Language can be a very slippery thing some days. We can play fast and loose with the rules of language and grammar to the point that words can end up meaning totally different things over time, like how literally has gradually come to mean the exact opposite thing. We also routinely make up new words as needs require. Sometimes we’re saying things that don’t mean what we thought they did at all. There are more than a few commonly used words and terms that most of us take for granted that aren’t really what we think.
10. Nutritionist Isn’t a Real Thing
There’s a good chance you’ve read an article in the news or seen a clip from a show in which a nutritionist is quoted about something health related. Whether it’s what nutritionists would order from a fast food restaurant or foods that nutritionists say you should never eat, they get a lot of play in the media, sharing their expertise about which food is good for you and which should be avoided.
The irony of a nutritionist sharing their expertise is that they may actually have none. In the US and in Canada, the term nutritionist is almost totally unregulated and doesn’t mean anything specific. A dietician has to be trained and certified in their field and actually help treat medical conditions through dietary management. Anyone, however, can claim to be a nutritionist and recommend any sort of diet. There are organizations that can certify a nutritionist, but the requirement isn’t legal across the country by any means so unless you check someone’s credentials then those claiming to be nutritionist could just as easily be bloggers with a passion for food rather than someone trained to understand nutrition and diet.
9. Curry Doesn’t Mean Any One Thing
The most famous dish in all of Indian cuisine, there are probably few people who haven’t either tried a curry or at least are aware of what one is. You can get numerous heat levels and a nearly endless number of ingredients in any given curry from goat to lamb to vegetables and so on. But you may not be aware that the word curry is extremely loosely defined and what we in the Western world consider curry doesn’t really represent any true meaning of the word.
To start with, we usually refer to two different things as curry. One is “a” curry which is a composed dish and the other is curry as a spice, a yellow powder that is most often associated with Indian food. But there are numerous types of curries and sauces and the closest thing you can get to a definition of what curry is may be a method of cooking that involves a pungent sauce. But even that isn’t wholly accurate because, as we saw with the spice, it doesn’t have to refer to a sauce at all even though most people mean that. So why use the word at all and where did it come from?
In a lot of ways, the word curry is a product of colonial thinking. Everything fell under the banner of curry because, to those people, it was foreign and different and it was a quick, lazy way to categorize everything. Call it a curry and be done with it. So while technically we think of a curry today as a sauced dish, or a spice, the fact it can apply to so many dishes and things goes to show the definition was never really clear in the first place.
8. Kung Fu Can Refer to Anything You Practice
Back in the 1970s, America had kung fu fever. The TV show Kung Fu debuted in 1972, inexplicably starring David Carradine as a Shaolin monk and then a year later Bruce Lee’s legendary Enter the Dragon came out. Both of those cemented kung fu as a popular action subgenre that has stuck around in the West to this very day with films like Kung Fu Panda.
While it seems obvious that kung fu is a kind of martial art like karate and tae kwon do, characters in these movies become kung fu masters, after all, that’s not entirely true. Kung fu, or gong fu, means “acquired skill.” It refers to the study and practice of a craft that you can master through hard work. The martial art most people are referring to is probably Wu Shu.
A person who trains and masters martial arts is absolutely a kung fu master. But a person who trains to master basketball is also a kung fu master. As would be an artist, a doctor, or a gamer. If you dedicate yourself to being the best you can be, you’ve pretty much nailed it.
7. Sushi Grade or Sashimi Grade Means Nothing
People love sushi and sashimi and the industry is worth $22 billion in America, which represents a lot of tiny little rolls. But you can’t just make sushi out of any old thing, there’s a lot of skill that goes into creating it properly. The right kind of rice, the right mix of other ingredients and, of course, sushi grade fish. Or maybe not.
Turns out that “sushi grade” is more of a marketing term than one that has any definite meaning. In the simplest terms, if something is labeled “sushi grade” it means you can eat it raw. It doesn’t reflect the quality or freshness of any particular fish at all and doesn’t indicate that it is of a higher quality than any fish that doesn’t have that label. As such, frozen fish can easily qualify as sushi grade. If it’s edible and meets the parasite destruction guarantee as determined by the USDA and FDA, it’s sushi grade.
The parasite destruction guarantee requires raw food be handled in a way that will kill any parasites. Any raw fish besides tuna need to be handled this way. Fish needs to be stored at -20C for 7 days or -35C until solid and then for 15 hours which is sufficient to kill parasites. If you do that, then your fish passes the test and can be sold and consumed raw in the US.
