tsuwm over in Q & A,posted about turkey's-- had me thinking about all the miss named things we have in english.

Turkey's (the bird) got there name in europe-- where all new and exotic things were associated with Turkey, the country. No matter were things might have originated, Turkey was often the last port of call, before western europe, so Turkey became the place of exotic things. some others include:

Turkey red-- a dye
turkish taffy-- a fruit candy
turkish toweling-- fabric

but there are many other things that inherit names from far away places that have nothing to do with there origins.. an other example is the all purpose excuse for bad language is "please excuse my french".
can you think of other things with place names that have nothing to do with what they are named for?



my other obsession