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When I was a little boy, age 5, I got a toy gun for my birthday. It had a stock, two barrels side by side and broke open to cock it. You could put small objects as marbles in the barrel to be fired out. My dad said it was a SHOTGUN. I was curious about the name. I had toy handguns and rifles too. Why was this particular gun called a "SHOT gun"? Aren't all guns fired or SHOT? Little boys have big imaginations and can get the meanings of words confused.
A few years later my dad explained to me how a real shotgun (scattergun) worked and not because the gun was merely "shot" (fired) either. I also learned later on that not all shotguns had two barrels side by side. For a few years the word SHOTGUN ushered in pictures into my mind of side by side barrels every time the word was uttered.
PS - Similarly, it took me a while to figure out that GREYHOUNDS (racing dogs, not buses) are not GREY and that GRAPEFRUIT, though a FRUIT, is certainly not a GRAPE.
A few years later my dad explained to me how a real shotgun (scattergun) worked and not because the gun was merely "shot" (fired) either. I also learned later on that not all shotguns had two barrels side by side. For a few years the word SHOTGUN ushered in pictures into my mind of side by side barrels every time the word was uttered.
PS - Similarly, it took me a while to figure out that GREYHOUNDS (racing dogs, not buses) are not GREY and that GRAPEFRUIT, though a FRUIT, is certainly not a GRAPE.
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