"Misnomer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed to have devoted so many words to a mere matter of name. If a drama is good it signifies but little what we call it, or whether its title be exactly appropriate. In this case, however, we have to do with a vital defect and not merely with a misnomer. A play may be good in different ways; and what the preceding criticism is intended to bring out is the fact that the strength of 'Fiesco', such as it has, does not lie in the intellectual organization of the whole. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... abate until the train reached the next station, where the conductor summoned reenforcements and invoked the majesty of the law in the form of an officer. The affray, from first to last, was most depressing and gave to the unwilling witness a feeling that civilization is something of a misnomer and ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... it has long since passed the critical crisis and taken its place as one of the most remarkable series of letters which the public have ever been invited to peruse. Something of the marvellous vanishes from them, however, when we find that the title, "Correspondence with a Child," is a misnomer; Bettina having been, in truth, twenty-two years of age when she first visited Goethe. Yet while this important circumstance abates much of the wonder with which we once read her thoughts and confessions, they really become all the more valuable as studies in human ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... "broad day" and "broadcloth," undertook to drive him from Boston, putting his life in peril, it was our women who made their own persons a bulwark of protection around him. And shall such women be refused seats here in a Convention seeking the emancipation of slaves throughout the world? What a misnomer to call this a World's Convention of Abolitionists, when some of the oldest and most thorough-going Abolitionists in the world are denied the right to be represented in it by delegates of their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Neither Julius Caesar nor Themistocles would know what was meant by such poetry. It is modern poetry,—poetry unknown to the ancient world,—and who invented it nobody can tell. It is sometimes called Romantic, but this is a strange misnomer. Neither the Romans, nor the lineal descendants of the Romans, the Italians, the Provencals, the Spaniards, can claim that poetry as their own. It is Teutonic poetry,—purely Teutonic in its heart and soul, though its utterance, its rhyme and metre, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... violence, would be but to carry out the absurdity, of which the public are guilty, in holding abolitionists responsible for the mobs, which are got up against them. These mobs, by the way, are called "abolition mobs." A similar misnomer would pronounce the mob, that should tear down your house and shoot your wife, "Henry Clay's mob." Harriet Martineau, in stating the fact, that the mobs of 1834, in the city of New York, were set down to the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... is at present rather a misnomer, for whilst we have a permanent galley no cooking need be ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... first ford on their return trip; a sad misnomer now, for it was an unfordable ford. The water of old Elkwater was rearing and plunging, and furiously wild. Every mountain (and there are myriads) was sending out its wet aid to swell the raging torrent; the regiment, at this time, only three miles from the Secessionists. A ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... disease is known, is a misnomer. Pleuro-pneumonia proper is neither a contagious, nor an infectious disease; hence, the denial of medical men that this so-called pleuro-pneumonia is a contagious, or infectious disease, has been the means of unnecessarily exposing many ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... one whom the world delights to honour; it bows before the successful charlatan, and cringes to his ill-gotten wealth. I'm told that such a man is received, yes, and welcomed by society. Society! The word is a misnomer. In my time a man of that class was kept at arm's-length, was relegated to his proper place—the back hall; but now"—he gazed angrily at the paper—"here is a whole column describing Sir Stephen Orme's new 'palatial villa,' and giving an account of his achievements, the success of ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... daily sin of looking at men, not as our struggling and suffering brothers, but as mere symbols of certain formulae), incarnations of sets of opinions, wheels in some iron liberty-grinding or Christianity- spinning machine, which we miscall society, or civilisation, or, worst misnomer ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... that the term Divisional rest was a misnomer. Reveille was before six, and in the dim light of the early morning, the men had to wash and shave in icy cold water in the teeth of a bitter east wind. There followed a meagre breakfast cooked on an unsheltered field kitchen in the ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... caloric is mobile, and is capable of moving from one portion of matter to another; yet under certain conditions a portion of caloric is occluded in the matter by the force of attraction. That portion of caloric which is occluded (known by the misnomer, latent heat) I shall call static caloric, and that portion which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... the contamination of a large town.'