Daily Objects Quiz

The psiandme Everyday Objects: The Weird Names You Never Knew quiz was created by psiandme.

The human body is a treasure trove of obscure terminology that most people never learn in basic biology class. For example, the smooth patch of skin located right between your eyebrows is officially called the glabella, a term derived from the Latin word for hairless. Further down the face, the vertical groove between your nose and upper lip is known as the philtrum, which surprisingly traces its roots back to ancient Greek words associated with love potions. Even the tiny crescent shape at the base of your fingernail has a beautiful name, the lunule, named after the Latin word for moon. Knowing these terms can make you look at your own body in a completely new and fascinating way.

When it comes to the clothes we wear and the accessories we use, the vocabulary is just as rich and surprisingly specific. The most famous example is the aglet, the small plastic or metal sheath at the end of a shoelace that keeps the fibers from unraveling. This word comes from Old French and translates to little needle, referencing how it helps thread the lace through the eyelets of a shoe. Another fascinating term is the armscye, which is the technical tailoring term for the armhole in a garment where the sleeve is attached. Even the metal device used in shoe stores to measure your foot has a proper name, the Brannock Device, named after its inventor Charles F. Brannock in the 1920s.

The culinary world is filled with highly specific jargon that extends far beyond cooking techniques to the very packaging and structure of our food. If you order a pizza, the outer rim of the crust that many people leave behind is called the cornicione. To keep the box lid from crushing that pizza, restaurants use a small three-pronged plastic stand officially known as a pizza saver. When you grab a coffee to go, the cardboard sleeve protecting your hand from the heat is called a zarf, a term that originally referred to ornate metal coffee cup holders used centuries ago. Even the tiny individual bumps that make up a raspberry or blackberry have their own name, drupelets.

Written language and typography contain some of the most delightful and obscure names for symbols we see every day. The tiny dot above a lowercase i or j is called a tittle, a word that gave rise to the phrase jot and tittle, meaning tiny details. The division sign you learned in elementary school math is actually called an obelus. Meanwhile, the symbol we now commonly call a hashtag or pound sign was originally named the octothorpe, a word created in the mid-twentieth century by telecommunications workers. There is even a specific word for the string of random symbols used in comic strips to replace swear words, which cartoonist Mort Walker dubbed a grawlix.

Around the house, architectural details and everyday hardware have highly specific names that have been passed down through generations of builders and designers. The narrow strips of wood or metal that separate individual panes of glass in a multi-pane window are called muntins. When you look at a door, the decorative plate that surrounds the keyhole or the doorknob is known as an escutcheon, a term derived from an Old French word for shield. If you walk up a staircase, the vertical posts that hold up the handrail are called balusters. Even the small, wave-shaped dollop of toothpaste you squeeze onto your toothbrush each morning has a whimsical unofficial name, the nurdle.

Beyond physical objects, there are incredibly precise words for specific feelings and everyday experiences that most of us assume have no name. The intense feeling of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, a sensation many experience on a cold Monday, is called dysania. If you sit in an awkward position and your foot falls asleep, that tingling pins and needles sensation is medically known as paresthesia. When you hear a song on the radio and completely misinterpret the lyrics, creating a new meaning in your head, you have experienced a mondegreen. Finally, if you repeat a word so many times that it temporarily loses all meaning to you, you are experiencing semantic satiation.

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