Blog Entry Post
by Scott Hardie on November 4, 2006
Pet peeve: Why do people redundantly call it "tuna fish?" You never hear "parrot bird" or "Cocker spaniel dog."
Two Replies to Blog Entry Post
Amy Austin | December 31, 2006
AHHHha... Kris, you're such a clownfish...
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Christmas 2016
After a hectic househunt and move, it was nice to have a family vacation to take a break from everything. The whole visit had already been planned back in the summer, and we had spent six months saving up plenty of money to pay for it, so all we had to do was relax and enjoy it. Kelly's father Russ and brother Andy, and Andy's boyfriend Joe flew in for a week. Go »WLW: Can't
"Can't" is a word that fat people tell ourselves a lot after so many failed diets: We can't lose the weight, we can't succeed. Hearing it from a doctor would seem inconsequential. But it still hurts. Go »This Blog Post Definitely Doesn't Conform to NPOV Standards
I once coined a rule that you couldn't read more than three complete articles on Wikipedia without running into a reference to some obscure joke from The Simpsons, Monty Python, or most commonly, Family Guy. Seriously: I just now clicked two links and landed at Anarcho-syndicalism of all things, and sure enough, there's Holy Grail in the "trivia" section. Should it be plural like that, since no one is ever going to enter another item of trivia? Go »Happiness, That's My Livelihood
Somehow I've agreed to teach HTML & PHP classes on Friday mornings. Two down, at least two to go. I enjoy teaching, and you know I enjoy making websites, but the getting-up-before-dawn-at-the-end-of-a-long-week part is agony. Go »Nuts and Veggies
If you haven't heard, VeggieTales is coming to NBC. Without reference to God. And the creator feels duped. Go »
Kris Weberg | November 11, 2006
Tuna is also the name for a kind of cactus fruit found in the same tropical regions where the fish lives. The fish got the name from a variant of the same Spanish root word originally used for the cactus fruit.
Indeed, the original word in British English for the fish was "tunny," but it sounded so much like "tuna" -- especially in certain accents -- that the words became confused with one another and "tuna" began to refer to the fish as well as the prickly pear.
In short, the fruit called tuna came first, so "fish" is appended to the secondary use even though infinitely more people today associate "tuna," uh, solely with seafood.