Why is it called "tuna fish"? Isn't tuna usually a fish?

In the same vein, why do we call it "horseback riding"? What other part of the horse would you ride?
Also, why is it called "shrimp scampi" when "scampi" means "shrimp"?

This is an interesting question, Elexina.

Of course the word tuna does occur all by itself in English with the same meaning as tuna fish. The same thing could be noted, by the way, about cod and codfish.

Part of the answer may be that English gets two words spelled tuna from Spanish, one of them the fish, of course, but the other a kind of fruit. Perhaps it was felt at some point that the compounding with "fish" cleared up a possible ambiguity. It is interesting that in German, which likewise uses a form of the Spanish word, it is always Thunfisch, never simply Thun, except in other compounds which make it clear it is the fish which is in question: thus English bluefin tuna is German Blauflossenthun.

I don't know what to make of your "horseback" riding. That's an interesting observation, and I would add that though people also ride camels and donkeys they are scarcely ever said to ride "camelback" or "donkeyback."

About "shrimp scampi" I can only tell you that I would never say that, but I'm not surprised to hear that some people do, perhaps under the impression that "scampi" are shrimp prepared for eating only in some Mediterranean way.

Along something like the same lines as your original question, I get upset at people who persist in saying "PIN number" or "VIN number," when both of these acronyms already contain the word "number."

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Originally posted by maiku: ..."PIN number" or "VIN number,"...

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Oh, I hate that so much! It drives me nuts! So does "ATM machine." At the plant where I work, we have a Hazardous materials Action Response Team that everyone refers to as the "HART Team" and I hate that, too!
Thank you for the rest of your reply, I knew I could count on you.
The only time I ever say "shrimp scampi" is when I'm ordering it, and even then sometimes I'll ask for the "shrimp shrimp."
What's a tunafruit?

Why would anyone call them 'shrimp scampi' ? They are Dublin Bay prawns, 'nephrops norvegicus', ( formerly called Norway lobsters ) ! A shrimp is a tiny little thing, smaller than a prawn. 'Scampi', being the Italian name, supplanted the old 'prawn' name here because of a boom in Italian restaurants in London in the '60s . No doubt in the US, with its extensive Italian community, the name was always that. The fruit called tuna is 'the edible purple fruit of a tall-growing prickly pear [cactus], opuntia tuna, native to the West Indies and Central America' (as any botanist knows !). I don't want to worry anyone but there are dozens of abused acronyms; so many that New Scientist had a long correspondence on this, which even revealed the odd one where there were two redundant words added, not just the one as in the examples here. Scientists are particularly bad in this, apparently, because they create so many acronyms and so often that they soon forget what the letters originally stood for. If you are on horseback you are riding a horse and certainly not riding piggyback ! Camel riding is probably camel hump riding, though not humpback riding. Riding a donkey ought to be donkeyback riding, true. A Briton , naturally, would say he was sitting on his ass, an option not open to an American (for fear of being misunderstood).

[This message was edited by FredPuli on 03-14-03 at 02:59 PM.]

But not even a Briton, I'd venture to say, Fred,
would want to say that Jesus, who rode into Jerusalem on the back of an ass, was therefore riding assback.

Assback? If we are to accept donkeyback then assback will do too. It's not our problem if some people adopt a confusing form of a word for the better one, unique in its anatomical reference ! I suppose you'll be telling me next that another word for the latter , bum, means something other than that in America.

My problem is not with the animal ridden, but with the "back" part. So, Jesus was assriding, right?
Fred, a bum is a homeless man, not a rear end, you silly twit! I bet you call your trunk a "boot." How weird. A boot is what you wear on your feet for hard work or in inclement weather.

A further question for thought: what about the word "second"? In English, it means 2nd (between first and third) but it is also an increment of time. Now what the heck?

No, Elexina , I call MY trunk 'a six-pack'.

Mmmmmmm. Six-pack.