6. Ketchup Doesn’t Refer to a Tomato-Specific Sauce
Statistics say the average American consumes 5.2 liters of ketchup a year. That seems like a respectable amount and when you refer to that, everyone knows what you mean. Ketchup is a standard of the world of fast food hamburgers and is frequently served with french fries and hot dogs as well. It’s the sweet, tomatoey sauce that Heinz sells 650 million bottles of every year.
While ketchup means tomato sauce to just about everyone today, there’s nothing in the definition of what ketchup is that requires that. Tomato ketchup is just one kind of ketchup but you can trace the condiment back to 300 BC while the tomato version didn’t appear until 1812.
Old school ketchup hails from China and original recipes involved fish entrails and soybeans. In the UK you can still find mushroom ketchup or just look up a recipe online and make your own.
The name comes from ge-thcup or koe-cheup and it spread from China along trade routes, allowing people in other nations to adapt the recipe to local ingredients. Older versions were made not just from fish and mushrooms but nuts, celery and fruit.
5. Seeing Eye Dogs Are Not Just Any Guide Dogs
Technological advances continue to make the world an easier place to navigate for those with disabilities, but one of the most easily recognized aides that people who are blind or hard of seeing may have at their disposal are seeing eye dogs. A guide dog can be an invaluable companion to many people with vision difficulties. That said, the language used to refer to them can get a little confusing.
All Seeing Eye dogs are guide dogs but not all guide dogs are Seeing Eye dogs. Though it’s not widely known among those who don’t require their services, Seeing Eye is the name of the organization that trains certain dogs to be guide dogs and it is the oldest organization in the world that does so. Only dogs trained through their process are properly referred to as Seeing Eye dogs, the name is a registered trademark. They breed their own dogs for the job and only qualified trainers are employed to prepare them for work. But there are many other organizations that train dogs, and their dogs are referred to as the more generic term of guide dog.
4. Baby Aspirin is Not Intended for Children
Chalk this misunderstanding up to poor planning and poor word choice but baby aspirin is not meant for babies. Properly known as low-dose aspirin, it refers to a pill that just has less of the active ingredient in it, the medication has long been referred to as “baby” because it’s a small dose, much the same as we’ll refer to baby carrots or baby steps when we just mean small. The problem with that is that people began to take it literally.
Children can actually have a very adverse reaction to aspirin in the form of something called Reye Syndrome. It’s rare, but it happens, so it should only be given if a doctor advises you to do so.
3. Bollywood Doesn’t Refer to All Indian Cinema
Hollywood is so dominant a force in movie making that everyone knows exactly what you mean when you refer to Hollywood. Movies can be filmed anywhere and they’re still referred to as being from Hollywood. Unless, of course, they come from Bollywood.
To most people in the west, Bollywood refers to Indian movies. That may include the stereotype of a lot of singing and dancing as well. But that’s not the whole story by any means. To start, Bollywood cinema is Indian cinema, but Indian cinema isn’t necessarily Bollywood. Bollywood is a combination of Hollywood and Bombay, not known as Mumbai. It produces Hindi language films in that region. It is one of many “woods” that now exist in India and Pakistan.
Pollywood is a term that refers to the Punjabi film industry, Lollywood refers to Pakistani films based out of Lahore, and there’s also Chhollywood, Ollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood, Dhaliwood, and maybe a dozen more.
2. Electrocution Technically Only Refers to Death by Electricity
If you’re doing wiring in your house and accidentally touch a live wire that gives you a shock, would you say you were electrocuted? It’s a standard term nearly everyone uses when referring to an electric shock these days. You can see the word on safety signs and on government websites, even. Strictly speaking, the word refers to death by electricity, not just shocks. It’s a combination of “electricity” and “execution” and was coined just before the first execution in the electric chair took place during the grim furor over the battle between AC and DC currents which saw Thomas Edison publicly killing animals with electricity to prove DC was safer.
The word quickly fell into common usage, however, because as electricity spread to the common people, everyone suffering non-fatal shocks needed a word to describe their experience and electrocute was right there.
1. Military Grade Means Nothing
In much the same way “sushi grade” is a marketing term, when you see something advertised as military grade there’s a good chance those words don’t mean anything either. A company using that term definitely wants you to think the product is rugged and durable, maybe stronger than similar products and able to stand up to a war zone, but that isn’t the reality.
Even military-approved products don’t really have to meet a lot of strict guidelines when it comes to how they are produced, so a company not working for the military is unlikely to be pushing the envelope here. Military standards were only meant to ensure cheap and efficient products – something that worked but didn’t cost a fortune.