JEEP again

[Victor Steinbok]

  On 9/23/2010 10:14 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ...
> IIRC, the 1/2-ton "jeep" was designed and manufactured by Dodge. It was
> commonly used in armored units (cf. previous paragraph); in such cases the
> 1/4-ton "jeep" was sometimes referred to as a "peep" or, very rarely, a
> "beep."
> ...

Whoa!!! This /significantly/ changes the narrative and makes my quiet
searches for an alternative explanation more relevant. I initially
suspected that the name might have been a corruption of another and
started looking for other variations that looked/sounded like "jeep".
GP, JP, JEP and most of the other variations proved fruitless--and with
good reason. But I did come across several items where something was
named "geep" because of the sound it made. I took temporary stock of
such occurrences, although I failed to record them (but I know where to
find them). Since I limited my search to pre-1940 GB, the relevant hits
are all from the end of 19th century to pre-WWI period (with a big
interwar gap, but I scarcely went through half of the 1000 or so hits).
I am not suggesting that any of those were the actual /source/ for the
name, but rather they illustrate the possibility that the vehicle might
have been named for one of the unusual noises it made, perhaps the horn.
The fact that "peep" and "beep" were viable alternatives suggests that
this may be more than a thumb-sticking theory.

  As I said, the "geep" finds are not directly relevant, but if anyone
wants them, just in case, I'll dig them up. On a somewhat related note,
most of the parallel hits for "geep" would have the [g] rather than the
[j] pronunciation, as they appear in mock-German/Dutch/Yiddish-accented
dialogue where you would normally find "keep". But when it comes to
imitative sounds, [j] makes more sense.

     VS-)

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