wiseguy67
18-03-2006, 03:57 PM
Ok this is something that has been bugging me for some time
What's in a name? In the world of fish and fishing, plenty. Until these recent times of political correctness some fish were destined to go through life with the most dreadful handles. Like the blackfish that was known until recently by possibly the most distasteful word in the English language - nigger.
But these days they are now known simply as a luderick or blackfish, which were their proper names in the first place. But in an openly-racist world of by-gone years, people preferred to use a word that was detrimental to black people everywhere. It's great to see that at last the humble luderick is not associated with bigotry and hatred, if even by name-association only.
In bygone days the deep-sea species, nannygai, couldn't be given away at the fish markets so they filleted them and changed their name to redfish fillets. Now they can't get enough of 'em.
The unfashionable morwong wasn't worth the professional fishermen's fuel to get the boat out there to catch them until the smarties changed their name to 'deep-sea bream'. Now they command big prices.
And it was only a matter of time before the spectacularly leaping dolphin fish had a name change in the late '70s to become a mahi-mahi so that folks would stop accusing offshore anglers of catching and eating Flipper.
The orange roughie, those fish that have dreadful looking noggins covered in lumps, bumps, spikes and whiskers and would make the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like Demi Moore, sat in fish shops all over the country in the early '80s waiting for someone to buy them until some bright spark decided to market their snow white flesh as sea perch fillets and it ran out the door as if on roller blades.
And so, back in the '70s and '80s and in the true tradition of capitalism, a lot of other border-line commercial species experienced a name change and became hot property. The barracouta became snoek, teraglin became jewfish, shark became flake and gemfish became kingfish.
At one stage it was getting pretty difficult to know what you were really buying so the authorities who hand out fish names have finally given permanent names to the most common species to take us into the next millennium.
A snapper is now a snapper and that's that. Not a cockney, pinkie, red bream, squire or a pink snapper. They are all snapper.
Hake, long 'couta, kingfish, silver kingfish, southern kingfish are all now known as gemfish. But take note. Gemfish and their previous handles are not to be confused with the proper kingfish (seriola species) which is also known as the sampson fish and the yellowtail.
Yelloweye, sand, fantail, and jumping mullet are all now known as plain old mullet. Flake and sweet William become what they always were - good old shark, and John Dory, old maid and dory become butterfish.
The name ocean perch now encompasses coral cod, red gurnard perch, coral perch, red rock perch and sea perch, and bay lobsters, bugs and shovelnose lobsters all become Moreton Bay bugs. And seeing as us Sydneysiders call them Balmain bugs, I assume we'll be changing them to Moreton Bay bugs. Getting a bit confused? Welcome to the club.
Coral crabs, rock crabs, two and three spot crabs and blue manna crabs are now sand crabs. Seeing as blue manna crabs are the West Australian version of blue swimmer crabs, I wonder if blue swimmer crabs will now become sand crabs?
Confused. I don't blame you. And it gets worse.
The Chinaman leatherjacket is now the ocean jacket so where does that leave the Maori leatherjacket which is also caught in the ocean? The googly-eyed cod is now known as the ribaldo and the fish with the bizarre name of 'happy moments' becomes a black trevally.
But changing the 'happy moments' name doesn't alter the fact that if one of the rotten things stings you, you'll be in agony for hours irrespective of what they call the bloody things. Maybe they should have changed its name to 'un-happy' moments.
Oilfish are now sold as escolar, slimy flathead has been renamed sand flathead and the name elephant fish ('I am not an animal, I am a fish') now covers flake, white fillets and elephant shark.
So what do you make of that lot? Clear as mud? Well read on and see if you can figure out these little doosies that haven't been changed yet.
In WA a silver trevally is known as a skipjack, or skippy, while in NSW a skipjack is a striped tuna while in Queensland a skipjack is a mackerel tuna which in NSW is a little tunny and a WA skipjack is also called a trevally.
How did that lot grab you?
In WA, silver drummer are known as buffalo bream and the Westralian jewfish (or dhufish) is in fact a member of the pearl perch family while the east coast jewfish is a mulloway, not even remotely related to its WA namesake which also goes under the names of river kingfish and butterfish as are old maids, John Dory and dory in NSW.
In Queensland a northern bluefin tuna is called a longtail tuna and vise versa in NSW. The humble West Australian herring is better known as a tommy rough in South Australia. And so it goes. I can only wonder if the national name changes will work. Time will tell, but I doubt it. All I think it will do is make it even more confusing than it already is. And as if their common names aren't enough to turn you into a vegetarian, what about their nicknames?
Tailor are choppers, bluefish and greenbacks; drummer are pigs; yellowtail are bung, yakkas and chow; kingfish are rats and hoodlums; marlin are beakies; salmon are blackbacks and greenbacks; big whiting are elbow-slappers; barracouta are pickhandles; flathead are lizards; mulloway are jews; hairtail are hairies; and, wait for it - trevally are blurters because of the farting and blurting noises they make when they are caught.
So there you have it. Not the lot, but a pretty big chunk of 'em. I hope you have as much fun working them all out as I've had writing about 'em.
And if you haven't, then I guess you can stick it up your blurter.
