# What is a Tom Swift Machine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796 "2005-01-20T22:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/21 "2005-01-21T13:36:35Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > The name of the Taser device was cobbled together from the title _Tom Swift And his Electric Rifle._ I. Love. This. Board. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/22 "2005-01-21T13:40:10Z")
Wait. Wouldn’t “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle” be TSAHER? Is it artistic license, or have I been suckered by a folk etymology? Darn this board. I paid 15 bucks so I wouldn’t have to think anymore, and this is what I get? ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/23 "2005-01-21T14:35:49Z")
> [@NattoGuy](#): > > Wait. Wouldn’t “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle” be TSAHER? > > Is it artistic license, or have I been suckered by a folk etymology? > > Darn this board. I paid 15 bucks so I wouldn’t have to think anymore, and this is what I get? He did say that the word taser was **cobbled** together from the name. He didn’t say that it was a complete anagram. You could see where the anagram would be modified in its pronounciation to make it easier. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/24 "2005-01-21T19:23:08Z")
I thought TASER stood for the “Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle” ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/25 "2005-01-21T20:03:28Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I thought TASER stood for the “Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle” It does. ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/26 "2005-01-21T21:29:03Z")
Does anybody know if these books have been prepared for Microsoft Reader? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/27 "2005-01-22T06:14:03Z")
If I understand the entry in the OED on the taser correctly, it was invented and named by a company who wanted to choose a name similar to the word “laser”. Someone in the company said that the taser was similar to the invention in the book _Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle_. So they decided to call it the “taser” as an abbreviation for “Tom Swift’s Electric Rifle”, which would be TSER. They added the letter “A” because that made the name closer to “laser”. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/28 "2005-01-22T11:28:13Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > And when Stratemeyer was not using adverbs with abandon, he was mining the thesaurus for synonyms for “said,” some of them having hilarious double entendre when read today. > > Perhaps the classic one is an apparently totally unintentional double pun, which may perhaps be apocryphal but is nonetheless hilarious: Not strictly fair: ejaculate means “to throw out”, cognate with “eject” and indeed “reject”, and in days of yore was commonly used to describe speech. These days we’d probably use “blurt”, but the double entendre is entirely a modern reading - check out the Sherlock Holmes stories, where Dr Watson ejaculates all over the place: ‘“Wonderful!” I ejaculated. “Commonplace”, said Holmes.’ {from **A Study in Scarlet** } ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/29 "2005-01-22T11:39:04Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Series four lasted even less time, 1991-1993, but manged to squeeze something like 15 books, including two Hardy Boys crossovers. This Tom Swift was just borrowing the name and had nothing to do with the earlier series. They’re supposed to be incredibly bad, but that series has my favorite title of them all : _Tom Swift and the Cyborg Kickboxer_. Thanks for posting this history, **Exapno** – I always wondered how those books, which I read when I was younger (along with the “Young Astronauts” books that were published about the same time, and all the Danny Dunn books I could find at a variety of libraries), related to the Tom Swift books from earlier days. As a young teenager, I actually thought _Tom Swift and the Cyborg Kickboxer_ was great, and I tried to find all the other books in the series that I could. They did seem to inherit some of the goofiness of the earlier Tom Swift series, if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/30 "2005-01-22T11:41:43Z")
> [@robcaro](#): > > Does anybody know if these books have been prepared for Microsoft Reader? If not, you could at least download the ones that are available from Project Gutenberg and build your own .LIT files out of them. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796/31 "2005-01-22T14:54:04Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Not strictly fair: ejaculate means “to throw out”, cognate with “eject” and indeed “reject”, and in days of yore was commonly used to describe speech. These days we’d probably use “blurt”, but the double entendre is entirely a modern reading - check out the Sherlock Holmes stories, where Dr Watson ejaculates all over the place: ‘“Wonderful!” I ejaculated. “Commonplace”, said Holmes.’ {from **A Study in Scarlet** } I am aware of the non-sexual meaning and Victorian-era fondness for “ejaculate” as an exclamatory verb. If you reread my post, I suggest that the double endendre is “when read today.” Perhaps we ought to try to resurrect that usage: “The moderator ejaculated, ‘ **Spooje** \*, do not make personal insults in General Questions!’” - No imputations as to the behavior of the member using the nick **Spooje** are intended, but it was definitely the appropriate person to use in that example! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-tom-swift-machine/285796.md?page=1)