tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post8718975768348672719..comments2023-10-01T09:35:35.894+02:00Comments on Antipodes: It's a small spy worldWilliam Skyvingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052367756561555096noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post-54277067138490792322009-03-10T00:07:00.000+01:002009-03-10T00:07:00.000+01:00Well now: I think you are referring to "brazing" a...Well now: I think you are referring to "brazing" are you not? This of course is where e.g. steel is joined using a brass filler. Used a lot when bicycle frames had lugs which provided the necessary area for the braze to work - one cannot butt "weld" using braze. In fact where there is sufficient area, a brazed joint would be stronger than mild steel. Again like soldering, a different metal is used as a sort of adhesive. Nickel-bronze rods have been used in race-car fabrication since the lower temperatures employed minimise risks of distortion and also cracking where such alloy steels as 4130 are used.<BR/><BR/>Incidentally I had a lovely book, originally French that was first published in 1913. It was called "Autogenous Welding" and was produced by the "Soudogaz" company. It seems that oxy-acetylene welding was invented by the French about 1904. The book had many splendid photographs of proud French artisans holding extraordinary pieces of welding and fabrication work. Of course most of them had magnificent moustaches!Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607706475235226890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post-28996708321414952072009-03-08T22:50:00.000+01:002009-03-08T22:50:00.000+01:00Paul:In correct French, the verb "to weld" is soud...Paul:<BR/><BR/>In correct French, the verb "to weld" is <B><I>souder</I></B>, whereas the verb "to solder" is <B><I>braser</I></B>. I've found that many craftsmen respect this usage. The two processes, welding and soldering, are designated as <B><I>du soudage</I></B> and <B><I>du brasage</I></B>. The resulting joints are designated as <B><I>une soudure</I></B> and <B><I>une brasure</I></B>.<BR/><BR/>It's true that, in French, the verb <B><I>souder</I></B> is often used loosely in place of <B><I>braser</I></B> to designate what is called soldering in English. In fact, it's the English term that's wrong! The English verb "to solder", derived from the French <B><I>souder</I></B>, should have designated the solidification process that we refer to as "welding". Instead, the English verb "to solder" was applied incorrectly to the process that consists of melting so-called "solder" in order to fasten copper wires. When my father showed me how to build a made-to-measure racing-cycle frame, he always used the correct English terminology to designate the process for joining the tubes. They were <B><I>brazed joints</I></B>.William Skyvingtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052367756561555096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post-45826922272221928282009-03-08T19:13:00.000+01:002009-03-08T19:13:00.000+01:00William,You wrote "In fact, common usage in the pa...William,<BR/><BR/>You wrote "In fact, common usage in the past often failed to distinguish between three specific technologies: telegraphy, telephony and radio."<BR/><BR/>One example in French, that I find particularly irritating is that the French use the same word (souder) for both soldering and welding. This is insane as the techniques are totally different. Of course in English we sometimes use the word "welt" meaning to hammer, which of course is the origin of welding which was achieved by hammering white-hot pieces metal until they fused. Such and approach would hardly work with soldering!<BR/><BR/>As for "wireless" well I found it interesting that the word was rediscovered since for use with computers the word "radio" would not be quite correct. A rare instance of precision in today's use of language I think.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607706475235226890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post-31205975106047571412009-03-01T10:04:00.000+01:002009-03-01T10:04:00.000+01:00When I was a kid in Australia, the "why-less" was ...When I was a kid in Australia, the "why-less" was the magic box on the sideboard that emitted speech and music. That name competed with "radio" up until they both got replaced by "transistor", meaning a miniature why-less. Maybe we realized vaguely that, in a why-less, there were effectively less wires than in some more archaic communications device. As a child, I had no firm idea of what this earlier device, with wires, actually looked like. Maybe it was some kind of complicated telephone service, because the latter used miles of wires strung up on poles... and my Internet still reaches me at Gamone in this way. I had heard people talking about "getting a wire" in the case of dramatic news about accidents and deaths, so I realized that communications were based mysteriously upon the same kind of stuff (no doubt without the barbs) that we used to keep our horses and cattle from strolling away. Britain's poet laureate Alfred Austin [1835-1913] produced an excellent technical summary concerning the communication of news about the terminally-ill King Edward VII: <BR/><BR/><I>Along the wire, th'electric message came:<BR/>He is no worse, he's very much the same.</I><BR/><BR/>Maybe "electric message" was poet-laureate talk designating a simple phone call. At the local post office in South Grafton, I saw an employee clicking away on a small device in Morse code, and I was told that this had something to do with this whole domain of wires, phones and why-lesses. It was all quite confusing...<BR/><BR/>In old-fashioned French usage, a radio receiver used to be referred to (and still is, among oldies) as a TSF.<BR/><BR/>In fact, common usage in the past often failed to distinguish between three specific technologies: <B>telegraphy</B>, <B>telephony</B> and <B>radio</B>.<BR/><BR/>These days, we have a new term that is no less mysterious than why-less: <B>wi-fi</B>. The term "why-less" seemed to say: "Be modern! Why settle for less?" The expression "why-figh" seems to ask us: "Why fight with wires? Why cry about messy connections?" Here's a WiKi definition:<BR/><BR/><I>The term "Wi-Fi" suggests "Wireless Fidelity", comparing with the long-established audio recording term "High Fidelity" or "Hi-Fi", and "Wireless Fidelity" has often been used in an informal way, even by the Wi-Fi Alliance itself, but officially the term does not mean anything.</I><BR/><BR/>Confusionless, no?William Skyvingtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052367756561555096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627322010786735293.post-21906478068235356812009-02-28T19:33:00.000+01:002009-02-28T19:33:00.000+01:00Thank you William for this. I too watched the pro...Thank you William for this. I too watched the programme, but my execrable French prevented me from deriving anything like full value from it; you have "filled the gap" so to speak. As for CSF, surely the translation would be "Wireless telegraphy"?Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607706475235226890noreply@blogger.com