RAAF Derrick Trucks

[Lang]

Richard,

I think we are getting in to navel gazing on this nomenclature. I reckon the bottom line is, the Brits named things and wrote their manuals with their language usage along with such weird (to the rest of the world) "accumulators, stranglers and dynamos" for batteries, chokes and generators. Just like we think an accumulator is a rich man and you thought back in the 40's battery was a criminal offence while we thought the same for stranglers.

A number of Australian versions of military vehicle manuals have a translation page with Australian, British and American columns for the names of various parts of a vehicle. It runs into dozens of items with Australian general usage being split halfway between British and American terms.

The only time you will hear Derrick here is in reference to boats, historic railway station cranes and sometimes high rise tower cranes are formally referred to correctly as derrick cranes.

I think "Derrick in and Derrick out" for raising and lowering a boom - sorry jib -is not a sustainable description for current use. Nearly all cranes now have extensions and unless we use "Erect and Flacid" for booms extended and retracted the terms "In and Out" must be sensibly used for the extension function and "Raising and Lowering" the boom used in their proper sense also.

The main thing is the people using the gear know what it means and even if the manuals used a Russian term for the equipment everyone would know what it was very quickly from common usage. How many M1's are there in the American system referring to equipment ranging from rifles, signal equipment, food processors to trucks. Nobody says "Private, wash the M1 Rotary potato peeler, 4 horsepower, portable" the cook will know from usage what the sergeant meant when he says "Private, wash the M1".

I will see you all at the Pedantics Anonymous meeting at 4.33 and 23 seconds at the town hall.

Lang