[36] It may have surprised such people, but it does not surprise us who are surveying the industrial scene and beginning to apprehend the rottenness of that worm-eaten structure which under the misnomer of domestic industry marks the half-way house to ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... visited the library, though the name is a misnomer, for there are no books in it and our courteous guides said there never had been. We ascended the narrow stairs leading from the vast, empty, dusty room on the lower floor through an equally empty second story to the third and topmost story, which ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... if-so-be that they ship a hand for my berth, or place a new steward aft, I shall throw up my commission in less time than you can put a pilot-boat in stays. Thof Squire Dickon this was a common misnomer with Benjamin is a nice gentleman, and as good a man to sail with as heart could wish, yet I shall tel the squire, dye see, in plain English, and thats my native tongue, that if-so-be he is thinking of putting any Johnny Raw over my head, why, I shall resign. I began forrard, Mistress Prettybones, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... like that of a river, which carries the stream of prices now on this side of the valley, now on that. But this fluctuation of general prices surely can be so greatly moderated in magnitude and in evil results as to make the word "crisis" almost a misnomer. It is toward the attainment of this irreducible minimum of uncertainty and disaster in business ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... the suggestive potency in music, the operatic form incarnates its capacity of definite thought, and the expression of that thought. The term "lyric," as applied to the genuine operatic conception, is a misnomer. Under the accepted operatic form, however, it has relative truth, as the main musical purpose of opera seems, hitherto, to have been less to furnish expression for exalted emotions and thoughts, or exquisite sentiments, than to grant the vocal virtuoso opportunity to display phenomenal qualities ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... however, may subsist between unequals, as between parents and children, princes and subjects, men and women, where there is a difference in the character of the affection of the two parties. A certain degree of inequality—though we cannot lay down the limitation—makes "friendship" a misnomer. One would not desire the actual apotheosis of a friend, because that would take him out of reach; it would end friendship. Friendship lies rather in the active loving than in being loved, though most people are more anxious to be loved ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the olive. They put into Badis or Jask, and after leaving it and passing Maceta or Mussendon, they came in sight of the Persian Gulf, to which Nearchus, following the geography of the Arabs, gave the misnomer of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... offspring to die early is seen even before birth, for more male children are still-born than female,—namely, as three to two. For this reason, the term 'the stronger sex,' applied to men, has been regarded by some authors as a misnomer. They are physically weaker in early life, and succumb more readily to ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... It is a misnomer to call him the brown bear of Europe, since he is even more common in many parts of Asia—especially throughout Asiatic Russia and Kamtschatka. But he is also met with in most European countries, where there are extensive ranges of mountains. In the ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... of a telegraphic censorship was a new and irksome one to the great American people and just what it meant was hard to determine. Much has been written about "Press Censorship." That term was a misnomer. There never was an attempt to censor the great American press. The newspapers were just as free to print as they were before the war started. All the censorship that existed was over the telegraph lines militarily occupied. A government officer was ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... The chest, although situated below the larynx, is a resonance cavity of voice. In fact, in a certain register its vibration is felt so distinctly that we speak of these notes as being sung in the "chest register," which, so far as it implies that the tones are produced in the chest, is a misnomer. The same is true of "head register," in which vibration is felt in the head where, however, it is needless to say, the ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... no high artificer to raise His wordy monument—such lives as these Make death a dull misnomer and its pomp An empty vesture. Let resounding lives Re-echo splendidly through high-piled vaults And make the grave their spokesman—such as he Are as the hidden streams that, underground, Sweeten the ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... a misnomer, we are prompted to say that "ENQUIRE WITHIN" is peopled with hundreds of ladies and gentlemen, who have approved of the plan of the work, and contributed something to its store of useful information. There they are, waiting to be questioned, and ready to reply. Within each ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... muskets, for coconut oil and turtle shell. Others were wild, good-for-nothing runaways from whaleships, who then were generally known as "beach-combers"—that is, combing the beach for a living—though that, indeed, was a misnomer, for in those days, except one of these men was either a murderer or a tyrant, he did not "comb" for his living, but simply lived a life of luxurious, sensuous ease among the copper-coloured people with whom ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... brought by one Joyce (a convict lately emancipated) against Thomas Daveny, a free man and superintendant of convicts at Toongabbie, for an assault; when the defendant, availing himself of a mistake in his christian name, pleaded the misnomer. His plea being admitted, the business was for that time got over, and before another court could be assembled he had entered into a compromise with the plaintiff, and nothing more was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... It required no very vivid imagination to fancy ourselves in the happy valley of "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," and it seemed to me impossible that any one could ever desire, like that discontented youth, to leave so charming a spot. The term prairie is a misnomer in this case; instead we found a beautiful fruitful valley lying between two low ranges of hills, interspersed with groves of trees and picturesque lakes, and watered by a river winding gracefully through its whole length. It had been ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... are