Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Word of the Day -- Misnomer

Here's something we never do here at TLG! :-)

Misnomer: the misnaming of a person in a legal instrument; or a  use of a wrong or inappropriate name

What's in a name? Well, in some cases, a name will contain an error, a misunderstanding, or a mislabeling. Historians have long noted that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. The Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed's Hill. And the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually of German ancestry. For such cases we have the term "misnomer," which comes from the Anglo-French verb "mesnomer" ("to misname") and ultimately from "nomen," the Latin word for "name."

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