xkcd #3075: Anachronym Challenge

Sidewalk chalk isn't made of chalk anymore?

TIL: It's made of calcium sulfate, i.e. gypsum, the same stuff that goes into drywall, as opposed to calcium carbonate, i.e. rock chalk.

Congratulations you are one of the lucky Ten Thousand! https://xkcd.com/1053/
- I guess count me in that 10,000 as well
- I would say it's probably a lot less than ten thousand - I doubt this is something "everybody knows"
- Yeah... that's really not in the 1 in 10k catagory. Not even the 1 in 10 catagory.
Well, it certainly isn't made of sidewalk.
- Unless your sidewalks are made of gypsum.
No wonder it doesn't taste good anymore.
It's not made of sidewalk anymore either

I thought it said "arachnonym" and was looking forward to seeing some spider names.

Here are some words that rhyme with spider: glider, rider, fighter, miter, waterstrider...
Aragog, Shelob, Mae Tika, Charlotte...

Ah, you can get actual glass glasses, but typically only for unusual prescriptions.

And you can absolutely buy linen linens. They aren't even hard to find, just more expensive.

Same with silverware, only way more expensive.

you can get actual glass glasses, but typically only for unusual prescriptions.
It might vary by vendor, but you can definitely get real glass glasses for a normal prescription, if you pay for them. I think it's sold as kind of a premium option.
At the place I got my last pair from, if you got half-frames (ie the ones that only have a solid frame around the top of the lenses) they made you get glass lenses, because the wire that goes along the bottom of the lense causes the plastic ones to split over time.
- Odd, I have split frames with polycarbonate lenses; the little strap around the bottom is plastic.
- Oh, I dunno, if you're into aesthetics as part of an experience, they do shine pretty.
  I inherited some lol.
  There is something nice about the way light bounces off of well polished silver that's different from steel, no matter how well polished the steel is.
  But you're completely right on any practical level. Just the degree of upkeep is prohibitive.
Dumb foreigner here, so what’s the deal with silverware? I mean, if you really want silverware, you get forks and knives that are actually made of silver and come in a fancy wood box. Do people use that word for common steel forks too?
- Yeah, it's kind of a generic term for not just tableware, but damn near any utensil that isn't for cooking, like serving spoons, ladles and the like.
  Actual silver silverware is just expensive is all. So you aren't going to run to a big box store find it, so a lot of people don't even realize it's out there. Tbh, the way brick and mortar places have been priced out or otherwise failed, you often have to go to a decent sized city to find real silver cutlery and tableware, but when I was growing up some of the department stores still carried it.
  Hell, at the lower end of the income scale, steel utensils can be pricey to afford. You end up with some pretty crappy alloy parts with plastic handles. It might technically be steel, but it's such a low grade it falls apart under use.
I've had glass glasses in middle school. Because my vision differs heavily on both eyes (left lens wasn't even a lens, just a piece of flat glass), it was constantly skewed under the weight of the thicker lens.

There was a time when rubber ducks were made from ducks?

I assume they were originally made from natural rubber, but nowadays are primarily made of vinyl and the like.

3 wood...

Golf announcers have been calling 'fairway woods' 'fairway metals' for a while. But since most of them are largely made of carbon fiber these days, even that is misleading.

Isn't wood a sort of carbon fiber composite? Can we go back to calling them woods again?

Wood is sort of a composite material, made of cellulose fibers bound with a polymer called lignin.

The 9 iron and 3 wood made me think he was going to craft something in a 3x3 grid. I failed to associate it with golf.

Alt text:

I have to pay with paper money.

yes, I think I wrote that in the OP? Are you using an app where you're not seeing that?
- You did, I missed it.

I still prefer to buy sponge sponges. They work better than most of the non sponges.

TIL that the word "line" originated from the use of linen cords by builders to make a straight line https://www.etymonline.com/word/line

And the words "lingerie" and "lint" are related to linen as well

Rubber duck? 😬

Why the grimace? Rubber ducks definitely aren't made of rubber these days. They're plastic.
- I prefer my ducks to be made out of water fowl rather than plastic to be honest

I feel like a mirrorless camera would fit fairly well on this list. Not quite the same thing, but it's named after what it isn't, rather than what it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTLYris4kJU

Anyone can think of other examples? Note that we're not looking for simple misnomers like pencil lead, the things must have been made of the stuff they're named after at some point!

marbles
compressed air (no doubt somebody has used compressed air for what can dusters are used for nowadays, but selling it in cans has probably never been economically viable)

Half of them don't translate to europe/german language.

What do you mean by europe/german language?
- Europe (area) or german language.