Just remembered: Saw this a while back, when Uncle Ebeneezer pointed me to an Ezra Klein gripe about the overuse of the word disarray when describing a political party that is in ... well, you got a better word?
Discussion mostly centered on long-winded, overly thought-out, one-by-one rejections of Ezra's proposed alternatives (oh, you KNOW I was happy as the proverbial pig), but there was an interesting tangent, too. Anonymous asked:
What's the deal with Ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it Roundtine.
I never thought about that before, but yeah!
Bloix replied ...
Ovaltine was developed in Switzerland, where it is known by its original name, Ovomaltine (from ovum, Latin for "egg", and malt, originally its main ingredients).
Ovomaltine was exported to England in 1909; it was a misspelling in the trademark registration process that led to the name being truncated to Ovaltine in English-speaking markets.
... which, as you might have guessed, he was passing along from Wikipedia.
I should have been able to puzzle out the answer, but I read ahead before thinking about it. Anyway, thank you, Internets!
2 comments:
"Why do they call it "Oval..." is a direct quote from a Seinfeld incident...
Ah. Another thing I did not know. Thanks.
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