Mark writes:
>The term that I have never heard a good definition for is
>"Shooting Brake", as in the current Aston Martin or various
>pre-war Bentleys. My understanding of correct pronunciation
>has the emphasis on the word shooting.
Right. I understood "Shooting Brake" to be a high-tone station wagon which
proper British gentlemen drive out to do some shooting. I have a fuzzy
recollection that the "shooting" does indeed refer to shotguns. The "brake" is
derived not from the device used to arrest the forward motion of a vehicle, but
from a "brake" being rough or marshy land wherein birds may be found, flushed
and dispatched via one's Purdy side-by-side.
Thus, a shooting brake is a place to go to shoot birds, but how did they make
the jump to using the same term to describe the vehicle that brought them
there?
Phil Ethier, THE RIGHT LINE, 672 Orleans Street, Saint Paul, MN 55107-2676
h (612) 224-3105 w (612) 298-5324 phile@pwcs.stpaul.gov
"The workingman's GT-40" - Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman
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