History NonIndicativeName / RealLife

** The French and Indian War was not France vs. the indigenous peoples of the American continent. The French and Indians fought ''together'' against the British. (There were Indians on the British side too.) ''DaveBarry Slept Here'' refers to this confusion, further asserting, "The British didn't even realize they were suppose to be ''in'' this war until several years after it started, by which time the French and the Indians, totally confused, had inflicted heavy casualties upon each other."

* The Canary Isles are named after a seal (origin. lat. ''Insukaria Canaria'' or "isles of seals")

* The British "Special Air Service" (SAS) is actually part of the British Army. It was named such to make the Axis forces think there was a ''paratrooper'' regiment. They do make drops from helicopters, though.

** While 5 1/4 and 8 inch floppy disks are indeed floppy, 3 1/2 inch floppy disks have a more solid construction. They were occasionally called "stiffy" disks, but the name didn't catch on in most places.

** To make things even more confusing, there is an unrelated species of fish called "Lake Trout"(not a true trout, but a char that looks like a trout) that lives in lakes in inland North America.

* Sea Cucumbers are animals, not squash.

** Sadly for fans of unit confusion and class action suits against storage manufacturers, the confusion is being cleared up by the adoption of new units kibi, mebi, gibi and tebi, with abbreviations Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti, each of which represents an exact power of 2. Under this definition the floppy had exactly 1.44K KiB.

* The Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia. At the time of the establishment of the oblast (1934), 16% of the population was jewish. In 2010, this number had dwindled down to a whooping 1%, a mere 1,600 people, with only a fifth of those being practicing jews.

** With the defection of Nebraska (and less relevantly, Colorado), the Big Ten now has twelve members, and the Big Twelve has ten.

** The Big 12 Conference currently has 10 teams. It used to have 12 teams until Colorado and Nebraska left in 2011. Combined with the Big Ten above, from 2011 through 2013 the Big Ten will have 12 teams and the Big 12 will have 10 teams.

** This is an example of cultural linguistics; the "two Kansas Cities" are regarded as two because they're "separated" by the state line. In Europe they would be regarded as one because they're contiguous.

* The Canary isles are named after a seal (origin. lat. ''Insukaria Canaria'' or "isles of seals")

** It has been suggested that American football be rechristened "handegg".

** Likewise, [[TheNapoleon a Napoleon Complex]] is in reference to NapoleonBonaparte, who was actually of average height by modern day standards.

* Chances are you have a credit card that belongs to HSBC, which stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The bank is British in origin and did have its headquarters in Hong Kong, it is now located in London.

* The German states of Saxony and Lower Saxony do not border each other. Lower Saxony is also Northwest of Saxony.

