Origin of words

[TimothyMoulder]

This is not really a word, but an expression. I like finding out the origins of some of the more hackneyed terms we throw around...

Seems during the US Civil War, a general was in command of Union troops trying to take a fort the Rebels had constructed on the top of a preciptous hill. Having the high ground, the Rebs were having an easy time of it firing down onto the Union troops.

The general was on the front line surveying the battle when he noticed a couple of Rebels taking aim from between two boulders above his position. He turned to the man beside him and took the trooper's rifle and began to aim at the rebels.

"What do you intend to do sir?" the soldier asked.

"I mean to find out if I can kill two birds with one stone," he answered, and fired.

After the battle was ended, the Union went to the boulders, and found both the Rebels dead. The general's shot had struck the left boulder, ricocheted, and passed through both men's skulls.

I saw all this on a TV special about marksmanship and guncraft down through the ages. The really remarkable thing about this was the shot - one in a million. Despite what "Gunsmoke" may have had to say, bulltes don't usually richochet - they explode on impact with a hard surface. And even if you do manage a ricochet, because the bullet deforms, the direction it bounces is pretty much random outside a controlled environment.

Just a bit more trivia for the Pub.

TM

 

[plchacker]

I'm more familiar with naval terms than science fiction:



"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" The pallet that cannon balls are stacked on are called monkeys. Monkeys made of brass shrink faster with temperature decline than the iron shot.



"Son of a gun" British Men of War often allowed female visitors on board when in port. Some berthing was often next to the big cannon.



"Three Sheets to the Wind" A Sheet, is the primary control line for a sail. If you had three sheets loose to the wind, you had no control of the boat.



"Chewing the Fat" During the days before refrigeration, Pork and Beef were salt cured. It would take lots of dedication of the jaws to render the cured meat.



"Devil to Pay" Seams in wooden ships were filled with "Pay" or pitch. The Devil was the longest seam on the ship, from stem to stern. This particular job was doled out as punishment.



"Between the devil and the deep blue sea" Paying the devil from the outside of the ship, while suspended in a bosons chair.



"Keel Hauling" A gruesome form of punishment preformed by fishing a line from one gunwale (Side) to the other under the ship; then the convict was then attached to the line and hauled from one side to the other. Barnacles and other marine life attached to the underside made the journey that much worse.

 

[Von]

Hi all,


Having worked for Motorola for 22 yrs., I can confirm Motor-ola being a marriage of motor car & victrola. It wasn't referring to two-way radios but rather music radio.

Transistor: Can't cite specific referances but I recall reading somewhere is is derived from the "Transfer of Resistance".

A bit off topic but..
Military salutes: When knights were wearing armor, they would need to lift their face shield to I.D. each other. The evolution is the salute.

Cheers (taping glasses together before drinking: To be sure you weren't being poisoned by your host, people would pour thier beverages back and forth between the two glasses to mix both together assuring both were drinking the "same" safe beverage.

Von.

 

[Sliver]

'Military salutes: When knights were wearing armor, they would need to lift their face shield to I.D. each other. The evolution is the salute.'

Driving on the left in England was started because armed men mounted on horses would always past strangers with their swordarms (usually right) closest to the other. Anyone know why we switched to driving on the right on this side of the pond? (I don't)

Brian.

 

[TimothyMoulder]

The days of the British Empire, and especially the links with India, gave us bungalow, pyjama, guru, verandah, thug, shampoo and many others.

Also "mogul"

 

[RMA]

Originally Posted by Ken M
The days of the British Empire, and especially the links with India, gave us bungalow, pyjama, guru, verandah, thug, shampoo and many others.

And the British soldiers who spent their time in Palestine during WW2 (I believe) brought the word "bint" back with them (amongst others, which I can't remember offhand). I believe in Arabic the word means daughter, but the British usage is somewhat more derogatory!

 

[Leadfoot]

Transistor: Can't cite specific referances but I recall reading somewhere is is derived from the "Transfer of Resistance".


Von.

Scientists at Bell Laboratories were working on an electrically controllable variable resistor. They were useing P and N type semi conductor matierials. While doing their expiraments, someone mentioned the divice looked like it amplified signals like a triode tube did. Hence the birth of the transistor was in fact a mistake that was capatalized on. Bell Labs got the patent on the transistor in 1947.

 

[Jiri Toman]

Robot

The term "robot" was introduced in 1920 in a play named R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek but the actual credit for creating the term is given to his brother Josef Čapek. The term is a loose translation meaning forced labor or slave.

Just to be very precise, the Czech word for forced labor performed by serfs during the feudal times in Bohemia is ROBOTA, the word Robot is thus a derivative of the word ROBOTA.

What's interesting about the RUR is the fact that in the end Robots aquire human-like qualities and are the surviving species.

I was a bit puzzled when I first came to South Africa and heard locals refer to a traffic light as a ROBOT ???!
I suppose that it is a robot in a way but why call it that?
Can one of you South African blokes in this forum care to elaborate?

Marius,
Don't sell us short here, Polka, kolacky and Pilsner are well known here in the US.

 

[Doug-P]

I'm a little surprised noone has yet mentioned:

KLUGE

The definition I'm most familiar with is "an illsorted collection of misshapen parts forming a distressing whole", however,

From http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212446,00.html - In information technology, a kludge (pronounced [size=-1]KLOOdzh[/size]) is an awkward or clumsy (but at least temporarily effective) solution to a programming or hardware design or implementation problem. According to Eric Raymond, the term is indirectly derived from the German klug meaning clever. Raymond considers "kludge" an incorrect spelling of kluge, a term of the 1940s with the same general meaning and possibly inspired by the Kluge paper feeder, a "fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages...devilishly difficult to repair...but oh, so clever!"
A kludge originates because another, more elegant or appropriate solution is not currently possible (perhaps because of time constraints). Hardware and software products are sometimes the result of adding a new and basically incompatible design to the original design rather than redesigning the product completely. What is a kludge can be a matter of opinion. Users often have a different opinion than the designers, who understand the problems that had to be overcome. To the extent that information technology products are combinations of elements originating from a variety of design philosophies and constraints, almost any product is bound to contain some element of kludginess.

