[Ads-l] fail safe, antedating 1944?

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jan 26, 2021, at 12:02 PM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> FWIW, when learning the Toyota Production System in the 1990s, I remember learning three or four terms in Japanese that had evolved euphemistically to remove the implication that factory workers are idiots (there were other terms that underwent such evolution). This is shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke>. At the same time, I learned to equate English terms such as “fool/idiot-proof” and “fail-safe” as having similar values, though I don’t know if a similar evolution occurred.
> 
> The OED has 1874 for the earliest instance of “foolproof” and 1924 for “idiot-proof”. It does not have this meaning of “failsafe”. 
> 
> Benjamin Barrett (he/him/his)
> Formerly of Seattle, WA

I confess it had never previously occurred to me why we call plans foolproof, or political parties as in the first OED cite:

1874   Pittsburgh Commerc. 18 July 2/1   If the Democratic party in Indiana manages to survive the idiotic blundering of its leaders..we shall be compelled to acknowledge that it is fool-proof.

(No wonder Indiana is such a red state.) That is, unlike the case of “idiot-proof”, I had never consciously connected the adjective “fool-proof” to the noun “fool”, despite the transparency of the etymology.  More fool me.   

LH
> 
>> On 25 Jan 2021, at 10:08, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> 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/
>>> 
> 
> 
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