Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 20:19:50 +0100
Reply-To: Clive Smith <clive.harman-smith@NTLWORLD.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Clive Smith <clive.harman-smith@NTLWORLD.COM>
Subject: Re: Changing out an air dam
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Empennage - well, messed up there didn't I? Nacelle's a nice one though. I
actually meant excrescence = blister, not empennage - a big bloomer! Blister
actually, isn't too bad, quite descriptive really in aeronautical terms -
its 'on the skin', can be glassy sometimes as in a blister turret, canopy or
window, does make think it should ahev a paster on it though. Bubble canopy,
now I think we may ahve come up with that, when the first Whirwinds,
Tempests and then Mustangs got those blown cockpit canopies, so mea culpa -
not a bad one though - would take some work redefining using less words!
The one that grates though is when you call a tailplane a horizontal
stabilizer. How do you then refer to a canard's surface? We call it a
foreplane (logical) or 'the canard', but horizontal stabilizer won't
distinguish, so we need yet another word or confusion occurs (is it at the
back or front) - I don't deny that horizontal stabilizer is technically
correct, but then we don't need a dissertation on what a tailplane does.
Tailplane is in contradistinction to the mainplane, or wing (implies 'the'
wing, as opposed to 'a' wing which the tailplane is). So to be consistent
the mainplane would have to be called the 'horizontal main lift surface' or
some such absurdity, illustrating how sodding around with well tried and
tested conventions creates a rod for one's own back.
I think the French use the same - Elevator and rudder maybe, but add a
little subtlety and romance to the pronunciation? A car's chassis is better
than frame surely, as frame is too generic, there's loads of frames in a car
(bulkheads, door frames, sub-frames etc), so chassis seems to add that
little extra nuance - the main frame of the vehicle, that holds everything
together (derives from chariot?)
.. and rather than vertical stabilizer, fin of course. Would you say a shark
has an upper stabilizer, over stabilizer, vertical topside stabilizer or
simply as we do 'a dorsal fin'?
What about hang glider pilots flying prone, supine or seated. Don't tell me
a prone harness is called an arse uppards, line-of-flight suspension system?
What is it with all these extra words? Like when you say 'I've changed out
my starter motor' - whats wrong with 'I've changed my starter motor' - to
change means a swap, in and out or out and in, so why specify the 'out' bit?
Sorry, but our simple minds have a problem here as we just don't recognise
what changing OUT something is as opposed to just changing it - does it
imply the same or a different one went back in, is there any implied
meaning, hidden or otherwise? Maybe theres more work implied in changing out
an engine than just changing it, in which case I'm glad I'm over here, which
I'm not of course, as theres barely room to swing-a-cat, let alone park a
Vanagon (yuk, detestable name isn't it).
Clive (who went out in the midday sun, and was never the samagon)
PS. Its still Friday here (just)
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Brodbeck" <gull@cyberspace.org>
To: "Clive Smith" <clive.harman-smith@NTLWORLD.COM>
Cc: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: [VANAGON] Air Dam renaming competition
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Clive Smith wrote:
>
> > fuselages - note the still common acceptance of the original French for
most
> > aircraft parts - 'fuuuwzelaaage', lovely innit, one hardly has to ask
what
> > it is. Try 'empennage' now there's another GREAT word, what would we
call
> > that now in the US, a blister - YUK!.
>
> Nah, in the US we call it a 'tail'. Now, a nacelle we could call a
> 'blister', but we don't -- we have *some* decency. Ailerons we just call
> ailerons, though we did bastardize it into 'flaperon' for planes with
> combined control surfaces. What do the French call elevators and rudders?
>
> _ _
> __ _ _ _| | | | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE) Ypsilanti, MI
> / _` | | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------
> | (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
> \__, |\__,_|_|_| "I think the brilliant aspect of the Bush speech last
> |___/ night is that it was crafted so simply that even Bush
> himself could understand it." -- Leeron Kopelman
>
>
| 
