Technical Terms from the Past
Sunday, September 30th, 2012 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniIn yesterday's blog post, I may have mentioned in passing the Dummy Railroad, which once served Old Orchard Beach, Ocean Park, and Camp Ellis during the summer months.
Jean, the Harmon Museum curator, said that it was called the Dummy Railroad for two reasons, but usually she only told people the first -- which was that the local joke was the train was "too dumb" to turn around, and had to back from Camp Ellis to the Old Orchard station on its return trip. In reality, there wasn't any room at Camp Ellis to build either a turntable, or lay a loop track so the engine could be "correctly" at the front of the train on the return trip.
The second reason for this particular nickname, the Dummy Railroad, is that the engine was steam-powered and ran so quietly that people couldn't hear it; that it was, in essence, and compared to, say, the big, noisy engines of the Boston and Maine Railroad, a "dumb" engine.
She then went on to explain that, back in the day, people had used to say of those who had no hearing and who could not vocalize, that they were "deaf and dumb." And she added something to the effect that this had been a terrible thing to say.
But..."deaf and dumb" or simply "dumb" had been, back in the day, a technical term -- a diagnosis. Yes, it's fallen out of favor, and no, we don't hear it much anymore, except, maybe from grandparents. But "dumb" means, "can't talk." That's why we say "dumb animals" -- not because animals are stupid.
It gets a little tricky, when technical words from the past collide with our present-day sensibilities, and Jean's discussion reminded me of the folks in upstate New York who want to abolish all the things called "Kills" in their area, because kill is horrible and bloody and What Are We Teaching Our Children? It hasn't seemed to occur to any of those horrified that We Could Be Teaching Our Children that the area was settled by the Dutch and that the Dutch word for "river" or "stream" is "kill."
So, anyway.
It's raining, and I have words to write. I love it when a plan comes together.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 03:44 pm (UTC)(Moi? Never!)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:41 pm (UTC)Jim, are you and/or Mr. Burton going to be at the Bangor Book Festival?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:48 pm (UTC)kill, kill, kill
Date: 2012-09-30 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 10:32 pm (UTC)We Could Be Teaching Our Children
Date: 2012-09-30 10:51 pm (UTC)In Nashua, NH BAE Systems tries every so often to get the name of the road the company is on changed from Spit Brook Road to something else because it is not dignified enough for them. Yes, they've been told it refers to a geographical feature. They don't care.
Questions
Date: 2012-10-01 02:22 am (UTC)child would not be a sequel to Dragon Ship and that there would be new characters .....New characters from which......? I noticed that the cover seems very similar to that of Ghost Ship being Bechimo and Theo.
Answer, Question
Date: 2012-10-01 02:26 am (UTC)Discombobulated....sorry
Date: 2012-10-01 02:37 am (UTC)Am looking forward to the Carousel sequels too. I wish that paper book publishing didn't take so long.
Re: Discombobulated....sorry
Date: 2012-10-01 06:45 am (UTC)Re: Discombobulated....sorry
Date: 2012-10-01 12:08 pm (UTC)Necessity's Child, which is NOT a sequel to anything, actually, though it takes place on Surebleak and involves Korval, was originally scheduled for May 2013, then put up to February 2013.
Uncle Hugo's is right now taking preorders for the signed edition of Necessity's Child, here (http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/ah-lee-miller.php)
I'm not sure about what excerpt you found where. As far as I know, the eArc isn't due out until the end of this month (October), so it can't have been pirated yet.
There are three iterations of the cover art (rough, final, and final cover) here (http://pinterest.com/rolanni/lee-miller-book-covers/)
Re: Discombobulated....sorry
Date: 2012-10-01 01:54 pm (UTC)Sam
Re: Discombobulated....sorry
Date: 2012-10-01 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 03:01 pm (UTC)