"generic" types: what's in a name?

I've been stumbling over Java's generic types for a while now... I think I finally understand what my problem is:

They should be called specific types, or parametrised-collections!

I think the feature is called "Java generics" because when you use a collection, say List<E>, that List contains elements of parameterised type <E>, a "generic type".  But the element type in the plain old-fashioned non-parametrised collection List is also generic!  In fact the non-parametrised List is more generic than the "generic" version (it can contain elements of any sub-class of Object)!  The distinction is that the elements in a List<String> are all of one specific type (String), whereas the elements in a List can be of any general type, and can even be of different types in the same List collection (leading to problems that "Java generics" was invented to address).

<sarcasm>Gosh, what an epiphany.</sarcasm>

If you're a Java guru this is nothing new, of course. But that took me ages to grasp. I think I wasn't helped by the terminology. In fact whenever I'm reading Java literature, it helps if I swap "generic" for "specific".  This makes much more sense to me. Actually I already do word substitutions for much of the Java canon.  For instance:

• "class Foo is instantiated"
  Translation: "a Foo object is created"
• "invoke method X of class Y"
  Translation: "send message X to a Y object",
  or even "send class Y the X message"