Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: New Order "Shellshock" ::
There have been many times in my life where I have gotten one thing confused with something else. Sometimes I'll refer to something by the wrong name or be completely wrong about what something is all together and not know it. The thing about this is that these are very common misidentifications and made by quite a few people. Some by nearly everyone. Really. There are some things out there known by virtually all people as the wrong thing. Here are a few examples of items which I have had confused with another at some point in my life until someone had the good will to correct me on it.
Gargoyles. Gargoyles are water spouts. If it does not drain water, then what you are looking at is in fact called a grotesque. I don't care how demonically ugly it is, if it is not a drain spout, then it is a grotesque and NOT a gargoyle. Trust me. When it comes to stuff like this, I KNOW.
Big Ben. Big Ben is the name of a bell, and NOT the clock tower. The clock is called The Great Clock at Westminster. The largest bell in the clock's chimes is officially referred to as The Great Bell, but it has the nickname of Big Ben. The building in which the clock tower is situated is the Palace at Westminster, one end of the Houses of Parliament. Did I feel dumb when I found this out, but less when I realised that nearly everyone else in America makes this same mistake!
Xylophone. A Xylophone consists of wooden bars which are struck. If the bars are made of metal, then it is NOT a xylophone, but rather a metallophone (and my spell check is telling me "metallophone" is not a word. Just goes to show how people never refer to metallophones by their correct names). A glockenspiel is a type of metallophone. I didn't know there was a different name based on what the bars were made out of, and I'm a band geek!
Podium. A podium is a raised platform on which someone stands. The object someone stands behind when giving a speech or whatever is actually a lectern NOT a podium. Like on the game show Jeopardy! the contestants stand behind lecterns. A lectern is often positioned on a podium to raise the speaker above their audience. I had no idea on this until Alex Trebek told me I was wrong. Damn you, Trebek!
Octopi. The plural for of the word octopus is actually octopuses and NOT octopi as so many people think. It all has to do with from where the word is derived. Latin based words such as syllabus would be pluralized as syllabi. Whereas Greek based words like octopus are octopuses when plural. Imagine my jaw dropping when I found this out. You know when you're a kid and learn something cool like the plural word is octopi, you feel soooo smart? Decades later, I was crestfallen to learn this hard truth. (Also, hippopotami is the grammatically incorrect plural of hippopotamus for the same reasons. ARGH!)
Any one of these surprise you? Don't feel so bad, as I said just about everyone has made these same errors their entire lives! But that's why I'm here. Because I care. About you. And I don't want you to look dumb.
William the Bloody (making you look good)
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