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Re: [TR] A rose by any other name? (A bit of Standard Triumph history fo

To: "'Don Hiscock'" <don.hiscock@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [TR] A rose by any other name? (A bit of Standard Triumph history for them wots interested)
From: "John Macartney" <john.macartney@ukpips.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 16:32:00 -0000
Cc: 'Triumphs' <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Delivered-to: mharc@autox.team.net
Delivered-to: triumphs@autox.team.net
References: <008001d0269a$90d0b380$b2721a80$@ukpips.org.uk> <CAPK7CFB1ApK_fDffTRXTiWADRAKyEigj6T194c6P-XQBshB+OA@mail.gmail.com>
Thread-index: AQF2qqnbes7n0/LyHJ1SlfVsxDlIcgJ/MJqUnUv0mvA=
Thanks, Don - and to anyone else who found my little dissertation of interest.

Just returned from taking the dogs for a walk and something triggered a doubt 
about the correct terminologies. In fact, the company still hadn't got it right 
with the French and I checked Dad's reports again. The term "Eclairage" for 
lighting wasn't a good translation either. Currently, the French use that word 
for lighting as one might find in a home and it certainly means 'lightning' in 
its true sense - and that's probably a misnomer for products out of Lucas :)

The correct term for lights on the switch face should have been 'Lanternes'.  
There are still many places in the French speaking parts of Europe where at the 
entrance to a road tunnel you'll see the warning sign "Allumez vos lanternes". 
Allumer is the verb to ignite and allumage is ignition in an automotive sense. 
Therefore "ignite your lanterns" for a car with Lucas electrics would be a 
precisely apt term, assuming of course you happen to have a box of matches and 
the tool for trimming the wick about your person at the time :)

Jonmac

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Hiscock [mailto:don.hiscock@gmail.com] 
Sent: 02 January 2015 14:54
To: John Macartney
Cc: Triumphs
Subject: Re: [TR] A rose by any other name? (A bit of Standard Triumph history 
for them wots interested)

John, your recollections are always a delight.  Keep 'em coming!

Don



        Hi, List
        
        Over the Christmas and New Year break, Liz and I have been busy going
        through our possessions. We're 'downsizing' home-wise and too much of 
the
        stuff "that'll come in useful one day" has had to be reviewed. As you 
can
        imagine, as someone who spent a lifetime in the UK auto industry, I've
        managed to accumulate quite a lot of "come in useful one day" items. 
Dec 26
        saw me making a start on evaluating several thousand 35mm colour slides 
of
        vacations in Europe in Standard cars (Vanguards and a Standard Ten 
Companion
        - aka Triumph Ten Wagon) when they were new and I've kept back too many
        cherished pix to be later scanned to a hard disk. It's only sentiment 
as I
        just can't bring myself to throw them out.
        
        I then got into some of Dad's many internal reports from Canley days 
dating
        from the mid-fifties and early sixties - before Leyland appeared in 
Coventry
        - and there are two little aspects I've uncovered this far that I 
thought
        might entertain you?
        
        The first one relates to the hieroglyphics (my spelling?) on instrument
        panel controls. Standard Triumph was probably the first UK manufacturer 
to
        adopt them on the 1200 Herald / TR4 and this was not without its 
problems
        back in the day. Up until then, car users had long become accustomed to
        words on a knob to describe its function while today, several 
generations
        have grown up intuitively knowing what a symbol means. For example, the
        image of a heater matrix radiating warm air was perceived to be 
something to
        do with a set of false teeth (!!!!) while the symbol of a throttle 
butterfly
        in a venturi for the choke completely foxed the majority. It was a 
series of
        reports about these hieroglyphs and overseas markets that I found most
        entertaining but that's worth another story when I've read the rest of 
the
        reports. It seems the French and the Italians were greatly against 
English
        words on control knobs and argued with some rationale that they should
        reflect the local languages. They argued that if you could build a car 
with
        varying national specs (laminated windscreens, different wiring looms to
        meet local requirements and laws, LH steering, kilometre speedos et al) 
then
        local wording on knobs shouldn't be a problem.
        
        The French argued and won for 'Eclairage' for lights, 'Chauffage' for
        heating (where the false teeth symbol would later appear), 'Essuies' for
        wipers, 'Dist d'Air' for the heater directional air control etc. All 
well
        and good. Somehow, a budding linguist in Engineering failed to fully
        research his dictionary for 'Choke' and probably tried to in-build the 
term
        'strangler' into his deliberations. He could have used 'Melange' which 
was
        the pre-WW2 term for 'mixture' or its then more modern and current
        equivalent of 'Starter'. Note, this does not mean the engine start 
button on
        sidescreen TR's or the twist switch on the ignition. Instead, the 
translator
        made a noun out of the French verb to "choke on a piece of food" which 
is
        'Etouffer' and modded it to 'Etouffeur.' Shrieks of laughter from 
French who
        always love to mock the Brits and claimed this term *could* also be
        interpreted into a person who chokes people to death. So all this
        precipitated a mad rush for revised knobs in the correct terminology to 
fit
        to cars in dealer stocks before they could be sold!!!!!
        
        However, things didn't stop there. A few weeks later, the words for 
'wipers'
        in Italian was found to have been translated into a slang expression of 
a
        particular local Italian dialect which common decency prevents me from
        clarifying any further and I leave that to your imaginations. Suffice 
it to
        say it is associated with Restrooms / Toilets :)
        
        I suppose all these little issues are probably par for the course but my
        amusement at these 'faux pas' was greatly heightened when I read that 
the
        company making these various knobs had contracted with the factory for 
an
        initial stock of 50,000 items of each in four different languages and 
there
        was no way they were willing to scrub round the mistake or absorb the 
cost
        for changing the tooling for revised wording.
        
        So when you operate the knobs on your Herald, Vitesse, Spitfire which 
all
        have the images on them, spare a thought for what happened to the 
words. I'm
        currently reading the reports between Engineering, Quality Control,
        Purchasing and Final Inspection on the tacit issues of the problems
        encountered with all the hieroglyphs on the very early knobs which kept
        falling out because the insert was a tad too large for the hole and the 
glue
        to hold them in place didn't last. More anon
        
        Jonmac
        (aka John Macartney)
        
        
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