Currant comes from 'raisins of Corinth': tiny dried grapes that medieval England imported from Corinth in southern Greece. In the 1570s the name jumped to the unrelated red and black berries, because they looked like those raisins.
📍 Atlantic coast of Brazil
Tapir comes from tapi'ira in Old Tupi, once spoken along Brazil's coast. Three tapir species live in the Americas, but the fourth, the black-and-white Malayan tapir, lives in Southeast Asia. Their closest living relatives are horses and rhinos.
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📍 Swahili coast, East Africa
Safari is Swahili for 'journey', used for any trip, even a bus ride, and comes from Arabic safar. Explorer Richard Burton brought it into English in the late 1850s.
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📍 New England, USA
Moose comes from an Algonquian language of New England, such as Eastern Abenaki mos, and entered English by 1606. In British English the same animal is called an elk, while an American 'elk' is a different deer.
📍 Hasselt, Belgium
The audio cassette was designed at Philips' factory in Hasselt, Belgium, by Lou Ottens's team; he sized it with a wooden block that fitted his jacket pocket. Unveiled in Berlin in 1963, it was licensed to other makers for free.
📍 Valencia (Albufera lagoon), Spain
Paella is named after its pan: in Valencian, paella simply means 'frying pan'. The dish grew up among rice farmers around the Albufera lagoon near Valencia, and the classic version uses rabbit, chicken and beans rather than seafood.
📍 Southsea (Portsmouth), England
Divers of the Southsea Sub-Aqua Club in Portsmouth invented it in 1954 to stay fit through the winter. They called it Octopush: eight players a side, pushing the puck with a 'pusher' stick.