Engineering Origin of a Common Phrase?

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

Posted by John Fielding on 01/06/2016 13:28:04:

And on the subject of old mechanical engineering terms and how they have changed over the years.

In an old textbook I have from the mid 1800s is a treatise on adjusting holes to size with a "rimmer", today that has become reamer.

The other thing that often causes confusion is the American terminology and the English for the same item.

Drill rod = silver steel/tool steel, as it is/was used for making drills and cutting tools.

Wrist Pin = Gudgeon Pin

Piston Pin = Little End Pin

Circlip = Snap Pin

And there are dozens of others.

Thank you, John. By reading this forum I keep learning how our languages have diverged. I find an enormous amount of good information here but sometimes struggle with the terminology. I will keep reading, and struggling, and learning.

John

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by John Reese on 01/06/2016 17:01:32:

Posted by John Fielding on 01/06/2016 13:28:04:

And on the subject of old mechanical engineering terms and how they have changed over the years.

In an old textbook I have from the mid 1800s is a treatise on adjusting holes to size with a "rimmer", today that has become reamer.

The other thing that often causes confusion is the American terminology and the English for the same item.

Drill rod = silver steel/tool steel, as it is/was used for making drills and cutting tools.

Wrist Pin = Gudgeon Pin

Piston Pin = Little End Pin

Circlip = Snap Pin

And there are dozens of others.

Thank you, John. By reading this forum I keep learning how our languages have diverged. I find an enormous amount of good information here but sometimes struggle with the terminology. I will keep reading, and struggling, and learning.

John

My late father, a British electrical engineer, spent much of his career exchanging technical material with the US Navy. In 1970 I remember he and his colleagues getting into a right pickle* when they realised that American manuals referred to electrical earth as "ground". Obviously no true Brit would be able to cope with such an outrageous misuse of the Queen's English! All the manuals would have to be rewritten, just as British spellings like colour in the Harry Potter stories have all been corrected in US editions.

It must have been a generational thing because I, in 1970 only just out of nappies (ahem), was fully aware that electrical ground and earth are exactly the same thing.

English speaking nations choosing alternative words like "fall" for "autumn" is one thing, but I don't understand why we sometimes pronounce the same word in a different way. For instance , why is "buoy" said "boo-ee" in the US when it's "boy" in the UK?

Regards, Dave

* perhaps "getting into a pickle" is a reference to the well known acid bath.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I think if you go back far enough 'fall' was standard English, and 'autumn' is the oddball. Those on the far side of the pond stuck with the old 'correct' word. This probably happened with many other words. Language is always changing and if you have several countries speaking the same one it's not surprising they diverge especially before the age of mass communication.

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

The language differences between the English speaking countries are minor compared with Chinese attempts to produce instruction manuals in English.

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

The language differences between the English speaking countries are minor compared with Chinese attempts to produce instruction manuals in English.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

(BBC programme a few years ago) Pronunciation and meaning changes often happen when a leader in a social group miss-pronounces or misuses a word accidentally or on purpose and the group take it up. Then it may spread or die.

A problem with a few phrases that have been used incorrectly in a book or newspaper where the context clearly points to it being a mistake are still treated by linguists as the first 'bona fide' use of the phrase.

Huge changes occurred in the 19th century when poorly educated people wrote without having enough training in standard spelling. People's names would be changed when a curate entered their christening details improperly owing to not understanding their local accent.

Edited By Bazyle on 01/06/2016 21:43:06

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Some say that the American English is nearer the English of Shakespeare that modern English spoken in England. Afrikaa'ns is Dutch of 2 hundred years ago. French Canadian is different to the French in France today. A similar sort of thing has happened with us in the south over the last 150 years. Ian S C

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

Posted by Peter Hall on 28/05/2016 14:06:32:

that's called a pingf*ckit,

Oh that made me laugh

The number of times I have had a pingf*ckit

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Thought I'd ping you because baseline, going ballistic, blockbuster, and pixelated (meaning drunk) are all on my radar this morning.

Can anyone confirm that the rhymes in Chaucer reveal that he spoke English with a northern accent.? Very hard to believe I know. My locals assure me that civilisation definitely ends at Cold Ashton crossroads. I've not risked going that far north myself.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Chaucer was writing at about the time of the Great Vowel Shift . Whether the old pronunciation sounds more like Northern English I'll leave you to decide – I don't understand phonetics. As far as I can make out, Elizabethan English sounds a bit more like a "rural" accent, perhaps typically from East Anglia (bootiful for all you turkey fans).

Rod

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

It has always been confusing to me when watching a US engineering video and the person states they are sodering. Strangely the Websters US dictionary site spells it soldering. I wonder what happened to the L?

Oh I Know….. Who was it that said No L

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 02/06/2016 14:32:23

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

There is one word in the Engish language that Americans are universally totally unable to pronounce correctly.

I have spent many years in the Caribbean and east coast US and NEVER found a yank that can say it properly even when told how.

Any guesses as to what it is?

Two good phrases;

'Stone deaf' from stone masons hammers ringing in the closed quarries at Beer, Dorset.

