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ODDITIES IN AUTO NAMES
By
FRANK M A S O N
T H E chauffeurs running automobiles
today actually seem a
part of their machines, but the
first chauffeurs on earth had
nothing to do with motor cars.
If they had, they would have made their
get-away without being punished, and
coming to the sad end they did. For
they were really a band of brigands in
France, and this band worked a great
graft scheme in France during the revolutionary
period of 1789. They seized
travelers, carried them away, and burned
their feet, in order to compel them to
reveal where their money was hidden.
But the reign of the chauffeurs was not
long, for they were expelled from the
country, or hanged. Gradually, because
the word chauffeur in French means "to
burn", the name was applied to men in
charge of furnaces or boilers, partly in
ridicule, partly under the popular supposition
that they had to tend a fire, to
the first drivers of motor cars.
From the foregoing, there seems to be
no excuse for the name "chauffeur" as
applied to automobile drivers, unless it
is the taxicab driver, who burns up our
money.
Where do our automobile inventors
get the word "tonneau"? The word in
French means "barrel". As most readers
will remember, the back part of the
earlier automobiles was round, and because
of its supposed resemblance to a
barrel, was called a tonneau, and consequently
the name is now applied to that
part of the body behind the front seats.
France seems to have baptized most of
our motor car parts, even though the first
automobiles were not made there. So far
as we know, the first automobiles were
made in England, but on account of the
severe laws in that country, automobiles
had to make pretty slow progress. It is
said that the few early automobiles which
traveled the streets in England were
compelled to have a man walk in front
of them carrying a red flag in the day
time, and a red light at night—for danger.
France has also given us the pleasant
sounding word "limousine". But the
first limousines were not those luxurious
warm, winter cars that we are acquainted
with nowadays. The first
limousines were wearing garments.
Limousine is an old province of central
France, and in that province a very original
designer of clothes made a unique
cloak which was taken up and worn by
the inhabitants of that province, and
finally called the "limousine". The term
was later extended to the covering of a
carriage, and then to the enclosed motor
car body.
The original meaning of "garage", another
French word, was "to garage", or
to put a car or vehicle in a station. So
"garage" is really a verb, which finally
became in both French and English a
noun.
Nowadays the word "chassis" seems to
mean everything about an automobile except
the body. But the original word,
also of French derivation, meant merely
the framework of a wagon. Later the
term was applied to the framework of a
locomotive, and the term should properly
apply merely to the metal framework of
an automobile, which receives the motor,
gearset, and controlling mechanism.
The poppet valve we will give England
credit for, in the automobile world.
Although this valve is continually popping
up and down as the cam turns, the
word "poppet" is really a corruption of
the word "puppet". The popping up and
down of the puppets in the Punch and
Judy shows in England is responsible for
the name of the "Puppet" or poppet valve
in the automobile.
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