called shore larks; but that is evidently a misnomer, or at least a very inapt name, for they are not in the least partial to the sea-shore or even the shores of lakes, but are more disposed to take up their residence in inland and comparatively dry regions. There are several varieties, all bearing a very close resemblance, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... works of those much-abused monks, who in general are so frequently defamed by the thoughtless boys who write for the secular press, and by the equally empty-headed old women—of both sexes—who write for that class of periodical which by a curious misnomer is designated religious. These are the people, who, it is to be feared, shut their eyes to the truth, lest they should be ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... with, of course this very word "dead" is an absurd misnomer, as most of the entities classified under this heading are as fully alive as we are ourselves; the term must be understood as meaning those who are for the time unattached to a physical body. They may be subdivided into ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... Land to Wapping, by day and by night, I've many a year been a roamer, And find that no Lawyer can London indite, Each street, every Lane's a misnomer. I find Broad Street, St. Giles, a poor narrow nook, Battle Bridge is unconscious of slaughter, Duke's Place can not muster the ghost of a Duke, And Brook Street is ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... Jardim do Mar, a village on a mound of debris with black walls of dry stone defending the terraces from surf and spray. The furthest point, where we halted half an hour, is 'Pauel do Mar' (Swamp of the Sea), apparently a misnomer. It is the port of the Fajaa da Ovelha (Ewe's landslip), whose white tenements we see perched on the estreito, or tall horizon-slope. The large harbour-town is backed by a waterfall which may prove disastrous to it; its lands were formerly ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Ant—But of the insects of this order the most noted are the white ants or termites (which are ants only by a misnomer). They are, unfortunately, at once ubiquitous and innumerable in every spot where the climate is not too chilly, or the soil too sandy, for them to construct their ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... for a misnomer, an alibi, a nonjoinder, a demurrer, a nonsuit, a freemason or a know-nothin' sign to a juror, a temperance wink, or an orange nod to a partisan judge, or some cussed quirk or quibble or another, would carry me through it. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to myself, I know not how often. "It isn't worth while to look for it when there are new birds to be found. Still, it's singular," I continued, "that the house wren should dwell in such secluded places. It would seem that his name is a misnomer—at least, in a good many instances." Several times I stopped to listen more intently to the rolling ditty. "There's something odd about that wren's song," I repeated. "Does the house wren always close its song ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... itself to environments that various factors have created. This readjustment of our methods in teaching and of our policies in administration, we know, is a very delicate process. But it has to be done and done rightly if education is not to be a misnomer. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... democratic. Socialism without democracy is as impossible as a shadow without light. The word "Socialism" applied to schemes of paternalism, and to government ownership when the vital principle of democracy is lacking, is a misnomer. As with ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... pueblo region. So far as the architecture was concerned war and a hostile human environment produced not degeneration but development. This came about partly by reason of the peculiarities of the country, and partly through the methods of war. The term war is rather a misnomer in this connection, as it does not express the idea. The result was not brought about by armed bodies of men animated by hostile intentions or bent on extermination, although forays of this kind are too common in later ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... Doctor Opimian, dining with his friend Squire Gryll; 'a curiously complicated misnomer. We have an excellent old vegetable, the artichoke, of which we eat the head; we have another of subsequent introduction, of which we eat the root, and which we also call artichoke, because it resembles the first in flavour, although, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... builded, to quote Miss Alice Brown, who has written delightfully of Agnes and her life, "as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early settlers had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they could. As a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be like the wise man's in the Bible: "built upon ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... misnomer, inasmuch as the medical springs are not there but at Manitou, five miles off, in the heart of the mountains, and in superb scenery. Mrs. Dunbar thus ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... remembers of the Mordecais is, that the banker was once a poor, despised pawnbroker. No years of honest endeavor, or successful attainment, could wipe this fact from her retentive memory. It would be a misnomer, Leah, to call such a woman a Christian. She is an utter stranger to the sweet principles of faith and love embraced by true Christians, and practised by those who believe that they have ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... early summer has traversed, since he crossed the Missouri, five hundred miles of almost uniformly arable soil, most of it richly grassed, with belts of timber skirting its moderately copious and not unfrequent water-courses, and he very naturally concludes 'the American Desert' a misnomer, or at best a gross exaggeration. But, from the moment of leaving the Buffaloes behind him, the country begins to shoal, as a sailor might say, growing rapidly sterile, treeless, and all but