[Ads-l] cockpit (UNCLASSIFIED)

MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY FUTURES COMMAND (USA) 0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Fri Apr 5 16:05:53 UTC 2019


CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

> 
> * cockpit 'the space occupied by a pilot in the fuselage of an aircraft'
> (OED2 sense 3c: 1914)
> 
> The Guardian (UK), Aug. 26, 1909, p. 7, col. 2 "There are aeroplanes here which are meant to be admired in their hangars rather than to
> fly... Conceive the lightest possible racing 'four' with a neat S-cylinder motor perched in the very nose of her... a cockpit just behind the
> mast fitted with neat arrangements for controlling the engine, the rudder, and the planes."
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30273757/cockpit/
> 
> Los Angeles Times, Jan. 9, 1910, part II, p. 20, col. 1 "Glen H. Curtiss is going to fly in a Curtiss biplane of his own invention... The pilot sits in
> a neat little cockpit above the machine, at the rear middle of the main plane."
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30233634/cockpit/
> 

I antedated the OED in this sense 14 years ago:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-April/048950.html

A slight antedating as applied to airplanes:

_Boston Herald_ 8/1/1909 p 7 col 2
"In a 'cockpit' in the rear of this, the operator sits in a comfortable seat."

In between boats and airplanes, the term can be found applied to dirigibles:

_New York Times_ 14 Feb 1909 sec 4 p 2 col 3
"The cockpit for the passengers will be eight feet long."


And perhaps this should be thought of as a special case of theaters, but here it is applied to an operating theater:

_Los Angeles Times_  sec 3 p 1 col 4
 "The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery will have another spectacular display -- being, in fact, a full-size representation of the sick-bay of a battleship.  There will be a dispensary with its long line of alcoholic tinctures, upon which even a well Jacky looks with longing eyes, and the whole of its pharmaceutical outfit, a combined sick-bay and operating-room, with its four comfortable berths and its up-to-date glass operating table, and the rest of the accompaniments that make the sick-bay of today a very sunshiny contrast to the gruesome cockpit of a quarter of a century back."


CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


More information about the Ads-l mailing list