[leephillips]

(1) A seed was rebranded as an oil?

(2) Not really; the nomenclature and its history is more interesting than that.

(3) The seed is still called rapeseed.

(4) Why was that not the intended point?

[nkozyra]

1) the corresponding oil - which (unlike the seed) is actually commonly used/referenced thing in English - was

2) it played a role [https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-10-12-890122...]

3) the sword is still called rapier

4) because it doesn't serve as a logical foil for aforementioned reasons. If anything it just shows a nice analogous response.

[meheleventyone]

Oh give over that article says nothing about it being named Canola because of the word rapeseed containing the word rape. The earlier assumption about the naming of Canola oil is just incorrect.

[nkozyra]

Well logically it makes sense, branding things with "rape," which is not a commonly known name is not . And there are other articles that support it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/22/canada-tisdale....

There obviously could have been myriad reasons. Also, Aldi ran into a similar issue with rape:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/25/aldi-forced-to-c...