What's in a word.

[Alan SHARP]

QUOTE from another post:

Re: Photos and Info about old churches
by Wee Ann » Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:36 am
Just a thought - and totally off subject ;- Why do we still say 'Telegraph Poles', when we no longer have Telegraphs, and most of the poles are Power Poles anyway? And its not just us oldies - younger people say it too!
Wee Ann
END QUOTE

Mention was also made of a stream roller, to which I would add steam shovel and drag line, but now made redundant by hydrolically operated machines.

Wee Ann’s post above raises the fascinating part of colloquial language and how it evolves. The more we research the more we can come to understand, and start immerging ourselves in the time frame, giving perspective, and outcomes. Only then does the language of the day, appear more logical. Such is the pace of our technological advance today. Look back just 120 years, and I’m sure my Scott’s forbears would be telling my Grand father not to talk such rubbish, (and in less polite words) had he gone on about walking on the moon, talking and sending pictures through space - without physical contact, and flying, but to name a few.

My unique herringbone address was obtained when I wished to search throughout Russia to find the full scientific reports on developments in their dairy industry, of which I only held abstracts in English. Once a couple of papers were obtained the real problems started. This yokel, with only Secondary School English under his belt, no knowledge of other languages and syntax etc, had then to translate the Cyrillic letters into words in English. What a mission, but translation costs were prohibitive, so I persevered. (Even a recent re-translation through a free online service, was not much better because of the technical nature of the report.)

So new was the concept (1961 & 1962) that the scientists were writing about, they had to adapt the language to suit their farmer readership. My translation kept coming up with “milk wire” and even more fascinating “machine tools”
Milk Wire ! Milk Wire ? I kept thinking, and then the ‘penny dropped’ no more daft a description than our “milk line” – to describe the conveyancing, via pipes, of bulk milk from the milking apparatus, to the awaiting bulk milk holding container/s. Previous systems only milked into a vacuum bucket at each cow. The machine tools concept was a little harder to comprehend in an English translation, as it was used when discussing the post and rails, that controlled the flow and positioning of the cows in the various systems. On the other hand apparatus was easy, as the word was universal to both languages.

Convayencing:
LINE as in railway lines OR telegraph lines.
WIRE as in telegraph, or how many can remember the cashier’s wires transversing the big department stores ?

Alan SHARP.

[paddyscar]

As I re-read your post, it made me think about how language is constantly evolving and putting lie to the title of my Latin text at school 'Living Latin'.

That old language, it has been decided, died out simply because it did not change with the times and remained rigid. No fear of that now! New words are invented with just about every breath, and many of them drive me to distraction!

I do remember one store when I was a child that had a pulley system, but it was soon upgraded to a mechanical cash register.

Frances