Chalks, as in white sticks used for drawing on blackboards aren’t actually cut out of chalk. They are usually made of gypsum.
Mankind invented music when a caveman blew into an animal horn. You can still find a Horn Section in a modern orchestra, but the various instruments are made of metal.
That’s a great one. And musicians refer to a French Horn as just a horn, in case there’s any question about it being a specific object.
On more careful reflection, I think you are completely right. I don’t see any conceptual difference between calling a scientific treatise a “paper” and calling a drinking container a “glass”. Nor any conceptual difference between the change to an electronic medium with the former and the change to plastic with the latter.
A car horn is almost always referred to simply as the horn.
I don’t think it will satisfy OP, but I got to thinking of china (as in “fine china”), though it’s not an object and China is not a material. Neither is a saucer made out of sauce.
Another country material of sorts is Japanning.
And most lacquer isn’t, in my experience. No lac bugs involved.
<ninja’d>
Yeah, none of those are exactly the same thing. You don’t refer to “a china” in the same way you refer to “a glass.” Nor do you refer to “a lacquer” as an object (although you might refer to it as shorthand for a variety of lacquer), nor is “lacquer” an exact namesake for the material from which it’s derived.
From post 4:
Liquid Wrench or Liquid Bandage? But I think you’ve stated that “liquid” doesn’t qualify.
How about the Britishism of calling adhesive bandages “plasters”?
Baby oil?
As far as silverware is concerned, there is the perfectly valid term “flatware”.
Now about the United States five-cent coin:
Indeed, and there have been discussions on this board about the illegality of melting these coins to recover the metallic content.
Similar to “faux fur”, I have a fleece coat that was never part of a sheep.
And such a garment is often referred to as “a fleece”. Good one!
A paper straw
Coppers (UK small denomination coins, now copper plated steel rather than 97% copper as previously)
Credit cards are plastic, as I believe are some playing cards nowadays
Good one!
You’ll have to ask the OP. Still partially made of copper. Clothes irons didn’t qualify for being partially made of iron.
A card in this sense is a ‘piece of paper’. Cards made be made from cardstock, but I don’t think there’s a particular material called card.
That’s a slightly odd one. Drinking tubes are apparently ~5000 years old. But the word straw (for that application) apparently only dates to 1851. Around that time, rye grass straws were popular. But were straws named after that, or just after a general resemblance to plant stalks? And does it make a difference to the OP that the 5000 year old tubes (made from metal) would be called straws now, even though they came first? What about the likelihood that even if rye grass straws were popular in the 1800s, it’s almost certain that someone used a dried-out grass stalk to suck on some liquid long before then?
Reminded by Narcos where Pablo Escobar offers the choice “plata o plomo” (silver or lead), “plumbers” no longer work with lead piping.
A plumber is not made of plumber. A plumber is not an object. A plumber was never made of lead. And plumbers do work with lead piping–such as when they remove old plumbing fixtures.
The word plumb might be used instead of plumb bob, though they’re not always made of lead.