Monday, July 29, 2019
Airships
In radio shows and short movie serials from the '30s, flying machines are always called airships or just ships. This is especially noticeable in adventure serials focused on flying, but also shows up in other contexts. For instance, an Ex-Lax ad in a 1940 'Strange as it Seems' episode compares the regularity of Ex-Lax to the scheduling of airships. "You know the Chicago ship will arrive at 3:45." [Pun intended? Probably not. Dirty words weren't at the front of most minds in those days.]
By the '50s, airship was entirely absent, replaced by airplane. Did this happen during WW2? The Google ngram thingie answers the question nicely.
Just after Pearl Harbor, both airplane and aircraft replace airship. Later on, airplane fades out in favor of aircraft.
The change is so sudden that I wonder if media received an official order.
= = = = =
A pretty good marker for the transition point is the 1940 non-interventionist spy serial K-7. All flying machines are airplanes or planes. The transition comes in especially handy in this episode about bombing planes stowed on ships.
Agent Pat shouts:
"Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also planes aboard the other ship!"
This would have been tricky in the previous vocabulary....
Pat: "Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also ships aboard the other ship!"
Z: "I'm sorry, Pat, your message is ambiguous. Could you elucidate?"
Pat: "There are also vehicles which rise from the ground using the Bernoulli Principle aboard the other vehicle which floats on the surface of the ocean using buoyancy!"
Z: "Too late, it already exploded."
Just after Pearl Harbor, both airplane and aircraft replace airship. Later on, airplane fades out in favor of aircraft.
The change is so sudden that I wonder if media received an official order.
= = = = =
A pretty good marker for the transition point is the 1940 non-interventionist spy serial K-7. All flying machines are airplanes or planes. The transition comes in especially handy in this episode about bombing planes stowed on ships.
Agent Pat shouts:
"Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also planes aboard the other ship!"
This would have been tricky in the previous vocabulary....
Pat: "Agent Z! Agent Z! There are also ships aboard the other ship!"
Z: "I'm sorry, Pat, your message is ambiguous. Could you elucidate?"
Pat: "There are also vehicles which rise from the ground using the Bernoulli Principle aboard the other vehicle which floats on the surface of the ocean using buoyancy!"
Z: "Too late, it already exploded."
Labels: Asked and answered, Language update
¶ 1:26 AM
