I\u2019ve always rather liked it in science fiction when the colonists name new species based on old Earth ones that really have nothing to do with them. Moss Rabbits? Well, they might be green and have six legs, but at least they have fur, are about the same size, and there\u2019s a lot of them.<\/p>\n
The reason I like it so much is that we name things lies all the time. Sometimes through honest confusion, but sometimes through apparent sheer laziness. I\u2019ve been watching a reality show lately that follows a couple of antique dealers. It\u2019s trash, but it\u2019s trash where I can watch for two minutes while they find and buy an awesome old wind-up toy and then get back to writing on those nights I have to prod myself along with frequent breaks to make word count. Most shows with plot either suffer for being watched in two minute intervals, or drag me in away from the writing.<\/p>\n
In any case, they\u2019ve bought a couple \u201cporcelain signs\u201d lately, and I know a bit about porcelain from Ye Olde Day Job (Archaeologist, for any newcomers). I do a lot of cataloging artifacts from historic sites. On the West Coast, in practice that means usually later than the 1870s or so, and more often in the 1890s-1940s. A porcelain vessel versus an earthenware one is an important distinction, so I\u2019ve learned to tell the difference even from tiny sherds. It\u2019s also a fairly easy distinction to make, compared to others we have to try to do (olive- versus green-colored glass? Don\u2019t get me started). There are semi-porcelains and high-quality earthenwares (Real Science: where nothing is ever 100% clear-cut) but they\u2019re less common to encounter.<\/p>\n
Porcelain, while strong for its thickness, is still delicate, so there\u2019s no way you could make a sign out of it. The signs looked metal, anyway, so I was busy trying to figure out how you could attach ceramic on top of metal in a thin layer, and not having much luck. I asked my historical archaeologist coworker and Google, and discovered that so-called porcelain signs were made by fusing layers of powdered glass to the metal. So really, by \u201cporcelain\u201d they mean \u201cmetal with enamel\u201d. Since I know porcelain, that\u2019s a little like saying your car is made of cheese, and by \u201ccheese\u201d you mean \u201csteel with yellow paint\u201d. I\u2019m sure there was some kind of tenuous connection, perhaps in manufacturing methods, but it\u2019s still a dirty naming lie.<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s only one of many I encounter in historical archaeology. Advertising\u2019s volume of lies has changed not at all in the time periods I deal with, even leaving aside the obvious quackery of patent medicines and the like. Maker\u2019s marks on the bottom of plates of a certain age often say<\/p>\n
Stodgy Bros<\/em> on a piece of earthenware that couldn\u2019t be more obviously earthenware if it kicked you in the shins while screaming \u201cI\u2019m motherf\u2019ing earthenware!\u201d. Laws eventually changed, though, so you couldn\u2019t do that anymore. Another favorite of mine are Mason jar lid liners, which are neat little circles of white glass that fit up into the metal cap. Those too, from a certain age, are GENUINE PORCELAIN (It says so in big letters!). And in this case, by \u201cporcelain\u201d they mean \u201cglass\u201d.<\/p>\n Or maybe \u201ccheese\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve always rather liked it in science fiction when the colonists name new species based on old Earth ones that really have nothing to do with them. Moss Rabbits? Well, they might be green and have six legs, but at least they have fur, are about the same size, and there\u2019s a lot of them. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdotes","category-ye-olde-day-job"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPORCELAIN<\/p>\n