I’ll be driving to Cologne in the morning, so I may not get much writing done over the weekend.
Cologne of course, is a city in western Germany.
Cologne though, as in cologne with a lower-case C when it’s not at the start of a sentence, is something a man sprays on himself to smell nice.
The reason we use the name for both is pretty straightforward.
Has anyone ever told you that you, or most people, use this word incorrectly? It’s possible, because it’s a favourite of misguided pedants.
It’s main use now is to mean to inflict heavy losses, or to almost completely destroy/defeat. It’s usually used in a military sense, as so:
It’s September, and that always makes me think of the names of the months. September of course, is the ninth month of the year, but the name might make you think it’s the seventh, if you know your Latin.
English-Language Thoughts 