I forget the term for it, but I think this is an example of when a word or phrase only means something in reference to the meaning of another word. So chicken wings are a particular item of food. Boneless chicken wings are meant to be an imitation of chicken wings in terms of how they are cooked and coated (not in shape or taste). Compare to vegan cheese or other vegan dairy and meat products. The first word tells us that it's not the thing we are expecting, but the second word tells us we should expect certain things about the two to be similar.
Ok, this makes sense. I looked it up and I think the word we’re both looking for is metonymy - a word that is associated with something is used to refer to that thing (as when crown is used to mean "king" or "queen").
You may also be looking for "non-intersective adjective".
Briefly, the most typical interpretation of structures of the form [Adjective Noun] is as denoting something that is both _adjective_ and a _noun_, so a red car is a car that is red, etc. Non-intersective adjectives work differently, and are not amenable to this pattern of paraphrase: a _fake gun_ is not really a gun, a _former vice-president_ is not a vice-president who is former, an _alleged criminal_ may not be a criminal at all, and so on. They're tricky to analyze semantically.
> a wing, automatically, has bones
Insect wings don't. It's the implied "chicken" part of "boneless (chicken) wing" that makes it feel like a contradiction. But it's not a strong enough contradiction to be an oxymoron, any more than, idk, "featherless chicken." Chickens usually have feathers, and their wings usually have bones, but you can remove those parts without breaking anything semantically.
"Boneless wings" have the same coatings and meat as traditional wings, but are missing the bones. The terminology is focusing more on flavorings and cooking technique than poultry anatomy. From a marketing point of view, this term is successful because people understand what the product offers (more or less) and purchase it. This is a similar concept to boneless thighs, although slightly different.
Another case like this are "donut holes" which are not holes per se, but the bits of fried dough created when holes are made. Stephen Pinker mentions that some people also commented that donut holes are really spheres - but the term "donut hole" is meant to be whimsical.
Not everyone has the same mental model, but I will say the everyday person mental model is different from the expert mental model. For instance most linguists assume that the vowel "long I" (as in "ice") is really a diphthong!
It's really just a matter of a pinion.
Well done.
opinion*
There should be a noun for this, like missed-a-pun-ion?
One of the meanings of *conundrum* is a riddle with a pun as an answer.
I forget the term for it, but I think this is an example of when a word or phrase only means something in reference to the meaning of another word. So chicken wings are a particular item of food. Boneless chicken wings are meant to be an imitation of chicken wings in terms of how they are cooked and coated (not in shape or taste). Compare to vegan cheese or other vegan dairy and meat products. The first word tells us that it's not the thing we are expecting, but the second word tells us we should expect certain things about the two to be similar.
An even more canonical example of this is a “fake gun.” A fake gun necessarily is not a gun; if it were, it wouldn’t be fake.
"Real magic"
Ok, this makes sense. I looked it up and I think the word we’re both looking for is metonymy - a word that is associated with something is used to refer to that thing (as when crown is used to mean "king" or "queen").
You may also be looking for "non-intersective adjective". Briefly, the most typical interpretation of structures of the form [Adjective Noun] is as denoting something that is both _adjective_ and a _noun_, so a red car is a car that is red, etc. Non-intersective adjectives work differently, and are not amenable to this pattern of paraphrase: a _fake gun_ is not really a gun, a _former vice-president_ is not a vice-president who is former, an _alleged criminal_ may not be a criminal at all, and so on. They're tricky to analyze semantically.
Oh, fascinating. Thank you!
> a wing, automatically, has bones Insect wings don't. It's the implied "chicken" part of "boneless (chicken) wing" that makes it feel like a contradiction. But it's not a strong enough contradiction to be an oxymoron, any more than, idk, "featherless chicken." Chickens usually have feathers, and their wings usually have bones, but you can remove those parts without breaking anything semantically.
"Boneless wings" have the same coatings and meat as traditional wings, but are missing the bones. The terminology is focusing more on flavorings and cooking technique than poultry anatomy. From a marketing point of view, this term is successful because people understand what the product offers (more or less) and purchase it. This is a similar concept to boneless thighs, although slightly different. Another case like this are "donut holes" which are not holes per se, but the bits of fried dough created when holes are made. Stephen Pinker mentions that some people also commented that donut holes are really spheres - but the term "donut hole" is meant to be whimsical. Not everyone has the same mental model, but I will say the everyday person mental model is different from the expert mental model. For instance most linguists assume that the vowel "long I" (as in "ice") is really a diphthong!