Posted by Paul Cook on Monday, December 08, 2003 at 1:26PM :
In Reply to: Re: Not a M-37 posted by Willy-N on Monday, December 08, 2003 at 1:52AM :
"Five-quarter" was neither a colloquial term as suggested by RDavis or government nomenclature as suggested by steve.
We who drove them in Viet Nam, Korea, Europe, and many other places where military service took us used that shorter three-syllable nickname instead of the five-syllable "one-and-a-guart-er" expression. It was one of those "you had to be there" situations.
In an earlier thread about Pearl Harbor, Jumper lamented that few knew the significance of December 7th. Sadly, many Americans who have not served in the military are not familiar with expressions commonly used by whole generations of American men who served. (I am not excluding women - only recognizing that they were never included by the US Congress in the Selective Service Act. Would Hillary support a Bill that made them subject to the Draft?)
We are losing many words and expressions from our culture because people lack the education or experience that those words or expressions were part of.
An example is someone who thinks those little mini-cars with the annoying "gnat" buzz exhausts are the least bit representative of the word, "power". Picture one of them coming onto this Forum where we discuss the shape of a fender that has nearly as much steel as their whole car. They may know "CV" but where would they be on a discussion of "closed knuckle" front axles.
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