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4766 Views 48 Replies 12 Participants Last post by Richard Jefferies, Jul 13, 2004

Dean Speir

Discussion Starter · Jun 28, 2004

As I mentioned in the FLGR thread, I've been noodlin' about for the past three years with some basic information, FAQs or primers, on some of the recurring questions, gaffes or pet peeves.

I core-dumped (for now) the contentious FLGR material in that thread, and at the same time finished off another Firearms Forum Favorite, "Clips vs. Magazines," and while I'm rooting around for some graphics (one of which will be of my prized SSBB MemRep Award from the Good Lord only knows how many years ago!) perhaps some here would like to review my final draft and make some suggestions for improvements.

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G

· #2 · Jun 28, 2004

Ya mean the one with the Clip loaded with .45 Long Colt Black Tallons?

Please oh please, also make sure that the text copy can be read... I have long since forgot the exact verbage.

Suggestions (on a quick review)

"On the other hand, the ammo "clip" was introducted by Mannlicherin 1885 and..."

"It may be thepopularity of this firearm..."

You missed the space key.

Charlie Petty

· #3 · Jun 28, 2004

And... the 1917 .45 ACP revolvers were swing out... not break top

LIProgun

· #4 · Jun 28, 2004

"Some revolvers chambered for (semi) automatic pistol cartridges do have rebated cylinders in which loose ammo can be utilized..."

I am not sure that "rebated cylinders" is the desired description. It is a step (or shoulder?) in the cylinder of some revolvers that allows them to chamber rimless pistol cartridges, where the case mouth headspaces on the step. When I think of "rebated," I think of a cut or removal of material (as in a rebated rim on a case). The careless reader may think that the "recess" in some cylinders (like the older S&W "pinned and recessed") is what is doing the headspacing, when we know that is not so.

Perhaps the sentence should be, "Some revolvers chambered for rimless pistol cartridges do have stepped cylinders in which unclipped ammo can be utilized..."

JRWnTN

· #5 · Jun 28, 2004

Quite informative.

Under Tennessee law, "unloaded", means the firearm "does not have ammunition in the chamber, cylinder, clip or magazine, and no clip or magazine is in the immediate vicinity of the weapon."

I've wondered if the legislature used "clip" and "magazine" to mean the same device, or if there was appreciation for the distinction.

csmkersh

· #6 · Jun 28, 2004

"...If the rounds are not held in the "clip," the gun cannot procede through the normal cycle of..."

"precede" should be "proceed."

Dean Speir

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jun 28, 2004

Ack!

Schmit… I'm on it!

CeePee… thanks, what in the ever-lovin', blue-eyed li'l world was I thinking of?!?! The British .455 #1 Webley?

Rob… good point. I was originally thinking "counter-sunk," but that suggests wood-working, and now that I think of it, my firearms association with "rebated" is of course the .41 AE.

In re: Tennessee, I suspect that firstus and most fore, they were covering all their bases. And I'd hate for some hotshot Volunteer legislative aide to read that page and go rushing into his or her boss yelling "We forgot 'stripper clips!'"

Eagle-eyed Sam as ever! Thanks… not withstanding your own typo, I fixed it!

Rats!

Back to the draft! Whatta team!

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SpecialEd

· #8 · Jun 28, 2004

One of the most famous and widely used clip-fed weapons is the John Garand's celebrated M1 rifle with which the United States went to war, 1941-45.

Did you mean for the "the" to be there?

what is know

in law enforcement circles as a "clue"

Ed

SpecialEd

· #9 · Jun 28, 2004

Along those lines...

Dean, while I am 100 percent onboard with the clips/magazine debate. One of your peeves I tried to conform to but I have sense given up. That is the infamous stocks vs. grips. Unfortunately when I say stocks people look at me funny and scratch their head. And more importantly, Just about all the major gun manufacturers list grips in their catalogues or webpages and not stocks. Speigels, Hogue, Pearce, etc., sell grips and not stocks. The parts lists for my various handguns list grips and not stocks, and I feel like I am fighting city hall on this one. It doesn't make it right but sometimes you have to pick your battles.

Oh well, language is afterall a living, changing organisim.

