Posted by David Sherman on Monday, June 23, 2003 at 4:00PM :
In Reply to: don't kmow / want to use the correct name posted by mike stone on Monday, June 23, 2003 at 1:35PM :
Yep, gas engines, diesel engines, steam engines, seige engines, Babbage's calculating engine, Eli Whitney's cotton 'gin, etc. But a small locomotive used to pull mine cars underground is called a "motor", not just the part that makes it go, but the whole unit. I've only heard of electric "motors" and steam "engines", but when it comes to internal-combustion, there's no agreement. The "mo" in Mopar and Motown comes from "motor" and lots of car dealerships have names like "XXX Motors" even though they only sell entire vehicles. Go figure. And then there's the electrical component known as a "capacitor" everywhere in the world unless it's installed across the breaker points in a distributor, in which case it's a "condenser".
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