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What's in a name?
by George Wilmot
Senior Lecturein Transport Studies, University of London.
IN this age of fine sounding titles for the professions and pseudo-professions together with professional sub-divisions plus a whole range of other occupations, it is strange that there is no term for a person skilled and qualified in transport operation management. Surveyors, town planners, traffic engineers and accountants have widely recognized titles, names which are fully anderstood, even though some of these are 3f quite recent development. Those whose lobby interest is involved in tracing old -ailways, tramways or Edwardian buses lave now adopted the term "industrial trchaeologist", a title which has now 'eceived widespread acceptance. Stamp :ollectors, whether on a professional or tmateur level, are philatelists and even clock nakers are called horologists.
Chief officials of organizations, including >rofessional bodies and trade associations rave steadily made their titles grander. rom secretary to general secretary through ecretary-general to director is the normal Irogression. And so one could go on....
Yet, the only accepted terms in road ransport make a weak quartet — public aulier, own-account operator, busman and eet engineer. None of these is satisfactory ad certainly confers no status on those olding management positions. A public aulier could be construed as someone arting people around, an "operator" terally refers to any worker and often
specifically to a machinist in a factory. "Busman" in no way differentiates between platform staff and senior management. "Fleet engineer" is more satisfactory but here again those outside the industry will probably place a naval connotation on the word.
Mr Arthur Beckenham, the director of education and training at the Chartered Institute of Transport, has, rightly, been giving this matter a good deal of thought as evidenced in a recent paper entitled "Transport and Professionalism" which he has given to a number of CIT sections. Mr Beckenham stressed the point that if professionalism in transport is to become a reality then it obviously follows that a suitable word must be found. Curiously, little recent thought has been given to this aspect at a time when more voices are being raised about the need for transport management to develop into a profession.
The Report of the Special Committee which looked at the Institute's examination structure and its general future development did, in fact, make a strong suggestion that a qualified transport manager should be called a "transportant-. The name has not caught on, but the Chartered Institute has hardly pushed the idea and until Mr Beckenham's paper scarcely a whisper had been heard about transportants. Curiously enough, in New Zealand the name has caught on rapidly and is becoming established and
accepted by the public at large.
Is "transportant" the right word? Certainly it is better than some of the other terms Mr Beckenham tossed forth for the sake of argument, like "transporter" (which clearly sounds like a vehicle rather than a person) or "transportologist" which has too many syllalbles. "Transportationist" might be better if it were shortened to "transportist".
I cannot abide the word "transportation" — it is simply a pompous and facile attempt to make the word transport appear more important; further, an old dictionary will give the definition as "the movement of felons to Australia". Little alternative progress can be made through the word "distribution", since "distributor" has a flavour of general marketing while "distributant" or "distributist" are no improvement on those with a transport root.
Words from "traction" bring forth the obviously unacceptable "tractor" but "tractist" is a possible, although it could be confused with that nineteenth century religious movement called the Tractarians.
After a brain spraining session, I can think of no better word than "transportant" or "transportist". Yet they both look and sound uninspired and unimaginative. I am sure readers could suggest something better which would catch on quickly. A quick flash of inspiration is needed like the person who coined the term "journalist".