Fall is officially here, and for many Canadians this means curling up on the couch after a long and tiring day at work to reconnect with fictional characters and favourite storylines on nighttime television shows.

This comfortable diversion after a summer hiatus from the TV made me think more deeply about the term, “reality television”.

Although this type of programming is not new (having been present since the 1940s in various forms) a little research shows that the term “reality television” didn’t become trendy until the year 2000 with the arrival of shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother” to North America.

There is no question that the term has gained widespread usage in the US and in Canada, but is it accurate?

Is it correct to say that shows like “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”, “The Bachelor”, or “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reflect real-life routines and situations?

In good conscience, I cannot answer this question in the affirmative.   What I see in this type of television programming is altered reality, with the presence of fabricated and pre-planned scenarios, staged interactions between ordinary people and post-production editing.  For me, it does not seem too exaggerated to think of reality television as extended melodrama, similar to a soap opera production.

But, does this mean that the term “reality television” is incorrect?  Not necessarily.

This brings me to the question for today:  how can a word which is used imprecisely be repeated again and again in the English language and interpreted as something “correct”?

It seems a little bit absurd.

And yet, if we look closely, there are many mislabelled words in the English language that have been accepted as correct.

These special mistakes are called “misnomers”.

The Collins Dictionary says that the word comes from the Old French word mesnommer, which means to misname. The dictionary also references the Latin word, nominare which means to call by name.

Here are a few examples of misnomers: in the food category, for example, a snack that we may have all tasted at some point in our lives – the peanut – is not really a nut.  Even though the word “nut” is contained in the compound noun, scientifically speaking, it is a legume. The peanut is in the bean family.  Coconuts, walnuts and pistachios are not nuts, either. A coconut and a walnut are known as drupes.  A pistachio is actually a seed.

The same can be said for strawberries and raspberries.  The word “berry” appears in the name, but strawberries and raspberries are not berries in the scientific sense. These are classified as “aggregate fruits”.

Still on the topic of food, buffalo wings are a popular finger food which is usually eaten at local pubs and restaurants. But, they are not made of buffalo meat. Buffalo wings are specific deep-fried chicken wings dipped in a spicy red cayenne sauce first prepared in Buffalo, New York.

In the same way, prairie oysters are not seafood, but rather meatballs made of bull testicles.  Bombay duck is not a type of duck, but rather a fish that lives in the tropical Indo-Pacific region.

Eggplants are plants, but they don’t grow eggs.

There are several animal misnomers that exist in the English language, as well. The furry Koala Bear which is the official fauna emblem of Australia is not really a bear even though it looks like a teddy bear. It’s a marsupial, very much like a kangaroo is a marsupial.  The prairie dogs that live in Saskatchewan are not little dogs; they are rodents, similar to squirrels.   Popular household pets like guinea pigs are not from the west coastal country in Africa (Guinea) and they are not related to pigs. These domesticated little animals are rodents.

In the same vein, a Jellyfish is not a fish; it’s an invertebrate.  A seahorse is not a horse; it’s a fish.

Are you confused, yet?  I wouldn’t be surprised if you were.  Misnomers can be extremely confusing.

Over time, all of these misnomers have become standard terms in the English language, even though technically, the words apply the wrong name to a person, place or thing.

Why do misnomers develop?  It is believed that misnomers develop because a noun or noun phrase was named long before its correct nature was known.

Take the quiz below to explore the meaning of more misnomers.