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[[folder: Food and Drink]]
* Carls Jr's 6 Dollar Burger originally launched for about $4 and was named in order to claim that it was of the same quality that you would pay for in a sit down restaurant. Even with inflation most of the variations that have been introduced are $4.99. The Jim Beam Burbon 6 Dollar Burger however is the only one currently that is $5.99.
* "Lake trout", a deep-fried dish commonly sold by street vendors in Baltimore, isn't trout, and it isn't fished from lakes. It's actually whiting, a cheap bottom-feeding fish that's trawled just off of Maryland's coast. For discussions on this, watch a few episodes of ''TheWire''.
** And what is traditionally sold in British fish'n'chip shops as "rock salmon" (or just "rock") is a whitefish unrelated to salmon. Probably why it's now often called "huss".
* Most of what's sold in American grocery stores as cinnamon sticks are actually the bark of the Cassia tree. They're closely related and taste similar, but not identical.
* Most of the mozzarella cheese on the market is actually imitation mozzarella, as true mozzarella must be made from water-buffalo milk. Cow milk is much cheaper.
* Most of what is packaged as "wasabi" in American and European shops is usually not true wasabi due to cultivation difficulties. It's actually mostly horse radish. On that note, wasabi is often called "Japanese horse radish" even though it's not a species of horse radish.
* In Germany and Austria, there is a food called ''Leberkäse'', which literally means "liver-cheese". It normally has neither liver nor cheese in it, unless you order a special type of it that way ("Leberkäse mit Käse" or "liver-cheese with cheese"), and is commonly translated into English as "meatloaf".
* Chinese fortune cookies were invented in the United States.
** And are of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6MhV5Rn63M&feature=player_detailpage#t=140s Japanese descent.]]
* Scotch eggs, Scotch pies, and Scotch broth are not made with real Scotch[[note]]Although one supposes Scotch could theoretically be added to the broth, only a LethalChef with no respect for fine spirits would do that.[[/note]] (One is a hard-boiled egg encased in sausagemeat and breadcrumbs, the second is a mutton pie made with a particular kind of pastry, and the third is lamb/mutton broth with vegetables.) These three (along with the whisky) are among the few cases in which the correct adjective is "Scotch" rather than "Scottish".
** Scotch eggs, contrary to the name, are not Scottish but an English snack, most probably inspired by an Indian dish.
** On a related note, butterscotch has nothing to do with Scotland (it most likely got its name from the fact that before it fully cools, the candy is "scotched" or scored to make it easier to break up). The misnomer is even worse in Canadian French, where it's known as ''caramel écossais'' or Scottish caramel.
* Mince Pies (the English kind) are pastries made with a filling of mincemeat. Originally the mincemeat was made up of meat, various fruits and preserves. Nowadays though, most mince pies don't contain any meat (unless you make your own at home) but the filling is still referred to as mincemeat.
* [=AriZona=] Iced Tea is based in New York.
* Chinese Hoisin (meaning 'Seafood') Sauce doesn't actually contain any seafood. Also, judging from TheOtherWiki's description, it doesn't seem to be used on seafood, either.
* Salad cream isn't intended specifically for salads (it's essentially a non-thixotropic version of mayonnaise, hence intended for the same broad range of uses) and (unlike mayonnaise) isn't particularly creamy.
* Many steakhouses in Colorado serve "Rocky Mountain Oysters" -- which are, in fact, bull testicles.
* Red Leicester is orange.
* Red Rock Cider was once the subject of an advertising campaign pointing out that 'It's not red, and there's no rocks in it'.
* The "cacahuate japonés" (literally, ''Japanese peanut'') snack was not invented in Japan, but in Mexico. The creator was a Japanese immigrant, though.
* The sauces of Classic French cuisine is full of these things: Sauce Allemande ("German sauce") isn't German. Sauce Espagnole ("Spanish sauce") isn't Spanish.[[note]]The sauce contains tomatoes; supposedly, it was invented for some Spanish dignitaries, who had brought tomatoes--a crop from their New World colonies--to France.[[/note]] Sauce Africaine ("African sauce") isn't African.[[note]]It's Sauce Espagnole with Africanesque spices.[[/note]] "Créme anglaise" isn't English, or a cream![[note]]It's a sort of custard, and given that the English ''do'' like custard and make it well, that's fair.[[/note]]
* Russian dressing, Italian dressing, and French dressing were all invented in the US.
* Head cheese does not contain any dairy. It ''does'', however, contain meat and gelatin from a pig's head.
* Grape Nuts have nothing to do with grapes. Or nuts. They contain dextrose, sometimes called "grape sugar," although dextrose is more commonly known as glucose, which means "grain sugar".
* For the longest time Apple Jacks had no apple taste at all. In fact, there was an awkward period of advertising where commercials had people surprised that Apple Jacks didn't taste like apples, when the cereal at the time actually DID taste like apples, and even contained apple ingredients.
* French Fries actually came from Belgium, or perhaps Spain. There's some debate as to which. To those thinking it's about the style of cutting, the original verb meaning to cut in that style of cutting is to ''julienne'' (and yes, it is from France); the use of "Frenching" to refer to this comes ''after and because of'' French fries.
** Also, they were discovered by American soldiers serving in France during World War I and brought back to the States.
** The Other Wiki claims the phrase comes from the style of frying. That is, "french fries" are potatoes cooked in a French manner. Apparently they were known at least as early as the Revolutionary Era.
* French Bread in Brazil is actually bread they themselves created when asked for bread "like the ones in France" by the time of the first World War.
