Posted on 05/05/2016 5:03:45 AM PDT by harpygoddess
"Hang up the phone." comes from one specific kind of land-line phone that had a kind of hook you'd hang the handset from when you were done. Doing so would pull down the hook that was connected to a switch inside the phone that would disconnect the line.
And lots of nautical stuff:
Groggy - In 1740, British Admiral Vernon (whose nickname was "Old Grogram" for the cloak of grogram which he wore) ordered that the sailors' daily ration of rum be diluted with water. The men called the mixture "grog". A sailor who drank too much grog was "groggy".
Leeway - The weather side of a ship is the side from which the wind is blowing. The Lee side is the side of the ship sheltered from the wind. A lee shore is a shore that is downwind of a ship. If a ship does not have enough "leeway" it is in danger of being driven onto the shore.
Pipe Down - Means stop talking and be quiet. The Pipe Down was the last signal from the Bosun's pipe each day which meant "lights out" and "silence".
Slush Fund - A slushy slurry of fat was obtained by boiling or scraping the empty salted meat storage barrels. This stuff called "slush" was often sold ashore by the ship's cook for the benefit of himself or the crew. The money so derived became known as a slush fund.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
I love my solar-powered clothes dryer. It is one of the few things that I do that is fully approved of by the usual gang of idiots!
My dad worked for the literal “phone company”, back when it was one company.
(Not nautical, although often misspelled.)
Yes, i know her. Grace Hopper.
We both enlisted in the Navy the same year. She was 45 years old and i was 18.
She was top Navy Officer in charge of computer systems for all nine US Naval Shipyards.
I believe she developed the COBOL Language for Main Frames.
SOS!
Question, based on your unique experience: Does cordite have a unique smell, different than modern gunpowder?
The “save” button on computer software always looks like a 3-1/2 inch floppy.
60 Minutes ran a segment on Rear Admiral Hopper before her last retirement from the Navy. The highlight (from my point of view) was her using a "visual aid" to describe a nanosecond: she held up a length of wire a little less than a foot long. Most viewers probably had no idea, and most still don't, that light and radio waves take a little time to travel any distance.
“Take it for a spin” to an automobile salesman would be a “spin around the block” where the auto company was.
Only when followed by "Line Feed."
“I found that on a computer keyboard, there are combinations of letters and words that I scream through, and it can’t be done on a regular typewriter that way...you have to be more “consistent”.”
The arrangement of the keys (QWERTY) was an attempt to put the most-often-typed-together letters far enough apart so as to slow down the typist and avoid jams.
That was a great “album”
“Flush the Buffers”
I still refer to forgetting things as having done a “core dump.”
Knew you would! She is anecdotally thought to be the originator of the term “bug”, which I am sure you know as well!
Thanks for your service, Shipmate!
Living in NYC, the only horse drawn wagon I remember was the junk man. There were cow bells strung across the back of the wagon to announce his presence and the horse’s name was “Macy.”
The Save icon on most computer applications is a floppy disk.
Is she the person who came up with the term “bug,” and it meant a real insect in the computer?
We had those in Cleveland too.
The guy came down the street calling out “paper, rags”
Heh, there are more than a few Freepers who have said they actually got a “nanowire” from her...:)
She gave a great speech, I felt privileged. Most of the other people at the commencement had no idea who she was, but...I did!
I blame that on "stack overflow".
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