Why “Press Brake” and not “Brake Press”

[David McNivenParticipant @davidmcniven30335]

I believe Army stores used a similar system to the PO stores.
Presumably because most significant word first optimises alphabetical search?

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

Yes, David McNiven is bang on the mark. This was in the days, remember, of typed lists and no possibility of a search function.

Screw, machine, BSF, high tensile, 1/4" x 1"

Some non military (and non-post-office) parts lists are the same.

Cheers, Tim

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I guess a man might be employed to break up old machines used for making brake parts.

So the brake press brake breaker breaks brake press brakes.

 

Edited By Bazyle on 28/01/2017 17:59:34

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Tim Stevens on 28/01/2017 16:04:17:

Yes, David McNiven is bang on the mark. This was in the days, remember, of typed lists and no possibility of a search function.

Screw, machine, BSF, high tensile, 1/4" x 1"

Some non military (and non-post-office) parts lists are the same.

Cheers, Tim

Produced using a manually maintained card index, later a card tabulator, and lots of clerical staff. Computers make easy meat of the problem but it used to be a big problem.

In the office most items were managed by part number with not too much concern about what the 'thingy' actually was. When it comes to stock management, factors like cost, size, weight and shelf-life etc are far more important than what it is. In the real world though, people wanting a 'thingy' needed some way of finding out what the part number was so they could order one. The search is much simplified by adopting a nomenclature.

In the military the approach became pervasive. For example, the Catalogue of Naval Stores used to be BR320, where BR stands for BOOK, REFERENCE

Dave

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