Also http://catb.org/jargon/html/K/kluge.html

And an excerpt from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge)

A kludge (or kluge) is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem. In engineering, a kludge is a
workaround using unrelated parts cobbled together. People demonstrating the force of the term often say that it takes a skilled craftsman intimate with the task, the material at hand, and the operating environment to construct a workaround clunky enough to be called a kludge.

Earliest recorded use -

There are reports that the term was in use as early as the 1940s in the United Kingdom, although the first usage listed by the Oxford English Dictionary is by J. W. Granholm in the American Datamation magazine in 1962:
Feb. 30/1 The word ‘kludge’ is...derived from the same root as the German Klug..., originally meaning ‘smart’ or ‘witty’... ‘Kludge’ eventually came to mean ‘not so smart’ or ‘pretty ridiculous’. Ibid. 30/2 The building of a Kludge..is not work for amateurs. There is a certain, indefinable, masochistic finesse that must go into true Kludge building. The German word meant here is translated roughly 'clever' or 'sly', rather than 'smart' or 'intelligent'.

 

[RheinhardtP]

South African Robot

Exactly what you meant,Jiri..

My understanding of the term robot is a combination of mechanical parts and electrical circuitry to perform a given task to assist a human being, that would have otherwise had to perform the task.

This term was surely started by Afrikaans slang terminlogy and accordingly adopted to the english speaking folks as well..

Indeed we do call a traffic light a robot.. IN a country where we have yes 9 official languages it is really difficult to trace the origin of alot of our words.. Afrikaans is known as the newest language to mother earth. It is very commen for 2 people to communicate to each other in 3 languages at times..

MOre offtopic, funny its not assisiated with any real language just commen between all South Africans

Some SA Slang

Aikona--Not on your life
Babelaas(bub- be- las)Baabie -- hangover
Bakkie--Pickup Truck
Barnie--Fight,
Biltong--Jerky in the US, usually of dried beef, venison or ostrich
Bliksem or Donner--To beat someone up as in "I will bliksem you"
Boerewors--Traditional braai fare - minced meat generally beef with spices in a sausage skin
Bossies--Whacko as in "after too long in the bush he went bossies"
Braai--Traditional cook out on a wood fire. One of the few times you will see SA men cooking and they even have competitions!Bush--Generally referring to the war in Angola or Namibia, or out in the wild
Catch a tan--Get a suntan
Chick, Cherry, stukkie--All sexist terms referring to women
Crash--Sleep as in "I had a late night I need to crash big time."
Dankie--Afrikaans word meaning thank you used by all language groups.
Doff--Stupid - as in "If you don't know that you must be doff"
Lekker--Afrikaans word meaning niceNooit
Pavement--Sidewalk
Robot--Traffic Light
Rock up--To arrive, to turn up somewhere.
Ag ShameTypical expression as in "Ag Shame look at that beautiful puppy".
Skelm--Devious or conniving.
Skollie--Ruffian (generally used in the Cape)
Slapchips / slappies French Fries
Stoep--Verandah
Takkies--Sneakers, running shoes or trainers
Tokoloshe--Evil spirited small man
Vasbyt--Hang in there
VoetsekGet-- Lost

Regards

Rheinhardt

 

[JesperMP]

How about "dutch", isnt that originally derived from "deutch" ?

If that is right, both the germans and the err.. nederlanders must be equally miffed by this words current usage.

 

[Jiri Toman]

Reinhardt,

Thanks for the South African vocab description. There is one more expression I remember that you did not list. Guys or Chaps are refered to as Oas (not sure about the spelling). At first I thought that people were refering to guys as oaks?

 

[RheinhardtP]

Indeed

Jiri,

They do indeed refer to guys as oaks or blokes or brother
for that matter, no prob only a pleasure....

Rheinhardt

 

[rsdoran]

Scientists at Bell Laboratories were working on an electrically controllable variable resistor. They were useing P and N type semi conductor matierials. While doing their expiraments, someone mentioned the divice looked like it amplified signals like a triode tube did. Hence the birth of the transistor was in fact a mistake that was capatalized on. Bell Labs got the patent on the transistor in 1947.

It is my understanding that what they were trying to make was a solid state triode because the tube type did not switch fast enough.

Transistor. This is an abbreviated combination of the words "transductance" or "transfer", and "varistor". The device logically belongs in the varistor family, and has the transconductance or transfer impedance of a device having gain, so that this combination is descriptive.

— Bell Telephone Laboratories — Technical Memorandum, (May 28, 1948).​

​

 

[geniusintraining]

IN a country where we have yes 9 official languages it is really difficult to trace the origin of alot of our words.. Afrikaans is known as the newest language to mother earth. It is very commen for 2 people to communicate to each other in 3 languages at times..

I find that amazing, are they similar? Or is any one language completely different?

Here in the states we have several slang ((redneck (all one word) southern ebonics, yankey)), but spanish is fast on the rise, I can speak a little (being raised in California…it’s a must), but I see a larger number of spanish speaking people in South Carolina as well and getting bigger.

Great thread Ron as is the carnival, its very interesting to see the personal side of people that you associate with.