grassless. The scanty ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... supposes to have been chiefly benefited by such deficiency? The scheme of free trade is often denounced by its opponents as British free trade; but we respectfully suggest that if its operations lead to so serious a destruction of British interests as is now alleged, the phrase is at least a misnomer. No! as the characteristics of the crisis are common to the United States, England, and France, so the causes of that crisis are to be sought in something which is also common to the United States, England, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... to give a tame account of the siege of Kimberley, for the thing itself was tame. Indeed 'siege' is a misnomer, for it was rather an investment or a blockade. Such as it was, however, the inhabitants became very restless under it, and though there were never any prospects of surrender the utmost impatience began to be manifested ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... along until the pursuing and long visible disaster finally overtook the company in Centropolis, Illinois (this is not the real name of the city, but it is no more flagrant a misnomer than the one it boasts). They played a matinee here and an evening performance, to two almost empty houses; that gave them ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... intelligence, to respectability, and to honour, pour forth his swearing words. I have heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who considered himself a "justice of the peace," break the holy commandment with impunity. I have even heard one, called by the misnomer, "lady," do disgrace to her sex by this sinful fault in conversation. In the household, with a group of little ones whose minds were just unfolding to receive first impressions, I have heard the parents swear as ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... night rapidly to advance, but the grand preliminaries being settled, we approached the "road" and strove to penetrate with our keenest vision into its dark recesses. A road! this it could not be. It was a gross misnomer! It appeared to our excited imaginations, a lane, in the tenth scale of consanguinity to a road; a mere chasm between lofty trees, where the young moon strove in vain to dart a ray! To go or not to go, that ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... that the Minute Book was not filled, seem to indicate that the Library was neglected for some years. On September 21st, 1801, the Assembly complied with the request of the Committee of a subscription library, with the misnomer "Public Library" (established in 1784 in St. Andrew's Hall) by granting them leave "to have the use of the books in the City Library, to be kept under the care of their Librarian apart from other books, the President giving a receipt ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... had always been remarkable. It occurred to Bruin, as he had now some trifling capital, that he would invest a portion in such articles as made up the fixtures and stock-in-trade of an oyster-merchant: the former expression is, however, a misnomer, for the stall and tubs included under the term fixtures would be more properly described as moveables. This was soon effected; and Bruin having chosen a semi-respectable thoroughfare, where he would have a chance of a customer ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... their political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... but it cost nothing to look. He called it widow-shopping, which was not a misnomer in Crystal City. There were plenty of widows, some lonely, some lively. Some free and uninhibited. And he did have ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... be confidently asserted that never before have the Mahomedans of India as a whole identified their interests and their aspirations so closely as at the present day with the consolidation and permanence of British rule. It is almost a misnomer to speak of Indian unrest. Hindu unrest would be a far more accurate term, connoting with far greater precision the forces underlying it, though to use it without reservation would be to do a grave injustice to the vast numbers of Hindus ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... said than this of the New England April or even May: "What a misnomer in our climate to call this season Spring, very much like calling Calvinism religion." Nothing could have been keener than certain points scored in her reply to Mrs. Senator Mason. Mrs. Mason, remembering with approving conscience her own ministries in the slave cabins caring for poor mothers with ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... actual conditions? First, the name "rural libraries" I found a misnomer. It in no sense represents facts. The words imply community interests, interests alike of adult and child, whilst the reality is that these libraries are simply school deposits, composed wholly of "juvenile books," graded up to but not beyond the seventh grade. When one realizes that ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... adroitness and capacity in conducting state affairs, his knowledge of human nature, and the profoundness of his views. In many respects it must be confessed that his surname of The Silent, like many similar appellations, was a misnomer. William of Orange was neither "silent" nor "taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will be forever associated with the name of a man who, in private, was the most affable, cheerful, and delightful of companions, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... walked far, however, before she began to feel the silent, irresistible influences of the day. It was the balmy blossoming time. The whole atmosphere was rich with sweet scents and sounds, while the sky had that marvellous depth and tone which makes the name of heaven seem no misnomer. