I was listening to a song about the American Gold Rush. The song mentioned “Get on the bus.”.
When was the term bus first apllied to transportation, and to what type of object?
Don’t give me the smart ass reply of bus either. This is a serious question, or I’d be in MPSIMS.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
The term ‘bus’ is a shortened version of the word ‘omnibus,’ taken directly from the Latin. The Latin word means ‘for all,’ and in the case of a bus as we think of one today, it signifies ‘transportation for all,’ or at least for a large number. The longer version has several other meanings, but is still used, especially in England, to describe a large vehicle designed to carry passengers.
As for WHEN the term came into general use, I dunno. But I’ll bet a transfer and some exact change that the SD’ers will come through for you!
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…
T
The term is an abreviation of the Latin omnia, meaning all, which in the plural dative becomes omnibus, meaning for all. Omnibus became a term for a vehicle designed for mass trasportation, and it was shortened through folk etymology to bus, which I find ironic because the root word is dropped in favor of the suffix. This would be, by rough comparison, as if the english potatoes became known as es.
I happen to be reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula lately, and in one journal entry, Mina Harker writes: “We came back to town quietly, riding a 'bus to Hyde Park Corner.”
Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897, so it seems plain that the name was already in common usage. And I’d bet Mina’s “'bus” was horse-drawn, too.
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
The songs I’m listening to are based on the later 19th century. I was figuring bus would refer to a horse drawn vehical of mass transit, but back to how long ago?
Thanks for the current input.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
The OED cites bus to 1830 and omnibus to 1809 (in a citation that indicates omnibus may have been in French a short while before that).
Tom~
Does the use of the term in electronics, e.g. *data bus[/], derive from the vehicle or does it hark back to the original Latin? Or is it unrelated?
I have seen the term buss bar refer to a large, usually copper, conductor that carried a lot of current. Maybe that’s the source.
I can see the vehicle reference in that a bus (the vehicle) is the thing that gets you everywhere in a standard fashion, which is, in a way, what a computer bus does. Or, in the original sense of “all”, it could refer to the thing that has all the power, signals and data, etc. Or, it could be that any large conductor or cable was a bus from the buss bar sense.
That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.
Damn. Does this mean I have to chuck my Dictionary of Word Origins?
Both dates way off from OED. :eek:
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