I was going to write my own words but found this on the net, easy peasy.
tight lines,
Gerard
What's in a name? In the world of fish and fishing, plenty. Until these recent times of political correctness some fish were destined to go through life with the most dreadful handles. Like the blackfish that was known until recently by possibly the most distasteful word in the English language - nigger.
But these days they are now known simply as a luderick or blackfish, which were their proper names in the first place. But in an openly-racist world of by-gone years, people preferred to use a word that was detrimental to black people everywhere. It's great to see that at last the humble luderick is not associated with bigotry and hatred, if even by name-association only.
In bygone days the deep-sea species, nannygai, couldn't be given away at the fish markets so they filleted them and changed their name to redfish fillets. Now they can't get enough of 'em.
The unfashionable morwong wasn't worth the professional fishermen's fuel to get the boat out there to catch them until the smarties changed their name to 'deep-sea bream'. Now they command big prices.
And it was only a matter of time before the spectacularly leaping dolphin fish had a name change in the late '70s to become a mahi-mahi so that folks would stop accusing offshore anglers of catching and eating Flipper.
The orange roughie, those fish that have dreadful looking noggins covered in lumps, bumps, spikes and whiskers and would make the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like Demi Moore, sat in fish shops all over the country in the early '80s waiting for someone to buy them until some bright spark decided to market their snow white flesh as sea perch fillets and it ran out the door as if on roller blades.
And so, back in the '70s and '80s and in the true tradition of capitalism, a lot of other border-line commercial species experienced a name change and became hot property. The barracouta became snoek, teraglin became jewfish, shark became flake and gemfish became kingfish.
At one stage it was getting pretty difficult to know what you were really buying so the authorities who hand out fish names have finally given permanent names to the most common species to take us into the next millennium.
A snapper is now a snapper and that's that. Not a cockney, pinkie, red bream, squire or a pink snapper. They are all snapper.
Hake, long 'couta, kingfish, silver kingfish, southern kingfish are all now known as gemfish. But take note. Gemfish and their previous handles are not to be confused with the proper kingfish (seriola species) which is also known as the sampson fish and the yellowtail.
Yelloweye, sand, fantail, and jumping mullet are all now known as plain old mullet. Flake and sweet William become what they always were - good old shark, and John Dory, old maid and dory become butterfish.
The name ocean perch now encompasses coral cod, red gurnard perch, coral perch, red rock perch and sea perch, and bay lobsters, bugs and shovelnose lobsters all become Moreton Bay bugs. And seeing as us Sydneysiders call them Balmain bugs, I assume we'll be changing them to Moreton Bay bugs. Getting a bit confused? Welcome to the club.
Coral crabs, rock crabs, two and three spot crabs and blue manna crabs are now sand crabs. Seeing as blue manna crabs are the West Australian version of blue swimmer crabs, I wonder if blue swimmer crabs will now become sand crabs?
Confused. I don't blame you. And it gets worse.
The Chinaman leatherjacket is now the ocean jacket so where does that leave the Maori leatherjacket which is also caught in the ocean? The googly-eyed cod is now known as the ribaldo and the fish with the bizarre name of 'happy moments' becomes a black trevally.
But changing the 'happy moments' name doesn't alter the fact that if one of the rotten things stings you, you'll be in agony for hours irrespective of what they call the bloody things. Maybe they should have changed its name to 'un-happy' moments.
Oilfish are now sold as escolar, slimy flathead has been renamed sand flathead and the name elephant fish ('I am not an animal, I am a fish') now covers flake, white fillets and elephant shark.
So what do you make of that lot? Clear as mud? Well read on and see if you can figure out these little doosies that haven't been changed yet.
In WA a silver trevally is known as a skipjack, or skippy, while in NSW a skipjack is a striped tuna while in Queensland a skipjack is a mackerel tuna which in NSW is a little tunny and a WA skipjack is also called a trevally.
How did that lot grab you?
In WA, silver drummer are known as buffalo bream and the Westralian jewfish (or dhufish) is in fact a member of the pearl perch family while the east coast jewfish is a mulloway, not even remotely related to its WA namesake which also goes under the names of river kingfish and butterfish as are old maids, John Dory and dory in NSW.
In Queensland a northern bluefin tuna is called a longtail tuna and vise versa in NSW. The humble West Australian herring is better known as a tommy rough in South Australia. And so it goes. I can only wonder if the national name changes will work. Time will tell, but I doubt it. All I think it will do is make it even more confusing than it already is. And as if their common names aren't enough to turn you into a vegetarian, what about their nicknames?
Tailor are choppers, bluefish and greenbacks; drummer are pigs; yellowtail are bung, yakkas and chow; kingfish are rats and hoodlums; marlin are beakies; salmon are blackbacks and greenbacks; big whiting are elbow-slappers; barracouta are pickhandles; flathead are lizards; mulloway are jews; hairtail are hairies; and, wait for it - trevally are blurters because of the farting and blurting noises they make when they are caught.
So there you have it. Not the lot, but a pretty big chunk of 'em. I hope you have as much fun working them all out as I've had writing about 'em.
And if you haven't, then I guess you can stick it up your blurter.
I was going to write my own words but found this on the net, easy peasy.
tight lines,
Gerard