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.
- Mid-men, the male versions of mid-wives, are called accouchers.
- The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
- The apparatus used in alcohol distilleries for freeing the spirit from water is called the dephlegmator.
- One that speaks two languages – is bilingual – can be said to be diglot.
- 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.
- The working section of a piano is called the action.
- 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.
- 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”).
- 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.
- 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).
- The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
- The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.
- 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.
- In the early days of film making, people who worked on the sets were called movies. The films were called motion pictures.
- The tendency of the leaves or petals of certain plants to assume a different position at night is called nyctitropism.
- The back of the human hand is the opisthenar.
- Someone who uses as few words as possible when speaking is called pauciloquent.
- People that study fish are called ichthyologists.
- 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.
- The pin that holds a hinge together is called a pintle.
- The gland responsible for producing the hormone that regulates growth is called the pituitary gland. It is the size of a pea.
- 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.
- A philologist study linguistics and etymology.
- People who cannot smell suffer from anosmia.
- Loss of taste is called ageusia.
- The hairless area of roughened skin at the tip of a bear’s snout is called the rhinarium.
- Someone who habitually picks his/her nose is called a rhinotillexomaniac (rhino=nose, tillexis=habit of picking at something, mania=obsession with something).
- A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or school room, is referred to as a silentium.
- The study of flags and emblems is called vexillology.
- The study of signs is called semiotics.
- The making of maps is called cartography.
- The ear-splitting sound produced by the high notes of a bagpipe is called a skirl.
- The fleshy projection above the bill on a turkey is called a snood.
- People who chase after rare birds are called twitchers.
Please add more entries! Thanks