[Ads-l] fail safe, antedating 1944?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great work, Stephen, Bill, and Peter.

Peter identified the precursor phrase "fail safely". Here is another
precursor phrase: "safe failure".

The phrase "safe failure" in these citations refers to a type of
failure and not to a type of system. The term "fail safe" referred to
systems designed to fail safely, i.e., experience safe failures.

Below is a short note published in 1914 about a patent filing made in
1908. The phrase "safe failure" is employed.

May 30, 1914, Electrical World
Weekly Record of Electrical Patents
Patent filed: July 6, 1908.
https://books.google.com/books?id=7mg-AQAAMAAJ&q=%22safe+failure%22+#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
1,097,241 SIDING PROTECTION FOR SIGNALING SYSTEMS: W. H. Lane and C.
W. Coleman, Westfield, N. J. App. filed July 6, 1908. Arranged so that
failure in the siding apparatus or the side track is a safe failure to
the same extent as a corresponding failure in the main line.
[End excerpt]

Here is an instance of "safe failure" in 1916 in the railroad domain.

April 7, 1916, Railway Age Gazette
https://books.google.com/books?id=VIJNAAAAYAAJ&q=%22safe+failure%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
. . . the failures to which we refer in what has often been heralded
as the next step in safe railroad operation, namely, the automatic
train stop, is not a safe failure. It becomes at once a dangerous
failure, because that takes away from the engineer the use of his
intelligence and his training and his knowledge in the control and the
handling of the air brakes in his train.
[End excerpt]

Below is a citation that shows the phrase enclosed in quotation marks.

October 1921, Tech Engineering News
MUNICIPAL FIRE SERVICE ALARM by V. C. Stanley
Vice President, Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Co., Newton Upper Falls, Mass.
https://books.google.com/books?id=7Wk3AQAAMAAJ&q=%22safe+failure%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Even under the exacting conditions of automatic railway signal
service, the systems are designed with a view of giving a danger or
stop warning when the circuits are broken, batteries disabled or
instruments out of order; thus, at worst, merely causing a needless
stoppage of a train,—or a "safe failure,"—but substantially incapable
of failing to give a needed warning signal.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 6:50 AM Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> The fail-safe design principle existed as early as 1926, if not by precisely the same name, as described in conjunction with improvements in locomotive air-brake safety.
>
> "This is in accordance with a basic principle which should govern the design of all safety apparatus, including signals, namely that in the event of any failure, such devices should go to 'warning,' 'danger' or 'stop,' or in other words, 'fail safely.'"
>
> Wilkes-Barre Evening News, November 13, 1926, page 12.
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68473169/the-evening-news/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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