Word Origins. Part I.

Sundae, as in an ice cream sundae:

There are at least a dozen towns that claim to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae, each with a slightly varied tale as to why sundae is spelled with an ae rather than an ay. My favorite is that from Evanston, IL:

The people of Evanston, who were generally Methodist, conservative folk, were resentful of the dissipating influences of the soda fountains on Sundays, and the town fathers passed an ordinance to thwart these influences that declared ice cream sodas could not be sold on Sundays. In order to bypass this ordinace, the tricksy soda fountain owners created a ice cream soda with out the soda, and named it the ice cream Sunday, after the ordinace it thwarted. Objections then arose with naming a food after the holy day so the spelling was changed from -ay to -ae.