A plastic glass, an online paper, and other material contradictions

I have a suggestion: in British English a band-aid is called a plaster, but is not made of plaster. It could be a fabric plaster for example.

What about the flint in a lighter? Usually made from ferrocerium rather than flint.

Chronos mentioned that back in post #78, but AFAICT a medical “plaster” or sticky bandage never was made of plaster.

Both the band-aid-type plaster and the building material apparently get their name from the ancient Greek medical term emplastron meaning a salve or ointment for external application (i.e., a substance to be spread or “plastered” on the skin).

In medicine the word “plaster” got transferred to the bandage that held the plastering substance against the skin, and the Brits have continued to use it for a stuck-on bandage even when no salve or ointment is applied.

In the building trades, on the other hand, the word still means the goopy stuff itself that gets spread on the surface.

So it wouldn’t be valid to say “A plaster is no longer necessarily made from plaster”, because it never was.

However, I think (subject to the arbitration of the OP) that you’ve struck lexicographic gold with your other suggestion of the flint in a lighter. Yes, the ferrocerium pyrophoric-alloy “flint” in a mechanical lighter is so called in reference to traditional flint-and-steel or similar firestrikers that were made of actual flint, so ISTM that it meets the criteria.

A glass “stone” (in a Go set)

~Max

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard someone wrongly use the word linoleum when actually referring to vinyl flooring. Linoleum is made with linseed oil, and actually making a comeback, although using plastics in most cases. If it’s made with PVC, it’s not linoleum.

I support this nomination: a Go stone is no longer necessarily made from stone.

(In fact, it seems that the most prized traditional material is a sintered (new word!) stone composite, but alternative materials apparently include not only glass but shell, porcelan, plastic and melamine resin.)

That’s exactly the kind of nitpickery I’m here for! :slight_smile: I thought that “a fleece” was sometimes made from fleece (the wool of a sheep). If it’s not, we gotta keep looking.

But to be even more nitpicky, it looks like it might actually work, since the material isn’t necessarily wool:

So “a fleece” (the jacket) is made from “fleece” the material, even though neither has anything to do with wool.

BUT THE ULTIMATE NITPICKERY: it doesn’t work, because even though wool is nowhere involved, a fleece (jacket) is always made from fleece (the material). If your jacket contains no fleece, nobody is going to call it a fleece.

So you’re right. In the end, DISQUALIFIED.

I think this works; cool! M-W backs you up.

This one works too, I think. I know next to nothing about Go, but I’ll take your word for it.

Dominoes are also called “bones,” and historically were often made out of carved bones, but are usually plastic today.

Disclaimer: I don’t know if you’d refer to an individual domino as “a bone.”

There are actually remarkably few discrete objects named after the substance they’re made of rather than named for their resemblance to objects of a different substance, aren’t there?

I was wrestling with all kinds of superficially plausible possibilities like “a darning egg” or “vegan cheese” or “steel wool”, but all of them are named after a different object or substance that they resemble, rather than named for the substance that they used to be made out of. This is harder than it looks.

It is definitely tricky! I like it being hard, as a few lovely examples are better than a laundry list of middling examples.

Bed linens and table linens are pretty rarely made of linen these days. The “bed” and “table” qualifiers aren’t necessarily used. If you go to Kohl’s or Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase bedsheets, you’ll find them in the linen department, and when you get home you’ll store them in the linen closet.

I concede that you wouldn’t say “a linen is no longer made of linen.” However, when referring to spectacles you wouldn’t say “a glass is no longer made of glass,” either. And of course the kind of glass you drink from is often still made of glass today.

Remember those Magic Slates , where you pulled up the plastic and erased the writing? I recently saw some advertised as party favors and they were referred to as “slates”

A Mr. Potato-head is not made of potato

But they used to be.

I know - that’s why I thought of it.

How about brick? Brick is used as a term for the material as well as the actual brick.

If that’s not acceptable, that also lead me to the realisation that not only are clay pigeons, as in the ones used in clay pigeon shooting, not made from pigeons, but they’re also not made from clay.

How about hamburger, which is made from beef.

Etymology of the word is uncertain. It might be named after Hamburg, Germany or one of several cities named Hamburg in America. It is also possible that it was originally made from ham.

A brick is a building material, but it’s not made out of “brick.” You can have a clay brick, or a plastic brick, or even a brick of hash, but a “brick brick” isn’t a thing.

Yeah, that’s a good one - “Hamburger,” meaning the sandwich, totally works, because we still refer to them as “hamburgers” even if they’re made with veggie patties instead of hamburger.

This is interesting, is that really common in the US? In contrast, the vegan burger at McDonald’s Germany is called “Veganburger TS”, not vegan hamburger (what’s the vegan burger at McD’s America called?). And in other independent burger restaurants, the vegan/vegetarian alternatives are always called vegan or veggie burger, not hamburger.