[Ads-l] cockpit (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Dan Goncharoff]

Regarding the last item, I believe cockpit was the naval term used to refer
to the holding area for injured sailors during an engagement. Over time,
cockpits became operating theaters aboard ship.

On Fri, Apr 5, 2019, 12:06 PM MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY FUTURES
COMMAND (USA) <0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> 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
>

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