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... imagine oneself at home, until the illusion is shattered in quite another fashion. There is an excellent eighteen-hole golf course in Barrackpore park, but when you hear people talking of the second "brown" there can be no doubt but that you are in Asia. A "green" would be a palpable misnomer for the parched grass of an Indian dry season, still a "brown" comes as a shock at first. The gardens merit their reputation. There are innumerable ponds, or "tanks," of lotus and water-lilies of every hue: scarlet, crimson, white, and pure sky-blue, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the ab-oral region. I prefer these more general terms, because, if we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called the mouth, though there is not the least structural relation between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mind, which is notable in the works of a few earlier theorists, to prefer statute law to what is known as judge-made law, on that ground alone. The writer is not of the school that admits there is such a thing as judge-made law, but believes the phrase to be a misnomer, at least in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. The whole theory of the English law is that it exists in and by the people and is known of them before it is announced by a judge, and although the extreme of this theory be somewhat metaphysical, it is certainly true that a judge is a very bad judge ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... apparent even to Lawless himself that the visit could not be protracted longer, and we accordingly rose and took our leave, our host (I will not call him entertainer, for it would be a complete misnomer) preserving the same tone of cool and imperturbable politeness to the very last. On reaching the hall we encountered the surly old footman, whose features looked more than ever as if they had been carved out of some ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... John P. Hale, an insubordinate Democrat from New Hampshire, for the same offense, and at the time screaming that the "blood of our glorious battle-fields in Mexico rested on the hands of the President"; Mr. Clingman challenging the House with the broad statement that "it is a misnomer to speak of our institution at the South as peculiar; ours is the general system of the world, and the free system is the peculiar one," and Mr. Palfrey dryly responding that slavery was natural just as barbarism was, just as fig-leaves and bare skins were a natural dress. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... be the medicinal virtues of these foods, or however appropriate the term "condimental" which has been applied to them, it is quite certain that their whilom designation "concentrated" was a misnomer. Their composition shows that they possess a degree of nutritive power considerably below that of linseed-cake, and but little, if at all, superior to that of ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... observed the entrance of a large river at the north end of Weymouth Bay. At half-past ten A.M., passed Piper's Islands, and steered for Young Island; could not make it out for some time, when we did see it, found it only a small reef above water, not worthy the name of an island; such a misnomer is likely to mislead; hauled up for the reef M. At noon, abreast of Haggerstone Island, steered to give Sir Everard Home's Isles a berth; saw natives on Cape Grenville; hauled in for Sunday Island; the wind light from the eastward; passed Thorpe Point, and hauled in for Round Point. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... point of historical accuracy it should be noticed that, for the battle of the 28th November, the "Modder River" is a misnomer. The fighting, as will be seen in this chapter, took place on the banks of the Riet; but since the battle honours for the engagement have been given for "Modder River," the name has become officially recognised, and is therefore used here. See map ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... with Sardinia, Hesse-Cassel, Spain, and Naples. In this haphazard manner did these States agree to war against France. Their aims being as diverse as their methods were disjointed, the term "First Coalition" applied to this league is almost a misnomer. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... square yard of flower-bed in front. Many of the Nicois villas are veritable palaces, and what adds to their sumptuousness is the indoor greenery, dwarf palms, india-rubber trees, and other handsome evergreens decorating corridor and landing-places. The English misnomer has, nevertheless, compensations in snug little kitchen and decent servant's bedroom. I looked over a handsome villa here, type, I imagine, of the rest. The servants' bedrooms were mere closets with openings ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the "deliberate exclusion" of any instruction in Irish history from National schools. It does seem curious that national history should be a forbidden subject in National schools, and this fact makes the appellation of "National" seem rather a misnomer. The result of this deliberate exclusion was graphically described by the honorable member. The youth comes forth educated, and at a most impressible age he reads for the first time the history of his country, and burns ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Far Oriental artist is emphatically a realist; it is when he turns to nature that he becomes ideal. But by ideal is not meant here conventional. That term of reproach is a misnomer, founded upon a mistake. His idealism is simply the outcome of his love, which, like all human love, transfigures its object. The Far Oriental has plenty of this, which, if sometimes a delusion, seems also second sight, but it is peculiarly ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom the only joyous thing was his misnomer ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... changes, by a great misnomer called Parliamentary Reforms, went, not in the intention of all the professors and supporters of them, undoubtedly, but went in their certain, and, in my opinion, not very remote effect, home to the utter destruction of the Constitution of this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... been isolated, that is to say, separated in a pure state from the accompanying ore. Therefore, pure radium is a misnomer, though we often hear the term used. [Footnote: Since the above was written Madame Curie has announced to