Comments on: A Derailed Myth, or, a Story of the Word Tram http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:01:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Tramway « Xur-Bel-Gon http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-155808 Tramway « Xur-Bel-Gon Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:00:20 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-155808 [...] Tramway By Dušan Vukotić My congratulation Mr. Liberman! [...] [...] Tramway By Dušan Vukotić My congratulation Mr. Liberman! [...]

]]> By: Tramway « Etymology http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-155806 Tramway « Etymology Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:12:49 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-155806 [...] Tramway My congratulation Mr. Liberman! [...] [...] Tramway My congratulation Mr. Liberman! [...]

]]> By: Dušan Vukotić http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-153130 Dušan Vukotić Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:50:02 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-153130 My congratulation Mr. Liberman! I haven't read anything more inspiring for a long time (at least as far as etymology is in question) and I am really sorry I haven't seen your amazingly good articles earlier. It is your fault that I started to write an essay on the subject of "tram-way". :-) If you have time, please, visit the link bellow http://vukotic.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/xribelung/ My congratulation Mr. Liberman!

I haven’t read anything more inspiring for a long time (at least as far as etymology is in question) and I am really sorry I haven’t seen your amazingly good articles earlier.

It is your fault that I started to write an essay on the subject of “tram-way”. :-)
If you have time, please, visit the link bellow

http://vukotic.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/xribelung/

]]> By: Terry Collmann http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-153033 Terry Collmann Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:46:06 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-153033 "For example, if a restaurant goes out of business and a liquor store replaces it, the newspaper will say: “Something Is Brewing Again.”" Sorry, Anatoly, that's a classic example of a non-newspaperperson's idea of a punning newspaper headline, and no real headline writer would ever write anything like that. A headline on a liquor store opening would be, for example, "Let bottle commence". “For example, if a restaurant goes out of business and a liquor store replaces it, the newspaper will say: “Something Is Brewing Again.””

Sorry, Anatoly, that’s a classic example of a non-newspaperperson’s idea of a punning newspaper headline, and no real headline writer would ever write anything like that. A headline on a liquor store opening would be, for example, “Let bottle commence”.

]]> By: J P Maher http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-152887 J P Maher Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:14:19 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-152887 Tennessee Williams eternalized the "Street Car Named Desire", which is probably the reason people outside the USA know the term at all. Professor Liberman is right about the disappearance of the street car – in America. Just last Sunday I rode with my sons and grandson on one, at the Illinois Railway Museum, an hour’s drive west of Chicago. It ran from Evanston IL to Wilmette until 1964. I myself first saw a street car when my dad took me for my thirteenth birthday to New York City in 1946. Way out by the Bronx Zoo, one line was still running. It seemed like a museum piece. In my hometown the bus had displaced street cars by the time I was born. Their floruit had been brief. (Binghamton NY and Leningrad were among the first cities to build electric railways.) However I’ve ridden this means of transport runs in Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, Zurich and elsewhere. Rolling stock (except in Athens 1998) is quite modern. The question is seldom raised, however, why American say “street” in street car at all. It was to distinguish urban from rural transport. In British railroading the phrase “train of carriages” was used; in English America the phrase was the “train of cars”. So, a street car was one for city streets, not the wide open spaces. On both sides of the Ditch though the phrase was truncated to “the train”. In Yankee America some railroad crossings still have the warning sign LOOK OUT FOR THE CARS. I shot a photograph of one of the old signs in 1959 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Google Image searches lack evidence of these signs, but the phrase lingers on. Sometimes the alert and curious ask about this, since for today’s Americans “cars” are automobiles. For my Irish relatives even into the 1960s a “car” was a pony trap – cart, that is. William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the first English authors to write about rail transport used both terms, “railroad” and “railway”. Ooops, should have added good post! Waiting on your next post! Tennessee Williams eternalized the “Street Car Named Desire”, which is probably the reason people outside the USA know the term at all. Professor Liberman is right about the disappearance of the street car – in America. Just last Sunday I rode with my sons and grandson on one, at the Illinois Railway Museum, an hour’s drive west of Chicago. It ran from Evanston IL to Wilmette until 1964. I myself first saw a street car when my dad took me for my thirteenth birthday to New York City in 1946. Way out by the Bronx Zoo, one line was still running. It seemed like a museum piece. In my hometown the bus had displaced street cars by the time I was born. Their floruit had been brief. (Binghamton NY and Leningrad were among the first cities to build electric railways.) However I’ve ridden this means of transport runs in Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, Zurich and elsewhere. Rolling stock (except in Athens 1998) is quite modern. The question is seldom raised, however, why American say “street” in street car at all. It was to distinguish urban from rural transport. In British railroading the phrase “train of carriages” was used; in English America the phrase was the “train of cars”. So, a street car was one for city streets, not the wide open spaces. On both sides of the Ditch though the phrase was truncated to “the train”. In Yankee America some railroad crossings still have the warning sign LOOK OUT FOR THE CARS. I shot a photograph of one of the old signs in 1959 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Google Image searches lack evidence of these signs, but the phrase lingers on. Sometimes the alert and curious ask about this, since for today’s Americans “cars” are automobiles. For my Irish relatives even into the 1960s a “car” was a pony trap – cart, that is. William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the first English authors to write about rail transport used both terms, “railroad” and “railway”.
Ooops, should have added good post! Waiting on your next post!