Looking forward to hearing any thoughts on the matter.

Best,

Ed

LIProgun

· #10 · Jun 28, 2004

Stocks v. grips

IIRC, for many years Smith and Wesson referred them as stocks. They now seem to have gone to "grip" exclusively.

A quick peek at the Ruger website shows them having it both ways: "Stock/Grip."

IMHO either is preferable to the word typically used in the general media: "handle."

SpecialEd

· #11 · Jun 28, 2004

That's interesting. I think Ruger has changed that recently because their's was one of the web pages I was referring to. Maybe there is hope yet.

Dean Speir

Discussion Starter · #12 · Jun 28, 2004

Several notes…

It is most instructive to see how many actual "typos" I missed in the first on-line draft… I am appalled!

Note also that those who graciously took the time to review and comment, picked up less than half of them!

In my graphic designer and typographer days, I very quickly discovered that if I made an error, in all likelihood, I would not pick it up… until, of course, it was all printed and ready to be delivered!

Back in the early '80s, when doing some work for Dr. Raymond Damadian and the entity which would become FONAR, four of us scrutinized an important document I'd just typeset for him, with me reading it backward (right-to-left) so I wouldn't be focused on the sense so much as the form. We kept finding errors, some mine, but others in their original. I was getting frustrated, and Raymond told me that the most carefully prepared texts in the world, being medical ones, went through five (5!) sets of proof-readers, and still only achieved a 91%-93% accuracy level!

The more "eyes" the better! Thanks to all.

Ed, I admit to being something of a language pedant (or, as one would have it, a "diction Nazi"), and I deplore the corruption through sloppy usage of our language.

Case in point, the word "fortuitous" once exclusively held the property of pure chance, and had a neutral buoyancy. Through misuse, it has also come to mean "good fortune," and I don't think that's a particularly "good thing."

Several months back, shortly after its launch, Rob and I were discussing the cable series "Deadwood," and Rob acknowledged that he was offended by the relentless outpouring of major profanity, despite the insistence of aficionados of Old West lore, that it is "period accurate." For my part, I am not as offended as Rob, but I do have serious reservations about such averred authenticity when I hear saloon-owner Al Swearengen (ho!) refer to someone as "f**knut!"

My point in referencing Deadwood though is to call attention to the exquisite use of language by the Eastern-born and well-bred widow Alma Garret… as attractive as she is, I could listen to this woman speak all night without trying to jump her, so wonderful is her diction and formal (without sounding stilted) structure.

So "grips" has become au courant and "stocks" has fallen into disfavor, I shall in all likelihood continue to fight a derrière-gard action.

As a matter of fact, you can count on it!

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JRWnTN

· #13 · Jun 28, 2004

Re: Several notes…

DeanSpeir said:
It is most instructive to see how many actual "typos" I missed in the first on-line draft… I am appalled!

Note also that those who graciously took the time to review and comment, picked up less than half of them!

In my graphic designer and typographer days, I very quickly discovered that if I made an error, in all likelihood, I would not pick it up… until, of course, it was all printed and ready to be delivered!

I don't know if this applies, but when the lawyers in my firm started getting computers and typing some of our own documents, we were told to review it on the screen and again after it was printed out. Supposedly, mistakes are more easily missed on the screen than on the printed page.

SpecialEd

· #14 · Jun 28, 2004

Re: Several notes…

DeanSpeir said:
Ed, I admit to being something of a language pedant (or, as one would have it, a "diction Nazi"), and I deplore the corruption through sloppy usage of our language.

Dean, in a recent post I referred to you as "Conan the Grammarian." I meant that with the utmost respect. The original Conan the Grammarian in my life is my lovely wife Laurel. An English and Journalism major who spends many of her days editing and correcting safety standards for the likes of duPont and Astra Zeneca. So I am very sensitive to language misuse mostly due to how often she has corrected me. (BTW, another thing that drives me crazy about one of our favorite news groups is the frequency that someone says "I seen..." It makes the veins in my neck throb. And just the other day someone wrote "You should have brought a Dillon" meaning bought. Arrgghhh!)

