Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1918 — BREADFRUIT BREADLESS, GRAPEFRUIT GRAPELESS [ARTICLE]

BREADFRUIT BREADLESS, GRAPEFRUIT GRAPELESS

And So Is Sponge Cake Spongeless, Horse Chestnut Horseless, Buttercup Butterless. Washington, D. C.— Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s often quoted question, * What’s in a name?” the question of "What’s not in a name?’’ has been answered in the brief of a recent'appeal from a decision of the United States Examiner of Trade Marks. This particular case hinged upon whether or not a word with a well-de-fined meaning could be divorced from that meaning. It was claimed that this could be done, and In support of this contention the following apparent misnomers were cited: "There is no cream in cream of tartar, in cold cream or in chocolate creams; no milk in magnesia or in milk-weed. These are all as remote from the cow as the cowslip. "There is no grape in grapefruit or bread in breadfruit. A pineapple is neither pine nor apple; a prickly pear is not a pear; an alligator pear is neither a pear nor an alligator, and a sugar plum is not a plum. “Apple butter is not butter. All the butter is taken out of buttermilk, an<l there is none in butternuts, or In buttercups, and the flies in the creamery are not butterflies. “Peanuts are not peas, and it is doubtful if they are nuts. Sailors wear pea-jackets —peas do not, they have pea-cods, which, by the way, are not fish. “Monkey wrenches are neither made by nor of monkeys. Poles are not made from polecats nor badges from the badger. "A woodchuck is a groundhog, which is not a hog and is not ground —ground hog is sausage. "Angel food is eaten by everybody. There are no sponges in sponge cake, and the eating of ladyfingers does not indicate cannibalism. “Chickenpox has nothing to do with chickens, neither has an eggplant—nor a cocktail. "A horse chestnut is as far removed from horses as a sawhorse, clotheshorse, or horseradish. A horse chestnut is a nut, so is the thing that goes with a bolt, and so is a doughnut. Sweetbreads are not sweet and are not bread. Catgut is no more feline than pussywillow or cattails and the firedogs are andirons and are made frequently of brass. "Whiffietrees, boot-trees, halltrees and family trees are as out of place in the woods as a railway frog, a fishplate. a fish story, a mackerel sky nr a crabapple in the water.”