Home of much geek goodness 'Gizmodo (http://www.gizmodo.com/)' has an interesting tale of the Sony Reader who was destined to become unscrewed, dismantled and laid bare to the world.

Full story with nice pics here (http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/sony-reader-dissected-poked-prodded-215380.php) I wonder if the device was mantled again. (is re-mantled even a word ;)

Erm. Yeah. That was done by one of the users on this forum. Then Make reaported it then Gizmodo reported on Make. Now it's being reported here.

The internet is a small place.

This is one of the funniest posts I've seen in ages.

Hey, no problem -- good news gets around! It's great to be in the same news circle as elite sites like Gizmodo and Make, even when we close the cycle ourselves! ;-)

Here's the original front page post (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8428) at MobileRead. Props to lint for a job well done!

Stuart
Considering the long lasting ties between English and French, I would venture forth and say "dismantle" comes from the french word "manteau" which means "coat". The logical opposite to " dismantle" would be "redress" or "recoat"?

You are right on Yvan...

According to http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/unpaired.htm, while discussing unpaired words, "...mantle and dismantle which came from the equivalent French verbs in about 1400 and 1580 respectively. (The early literal sense of dismantle was to remove one’s cloak or mantle, and hence to undress; it was later applied figuratively to the process of stripping a fortress of its defences; all these meanings existed in French before the word came into English. Here, mantle has not vanished, though it is rarer than its opposite.)"

Traveling these days can be an endless source of amusement.... because it means I get to listen to "made up" words. For example, "de-plane" has got to be the worst case of making up a word to mean something for which we already had a perfectly good word - would anyone care to disembark? Or perhaps, like "delouse" they mean that we're ridding ourselves of the aeroplane... Recently (as in the last few years) they've also started to ask people to "turn their electronic devices to the off position"... what is that, upside-down? Sideways?

I used to take the train every week to DC a couple of years back, and I almost burst out laughing when conductors would occasionally ask us to "de-train", showing their ability to take made-up words and modify them for use in other cases where we already have words to mean exactly what you want to say.

Anyway, gotta de-house and head to work - later.

Traveling these days can be an endless source of amusement.... because it means I get to listen to "made up" words. For example, "de-plane" has got to be the worst case of making up a word to mean something for which we already had a perfectly good word - would anyone care to disembark? Or perhaps, like "delouse" they mean that we're ridding ourselves of the aeroplane... Recently (as in the last few years) they've also started to ask people to "turn their electronic devices to the off position"... what is that, upside-down? Sideways?

I used to take the train every week to DC a couple of years back, and I almost burst out laughing when conductors would occasionally ask us to "de-train", showing their ability to take made-up words and modify them for use in other cases where we already have words to mean exactly what you want to say.

Anyway, gotta de-house and head to work - later.


You may find the book "The Unfolding of Language" by Guy Deutscher interesting. In actuality, almost all (maybe all) of our words are "made up" or are derived from words that originally had another meaning. According to Deutscher, this is not only universal in the evolution of language but often follws the same path (as to meaning of words) in various languages.

Don't suspect you'd be able to find his book as an ebook though but haven't checked.

Also if you want to see "made up" words, check out the German language. They take it to an art form. :scholar:

Language evolves and we add new words for whatever reasons ("hi", for example, means the same thing as "hello", but is easier to say and is less formal, so serves a different purpose). In the case of the travel industry they make words up when there are already commonly-used words that mean exactly what they want to convey, that everyone knows... and I find that amusing. All I'm saying. And yes, I'm aware that both detrain and deplane are now in some dictionaries.

Traveling these days can be an endless source of amusement.... because it means I get to listen to "made up" words. For example, "de-plane" has got to be the worst case of making up a word to mean something for which we already had a perfectly good word - would anyone care to disembark? Or perhaps, like "delouse" they mean that we're ridding ourselves of the aeroplane... Recently (as in the last few years) they've also started to ask people to "turn their electronic devices to the off position"... what is that, upside-down? Sideways?

I used to take the train every week to DC a couple of years back, and I almost burst out laughing when conductors would occasionally ask us to "de-train", showing their ability to take made-up words and modify them for use in other cases where we already have words to mean exactly what you want to say.

Anyway, gotta de-house and head to work - later.
Well at least you got to deride them instead of the other way round. :happy2:

hehe funny. Sorry I lost the pictures from my free host everyone. Im trying to track down some copies. if not, maybe someone else can take some better photos.

-lint

hehe funny. Sorry I lost the pictures from my free host everyone. Im trying to track down some copies. if not, maybe someone else can take some better photos.

-lint
Lint your photos were excellent and I am glad I backed them up before the free hoster removed them. They are back online in your thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8426).