Case in point, the word "fortuitous" once exclusively held the property of pure chance, and had a neutral buoyancy. Through misuse, it has also come to mean "good fortune," and I don't think that's a particularly "good thing."

I'm sure between us all we could go on for days with word after word that has been corrupted. One that I hear misused almost every day (especially on the History channel) is decimate to mean annilate instead of reduce by a tenth. Even Cooper mentions this one.

So "grips" has become au courant and "stocks" has fallen into disfavor, I shall in all likelihood continue to fight a derrière-gard action.

As a matter of fact, you can count on it!

Dean, I would expect nothing less. First the language, then the culture, then humanity... it's a slippery slope. If it wasn't for the developement of language we's still be swinging in the trees eating berries.

JRWnTN,

I know that I can't proofread for beans on screen. I have to print a hardcopy to be really sure. Any if you miss something the first time you are most likely to misread it each time afterwards.

Ed

P.S. If you want to read a fascinating bit of History about language lookup "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary."

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Charlie Petty

· #15 · Jun 28, 2004

Lordy...

S&W has always called them "recessed" but the purpose never was to permit the use of rimless cartridges. If the case is rimless, how could a recessed chamber help? It would merely fall right through.

Recessed chambers appeared first with the original .357 Magnum in the 30s and pretty soon spread through much of the line. They were touted to provide an extra measure of safety. I doubt that was ever really a big deal although I supposed it might apply to baloon head brass, but that disappeared shortly after WW II. Of course S&W was criticized for doing away with recessed chambers fairly recently- along with barrel pins- when they really hadn't done any good anyhow.

Cartridges such as the .45 ACP can often be fired in the various revolvers S&W made for them without clips if the shoulder in the chamber is properly positioned to keep the case from going in too far, but the guns come with clips and the instructions say to use them.

I think the only S&W revolvers made today with the recessed chambers are those in .22 rimfire calibers.

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LIProgun

· #16 · Jun 28, 2004

I compose my documents at the keyboard, and try to proofread them on the screen. For anything important (court filings, pleadings, client letters, etc.) I'll print them out and review. Amazing how many errors creep into the document from the time you hit the print button and you walk over to the printer to get the document.

I will often give the document to an associate to proofread. More typos are invariably found. After all, I know what I wanted to say, and the words often look to me like what I want, and not what I typed.

Ed, I always read "decimate" like you and Cooper. Oddly, when I checked a couple of dictionaries not too long ago, the word seems to have morphed more into meaning "annihilate" than the original meaning of to reduce by a tenth.

Here's one of my pet peeves: Confusing "flout" with "flaunt." I wish I had a dime (and a Tums) for every time I heard somebody say "...flaunt the law..."

SpecialEd

· #17 · Jun 28, 2004

LIProgun said:
Here's one of my pet peeves: Confusing "flout" with "flaunt." I wish I had a dime (and a Tums) for every time I heard somebody say "...flaunt the law..."

I suppose an officer of the law could "flaunt" the law but I know what you mean... :wink:

some others are I could care less instead I couldn't care less and First come first serve instead of served...

Since we are drifting off topic, maybe we need a forum for "Anguished English."

Ed

mikegunner

· #18 · Jun 28, 2004

Ed,

Good idea!!

My pet peeve in conversational english (mis)usage is Can/May. At work I regularly answer people who ask me "Can I tell him who is calling" -- "Do you know who this is?????" --- when they answer "No" I respond "Well then, I guess you CAN'T"

In Senior High School I had a teacher for 4 years who daily drove the difference home. Students would ask her, "Ms. Martin, CAN I go to the bathroom?" She would dryly respond. "I don't know, do you have the right equipment?? Can you????"
I have had people I deal with regularly call me the "English teaching steel guy".

Mike

csmkersh

· #19 · Jun 28, 2004

Rob said:
Here's one of my pet peeves: Confusing "flout" with "flaunt." I wish I had a dime (and a Tums) for every time I heard somebody say "...flaunt the law..."

My peeve is, "Cut to the chase," when it should be, "Cut through the chafe."

Tim Burke

· #20 · Jun 28, 2004

csmkersh said:
My peeve is, "Cut to the chase," when it should be, "Cut through the chafe."

You may want to complain to these folks.

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