> >I wrote:
> > Here's an interesting thought -- could the Wright brothers' catapult be
> > considered a part of the airplane that was simply left behind, like a
> > booster rocket?
>Marvin Long replied:
>Huh! I suppose it could be looked at that way.
>
>Here's another comparison: were the early automobiles, whose engines a
>human had to crank and crank to start, truly "auto" mobiles? Should they
>be disqualified from the history of the development of cars?
To argue against myself for a moment -- I love playing Devil's Advocate --
it occurs to me that I'm not sure if a booster rocket is considered part of
the "space" craft. Even if it is, the booster stays with the rest of the
vehicle a substantial way up into space, whereas the catapult stayed fixed
to the ground.
As for "auto" mobiles, I'm not sure if the "auto" refers to being completely
automatic in every way (which would disqualify vehicles with manual
transmissions, or for that matter would disqualify all cars that have to be
manually steered :-), or if "auto" refers to the fact that you travel
"automatically" or in an "automated" fashion, i.e. don't have to walk to get
there, a machine does it for you. "Auto mobile" would mean "moves by
itself," which I guess a car could do without anyone in the vehicle if it
had already been turned on and had been left in gear. But by that
definition of "auto mobile", even an unpowered glider would qualify. If we
broaden the translation of "auto mobile" a bit, we could say that "auto"
means "without human intervention," but we still need to turn it on...
Do we have any etymologists on the list? Or dictionary writers? It seems
to me that a lot of what a word means is simply how we use it.
Comments?
Reg Bautista
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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