Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I feel a little silly asking this, but is there a name for the category of things that are named after how they look? Like an orange, or a (musical) triangle? And please list any examples you can think of. I could also think of line (like land line or fishing line) and delta (as in river) and greens (as in salad).

The first thing that came to mind was the Blue Gate from Lord of the Beans. Nothing else yet, but it'll come to me. (Also, it should be noted that the Red Gate is not an example of what you're talking about).

There are lots of animals named after ones that they look like rather than what they are. For example, the sea horse or the guinea pig.

krebscout wrote:I feel a little silly asking this, but is there a name for the category of things that are named after how they look? Like an orange, or a (musical) triangle? And please list any examples you can think of. I could also think of line (like land line or fishing line) and delta (as in river) and greens (as in salad).

Hmm. OK, so the examples you're giving are: a shape that becomes a name for something that is that shape (triangle, line), a color that becomes a name for something that is that color (orange, greens), and a letter that becomes a name for something shaped like that letter (delta). And the examples you're giving are all one-word examples.

Hmm. Hmm. I'm not sure I've ever thought about those as a class of words. (Very interesting, btw!) It almost seems like some kind of iconicity. (Also, why have I never had a proper semantics class? )

Also, I'm the shape/color needs to come first and then the item needs to be named after it, right? (So, "turquoise" doesn't count, even though it can be used as a color, because the mineral came first.)

OK, so "pink" (the flower) does not count, intriguingly, because it predates the color.

Would you say that "white" and "black" as racial terms count?

OK, "black" and "auburn" are both kinds of turkey, "white" and "gray" are both kinds of horse. "Violet" (flower) does not count, for the same reasons as pink, above.

A "square" can be a dessert (as in "lemon squares"), but I don't know that it's ever used without a modifier, so that strikes me as an edge case. A "square" can also be an astrological aspect. A billiards rack can also be called a "triangle." There's a region of Israel called the "Triangle." The Pentagon (building) is shaped like a pentagon. In French, "l'Hexagone" is a nickname for France, because of its shape. Also the word "line" meaning "rope or cord" predates the mathematical meaning, so I don't know if you want to count "land line" or "fishing line."

Also, "orange" (fruit) predates "orange" (color). (I have no problem if you want to count "orange" and "line," for your purposes, I'm just pointing out the strict etymological direction of things, if you care.)

Some people call the ASB (on BYU campus) the X.

Is this a type of synecdoche?

Portia wrote:Is this a type of synecdoche?

I thought of that (although I couldn't remember the word). What's tripping me up is that synecdoche is a figure of speech, while this is operating more on the etymological level. E.g., "triangle" (the instrument) isn't a figure of speech for anything longer, the way "barrel" is short for "barrel of oil." (Unless you want to say that "triangle" is implicitly short for something like "instrument shaped like a triangle.")

Katya wrote:

Portia wrote:Is this a type of synecdoche?

I thought of that (although I couldn't remember the word). What's tripping me up is that synecdoche is a figure of speech, while this is operating more on the etymological level. E.g., "triangle" (the instrument) isn't a figure of speech for anything longer, the way "barrel" is short for "barrel of oil." (Unless you want to say that "triangle" is implicitly short for something like "instrument shaped like a triangle.")

Seems similar to point 5, viz.,

A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material ("he wore Spandex" to refer to someone wearing pants made of Spandex).

And I think it certainly matters, as in the case of "orange," whether it's the object or the abstraction which came first. (And yes, I've always enjoyed that about "pink.")

Portia wrote:Seems similar to point 5, viz.,

A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material ("he wore Spandex" to refer to someone wearing pants made of Spandex).

Hmm. OK. Maybe I'm trying to find a distinction that isn't there.

Katya wrote:

Portia wrote:Seems similar to point 5, viz.,

A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material ("he wore Spandex" to refer to someone wearing pants made of Spandex).

Hmm. OK. Maybe I'm trying to find a distinction that isn't there.

