Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Typographical Digression

Vehicle

I suspect "vehicle" derives from the German. Weg means "away" in German and is pronounced vayk. Someone probably saw the first motorcar*, a Mercedes, and shouted "Weg Alle!" (away all!) and which would be pronounced "vayk-all-a" - and thus the phrase "vehicle" was born by non-Germans repeating what they heard the Germans say to each other as they rode off.

So if you want to pronounce Vehicle correctly and give it back its original meaning you should not pronounce it "vee ick ul", which means nothing, but "Vayk-all-a" which is not just a description of the object but its effect.

;-)

*short for motorized carriage.

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