'Not worth the candle' again stone masons had to pay for the candle used to cut blocks by and when the foreman hit the block at the end of the day and it did not 'ring' thus showing a fault or crack they did not get paid.

Martin

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Can any one answer why the Americans call a 'tap' a 'faucet' or how it originated. If you look at it from the engineering POV… screw down valve = globe valve, lever or rotational type = ball valve

George.

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

Faucet maybe this is correct …

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faucet

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faucet

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 02/06/2016 15:25:13

[Iain GordonParticipant @iaingordon81374]

There is one word in the Engish language that Americans are universally totally unable to pronounce correctly.

That would be Laboratory

Iain

[John FieldingParticipant @johnfielding34086]

The problem with English is like all modern languages it evolves with time. Ian SC mentioned Afrikaans, which originally was high Dutch, but today it has moved considerably away and has many other words adopted/made from other languages. Similarly true English is a mixture of many other languages, and new words are added on a regular basis. If we could go back 500 years and hear English as she is spoke then hardly anybody would be able to comprehend what the person was saying. And dialect and accents play a huge part. For a southerner to try and understand a geordie speaking is comical.

When I first emigrated to South Africa I had to get my head around some of the words used. And these were so-called english speaking people. I was directed to find a place and I was told to go up the main road to the first robot and then turn. What the hell is a robot? It is what British call a traffic light! Roundabouts are called circles, which when you know that makes sense.  In Yorkshire traffic lights were known as "To-go-stops".

Then there was the predominance of posting everything in English and Afrikaans. The most famous was "Slegs-Only", which until you learn a little Afrikaans is truly puzzling. Slegs in Afrikaans means Only.

The company I worked for made radio equipment for the local defense force and everything had to be in both languages. This meant that all instruction manuals had to printed twice. Typically the English version would be compiled and then the Afrikaans version would be translated from that one. In the Afrikaans language certain words don't exist and have to be "invented". We had a Prof at Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) who was the official government language consultant and he invented new words when needed. As he was appointed by the government then whatever he deemed the new word was law. It so happened that the Afrikaans for Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) didn't exist, so he was asked to invent the new word. When it came back as the literal translation is was about 50 letters long and sounded like the railway station in Wales. Thankfully it was discarded and the troopies had to learn the English word.

 

 

Edited By John Fielding on 02/06/2016 16:58:05

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Posted by John McNamara on 02/06/2016 15:23:16:

Faucet maybe this is correct …

**LINK**

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faucet

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 02/06/2016 15:25:13

Thanks John.

We could go on all day… more Americanisms…Tire iron… color,…( even spell checker high lights it as wrong spelling )… hi liter… harbor… etc. etc.

George.

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Iain, Your are right, another good word they do not do!

My word is Squirrel, they cannot EVER make it right and always say Squirl !

Martin

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

Martin, I do admit we sometimes get lazy ans omit the last vowel in squirrel. On the other hand, when a Scot says that word he puts far too many R's in it.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by John McNamara on 02/06/2016 14:32:02:

It has always been confusing to me when watching a US engineering video and the person states they are sodering. Strangely the Websters US dictionary site spells it soldering. I wonder what happened to the L?

Oh I Know….. Who was it that said No L

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 02/06/2016 14:32:23

I often notice US sources saying sol-dering when everyone I know in the UK does soul-dering.

Different pronunciations isn't uniquely a transatlantic problem , for instance there doesn't seem to be a standard UK way of saying scone. On a bad day I want to vapourize people who pronounce it Skon.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Martin King 2 on 02/06/2016 14:50:53:

There is one word in the Engish language that Americans are universally totally unable to pronounce correctly.

I have spent many years in the Caribbean and east coast US and NEVER found a yank that can say it properly even when told how.

Any guesses as to what it is?

…

Martin

Got me beat. Surely not Cholmondeley. Borough perhaps? Please put me out of my misery.

I'm not too sure about how to say New Orleans or Maryland even though I watch a lot of telly. The Wire had me speaking street like a drug dealer for a month or two.

Cheers,

Dave

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

Another word our US cousins have got 'wrong' is Regular.

The claim for All-Bran was that it keeps you regular. No, it doesn't, it keeps you frequent.

The tick of a clock is regular. A proper bus service is regular. A coffee each day at four o'clock is regular, whatever the size of the cup. A small cup is not regular, it is small, but they just cannot bring themselves to say it. It's not as though small is difficult to say or spell – it only has one syllable.

Please, chaps from over the pond – how do you describe the tick of a clock?

Tim

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Iain Gordon on 02/06/2016 16:10:16:

There is one word in the Engish language that Americans are universally totally unable to pronounce correctly.

That would be Laboratory

Iain

Nuclear

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 02/06/2016 17:59:13:

I often notice US sources saying sol-dering when everyone I know in the UK does soul-dering.

Sold'ring over here…

Neil

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 02/06/2016 18:47:17:

Posted by Iain Gordon on 02/06/2016 16:10:16:

There is one word in the Engish language that Americans are universally totally unable to pronounce correctly.

That would be Laboratory

Iain

Nuclear

Not just the US. On the news on telly over here it's almost always Nucular

Rod

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