Assume v. Presume

[af123]

A cog is also short for a cogwheel.

I work and have worked with a lot of engineers and I dare say that none of them would recognise the contraction. I think it's language creep from people placing their own interpretation on common phrases like "small cog in big machine" and "just another cog in..."

I accept that language is changing but the point of this thread is surely to attempt to preserve some standards consarn it!



Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.

 

[af123]

A cog railway is a rack and pinion railway.

Makes sense, the cogs provide the traction against the pinion.

I can accept "cog railway" as a synonym for "toothed railway".

 

[Brian]

Makes sense, the cogs provide the traction against the pinion.

In this case, the cog(wheel) is the pinion.

 

[Wallace]

That is a matter of (o) pinion.

 

[Brian]

That is a matter of (o) pinion.

Don't you start.

 

[Trev]

Isn't gear something you smoke? Or am I on the wrong track?

 

[Brian]

Isn't gear something you smoke? Or am I on the wrong track?

It gets worse.Although we are in the correct thread for this sort of nonsense.

 

[Deleted member 473]

It gets worse.Although we are in the correct thread for this sort of nonsense.

Don't try to worm your way out of this. Wheel notice if you try to shaft our fun. We don't like being piston. Oil get me 'at now.

 

[Deleted member 473]

"i before e except after c"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00A7OMYLM/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title

 

[Trev]

There are so many exceptions to that 'rule', it is no longer a 'rule'. However, it should have worked in the point in question.

 

[Deleted member 473]

There are so many exceptions to that 'rule', it is no longer a 'rule'. However, it should have worked in the point in question.

 

[Black Hole]

Fry is an idiot.

The problem is that the rule is never quoted in full:

First clause: "I before E except after C"

Second clause: "Unless sounding like A as in neighbour and weigh"

There then follows a third clause of exceptions to the above that I can't remember off hand. There was nothing wrong with the rule as a guide, as long as it is the whole rule and not an abbreviated part of it. Schools take note! Obviously words that have migrated in from foreign languages are not subject to this rule.

 

[Deleted member 473]

First clause: "I before E except after C"

Second clause: "Unless sounding like A as in neighbour and weigh"

When it sounds like ee is better, but how many words conform and how many are exceptions then? Who knows?

 

[Deleted member 473]

A weird foreigner neither seizes leisure nor forfeits height, being either a sovereign sheik or counterfeit geisha

(Not my own work!)

http://www.steve.wagar.com/ibeforee.htm

See the poem and excerpt from New Yorker towards the end.

 

[Ezra Pound]

People who call gears cogs... particularly when they are engineers!

I think this has come about because of a lack of single word alternative, if we say we are talking about a toothed wheel, then a cog is a part of a toothed wheel, a gear is often defined as a set of toothed wheels, so you have to use either cog-wheel or gearwheel, both of these appear to be two words when spoken. I would confess to using cog (even though it is incorrect), rather than toothed wheel, cog-wheel or gearwheel

 

[Deleted member 473]

I think this has come about because of a lack of single word alternative, if we say we are talking about a toothed wheel, then a cog is a part of a toothed wheel, a gear is often defined as a set of toothed wheels, so you have to use either cog-wheel or gearwheel, both of these appear to be two words when spoken. I would confess to using cog (even though it is incorrect), rather than toothed wheel, cog-wheel or gearwheel

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define+cog&oq=define+cog

Funny how they give tooth as a synonym but not gear, given their first definition.

 

[gomezz]

I would call a set of cogs a gear-train.

 

[Deleted member 473]

I would call a set of cogs a gear-train.

Uh?

 

[Deleted member 473]

"for hardworking people"

Please! That is not a word! Is Osborne a softworking person? Or even a softworkingperson? Nice to see German constructs at work in our German hating party.

This one got it almost right, though:

 

[Trev]

It's not that they didn't have enough space to get it right.