semantic shift: "shrapnel"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yes.

JL

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 3:58 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> Subject:      Re: semantic shift: "shrapnel"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have always thought the rifle/gun distinction was one of those dumb
> military things. Like, you can call your canon (which are rifled) guns but
> you can't call your rifle a gun, as in: "This is my rifle, this is my gun;
> This is for fighting, this is for fun," said while holding rifle in one
> hand
> and exposed member in the other, after having gotten it wrong, whereas
> folks
> in the non-military world were perfectly free to call their rifles guns.
> No?
>
> DAD
>
> ____________________________________________
> I only got one rule: Never bet money that you don't have on a dog race with
> your ex-girlfriend who happens to be a stripper.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 11:00 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: semantic shift: "shrapnel"
>
>
>
> >>Next up: calling your rifle a "gun."
>
> A notorious no-no. But ask the average, non-firearm-savvy speaker what
> his/her usage is.  Ya can't stop them, I tells ya!
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:28 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> >
> > Not quite. A shrapnel shell, or "spherical case shot," was a hollow shell
> > filled with round balls that were dispersed when a burster charge blew
> the
> > shell apart. Shrapnel shells became obsolete during WWI when they were
> > replaced with the modern high-explosive fragmentation shell. With the new
> > weapon, the casing fragmented and the shards caused the casualties. The
> > high-explosive shells were easier and cheaper to manufacture, more
> > reliable,
> > and carried a larger explosive charge, so they were more effective. By
> 1940
> > and WWII, the original shrapnel shells were long gone.
> >
> > What we have here is a term for an obsolete technology being given new
> life
> > by being applied to the replacement technology. We still "dial" a phone
> > number and "cc" emails; the same thing happened with anti-personnel
> > weapons.
> >
> > So if you really want to get pedantic and technical, shrapnel hasn't
> > existed
> > anywhere, other than museums, for nearly a century.
> >
> > Next up: calling your rifle a "gun."
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> > Of
> > Robin Hamilton
> > Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 3:46 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: semantic shift: "shrapnel"
> >
> > > Most changes in language come from sloppy usage, yes? Or is that too
> > > prescriptive a point of view? The word they want in those reports is
> > > "shards". Shrapnel comes from weaponry. Or at least it did... up until
> > > now...
> >
> >         [SNIP]
> >
> > > DAD
> >
> > Actually, it's worse than that -- the rot set in in 1940.  The correct
> > meaning of "shrapnel", as the OED points out, is: "1. A hollow projectile
> > [sic]containing bullets and a small bursting charge, which, when fired by
> > the time fuse, bursts the shell and scatters the bullets in a shower."
> >
> > This perfectly correct usage persisted from 1806 until 1940, when the
> term
> > was quite illicitly extended from the shell itself to the fragments
> > contained in it or projected from it.
> >
> > The subsequent shift to refer to scattered showers of destructive shards
> > produced by any explosion simply further extends this corruption of the
> > original usage.
> >
> > Myself, I blame the Great Patriotic War -- language has been going
> downhill
> > ever since then.
> >
> > Robin
> >
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