FYI. You should find it interesting that the term "Civil" engineering came about as the alternative for Military Engineering.?ÿ Anything that was not directly aimed at supporting the military was deemed to be civil.?ÿ Thus, the name.?ÿ So, virtually every other name associated with engineering from agricultural to?ÿ nuclear grew from that early label of Civil Engineering.?ÿ ASCE was formed in the 1850's.?ÿ ASME and the earliest form of IEEE date to the 1880's.?ÿ Other such organizations did not form until the 1900's, some as late as the 1960's.
We've probably all heard that the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers is that ME's make weapons while CE's make targets.?ÿ Makes me wonder if ME was originally Military Engineer.
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@dave-o?ÿ
In July 1977 I was in New York City attending a national meeting of CESSE (Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives) ( https://www.cesse.org/) as my boss was President of that organization that year.?ÿ One of the fellows I met while there was working for SAME (Society of American Military Engineers) ( https://www.same.org/).?ÿ He is my source for the message I provided earlier in this thread.?ÿ I was present to give a 20 minute presentation on some things we were doing that were somewhat unique at the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, now the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) ( https://www.asabe.org/) where I was employed.?ÿ During my Senior year at KSU, I served as the President of the National Council of Student Branches of ASAE, now the International Student Branch Officer Team.
It is absolutely amazing the various contacts one makes over a lifetime.
Back in the mid 80's, (if i remember correctly), I read an article about some public works in California was doing away with the term "manhole".?ÿ The new term to use was "personnel access cover".
Or, in Star Trek, The Next Generation, underlings addressed the female "officers" as sir.
There's always going to be tension between current/historical use of language, and new ways to convey newer ideas.
What we call "historical" or "fundamental" today is often what previous generations considered the "woke words" of their day. Words get appropriated, some get modified, others get dropped, sometimes new ones are created.
Before my career was geomatics, it was history. No legitimate historian is going to argue that we should look at every single period in history in the same way, or judge one time period by another's standards.
By the same token, moving forward as a society is generally a good thing. If we're not arguing about how to convey new ideas, we're not moving forward.
Some of the transitions and changes are weird and uncomfortable at first (count me in on that feeling), but if language were meant to be immutable, we'd all still be speaking Sanskrit.
Yeah, language changes.?ÿ A younger guy I interact with calls everything he thinks is good"insane" and a good performance "destroyed" it. I inwardly groan.
Bill Bryson, the author of A Walk In The Woods wrote a book called The Mother Tongue - English and How It Got That Way.?ÿ It is not something to pick up and read in one sitting but lots of great stuff about the evolution of language and he is an inherently funny guy that makes an incredibly boring subject entertaining.
I don't know of any surveyor that doesn't call an angle and distance measure thingy a gun even to clients.?ÿ You shoot distances.?ÿ I do know many firearms enthusiasts who rarely just call a firearm a gun, they are generally more specific.
Do we want to delve into the proper terminology for the bovine world while we are hammering out the details of the English language.?ÿ Cow is not a catch all phrase as is commonly used by those not in the cattle business but is fact a female that has had a calf(experts interject any caveats here).?ÿ As a matter of fact, our favorite Divine Bovine frequent contributor may in fact be misrepresenting HIMself with his forum moniker, unless of course after watching many episodes of the Simpsons and listening to Bart he did have a cow.
Yippers.?ÿ Bad is good.?ÿ I lost track of the difference between being hot and being cool.
Hell, 50 years ago there were a thousand jokes built off of the term "groovy".?ÿ One of the worst was, "What's groovy?" with the answer being "A corduroy rubber."
There were another thousand jokes built off of the term "gross".?ÿ One of the worst was, "What's gross?" with the answer being, "When your Grandma kisses you goodnight and slips you a little tongue."
many firearms enthusiasts who rarely just call a firearm a gun
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Yeah, language changes.?ÿ A younger guy I interact with calls everything he thinks is good"insane" and a good performance "destroyed" it. I inwardly groan.
You crushed it!?ÿ
Why do I wince when I hear that, sounds painful.
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Kial e? parolas la anglan kiam ekzistas Esperanto?
@bill93?ÿ
Yes, and if you're into sports, it's not uncommon for someone to refer to a pitcher as having, filthy stuff.?ÿ ????ÿ That's supposed to be good pitching, I'm guessing.
Crosses the line even more when I read that a hockey player's shoot-out move was, disgusting
I mean, just what the hell is going on here?
I'm with Dave K, I usually use "instrument" because it helps to generate the respect it deserves.?ÿ ?ÿCalling it a "gun" always sounded silly to me, and in today's world, possibly dangerous.?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ
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But also, don't assume that the terms you have heard your whole career are somehow universal.?ÿ ?ÿ
Complaining about people's outlook by using phrases like "woke" and "virtue signaling" says more about the person using them as a pejorative.... IMHO.?ÿ ?ÿ
A surveyor's steel tape will always be called a "chain", archaic or not.
The instrument will always be called a "gun" (not a very good term to use around airports though).?ÿ And the instrument operator will always be called the "I-man" or the "gunner".
The city I used to work for called these positions "Field Engineering Aide" and "Land Surveyor Assistant".?ÿ Awkward at best, but that was their civil service title.
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in the words of "the dude"...?ÿ Yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man.?ÿ ?ÿ
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