Arabic figures were not invented by the Arabs, but by the early scholars of India.

Cleopatra's needles were not erected by that Queen, neither do they commemorate any event in her history. They were set up by Rameses the Great.

The Jerusalem artichoke has no connection whatever with the holy city of the Jews. It is a species of sunflower, and gets its name from girasole, one of the scientific names of that genus of plants.

The word "pen" means a feather and is from the Latin penna, a wing. Surely the expression "a steel pen" could be improved upon.

Galvanized iron is not galvanized at all, but is coated with zinc by being plunged into a bath of that metal and muriatic acid.

Pompey's pillar at Alexandria was neither erected by Pompey nor to his memory.

Common table salt is not a salt and has long since been excluded from the class of bodies denominated "salts."

Rice paper is not made from either rice or straw, but from a pithy plant called tungtsua, found in China, Corea and Japan.

Brazil grass neither comes from nor grows in Brazil. It is strips from a species of Cuban palm.