the Paris Academy of Sciences that she has succeeded in obtaining pure radium. In conjunction with Professor Debierne she treated a decegramme of bromide of radium ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... not very interesting books: old Navy Lists, a "King's Regulations," a "Manual of Court Martial Procedure," one or two volumes on International Law, and a treatise on so-called 'modern' seamanship—which, by the way, is a misnomer, seamanship, like love, being ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... christened Floyd (she had got it out of a book) but it was an appendix rather then an appellation. No one ever dreamed of addressing him by that misnomer, unless you except his school teachers. Once or twice the boys had tried to use his name as a weapon, shrieking in a shrill falsetto and making two syllables of it. He put a stop to that soon enough with fists and feet. His virility could have triumphed over a name twice as puerile. For that matter, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... London and in other capitals so many of these have been established, and continue to flourish, that they obviously perform certain useful and welcome functions; but my own criticism would be that to call them clubs for "authors" or "writers" is a misnomer which fails to particularize the real basis of membership. In the modern world, no doubt, all writers, merely as writers, have certain interests in common. They have, in the first place, to get their works ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... countries was maintained by two sailing vessels of small tonnage, and still scantier accommodation. Of the one now in question I well recollect the name—she was called the "Alert," and certainly a more unfortunate misnomer could scarcely be conceived. Well, there was no choice; so I took my place upon the crowded deck of the little craft, and in a drizzling shower of chilly rain, and amid more noise, confusion, and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... this paper would be a misnomer, if I did not add a list of books which it may be desirable ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... in the west of our country, who constitute the Missouri Synod. It is historically unjust to apply the term private confession to that public confession of sins, made by the congregation collectively, as part of our preparatory exercises on sacramental occasions, and usually a misnomer to apply the name private confession, to the habit of some of our German ministers, (termed Anmeldung,) of having all communicants call on them for conversation on their spiritual state, prior to sacramental communion. Although these customs both grew out of private confession properly ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... that can be suggested for teas, but the following seems to demand as little home labor for satisfactory results as any other. The word tea, by the way, is something of a misnomer, as at these entertainments the beverages are almost invariably coffee or chocolate, or both, tea being left entirely out ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... is a monotonous and wearisome part, and the merit of it is her own. Miss NORREYS is very good but the girl is insipid. Miss COMPTON, as the good-hearted, knowing, fast lady, wins us, as she proves herself to be the real Robin Goodfellow, the real good fairy of the piece, Robin Goodfellow is a misnomer, unless the aforesaid Robin be dissociated from Puck: but it is altogether a bad title as applied to this piece for, as with Mr. CARTON's piece at the St. James's, Liberty Hall, it is a title absolutely thrown away. Mr. FORBES ROBERTSON is as good as the part permits, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... rareties which he has served up. In this he has the advantage. He is a better writer too than some who make grammars; though no adept at composition, and a total stranger to method. To call his work a "system" is a palpable misnomer; to tell what it is, an impossibility. It is a grammatical chaos, bearing such a resemblance to Smith's or Kirkham's as one mass of confusion naturally bears to an other, yet differing from both in almost every thing that looks like order in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Rome is no misnomer. From the most stately and beautiful ceremonials of balls at the court of the Quirinale, in ducal palaces, or at the embassies; of dinners whose every detail suggests stage pictures in their magnificence, to the simple afternoon tea, where conversation ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... is a misnomer for the extraordinary establishment, studio and domicile combined, at which we dismounted. It is not a hut, and neither in architectural motive nor the artistic proclivities of its inmates has it aught to do ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... "anti-Semitism" here in the sense in which it has come to be used—that is to say, anti-Jewry, but place it in inverted commas because it is in reality a misnomer coined by the Jews in order to create a false impression. The word anti-Semite literally signifies a person who adopts a hostile attitude towards all the descendants of Shem—the Arabs, and the entire twelve tribes of Israel. To apply the term to a person who ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... mass in which a spoon will stand upright—is manufactured from fresh-drawn milk, which is put into a pan, and stirred with a spoon two or three times a day, to prevent the cream from separating from the milk. The Scotch "sour cream" is a misnomer; for it is a material produced without cream. A small tub filled with skimmed milk is put into a larger one, containing hot water, and after remaining there all night, the thin milk (called wigg) is drawn ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... such indigence, that he and another rascal had but one under-garment between them, and entered into a compact that one should lie in bed while the other wore the article in question. Naturally enough the two fell out in time, and the end of Goodman—sad misnomer—was worse than his beginning: such was the gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... for