Language usage discussion is always interesting to me....
Sheldon wrote:
>>>"Normal" is a slippery term, subject to change as norms change. It's
>>>a bit like "ordinary" or "regular."
The slope is always slippery and almost always leads to a weakening of the
language.
We tend to clip off additional words so adjectives become nouns.
The weaker adjectives make for weaker new nouns.
>>>You still occasionally see misguided folks refer affectedly to
>>>high-wheelers as "ordinaries" even though that style of bike went out
>>>in the century before last.
A happenstance of recent High-wheeling history leads me to disagree
with you on this example. These bicycles are currently out of style, yes.
But among those who ride them the term is in common usage.
The Wheelmen are scholars, conservators, and reenactors so the term
serves well in distinguishing ordinary bicycles from safety bicycles as
it has since the mid 1880s. The Wheelmen have revived "ordinary" and
if your going to discuss these bikes you may as we be comfortable it.
The term "high-wheeler" which is better descriptive of the bicycle, is
widely used, too, of course.
"Penny-farthing" is more a Brit Commonwealth term and seems a little
strange to me when I hear it employed by a Midwesterner.
>>>I also speak of recessed mount vs external nutted mounting bolts.
Lengthy terms but useful.
>>>I'm fighting a rearguard action to try to maintain the traditional
>>>meaning of "platform pedals" but I'm not sanguine for the future, now
>>>that there's only one real platform pedal in production, the MKS GR-9.
>>>I'd like to bring back the use of "'traps" for toe clips, but nobody
>>>understands this idiom anymore, hélas.
I'd like that one revived, too.....except it doesn't seem right to say
"in your traps"instead of "in your clips"....."on your traps" is ackward.
"Clips" and "clipless" sound too much alike especially in a cross wind.
>>>I'm still standing firm in my condemnation of "brake arch" and "crank arm!"
Why?
+-----------------------------------------+ | Man invented language to satisfy his | | deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin | +-----------------------------------------+
Calvert "you'll never get me on one of those big-wheeled thingies" Guthrie
Kansas City where even the weather is bitchin'....... I think I'll air-up my English Racer..... [;-)>