The case is perhaps stronger when it is, in fact, a shortening, for instance,

c.1300, from O.Fr. orange, orenge (12c., Mod.Fr. orange), from M.L. pomum de orenge, from It. arancia, originally narancia (Venetian naranza), alteration of Arabic naranj, from Pers. narang, from Skt. naranga-s "orange tree," of uncertain origin.

Pomum de orenge is clearly "apple of orange." I would call these synecdoches, generally, unless there is a more precise term that is more applicable.

Portia wrote:The case is perhaps stronger when it is, in fact, a shortening . . .

This discussion is bumping into another thought I keep having about etymology and how we always have to name things by some simplified explanation of what they are (assuming we don't borrow a word or create it from whole cloth).

So, the English word "clock" comes from the German "Glock" (as in "glockenspiel"), which means "bell." So a "clock" is a thing that has bells.

The Navajo word for clock is "náʼoolkiłí," which means "it goes slowly in a circle" (i.e., the hands).

The Mandarin word for clock is 時鐘 ("shizhong"), whose characters mean "time/hour metal." (Feel free to correct me on this, Gio or Mico or anyone else, because my Mandarin is very limited.)

So, in English, we take the name from part of the object (which definitely sounds like synechdoche), in Navajo, they take the name from what the thing does (and I've read that this is a very common type of word formation in Navajo), and in Chinese, they take the name from the material it's made out of, plus a word that describes its function.

What I find fascinating, though, is that we still call it a "clock" in English, even if it doesn't chime, and they (presumably) still call it a "náʼoolkiłí" in Navajo, even if it it's digital, and they (again, presumably) still call it a 時鐘 in Mandarin, even if it's made of plastic. So, we start out describing something by focusing on some specific quality of it, but eventually the concept broadens to include forms of that thing that don't have that quality and we keep the same word, anyway.

I . . . don't know where I'm going with all of this, but I've been turning it over in my head for a while, and this discussion reminded me of it, so now I'm sharing.

鐘means bell. So, time bell. Or you could say 鐘錶，Bell display.

Katya wrote:

Portia wrote:The case is perhaps stronger when it is, in fact, a shortening . . .

This discussion is bumping into another thought I keep having about etymology and how we always have to name things by some simplified explanation of what they are (assuming we don't borrow a word or create it from whole cloth).

So, the English word "clock" comes from the German "Glock" (as in "glockenspiel"), which means "bell." So a "clock" is a thing that has bells.

The Navajo word for clock is "náʼoolkiłí," which means "it goes slowly in a circle" (i.e., the hands).

The Mandarin word for clock is 時鐘 ("shizhong"), whose characters mean "time/hour metal." (Feel free to correct me on this, Gio or Mico or anyone else, because my Mandarin is very limited.)

So, in English, we take the name from part of the object (which definitely sounds like synechdoche), in Navajo, they take the name from what the thing does (and I've read that this is a very common type of word formation in Navajo), and in Chinese, they take the name from the material it's made out of, plus a word that describes its function.

What I find fascinating, though, is that we still call it a "clock" in English, even if it doesn't chime, and they (presumably) still call it a "náʼoolkiłí" in Navajo, even if it it's digital, and they (again, presumably) still call it a 時鐘 in Mandarin, even if it's made of plastic. So, we start out describing something by focusing on some specific quality of it, but eventually the concept broadens to include forms of that thing that don't have that quality and we keep the same word, anyway.

I . . . don't know where I'm going with all of this, but I've been turning it over in my head for a while, and this discussion reminded me of it, so now I'm sharing.

You are sharing to brighten my day. Few others ponder etymology as much if not more than me.

I wonder if synecdoche is so common in English because of the agglutinative nature of Germanic languages. And I will second Whistler's recommendation of Pinker's The Stuff of Thought.

Giovanni Schwartz wrote:鐘means bell. So, time bell. Or you could say 鐘錶，Bell display.

Nice. I like either of those.

This reminds me of a picture I saw a little while ago.