Thursday, May 16, 2013

What is it called?



Sometimes it’s on the tip of your tongue… “What is it called again?” It’s not always easy to remember those out-of-the-ordinary things but to refresh your memory, here’s what it is called.

  1. Mid-men, the male versions of mid-wives, are called accouchers.
  2. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
  3. The apparatus used in alcohol distilleries for freeing the spirit from water is called the dephlegmator.
  4. One that speaks two languages – is bilingual – can be said to be diglot.
  5. Ducks are never male. The males of the species are called drakes. In a casino, however, ducks is a nickname for a pair of deuces.
  6. The working section of a piano is called the action.
  7. Shoemakers are commonly called cobblers but correctly speaking a cobbler is a shoe repairmen. A shoemaker is a cordwainer – they also made leather bottles and harnesses.
  8. The distance that a place holder falls from a glass when it is lifted (you know, place holders sometimes get stuck to the bottom of a cold glass when you lift the glass) is called a bevemeter, a sniglet coined by comedian Rich Hall (who also coined “sniglet”).
  9. The device at the intersection of two railroad tracks to permit the wheels and flanges on one track to cross or branch for the other is called a frog.
  10. A specific length of thread or yarn according to the type of fiber is called a hank. For linen, a hank is 274 metres (300 yards); for cotton, it is 768 metres (840 yards).
  11. The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
  12. The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.
  13. A depth of 2 fathoms (3,6 metres) is called a Mark Twain. Originally a fathom was the space reached by with two arms outstretched.
  14. In the early days of film making, people who worked on the sets were called movies. The films were called motion pictures.
  15. The tendency of the leaves or petals of certain plants to assume a different position at night is called nyctitropism.
  16. The back of the human hand is the opisthenar.
  17. Someone who uses as few words as possible when speaking is called pauciloquent.  
  18. People that study fish are called ichthyologists.
  19. The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal is called a tragus – it also aids in capturing sounds that come from behind you.
  20. The pin that holds a hinge together is called a pintle.
  21. The gland responsible for producing the hormone that regulates growth is called the pituitary gland. It is the size of a pea.
  22. A melody is a group of notes in a certain order that results in a sweet or agreeable sound. An easily remembered melody is called a tune.
  23. A philologist study linguistics and etymology.
  24. People who cannot smell suffer from anosmia.
  25.  Loss of taste is called ageusia.
  26. The hairless area of roughened skin at the tip of a bear’s snout is called the rhinarium.
  27. Someone who habitually picks his/her nose is called a rhinotillexomaniac (rhino=nose, tillexis=habit of picking at something, mania=obsession with something).
  28. A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or school room, is referred to as a silentium.
  29. The study of flags and emblems is called vexillology
  30. The study of signs is called semiotics.
  31. The making of maps is called cartography.
  32. The ear-splitting sound produced by the high notes of a bagpipe is called a skirl.
  33. The fleshy projection above the bill on a turkey is called a snood.
  34. People who chase after rare birds are called twitchers.

Please add more entries! Thanks