Is your tea on ice, or is your tea ice?

Here's another one that people screw up all the time. In fact, product labels even screw it up sometimes. Check it out:

I'm having a nice glass of ice tea.

Here's where the problem comes in. What are you saying? Are you saying your tea is ice, or do you mean that your tea is on ice? I'm going to bet it's the second one. "Ice tea" would imply that the tea is actually made of ice. It's just like ice cube (a cube made of ice) or ice queen (a queen made of ice...metaphorically). 

Here's the correct version:

I'm having a nice glass of iced tea.

What you actually mean is not that the tea is made of ice. It is tea that has been cooled by putting it over ice. It's like you were saying you were having chilled tea. You wouldn't say you were having chill tea. "Whoa, dude. This tea is, like, so chill." 

Get it? Good job.

But wait! There's more!

By using skills we strongly encourage in young children, we can take this newly-learned rule and apply it to other similar things. Observe:

Whipped cream, not whip cream (cream that has been whipped, not cream made of a whip)

Creamed corn, not cream corn (corn that has been creamed, not corn made of cream)

Canned beets, not can beets (beets that have been canned, not beets made of a can)

Iced cream...

Did I just rock your world? Don't worry; ice cream is perfectly acceptable because while ice cream is technically cream that has been iced, it also could be considered cream that is made of ice. 

I know what you're all thinking. "Can you just shut up so I can go drink my iced tea?" The answer is yes -- unless you refer to it as "ice tea." Then you get lectured all over again.