]]> By: J P Maher http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-152882 J P Maher Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:40:15 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-152882 Tennessee Williams eternalized the "Street Car Named Desire", which is probably the reason people outside the USA know the term at all. Professor Liberman is right about the disappearance of the street car – in America. Just last Sunday I rode with my sons and grandson on one, at the Illinois Railway Museum, an hour’s drive west of Chicago. It ran from Evanston IL to Wilmette until 1964. I myself first saw a street car when my dad took me for my thirteenth birthday to New York City in 1946. Way out by the Bronx Zoo, one line was still running. It seemed like a museum piece. In my hometown the bus had displaced street cars by the time I was born. Their floruit had been brief. (Binghamton NY and Leningrad were among the first cities to build electric railways.) However I’ve ridden this means of transport runs in Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, Zurich and elsewhere. Rolling stock (except in Athens 1998) is quite modern. The question is seldom raised, however, why American say “street” in street car at all. It was to distinguish urban from rural transport. In British railroading the phrase “train of carriages” was used; in English America the phrase was the “train of cars”. So, a street car was one for city streets, not the wide open spaces. On both sides of the Ditch though the phrase was truncated to “the train”. In Yankee America some railroad crossings still have the warning sign LOOK OUT FOR THE CARS. I shot a photograph of one of the old signs in 1959 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Google Image searches lack evidence of these signs, but the phrase lingers on. Sometimes the alert and curious ask about this, since for today’s Americans “cars” are automobiles. For my Irish relatives even into the 1960s a “car” was a pony trap – cart, that is. William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the first English authors to write about rail transport used both terms, “railroad” and “railway”. Tennessee Williams eternalized the “Street Car Named Desire”, which is probably the reason people outside the USA know the term at all. Professor Liberman is right about the disappearance of the street car – in America. Just last Sunday I rode with my sons and grandson on one, at the Illinois Railway Museum, an hour’s drive west of Chicago. It ran from Evanston IL to Wilmette until 1964. I myself first saw a street car when my dad took me for my thirteenth birthday to New York City in 1946. Way out by the Bronx Zoo, one line was still running. It seemed like a museum piece. In my hometown the bus had displaced street cars by the time I was born. Their floruit had been brief. (Binghamton NY and Leningrad were among the first cities to build electric railways.) However I’ve ridden this means of transport runs in Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, Zurich and elsewhere. Rolling stock (except in Athens 1998) is quite modern. The question is seldom raised, however, why American say “street” in street car at all. It was to distinguish urban from rural transport. In British railroading the phrase “train of carriages” was used; in English America the phrase was the “train of cars”. So, a street car was one for city streets, not the wide open spaces. On both sides of the Ditch though the phrase was truncated to “the train”. In Yankee America some railroad crossings still have the warning sign LOOK OUT FOR THE CARS. I shot a photograph of one of the old signs in 1959 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Google Image searches lack evidence of these signs, but the phrase lingers on. Sometimes the alert and curious ask about this, since for today’s Americans “cars” are automobiles. For my Irish relatives even into the 1960s a “car” was a pony trap – cart, that is. William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the first English authors to write about rail transport used both terms, “railroad” and “railway”.

]]> By: Stephen Goranson http://blog.oup.com/2009/08/tram/#comment-152879 Stephen Goranson Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:56:55 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=5105#comment-152879 The Smiles biography of Stephenson was serialized in The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal; the claimed connection of Outram (here given as William) and tram is on p. 68, March 1849 issue. The claim is linked by footnote to a book (unavailable to me) published in 1825. The Smiles biography of Stephenson was serialized in The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal; the claimed connection of Outram (here given as William) and tram is on p. 68, March 1849 issue. The claim is linked by footnote to a book (unavailable to me) published in 1825.

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