another, and that haunts your imagination so fatally, was but a blaze of straw that quickly burned out. It was a fever common to boyhood. Few men, arrived at years of discretion, Bee, would like to marry their first follies—for it is a misnomer to call them first loves. Yes, very few men would like to do so, Bee, least of all would I. What I give you, Bee, is a constant, steadfast love, a love for time and for eternity. Oh, my dearest, hear me, and believe me," he ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... concerned that my definition and solution of stereoscopic angles (a misnomer, for it should be space) in "N. & Q.," with subsequent illustrations, have not satisfied MR. SHADBOLT, as I am thus obliged to once more request room in your pages, and this time for a rather long letter. When I asserted that my method is the only ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... me was that known as the "Ministry of Public Enlightenment," its head being Count Delyanoff. He was certainly a man of culture; but the title of his department was a misnomer, for its duty was clearly to prevent enlightenment in the public at large. The Russian theory is, evidently, that a certain small number should be educated up to a certain point for the discharge of their special duties; but that, beyond this, anything like the general education of the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "era of good feelings" applied to the Administration of President Monroe is a misnomer. It is descriptive neither of politics nor of business and industry, for the historic Democratic party was all but rent by bitter personal animosities, and the country was prostrated by a severe ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... They passed who with Homer Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols: Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer, It and their idols? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rest, quite satisfied with making out which speaker was for, and which against the Jews. All those who were against them, I considered as my father's friends; all those who were for them, I called by a common misnomer, or metonymy of the passions, my father's enemies, because my father was their enemy. The feeling of party spirit, which is caught by children as quickly as it is revealed by men, now combined to strengthen still more and to exasperate ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... fact, by the way, that all the places which make Broadway notorious are in the side streets. Just as it is a curious misnomer to call the toughest section of it the Tenderloin. Broadway has no slums. Laboring people, even, never make any distinguishable element in its populace. This is, of course, owing to its geographical position. But there is one fact which is immensely to its credit, and is perhaps ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... other islands you have visited are to be found here. Particularly plenteous here are the fibrous plants, and abaca forms in its prepared state one of the most important exports of the islands. This is a sort of plantain from which comes the Manila hemp, as it is sometimes called, though it is a misnomer; and with us it is called simply manila, the sailors tell me. It is extensively cultivated here, and grows something ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... written merely for popular effect, to be spoken before a miscellaneous audience, in which any abstract topics of moral philosophy would be the last to awaken an interest. The title of the book is accordingly a misnomer. It would lead no one to suspect the rich and diversified character of its contents. They present no ambitious attempts at metaphysical disquisition. They are free from dry technicalities of ethical speculation. They have no specimens of logical hair-splitting, no pedantic ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Lower were French Canadians. A French-Canadian member was nominated for the speakership and elected unanimously. Both races were for the most part represented by members whose official title of 'Honourable Gentlemen' was not at all a misnomer. The French members of the Assembly were half distrustful both of it and of themselves. But they knew how to add grace and dignity to a very notable occasion. The old Bishop's Palace served as the Houses of Parliament and so continued for many ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... illustration of the very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, Sir John Linkwater, or Drinkwater,—but I think the jolly old knight could hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,—while sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to the clerk. "Mr. Clerk," said Sir John, as if it were the most indifferent fact in the world, "I was drunk last night. There are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of Lucretius, or the "Georgics" of Virgil, or the "Night Thoughts" of Young; and in poetry, yields even to the "Queen Mab" of Shelley. It ranks high, however, amongst that fine class of works which have called themselves, by no misnomer, "Pleasures;" and to recount all the names of which were to give an "enumeration of sweets" as delightful as that in "Don Juan." How cheering to think of that beautiful bead-roll—of which the "Pleasures of Memory," "Pleasures of Hope," "Pleasures ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland, is of very rare occurrence in ordinary practice—a recent statute having entirely superseded every advantage formerly to be derived from this plea, in cases of a misnomer, or a wrong name, and of a false addition or a wrong description of the defendant's rank and condition, which were the principal occasions on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... think that the man who gave them this name must have seen them from a great distance; for as we approach them, the graceful curvilinear lines which obtained for them this delicate appellation appear angular and ragged. From our present point of view the name seems a misnomer. If there were twelve of them instead of three, they might better be called the "Titans," to illustrate their relation to the surrounding country. He