"Flippers, goggles, oxygen tank" -- cringeworthy, or useful??

[ystrout]

I don't really care what people call it. I know what they mean.

If anything, it signals that they don't know about diving so you have a chance to explain how fun the hobby is!

 

[kelemvor]

Terminology is a thing in many aspects of life. I just try to ask myself if I know what they are talking about. Only in occasional technical settings is it hyper critical to have the exact term or 100% accurate word.

Gun owners. A LOT of them say clip when they mean magazine. Experienced people. It is up to me if I choose to call them out or otherwise get annoyed. Do I know what they mean? Yes. Can I have a happy life by letting go of some need for them to say magazine? Yes.

One of my college English professors told me something that stuck with me. A dictionary is an attempt to document how a language is used. It's not an instruction manual on how a language should be used. If enough English speakers refer to a magazine as a clip then the definition of clip will change. Same for flippers and fins.

Think about "ain't". When I was a kid, you'd get in trouble for saying that word in school because it wasn't a word. Now days it's in most (all?) dictionaries.

That said, calling a mag a clip at my local ranges will at least garner you a hairy eyeball.

I have no idea what the standard is for changing definitions in various dictionaries, as I hated English.

 

[JohnnyC]

The only reason I get uppity about magazine vs clip is when I've actually got a gun on the line that takes a clip. It's just a practicality at that point. You can't really fit a magazine in a WWII CMP Garand, at least without a lot of effort and probably a hammer.

 

[kelemvor]

The only reason I get uppity about magazine vs clip is when I've actually got a gun on the line that takes a clip. It's just a practicality at that point. You can't really fit a magazine in a WWII CMP Garand, at least without a lot of effort and probably a hammer.

I got to shoot one of those at a "fun shoot" at the local range once. If I recall correctly, it had quite an unpleasant kick.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

You say "tomato", I say "tomarto"
You say "potato"........ nobody says "potarto"

 

[David Wilson]

The science of language is occasionally divided between descriptive linguistics and prescriptive linguistics. The former focuses on language usage as it is, while the latter concentrates on how it should be. The problem is that language is in a constant state of flux, particularly in the case of English, which doesn't have a national or international language academy to regulate it as the Académie Française and the Real Academia Española do for French and Spanish. These French and Spanish academies don't always succeed when they regulate language. The Académie Française's attempt to "cleanse" the French language of Anglicisms such as "pipeline", substituting "oléoduc" came to nothing because nobody was prepared to make the change.

The problem with diving terminology is that it is as subject to historical development as any other nomenclature is. I've had arguments with people about the changing meaning of the term "free diving" over time. In the aftermath of World War II, when recreational diving took off, "free diving" (actually a translation of the French term "plongée libre") was used pretty interchangeably with "skin diving" to designate underwater diving other than standard helmet diving, whether breathhold or scuba. Some younger freedivers nowadays will claim that "free diving/freediving" has always meant breathhold diving because they lack the historical knowledge of the usage of this term.

As a student of languages, I keep an open mind and seek corroboration for usage by Googling words and paying attention to the trustworthiness of the origin of the individual results rather than be overdependent on dictionaries, which rely on individuals to keep them up to date.

 

[Storker]

I got to shoot one of those at a "fun shoot" at the local range once. If I recall correctly, it had quite an unpleasant kick.

IME less than a bolt-action '06 has.

 

[Hoag]

The only reason I get uppity about magazine vs clip is when I've actually got a gun on the line that takes a clip. It's just a practicality at that point. You can't really fit a magazine in a WWII CMP Garand, at least without a lot of effort and probably a hammer.

Not to hijack the thread, but I learned to shoot using the FN-C1A1. It had a 20 round magazine that could be reloaded with ammunition held on 5 round clips so using the right term was critical if you wanted more ammunition.

Getting back to the thread, a few pages ago, some one posted that when they hear (or read) the term "Hogarthian" that they think of the painter. I think of myself. (Any guesses as to what my last name really is?)

WRT the OP's original question, as others have alluded, I tend to consider the source. If I heard the close but not quite right term being used on TV, or read it in something like the CSM, I would not get too upset. If I heard it being said by some one who I know should know better, then I might tend to be a little more annoyed, but it is still nothing that I would get "wrapped around the axle" over.

 

[JohnnyC]

I think context is important. Tank, cylinder, bottle, tin, all mean the same thing, and might get used in the same conversation. Stage, bailout, deco may be important depending on the context. If it's in the media, I just assume that they're ignorant of any differences, and come to my own conclusions as to accuracy based on other information.

People got all uppity when people said divers were taking oxygen tanks into the Thai cave, then it turned out there actually were tanks full of 100% O2 being staged in the cave to replenishing diminishing oxygen levels. Who was correct, the journalist that called them what they were, ignorant of the fact that they may or may not have all been oxygen? The commenters who said that it couldn't be oxygen and the journalists were ignorant? Does it really matter?

 

[Bob DBF]

It all began in the around 160 years ago in the 1860s with the unit developed and dove by the Frenchmen Benoît Rouquayrol & Auguste Denayrouze
Do you know the name of that unit?

A quick history of the first dive gear, named Aerophere by its inventor, Rouqyayrol, for use in the mines, later adapted by Denayrouze to use in the ocean, and made famous by Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Rouquayrol and Denayrouze


Augustus Seibe was a contemporary, and made the conversion from the Deane brothers smoke helmet to a diving helmet for Charles Deane to use on his salvage operations.


Bob