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What's in a name?

15th February 2007
Page 66
Page 66, 15th February 2007 — What's in a name?
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CMindulges in a little etymology

Ever wondered where the words 'truck or 'lorry' came from? We tried a little etymology (no, not bug hunting, that's entomology) to find out. The word truck originates from the Greek word ( What doesn't?Ed) trochos meaning wheel. The progression to the modern HGV was as a metonym (yes, we are just showing off this week) as the name for the wheels on big American wagons was trucks.

The first combustion engine vehicles earned the appellation motortrucks, but as time went on they became just trucks once more.

Lorry is a purely British term dating back to old horse-driven vehicles, where a low-loading trolley was called a lorry. It was originally designed for the carriage of other vehicles, such as coaches.

While our American cousins name anything bigger than a standard car a truck, the British word is specifically meant for medium and heavy vehicles.

Pickups and vans (which is a contraction of the word caravan, a 'covered vehicle') are in a separate category.

Other languages have their own adaptations of the words, such as the Malay lori and the Mexican-Spanish trace, Though troca means truck, a truck driver is called a trailero, which is, of course, an adaptation of the word trailer.

(And for those of you just dying to know, a metonym is a word substituted for another, often wider, noun it is associated with, eg calling vehicles 'wheels', workers 'hands', businessmen 'suits', etc. Aren't you glad you know that now?)

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