393: shellfish Jan 5, 2016

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How come neither shellfish nor starfish are even fish at all‽ The words 'shellfish', denoting any aquatic invertebrate with an exoskeleton that is commonly eaten, comes from the Old English 'scellfisc', from the two separate words for 'shell' and 'fish'. 'Starfish' has a similar etymology. The word 'fisc' in Old english simply meant "water-creature", and some say that in early Old English, the word even meant, "non-piscine water creature". Either way, we need not think of starfish or shellfish being similar to our modern understanding of fish.

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