indeed must have been of a most susceptible nature, and, I would fain believe, long a dweller amid these solitudes, who could ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... was sure to make an appeal to the loyal little crew who swore by Jerkline Jo. Besides, Hiram was irresistible in his quaint geniality and his musical drawl. They called him "Wild Cat" at first, but when they considered his hugeness and uniform good nature the name seemed a misnomer; so they amended it and called him "The Gentle Wild Cat." This moniker clung to Hiram Hooker through all of his ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... know I am a plain man, a quiet man, a civil and humble man. I hate Balls and Routs, but my wife and I differ in taste. She has determined 153 on having a Rout at home, and it proves no misnomer with me, for Heaven knows they rout me from Study to Drawing Room, from Drawing Room to Chamber, and all because truly my little ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that 'everything else is the same.' But that is just what cannot be. A new factor has been introduced, it may be a whim, a sudden impulse, perhaps even a desire to upset calculation—a something in his character in virtue of which his second choice is different from his first. It is an utter misnomer to call it 'chance.' Even though he had tossed a coin and acted on the throw, his action would still be determined by the kind ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... battery also generates electric current through chemical action, but without involving the constant repriming with active materials to replace those consumed and exhausted as above mentioned. The term "storage," as applied to this species of battery, is, however, a misnomer, and has been the cause of much misunderstanding to nontechnical persons. To the lay mind a "storage" battery presents itself in the aspect of a device in which electric energy is STORED, just as compressed air is stored or ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... justly observed that Shakespeare shows much judgment in the naming of his plays. From this observation several critics have excepted Julius Caesar, pronouncing the title a misnomer, on the ground that Brutus, and not Caesar, is the hero of it. It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero, but the play is rightly named, for Caesar is not only the subject but also the governing power of it throughout. He is the center and springhead of the entire action, giving law and shape ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... old times—old times that had been gone weeks only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with incident, adventure and excitement, that they seemed almost like years. There was no lack of cheerfulness on board the Quaker City. For once, her title was a misnomer. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... acutely reminded that the term "prig" as applied to Leslie was a misnomer; he hated the thought of the other word, which reflectively he ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to see some nuns' cells. They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas. The word "cells" was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned rooms of a cheerful Japanese house. The fragile, wistful nun who was so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression. Her dress was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... of a specific was laughed at by the scientific world, but since it is known that so many forms of disease are the direct result of some kind of germ life, it is no longer a misnomer to call a medicine which will certainly and always destroy the germ which produces so many forms of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... passing to the east of the Benevolent Asylum, we went over a little rise called Mount Pleasant, which, on a damp sort of a day, with the rain beating around one, seemed certainly a misnomer. After about two miles, we came to a branch-road leading to Pentridge, where the Government convict establishment is situated. This we left on our right, and through a line of country thickly wooded (consisting of red and white gum, stringy ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... need not speak in detail to any who have ever seen its delicate moss-covered buds, and inhaled their delightful odor. They are perfectly hardy, and can be wintered without any protection. They are called perpetual, but this is a misnomer, for we know but one variety of Moss Rose that approaches it, that is the Salet Moss. The rest are no more so than are the so-called ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... the entire width and half the length of the roof. Ordinarily, of course, its foliage was as green as the leaves on the maples of the avenue or on the neighbouring elms, and the name of the Inn might have seemed to the summer or winter traveller an odd misnomer; but in autumn when the frost came early and the great mass of green flushed to a deep crimson it could not have been known more appropriately than as the Inn at the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... stood the Five-cornered tower. The lower part dates, we have seen, from no earlier than the eleventh century. It is referred to as Alt-Nuernberg (old Nuremberg) in the Middle Ages. The title of "Five-cornered" is really somewhat a misnomer, for an examination of the interior of the lower portion of the tower reveals the fact that it is quadrangular. The pentagonal appearance of the exterior is due to the fragment of a smaller tower which once leaned against it, and probably formed the apex of a wing running out from ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. The letter from The Forge was the first proposition, and now on that September day Lansing ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... from infancy as his (Mr. Thorneycroft's) son, in order that the hated name of Allerton, to which the boy was alone legally entitled, might never offend his ear. There was something added insinuative of a doubt of the legality of the marriage, in consequence of the misnomer of the bridegroom at ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren |
