

54317 readers

414 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS

What is the most confusing misnomer you've seen? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 weeks ago by castiellon@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mine is "guinea pig" originating in andes (not guinea) and them being not-a-pig type, whole thing is just wrong.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Salish languages mostly use a phonetic alphabet, and if I recall correctly, only one has standardized an alphabet which only happened in the 1970s. So the written word got obliterated compared to the pronunciation. The 'ge' is meant to sound like 'get'. But since 'geo' exists, we hear and read 'Jee-oh' before ever thinking 'Geh-oo'.

/former geoduck farmer and language student where geoducks were the mascot.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Best mascot ever, tied with the banana slugs!