Slip Switch Track

Sure, so what do you call a genuine gas-electric?

It is only common sense. Which is extremely rare...

Jim Stewart

Actually, "Tin Hares", "Vulcans" and "Fiats" (later "grass-grubs"), but the time-tables called them "Railmotors" or "Railcars".

There's still molecular forces, and 100 litres of water has it's own gravitational force...

Jeff Sc Physics R Us, Ga.

Don't bother to reply via email...I've been JoeJobbed.

And thus, the answer is...................................?????

Armin Deutsch wrote the story, the Kingston Trio made it into a song. Both are true according to some sources.

...................F>

Enquiring Minds Want to Know, GA.

Those of us who reside in North America find them exceedingly useful. It is not necessary for North America and New Zealand to have identical etymological parameters. It doesn't make either group more correct or more wrong. There are always minor differences in such things. Even within the USA there are regional etymologies that differ slightly. It has to do with our enormous size and cultural diversity. New Zealand is about the same size as the states of Georgia and Alabama combined,

268,677 square kilometers for NZ and 281,451 square kilometers for GA and AL. You will find extremely little etymological differences between GA and AL, but you will find a great difference between them and Connecticut/Massachusetts, which are over a thousand miles away, yet still in the same country. Such is the nature of man. We do not speak the same English that our pre-Columbian predecessors did and our descendants will not speak the same English we do. Such is the unavoidable nature of things. English is a living language; a very highly adaptable and fluid living language that grows and changes with need and convenience. I am amused to imagine what a very prim and proper Elizabethan Englishman might have to say about the language that either you or I speak today. No doubt he would be greatly upset with the degree to which we have corrupted the language. So it is with each generation.

If by "genuine" you mean one that uses flammable gas for fuel, it would still be a gas electric. If you mean one that uses helium, it would be called a boat anchor.

Shuffling across the wool carpet on a dry winter day after a green chile burrito lunch, I might qualify.

Froggy, if you're referring to the 42 footers, they weren't "Petrol Electrics", they were "Petrol Mechanical", and later "Diesel Hydraulic".

I can imagine - you have all those idiots making up new meanings for existing words when we already have several hundred thousand of them to cover almost every possible situation.

Hey, don't go getting rude!

New Zealand spreads over 2000miles from end to end.

US english has many components that are much closer to 1776 English than the British use today. I'm not really rubbishing US english other than the very recent collection of non-logical misadditions such as "consist". oh, and "gas" for "gasoline".

There has been a massive increase in the last 20 odd years of such idiotic and non-sensical terms.

You don't see any illogicality in calling two different items by the same name?

Right, same problem they have with seeing what a 'double slip' is the logical equivalent of. Hung up on a 'set of switches' having two blades so unable to see that a 'set of switches' can have 4 blades.

Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

Froggy@The wrote: ....> Someone said that a coffee cup is a slightly deformed torus. Greg Procter said words

Well, it is often said that humans are topologically equivalent to a torus :-)

David

Perhaps, but that is stretching it a bit

Everytime that this discussion of English vs.US usage of words happens, I get reminded of a joke about the difference. An elderly English dowager is on vacation in America and in registering at a nice posh hotel and going to the room, as she is tipping the bellboy, she says "Come knock me up about 7 in the morning." Now, to an Englishman, this may be "normal' speech, but to an American, knocking somebody up is having sex with the woman and getting her pregnant! OOPTH!

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Because you were saying the term was wrong as used by *US* railways, you loon.

Hey - it's the Oxford English Dictionary which added bling-bling to the dictionary.

This is an international forum.