Been thinking about the semantics of this word recently.Lot's of words have changed their meaning with time (I got a birthday card with some examples that have changed in the last 40 years). But 'choke' has been there and come back!
A hundred years ago, if you said "choke", people would have understood meant "restrict air flow through throat".
50 years ago, they would have been more likely to interpret it as "valve in a carburettor".
Nowadays, there are probably a majority of drivers who've never even seen a choke.
The thing is: can you think of any other words like this?
what about 'manifold'
ReplyDeleteHow about 'Stop', as in 'stopped down the aperture by two stops'. Most modern cameras don't have a visible iris (aperture hole) so it becomes meaningless in this context. Perhaps it always was a bit daft anyway.
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