I was chatting with my daughter over lunch today about how she was drinking water from a “glass,” even though it was made of plastic. I got to thinking: are there other objects named after the material they’re made from, and the name persists even when the thing is made of a different material? The first example I came up with was a scientific paper, which I could read online with no paper involved.
What else can you think of?
Jumbo shrimp?
Huh? Do you think that things are called jumbo shrimp even if they’re not made from shrimp? I’m not sure you understood the question.
Rubber cement
Ceramic Irons.
Tin foil. Pencil lead.
Tin foil
Dang ninja’d
How 'bout Duck Sauce?
A “rubber”- condom or (in the U.K.) a pencil eraser. Neither are made of rubber now.
A friend of mine has a brain disorder (mesial temporal sclerosis) that isn’t being controlled with medication, so he had surgery to remove a part of his temporal lobe. He’s doing fine, but occasionally has moments of confusion.
We were drinking in a bar and he pointed to my glass. He asked, “what’s that called?” I told him it was beer.
He slapped his hand down on the bar and said, “of course it’s beer, I’m not stupid. What’s it in?”
“A glass?”
He thought about it and mouthed the word “glass”. He was all confused because it was called a glass and it was made of glass.
I told him we were in a bar and this (tapping the bar) is a bar. He shook his head, threw some cash down, and said he had to go home and rest.
Also marsh mallows and chewing gum have lost their botanical origin.
I expect he thinks that things are called jumbo shrimp even if they’re not made from elephants.
I need to quit this thread and get back to work,
but they also sell metal woods.
Buffalo wings. You can’t fool me, I know for sure that buffalos do not have wings.
It seems to me that OP is asking for things where the material has become a noun naming the object. I’m not sure that “tin foil” really qualifies just because foil is no longer usually made out of tin, but I think “tin” alone as a synonym for a food/drink can does.
Some of these work, e.g., a rubber: it’s an object named after a material, like a glass or a paper, and it’s called that even when it’s made of a different material. Others aren’t objects named after material. You’d never say, “Can you hand me a tin foil? And also a lead?” Those are related: they’re materials whose name doesn’t match the material they’re made from.
That said, a “tin” of sardines would work, if it’s made from aluminum.
When someone in the office marks up a document with edits, those edits are called “redlines,” even if they are neither red nor lines. The name originated from mark-ups made with a red pen, but persists even if the mark-ups are made in another color.
And along those lines, we call the print-out the hard copy and the version on the computer the soft copy, even though paper isn’t particularly hard and computer screens aren’t particularly soft.
I agree about “tin foil”, because the material “tin” is not being used as the noun for the thing, it is an adjective - and we commonly say just “foil” or “aluminum foil”.
But in “a pencil lead”, or just “lead” as an uncountable noun referring to pencil lead, the material has indeed become a noun for something not made of that material. That does seems like it works as an example of what you asked for.
“My mechanical pencil is empty. Can you hand me some .05 lead?”
Seems to fit the OP.
But none of the words red, line, hard, soft or copy are materials.
Marbles have long been made out of glass, or more recently often plastic.
The fine silver you set out on the dining-room table is probably stainless steel.
“Glasses” has two different meanings, and both of them are now often made of plastic.
Oh, and another one for glass, going in the other direction: Fancy glassware is often called “crystal”, even though glass is notable for being one of the few solid substances that isn’t a crystal.
In fact… upon further googling, I have learned that they are usually still made of natural rubber.