Down in potpourri Kalleh asks, "What sports teams are named for clothing that you know of? Blazers are either named for 'trailblazers' or for fire, not for the jacket."
Before I look it up, does anyone know why we call that sort of jacket a blazer?
October 09, 2005, 00:42
Richard English
I understand it has a British naval background - the name HMS Blazer seems to spring to mind.
The blazer's origin takes us to the sea. It is 1837, and the Captain of the frigate HMS Blazer is faced with a royal visit from Queen Victoria. He wants his men to look shipshape, so he has short, double-breasted jackets of navy blue serge made up for them. Complete with brass Royal Navy buttons. The Queen is very, very pleased by the presentation.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
October 09, 2005, 09:23
<Asa Lovejoy>
quote:
Originally posted by wordnerd: Down in potpourri Kalleh asks, "What sports teams are named for clothing that you know of? Blazers are either named for 'trailblazers' or for fire, not for the jacket."
As for the Portland Trailblazers, so many of them of late have been scofflaws that around Portland they've taken on the sobriquet, "Jailblazers." Their uniforms are somewhat different from the ones used on HMS Blazer!
October 09, 2005, 09:55
zmježd
Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, suggests a different etymology for blazer: "A (light) sports jacket: 1880. Orig. the bright scarlet jacket of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John's College, Cambridge. Coll. in C. 20, S.E." Many ghits give the nearly verbatim story mentioned by arnie about an anonymous frigate captain. There is a current training ship HMS Blazer (P279) in the Royal Navy.
quote:
The present ship is the 7th in the Royal Navy to carry the name; the first a wooden gunboat, was named by the 2nd Earl Spencer, George John-First Lord of the Admiralty, and launched in 1797. He named it after a dog in his foxhound pack, 'The Pytchley Hunt'! In the 1800s a further 5 ships, both wooden and steam powered gun boats, carried the name winning battle honours in 1814 and 1855; the last being sold in 1919.
—Ceci n'est pas un seing.
October 09, 2005, 11:47
tinman
quote:
Originally posted by zmjezhd: "A (light) sports jacket: 1880. Orig. the bright scarlet jacket of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John's College, Cambridge. Coll. in C. 20, S.E."
blazer "bright-colored jacket," 1880, British university slang, from blaze (1), in reference to the red flannel jackets worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John College, Cambridge boating club.
Since it came from blaze, I decided to look that up:
quote:
blaze (1) "fire," O.E. blæse "a torch, flame," from P.Gmc. *blason, from PIE *bhles- "shine," from base *bhel- (see black). The verb is c.1225. Blazes as a euphemism for "hell" dates from 1818.
blaze (2) "light-colored mark or spot," 1639, northern Eng. dialect, probably from O.N. blesi "white spot on a horse's face" (from the same root as blaze (1)). Applied 1662 in Amer.Eng. to marks cut on tree trunks to indicate a track. The verb "to mark a trail" is first recorded 1750, Amer.Eng. blaze (3) Look up blaze at Dictionary.com "make public" (often in a bad sense, boastfully), c.1384, from M.Du. blasen "to blow" (on a trumpet), from P.Gmc. *blaes-an, from PIE *bhle-, var. of base *bhel- "to swell, blow up" (see bole).
When I first read your post, I wondered what "ghits" were. Then I realized that was “hits” with a “g.”
TinmanThis message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,
October 09, 2005, 15:39
zmježd
When I first read your post, I wondered what "ghits" were.
It stands for Google hits, and it probably drives the Google lawyers crazy when they see.
—Ceci n'est pas un seing.
October 09, 2005, 16:21
Kalleh
It just goes to show that you can't always figure out the definition of a word by its context. I had thought "ghits" was a word for "articles," by the context in which it was used.
October 09, 2005, 16:33
zmježd
Sorry, I thought it'd been assimilated by now. What the Wiktionary has to say. A Language Log post.
—Ceci n'est pas un seing.
October 09, 2005, 20:20
tinman
I thought it was just a typo, the kind you get when you intend to hit one key and end up hitting two. How do you pronounce it? Is it "gits," with a silent "h," or "gee-hits?" Though "g" stands for "google," I assume "ghits" applies to hits with any search engine, much to Google's dismay. Is that right?
Tinman
October 09, 2005, 20:44
Seanahan
Funny, working in computer science and dealing with Google very frequently, I've never since ghits, although I probably would have understood g-hits.
October 09, 2005, 21:35
zmježd
I've always imagined it as a hard aspirated g. I don't think of it as generic for hits from any search engine, rather as an abbreviation for hits from the Google search engine. (OTOH, I don't think I've ever used it in speaking.) I truly did think it'd been used before on this board.