In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:
There's been a long U.S. tradition of inventing evocative, rather than merely descriptive, names associated to climbing gear and practices. Thus, for example, whereas the short slings used to tie of tipped-in pitons seem to be called "tie-offs" in the U.K., everyone in the U.S. went with the Chouinard term "hero loops." Chouinard's wired nuts were called "stoppers" and the larger chock "hexentrics," fanciful at the time although now standard nomenclature. I'm sure we could put together a long list.
Add to that base the emerging California slang-style (e.g. valley-girl speak), and the powerful effect of black culture on American slang and usage, and you have an environment in which utilitarian considerations in the naming of gear are of low priority and logic, although fully present, may not be easy to discern or follow.