[Ads-l] more anachronyms

[James Landau]

In the paragraph on "stormtrooper" (one word or two?) "good squad" was a typo for "goon squad".

The paragraph on "Gatling gun" was incomplete.  It should have read "GATLING GUN     Invented by Richard Gatling for the US Civil War and sporadically used during the rest of the 19th century.  It consisted of multiple barrels that rotated around a central pivot, with the barrel reaching firing position being the one fired while the rest of the barrels were being loaded by machinery.  By the 20th century "Gatling gun" was used only to refer to the obsolete weapon, replaced by single-barrel maching guns .  However, in the later 20th Century the term reemerged; the idea behind the Gatling gun was used for high-rate-of-fire aircraft guns that had multiple barrels, one of which fired while the others were reloading."

BATTLESHIP  back in sailing ship days the largest warship was the "ship of the line" sometimes called the "line of battle ship".  In the late 19th Century, after sailing warships were no longer used, the word "battleship" was used to mean a large warship that was heavily armored and carried the largest guns.  (A warship carrying guns like those of a battle ship but with less armor was a "battle cruiser".)    However, careless reporters are getting into the habit of referring to any armed warship as a "battleship", thus committing an amachronym.

GUNG HO  this one is interesting: a bilingual anachronym.  The original was the Communist Chinese phrase Zhongguo Gongye Hezuo She,  meaning "Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society.  Evans Carlson, who introduced "Gung Ho" into English, said it meant "Work Together!"  It quickly changed meaning to "extremely or overly zealous or enthusisatic."

James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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