In the title at the source, these items are referred to as "anachronyms," which highlights the evolved impreciseness of the terms. Confusion can arise (it did in me) from the term's similarity to "anacronym" - which is an acronym (word composed of first letters of longer phrase) that is no longer thought of as such (examples include "scuba" and "radar.")
For the next one, about Pascal's Law - I have to take off my English major hat and put on my science lab coat...
... because I had no idea what "runia montium" is/was:
Ruina montium (Latin for "wrecking of mountains") was a mining technique in Ancient Rome described by Pliny the Elder... It is thought to draw on the principle of Pascal's barrel. Miners would excavate narrow cavities down into a mountain, whereby filling the cavities with water would cause pressures large enough to fragment thick rock walls.
I had to look up "ruina montium" too! I was astonished by the illustration image.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. Plus, this reminded me that I need a rubber duck, ha.
ReplyDeleteI have actually been to the biggest gold mine of the Roman empire, where this technique was used. Las Medulas, in northern Spain. Yay for me, I guess. It's next to a village, with like one restaurant of questionable quality, and the whole place is filled with ancient sweet chestnut trees.
ReplyDeletetake OFF* my English major hat
ReplyDeleteI insert little errata every now and then just to see if anyone is paying attention. Very good, DubyaD.
DeleteNote that explainxkcd.com is a wonderful resource for those of us who love XKCD, but don't always follow the science (or, in this case, the history).
ReplyDeleteI immediately thought to offer shoe horn to the anachronym list; my dad suffered a back injury in WWII, and used shoe horns with loafers almost exclusively (until I learned to tie shoes, when he would have me tie his wingtips for his Sunday church attire), and all of them were long handled, each made of animal horn.
ReplyDeleteMy mind is so blown right now. Were wingtips originally made from real wings too?
DeleteRuina montium is extensively used to this day but we call it fracking now
ReplyDeleteYou could buy linen made out of actual linen if you really wanted. ;)
ReplyDeleteFeminists are fond of describing how difficult life was for women...well, in pretty much every age. But imagine what life was like for the men who were forced down those shafts--one of many horrible fates in the ancient world. And why did they need to quarry more rock? To build bigger palaces for the rich--women and men. To build infrastructure mainly serving the rich. It's always been about class. It'll always be about class.
ReplyDeleteSir, this is a Wendy's
DeleteAnd Pliny the Elder is an IPA.
Deletehttps://www.russianriverbrewing.com/brew/pliny-the-elder/
Delete