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Is there word and dictionary entry for this? I thought it was called a jig, but apparently not. Edit : By the way, pump car and jigger car are not in the dictionary.
Last edited by Homo Loquens; 12/10/05 06:13 AM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Teacher, teacher, ME! ME!
That one's way too easy. It's a handcar. One word, not two.
And the three letter word you were looking for was gig, not jig. Usually pronounced like jig except when it refers to a musician's spot job.
Last edited by TEd Remington; 12/10/05 09:31 AM.
TEd
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Quote:
Teacher, teacher, ME! ME!
That one's way too easy. It's a handcar. One word, not two.
And the three letter word you were looking for was gig, not jig. Usually pronounced like jig except when it refers to a musician's spot job.
Thanks. I didn't know that.
Handcar -- a duller word than this cannot possibly be imagined -- is in my dictionary. But I do not have an entry for gig.
But while where one the subject of vehicles, does any one know what an Obeissante is?
In Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, the narrator Casaubon encounters one in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, Paris. A google search yields up the same image of a
kind of steam bus (see above).
Can anyone tell me the meaning of this word; history of this vehicle?
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Surely not this? Quote:
obeisance noun deferential respect ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [obedience] ): from Old French obeissance, from obeissant ‘obeying,’ present participle of obeir.
Edit:
Context: Casaubon is looking for somewhere to hide :
Quote:
Across from the velocipedes were cars with bodies intact, ample receptacles. Perhaps not the 1945 Panhard Dynavia, too open and narrow in its aerodynamic sleekness; but the tall 1909 Peugeot—an attic, a boudoir—was definitely worth considering. Once I was inside, deep in its leather divan, no one would suspect a thing. But the car would not be easy to get into; one of the guards was sitting on a bench directly opposite, his back to the bicycles. I pictured myself stepping onto the running board, clumsy in my fur-collared coat, while he, calves sheathed in leather leggings, doffed his visored cap and obsequiously opened the door...
I concentrated for a moment on the twelve-passenger Obeis-sante, 1872, the first French vehicle with gears. If the Peugeot was an apartment, this was a building. But there was no hope of boarding it without attracting everyone’s attention. Difficult to hide when the hiding places are pictures at an exhibition.
Last edited by Homo Loquens; 12/10/05 10:59 AM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Damn, does that look dangerous!
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Carpal Tunnel
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> en route pour 200 km jusqu’à Paris [...] Il reçu 75 contraventions sur le voyage
and we now complain about speed cameras...!
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Thanks for the link. Pity I can't read French. Does the site explain why is it called L'Obéissante ?
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Pooh-Bah
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--why
presumably because a steam engine isn't a horse
Last edited by inselpeter; 12/12/05 12:42 PM.
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fwiw, my stab would be along these lines, tho' I'm not entirely sure of a couple of the more techy aspects:
The only manufacturer of steam cars in the years from 1870 to 1890 whose work deserves to be highlighted is the French engineer Amédée Bollée. His father founded a factory in Mans in 1842.
Amédée was born in 1844. In 1867, he visited the Paris Exposition, where he saw a good number of road engines. He was already an engineer. Following that, he installed a small workshop in the family factory in 1871 where he worked every evening on his steam car, which took to the road in 1873: `The Obedient’.
It had some pretty useful innovations. Its wheels, swivelling in forks, were each independently suspended. The steering consisted of chains actuating on cams calculated to steer geometrically correctly in the tightest of curves. Its engines had two cylinders arranged in a ‘V’ of 90° and were placed in side compartments, releasing more space for the passengers. The conductor sat in the front and the driver at the rear.
On October 9, 1875, Bollée got under way for a 200 km trip to Paris. With each change of département (civil district), an official stopped him to check that the machine would not damage the roadway. He received 75 penalties on the voyage – but these had little after-effect, since Bollée had taken along the Prefect of Police in person!
‘The Obedient’ created a sensation in Paris, but no firm orders followed.
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