Pottery is made in a pottery. What else is made in its namesake? Is there a name for this?
September 22, 2011 2:52 PM   Subscribe

Pottery is made in a pottery. What else is made in its namesake? Is there a name for this?

I can think of lots of examples that revolve around place names: cheddar is made in Cheddar, champagne is made in Champagne etc. but what about examples like 'pottery' that are not location specific, but refer to the generic place the item is made.
posted by lukeo05 to Writing & Language (28 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
In many languages, places where things are made are called thing-ending.

Think of French, for example.
posted by k8t at 3:10 PM on September 22, 2011


If a thing is named after the place it's made, or the person who made it, then its name is an eponym. But that's a little broader than you're looking for.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:12 PM on September 22, 2011


Best answer: We might need a linguist to explain exactly what's going on here, but I've always understood "pottery" as a general class of pots and "pottery" as a place of pot-ing to mean slightly different things, even if the word's the same. Some other English words do this, like:

Haberdashery
Millinery
Drapery
posted by oinopaponton at 3:16 PM on September 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Laundry is done in a laundry.

More broadly, this phenomenon seems a bit like a form of metonymy, albeit one that might have arisen long ago and become entrenched in the language.
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:22 PM on September 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Dairy is produced in a dairy. Less-common, cheese is made in a cheesery.
posted by muddgirl at 3:24 PM on September 22, 2011


Best answer: Confectionery is made in a confectionery.

An artillery contains artillery.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:27 PM on September 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Ms. M & I have had fun at the expense of a sign (in a Quick Chek maybe?) declaring that we could purchase "FRESH BAKED BAKERY!" though we've never used that term before. I've also heard people say they're having 'deli' for lunch.
posted by mintcake! at 3:28 PM on September 22, 2011


The notion of polysemy seems relevant here too.
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:29 PM on September 22, 2011


I have no answer, save that neither metonymy nor eponym seems quite right. And I have thought about this question while eating a nanaimo bar in a Nanaimo bar.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:48 PM on September 22, 2011 [5 favorites]


Best answer: Poultry is sold in a poultry.

I have only found this definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, but there is a street in the City of London called simply "poultry" where apparently such a market used to exist.
posted by grouse at 3:54 PM on September 22, 2011


Book binding is done in a bindery.
posted by easily confused at 4:04 PM on September 22, 2011


You shop in a shop, farm on a farm, and bank at a bank.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 PM on September 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


On second thought, I don't think cheesery and bindery count - they have an extray -ery. Nouns that already end in -ery like "artillery" or "pottery" or close enough like "dairy" are going to be the bulk of the answers in English, I imagine.
posted by muddgirl at 4:09 PM on September 22, 2011


Tomorrow morning, I'll work at work.
posted by lizzicide at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2011


Confectionery is made in a confectionery.

Confections are...
posted by rhizome at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2011


Best answer: People are made in people :)
posted by jozxyqk at 4:42 PM on September 22, 2011 [7 favorites]


If you live down South, you can go to a party called a barbecue to eat a dish loosely referred to as just "barbecue" which happens to be cooked on a barbecue.

Similarly, teppanyaki is a type of cuisine cooked on a teppan, a flattop grill. If you've been to Benihana, you've had teppanyaki.

But "yaki" means "grill" or "cooked." So, it's kind of like saying the food teppanyaki is made via teppanyaki.

In other words, you'd say "I'm eating cooked-on-a-grill that is cooked on a grill."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:58 PM on September 22, 2011


The butcher butchers at the butchers?
posted by easily confused at 4:58 PM on September 22, 2011


I was gonna say an arsenal is stored in an arsenal but I'm not sure if a collection of ammo and the building it's stored in constitute separate meanings. Maybe it's the same thing.
posted by Deor at 5:09 PM on September 22, 2011


Nurslings in a nursery? Not made but stored there.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:30 PM on September 22, 2011


Theater is performed in a theater, by theater people.
posted by yohko at 6:04 PM on September 22, 2011


Not sure if I'm on target with this one, but a film is shot on film.
posted by davebush at 6:05 PM on September 22, 2011


I get my hair cut at Hair Cuttery.
posted by 4ster at 7:00 PM on September 22, 2011


Cats come from a cattery.
posted by soft and hardcore taters at 7:32 PM on September 22, 2011


Best answer: Charcuterie is sold in a charcuterie.
posted by mhum at 7:45 PM on September 22, 2011


Drawers are found in drawers. Stationary is stationary. You can perform battery with a battery, and slip on a slip, but you can't pick up a pickup. There will eventually be space bars with space bars in them, but there will never be a back space with a backspace. You can rock a rock and roll a roll, and rock and roll a rock and roll.
posted by BurnChao at 3:12 AM on September 23, 2011


Stationary is stationary.

No, stationery is stationary. </pedant>
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:53 AM on September 23, 2011 [2 favorites]


This is maybe slightly sideways to your request, but in French slang a brioche is a pot belly, and you can certainly develop a brioche by eating brioche.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 10:27 AM on September 23, 2011


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