Engine or Motor?

[tom slick]

Originally Posted By: Junior

Or when you type teflon rather than Teflon®

(just a friendly ribbing)


apparently I don't type your jargon.

 

[Junior]

Originally Posted By: tom slick
Originally Posted By: Junior

Or when you type teflon rather than Teflon®

(just a friendly ribbing)


apparently I don't type your jargon.


I don't know that DuPont's registered trade mark and brand name would be considered jargon. I could see where PTFE could be.

 

[tom slick]

but your point was the "T" and the "®" wasn't it?

(please read my signature line)

 

[Junior]

Yeah, my sarcasm gets me in trouble all the time.

Actually I was pointing out the irony in your statement from a protection of intellectual property perspective.

Your comment:
"sometimes you can show that you don't know what you are talking about. Using the term teflon instead of PTFE"

It just made me chuckle. But since this is a very informal board it's not a big deal.

 

[XS650]

Quote:
sometimes you can show that you don't know what you are talking about. Using the term teflon instead of PTFE or cardboard instead of corrugate around people who work in those fields and you are telling them more then what is coming out of your mouth.


Calling it teflon means that it has entered the big time, just like diesel.

OTOH, I agree with you on motor vs engine. When someone calls an internal combustion engine a motor I expect to see a male without all his teeth or a girl.

The motorcycle, motor vehicle argument doesn't hold water either. They are both devices that are used to
Quote:
drive: travel or be transported in a vehicle; "We drove to the university every morning"; "They motored to London for the theater"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn


Then there is the misuse of "billet", also using units of work "ft-lb" instead of units of torque "lb-ft" to describe torque. Even the low level gearhead rags usually get the lb-ft one right. I dunno why the people that look at the pictures in them don't get it right.

 

[chevrofreak]

I hate when people use the term alloy to refer to aluminum wheels. Their steel wheels are alloys too!

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
I hate when people use the term alloy to refer to aluminum wheels. Their steel wheels are alloys too!


At least they are correct, even if they don't understand the words they are using.

 

[Gary Allan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy


I didn't read the entire Aluminum Alloy article, but since it was you that posted the link I suspect there was something meaningful in there that I missed.

None the less...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: XS650
sometimes you can show that you don't know what you are talking about. Using the term teflon instead of PTFE or cardboard instead of corrugate around people who work in those fields and you are telling them more then what is coming out of your mouth.


Calling it teflon means that it has entered the big time, just like diesel.

OTOH, I agree with you on motor vs engine. When someone calls an internal combustion engine a motor I expect to see a male without all his teeth or a girl.

The motorcycle, motor vehicle argument doesn't hold water either. They are both devices that are used to
Quote:
drive: travel or be transported in a vehicle; "We drove to the university every morning"; "They motored to London for the theater"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn


What about "motor oil"? Does that hold water? How many electric motors used 5W-30?

I guess the makers of the oil for our engines are " . . . male without all his teeth or a girl".

 

[Lazy JW]

Originally Posted By: ekpolk


NO!!!! I guess I'm "old school," but I subscribe to the "prescritpive" theory of dictionary writing, not the "descriptive" theory. The last dictionary that was explicitly written from the prescriptive approach was Websters 2nd, the last versions of which were printed in the first third of the last century (IIRC). I did a lot of hunting, and paid a pretty penny for a copy that's now almost 90 years old.

Of course, the language does evolve, but it must do so within bounds.......


Getting into a discussion of language with a Marine Corps lawyer is mighty risky business, but didn't English evolve mostly from the Germanic tongues? (which are largely unintelligible to this old hillbilly). At what point in this evolution should we lock it down? There are references to "engines" and "engines of war" in the Old Testament (KJV)

Originally Posted By: ekpolk

Additionally, clips and magazines are different things -- but how many still know that?....


We old Marines still know that
Joe

 

[moribundman]

Originally Posted By: Lazy JW
didn't English evolve mostly from the Germanic


English is a Germanic language. German and English have their origin in a hypothetical, common language (which did not exist as "one language"), called Proto-Germanic.

Since the words "motor" and "engine" come from Latin, they are not of Germanic origin. Thus the origin of English and German bears no relevance when it comes to "motor" and "engine."

Germanic languages use many loan words and adopted words from Latin and also from Greek. The reason being that the educated people used to read and write in Latin and Greek. This allowed the exchange of information and knowledge across cultures for many centuries. As a result, in the case of German and English, the lexicon of academia and science is chockfull with Latin and Greek vocabulary.

We may need a deus ex machina to appear and to settle the topic -- preferably with a bucket load of lighting and thunder.

 

[kingrob]

Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Lazy JW
didn't English evolve mostly from the Germanic


English is a Germanic language. German and English have their origin in a hypothetical, common language (which did not exist as "one language"), called Proto-Germanic.

Since the words "motor" and "engine" come from Latin, they are not of Germanic origin. Thus the origin of English and German bears no relevance when it comes to "motor" and "engine."

Germanic languages use many loan words and adopted words from Latin and also from Greek. The reason being that the educated people used to read and write in Latin and Greek. This allowed the exchange of information and knowledge across cultures for many centuries. As a result, in the case of German and English, the lexicon of academia and science is chockfull with Latin and Greek vocabulary.

We may need a deus ex machina to appear and to settle the topic -- preferably with a bucket load of lighting and thunder.

I'm no Odin, but:

Engine: from the Latin ingenium- a person's skill at creating; creative genius. From the root genium from which we derive ingenious, ingenuity, engineer

Motor: from the Latin movere- literally to move. Used in a catalytic sense: ie, the instigator of a movement or force. Used most widely in the original usage to describe a Divine catalyst, eg G O D as the motor of creation. (Mori's deux ex machina).

 

[moribundman]

There you go.

 

[Steve S]

Is GPIII motor oil really a synthetic ?
Is GPIII engine oil really a synthetic ?