The Chinese ebayer apart, I think you need to have a bit more of a look around, only the Brits seem to insist that what the world calls an "English
Longbow" or
ELB is the only bow that should be called a longbow, most of the world believes that a long bow is a bow that is not short no matter what the cross-section of the bow is. Even the club set up to promote the shooting of the traditional styled bow in Britain, in its title, calls the bow a "British Long-bow". I would suggest that you and all the people who take umbridge at other people using the word longbow for bows such as the flat bow are the ones that are in error and have wrongly appropriated the word for a particular cross-sectional shape of bow. It is not as if when the bows were ubiquitus throughout England and Wales that they were called longbows, rather, if anything they were called hand bows to distinguish them from cross-bows.
Craig.
I'm not sure there's any 'umbrage' here.
What people are after is clarity and accurate description. in this case a particularly short bow is described as a longbow.
Using your analogy that longbows were called longbows because they were long, we can see here that the seller is in error to call a short bow a longbow.
What ever type of longbow I was expecting, if I received a horse bow, then I'd be rather dissapointed, as they tend to be rather short on the whole and not long at all. I may like horsebows, but I was expecting a longbow...
I think even you can see the logic in that.
If I use the term English longbow or ELB then archers tend to know what it is.
Using the term longbow could mean anything long that's a bow.
My sons 'longbow' is shorter than my horse bow.... but if I said it was a kids ELB, then you'd know what it was..
Determining if the ELB is an accurate historical description of the bent stick is a whole different subject.....
Si