When did it become "safety deposit box" rather than "safe deposit box"? I am very old, and in my youth it was always "safe deposit". I think usage may have elided the "safe" with the "dee" syllable in "deposit". Then it began to be written that way. (It really annoys me!)

WELCOME, SUZ


Where I bank it is "safe deposit", but at another where
I do banking for another person, it is 'safety deposit"
So, six of one and half dozen of another, as it were.

Well, "safety deposit vault" has been around since 1892.

I haven't been around QUITE that long, but the first time I remember reading it as "safety" instead of "safe" wasn't until some time in the 50s or 60s. I thought at the time that someone had misheard the phrase & so misspelled it. Where did you get the citation from the 1800s?

Perhaps the difference could be regional??

Suz

It's in the OED, the quote is Twain's:

1892 ‘M. Twain’ Lett. to Publishers (1967) 304 As fast as Halsey delivers the securities to you I want you to put them in a box in a Safety Deposit Vault, and keep the key yourself.

..and if you were to plug the entire quote given above into Google Books, you would find the entire context from Mark Twain's letters.

Welcome aBoard, suz! That one hasn't bothered me, but I thought today during a newscast about our flooding, "Thank heaven the guy did NOT say 'preventative' ". Argh.

You have certainly declarated your feelings on THAT subject!

ask her about orientate!

:¬ )

oops....I'm guilty of that one

Watching parts of the Royal Wedding I noticed some
commentators, when referring to Elizabeth II, say
she was "coronated" back in 1952. I've never heard the
term used thusly. I thought it was "crowned". Is
"coronated" usable?

Since 1623, according to Merriam-Webster.

Handel, the Coronation Anthems:

YouTube

So I see looking into M-W. We have so few of them (coronations) around here that I had never heard the term. We use "crowned".

Or, I suppose, kinged, if you're a checkers player.

I did see a number of folks wearing "Burger King" paper hats
along the royal route in London.