* An egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream. It does, however, resemble a creamed egg (creamed meaning "frothy.") Some researchers believe that early versions of the drink did indeed have both egg and cream as ingredients, as a cheaper variation on the then-recently-invented milkshake. According to this theory, the "New York Egg Cream" then removed egg and cream because they're expensive ingredients.
* It's so common that "Nationish X" is not what Nation calls X (e.g. French Toast, French Cricket), that "English Muffin" could be regarded as a surprising aversion. What Americans call an "English Muffin" is precisely called a Muffin in England. This is the round bready object that splits into two and toasts well. The situation has become confused because what Americans call Muffin (the thing a bit like a cupcake without icing) is now well known in England and actually probably more common due to being a staple of coffee shops - but both types are simply called Muffin. This importation is quite recent. In Agatha Christie's "At Bertram's Hotel" (1965), Lady Selina Hazy complains at being served an American Muffin in America, obviously never having seen that item under that name in the UK, and also unaware that she could have got what she wanted by asking for an English Muffin.
* Britain has or had a lot of "American-Style X" brand names that had little to do with any real American style. And then there's the fact that Danish pastries are known in Denmark as 'Viennese bread'... In a twist, neither name for Danish pastries are entirely non-indicative: Danish pastries are something of a speciality of Denmark, might have originated from Vienna, and is classified as a Viennoiserie[[note]]French for 'things from Vienna'[[/note]] product.
* Ginger beer, root beer, birch beer, and butterbeer are all nonalcoholic.
** Ginger ale is also non-alcoholic.
* And there's the Neapolitan onion sauce known as Genovese.
* German chocolate cake is not from Germany, but American. It was originally made by Sam ''German''.
** For an actual German chocolate cake, by which we mean the cake is actually from Germany and also happens to be a chocolate cake, you'll want a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest_cake Black Forest cake]] instead. (Yes, like the one in ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}''.)
*** On that note, Black Forest cake is not made of black trees. It was invented in the Black Forest, though.
*** And that forest has the usual green and brown colour tones.
*** Worse, it's called ''Selva Negra'' (Black ''Jungle'') in Spanish.
*** To make it even worse, the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) is actually a mountain range, like "Bayrischer Wald", "Böhmer Wald" or "Teutoburger Wald". But "Schwarzgebirge" or "Schwarzes Gebirge" sounds too much {{Mordor}}.
* Sweetbreads are meats - specifically, the thymus glands of cows, pigs or sheep. Sweetmeat is a synonym for candy.
* [[UnsuspectinglySoused Long Island Iced Tea]] is, um, not what you want to be drinking if you just [[SpotOfTea fancy a cold cuppa]]. It is iced, though, and presumably from Long Island, so it's at least three-quarters accurate.
* Yakisoba's name seems to imply a connection to soba, but it is actually quite different; soba is a native Japanese type of noodle while yakisoba has more in common with Chinese noodles, as ramen does. Authentic yakisoba resembles chow mein and is essentially the Japanese take on the dish (similar to how gyoza is the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese dumpling jiaozi, or potstickers as they're often called in English).
** There's a debate on whether or not Okinawa Soba should be considered soba (Okinawa soba noodles are not buckwheat, as required to be considered soba)
* Toll House Cookies don't have anything specific to do with English buildings used for toll collection, they are named for the now-destroyed Toll House Inn, the restaurant (converted from a toll house actually used to collect tolls) where they were invented.
* A lot of Chinese cuisine, especially Straits Chinese cuisine, have non-indicative names for various reasons. Some because the dish has a poetic name, usually for delicacies like "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" (a type of shark's fin soup). Some due to poor translation such as ''Bak Kut Teh'' ("Meat Bone Tea") not actually being a form of tea or "Carrot Cake" which is not actually made from carrots but from radishes ("white carrot" in most Chinese dialects) nor is it a "cake" as most people would recognize it. Some cases are historical, the "Hainanese chicken rice" you find in South-East Asia does not actually come from Hainan, China but rather was pioneered by Hainanese immigrants (although this one is in some dispute).
* Texas Pete hot sauce is made in North Carolina.
* Most ice cubes are not cubic but a variety of other 3-dimensional shapes.
* Dubliner cheese is actually made in Cork.
* ''Molho à Espanhola'' ("Spanish-style sauce") is not Spanish, but Portuguese (it was invented in the northern city of Porto). In fact, no Spaniard ever heard of this sauce.
* The sandwich chain Subway is owned and operated by a holding company called Doctor's Associates Inc., the founder named the company because he was trying to earn enough money to pay for his medical school tuition. The company is not affiliated with any medical organization or personnel (although one of the cofounders had a doctorate, in physics).
* In a bizarre double-example, one variant of the chili dog called the "Coney Island hot dog" (or "coney dog" for short) was created in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, while another type called the "Michigan hot dog" was created in New York.
* Mongolian beef is an American Chinese dish, and is simply called "Mongolian" to sound exotic. Similarly, Mongolian barbecue was invented in Taiwan.
* Barley sugar [[note]]For non-Brits, a kind of boiled sweet... er, hard candy[[/note]] does not usually contain any barley. According to some sources, including TheOtherWiki, it used to be made with barley water and still is sometimes. Others say it's a mistranslation of ''sucre brûlé'', meaning "burnt sugar".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: RealLife - Places]]

[[folder: RealLife - Misc.]]

[[folder:Real Life - Items]]

[[folder: RealLife - Living Things]]
* Guinea pig (read above).

[[folder: RealLife - Food and Drink]]

[[folder: RealLife - People]]