What is with our terminology?

[Tab]

It's taken me years to get it straight, and I still get it wrong half the time.

Examples:

Boned - means 'bone removed'
Bone-in - means 'bone remains'
Shelled - means 'shell removed'
Shell-on - means 'shell remains'

Now, these are consistent in their inconsistency. They're using 'boned' and 'shelled' as verbs - actions that have been applied to the food product, as opposed to adjectives - which enhance the description of the product.

Under normal English I would expect 'boned chicken' to mean 'chichen with the bone in' and 'de-boned chicken' to mean 'chicken with the bone removed'.
Likewise 'Shelled shrimp' would mean 'shrimp in its shell' and 'Unshelled shrimp' (or 'shell-free' or 'deshelled') shrimp to mean 'shrimp with shell removed'. The shrimp example isn't as solid as the chicken example, but you get what I mean.

I'm sure there are many more examples out there (c'mon, cough them up) and let's not get into oxymorons (like 'jumbo shrimp'). I'm talking about stuff that messes you up when you visit the butcher store or meat counter or whatever.

- Tab

[surrealAmerican]

1. It's a sort of "bad verb" problem.

To "bone" a chicken, is to remove its bones. This is misleading, and could just as easily been "de-bone". Likewise for "shelling" shrimp, clams, or nuts. At least with oysters there's no ambiguity.

[Warpy]

2. Have you ever bought anything that was furbished

from a gruntled worker?

English is weird. My sympathy to anyone who has learned it as a second language.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I ceived gifts this Christmas.

One of them was a regifting. Therefore, would it have been received?

[CTyankee]

5. I taught an ESOL class with a group of Chinese women

and they were in disbelief over the fact that "flammable" and "inflammable" meant the same thing...

[Tesha]

8. They used not mean the same thing.

"Flammable" and "inflammable" used not mean the same thing. In fact, "flammable" wasn't even a word.

"Inflammable" meant that something could be "inflamed", as in, "set in flames". "Non-inflammable" or "uninflammable" meant it wouldn't burn.

But so many ignorant Americans got it wrong that "flammable" came into being and into use.

And that's how we end up with two words that sound like direct opposites but mean the exact same thing!

Tesha

[jtrockville]

4. Skinned Almonds.

"Skinned" usually means without the skin. So what do we call almonds WITH the skin?

[Tab]

6. I think we just call them "almonds"

and this is an example where we apply an adjective to something only if it's changed, as in:

"Peeled almonds"
"Skinned almonds"

etc. Maybe it's because they're entirely edible when shelled (shell-removed) and peeling or skinning requires yet another process.

I don't frickin' know.

[grasswire]

7. unblanched

maybe