On N.P.R. this morning, I heard a promo reader refer to a bank’s safety deposit boxes damaged in the hurricane. I always thought it was a safe deposit box, because it’s a deposit box in a safe (or vault).
So which is it
My bank’s web page lists it as SAFE deposit box.
-rainy
Take your pick.
Is there any difference in preference based on geography or industry? (e.g., U.K. v. U.S.). Is one term older than the other?
From a common errors in English page
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/safety.html
it is properly SAFE deposit box.
-rainy
Well, two US-based vendors of this variety of security container say “safe deposit box” [1] [2].
Two US-based banks say “safety deposit box” [3] [4].
The FDIC says “safety deposit box” [5].
I’ll conclude that in US applications, either term is permissible.
[1] http://www.diebold.com/dnpssec/financial/vaultandsafeproducts/sd_boxes_lockers.htm
[2] http://www.hamiltonsafe.com/safeDeposBox/safeDepoBox.html
[3] http://www.chase.com/pages/chase/pf/banking/safedeposit
[4] http://www.dollarbank.com/dollarbankpersonal/LIBRARY/safe.html
[5] http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnspr97/sfdpstbx.html
Uh, the cites 3,4, and 5 (as well as cites 1 and 2) all refer to ‘safe’ deposit box unless I really missed something.
???
-rainy
Even if that’s technically the correct term, “safety deposit box” isn’t illogical, and it’s not going to bother me if it has taken root as an accepted variant. Google shows about 3.5 million hits on “safe deposit box”, 2.5 million on “safety deposit box”. At a quick glance, the latter does seem to include several customer web pages at financial institutions, a “US News and World Report” article, and a page from “MSN Money” which uses both variants on the same page:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/quickref/quickref.asp?Cat=10&SelCat=4&RefType=0&Topic=1&Sub=4
As a former employee of a company (Inter Innovation LeFebure) who manufactured the things, we referred to them as safe deposit boxes. Ilco, a key blank manufacturer, lists blanks proprietary to those locks as being safe deposit.
Those pages were google-positive for the query
safety deposit box
unfortunately, I forgot to query for
“safety deposit box”
so I got bogus links.
I found a link for a bank saying “safety deposit box” at
http://locator.scotiabank.com/ScotiaExt/default.asp but that turned out to be a bank in Canuckistan.
Another Canadian cite: http://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/Business/Business_Banking_Services/Services/SafetyDepositBoxes
Here’s another one at http://www.guardianvaults.com.au/ben_fac.html , but they’re in Oz.
And here’s one in Turkey at 404
It’s safe to say, the evidence above proves that Americans are the only English-speaking people in the world with a guud grasp of the English language.
I can find newspaper cites as early as 1890 for “safety deposit box.”
The term originally was “safe deposit box” which I found as early as 1870.
Since “safety” isn’t an adjective, I suspect that “safety deposit box” arose out of people verbally stumbling a bit when they say “safe deposit box”. Like many languages, English has many instances of what linguists call ‘assimilation’, when the pronunciation of one phoneme takes on some characteristics of neighboring sounds.
The /f/ sound in “safe” is voiceless, and this causes the /d/ in “deposit” to lose some of its voicedness, or become more like a /t/. When spoken hastily, “safe deposit box” sounds like “safety posit box”, to which some people began adding the “de” so the middle part would once again be a word.
It’s either a deposit box in a safe or a deposit box that provides safety.
Let’s see there’s a safey belt, a safety lamp, safety glass. Why can’t there be a safety deposit box?
Sort of a tempest in a teapot IMHO.
A UK Doper will be along shorty to dress you down for that! 
-rainy
Why should we pay any attention to those who mispronounce words so badly? 
(Too bad there isn’t a smug smiley.)
It is a box deposited into a safe. Fairly straight forward; so how did ‘safe’ become ‘safety?’ Because people don’t listen or hear. Said clearly and slowly, it is safe deposit box. But when run together quickly, it becomes safedepositbox. So phonetically, the mind hears something that sounds like safety (safede posit box). Mentally, posit doesn’t fit, so de is added to the front of it (less mental gymnastics required.) Thinking about it, what is a safety deposit box? Nothing in that gives much of a clue as to what provides the safety. But a safe deposit box is fairly self explanatory.
According to Google’s NGram viewer, “Safe deposit box” is used almost twice as frequently as “safety deposit box” in both the USA and British usage, and has always been since the expression came into general usage around 1910.
That’s “a common error”. Look, both are understandable. Both are in common usage. Thus both are perfectly Ok, as** David Simmons** sez.
When I go to the bank to my safety deposit box I also sometimes look for a notary republic. And I also drink ice coffee.
Conversely, “Safety Dance” is misheard as “safe to dance”.