Thread: Illogical American expressions?

Gelignite

Gentle/man

G clamp

Gem/stone

Originally Posted by p38arover

The US pronunciation of "caramel" seems to be "carmel".

Basil (the herb) is pronounced Bay-sil.
...and then there is the other weird names for foods: Rocket is Arugula. Shallots are scallions. Both are creeping into our food scene too it seems.

But what gets me the most...

Originally Posted by Disco-tastic

One American spelling I like is "jail". Our "gaol" doesn't make much sense to me. .....

Both words derive from the same Latin word "cavea" (cage) via French. The difference is that "jail" came from Old French, and "Gaol" from Norman French. Since the language of administration in England after 1066 was Norman French, that variant passed into legal English. But by a generation after William the Conqueror, the ruling classes were sending their sons to Paris to get a 'proper education', so the Old French version of the word also passed into everyday English. Legal language being very conservative, the Norman French spelling remained in all official documents, and hence was continually pushed to other users.

The spelling "jail" was, of course, one of the reforms pushed by Webster.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

But what gets me the most...

Re Celsius, it used to be back to front:

In 1742, Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744) created a temperature scale which was the reverse of the scale now known by the name "Celsius": 0 represented the boiling point of water, while 100 represented the freezing point of water

Am I wrong? Isn't the Fahrenheit scale based on the human body's temperature? As in 0 degrees is normal body temperature?

Nathan.

Celsius used to be, until recent times, a self explanatory 'centigrade'.

'Herz' was 'cyles per second' and 'torque' was in 'pounds/feet' or 'grammes/centimetre', both easily understood.

.....and who changed a 'gramme' to a 'gram' and a 'metre' to a 'meter'?

Originally Posted by SG1 Bones

Am I wrong? Isn't the Fahrenheit scale based on the human body's temperature? As in 0 degrees is normal body temperature?

Nathan.

No that's 100°F which was wrong in any case now around 97°F. 0°F was the freezing of a salt-water mix (brine).

Fahrenheit - Wikipedia

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

Basil (the herb) is pronounced Bay-sil.

You mean basil the 'erb, surely. Then there is oregg​ano.