Grab-handle or Strap in Car, etc.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, James.  A "panic handle" in very recent use is an emergency release handle that will allow escape from, say, an overturned school bus.  This seems to me to be a colloquial or standard expression.

JL

"James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "James A. Landau"
Subject: Re: Grab-handle or Strap in Car, etc.
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in 1963-64 my father owned a sports car (a Triumph TR-3) which had a grab
handle on the dashboard for the passenger. We called it the "chicken bar". If
we were trying to be less informal in speech, we would call it the "panic bar".

OED2 has "panic bolt" "a secial bolt for a door designed to unfasten readily
in emergencies" from 1930. I have seen "panic hardware" used in official US
Government procurement specs but cannot recall ever having heard the phrase
"panic hardware" anywhere else.

- James A. Landau


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