> I have seen numerous discussions on the net, of how the Brits destroy the
> American language. Here's one for you. "Shooting Brake." This is English
> for station wagon, the American name that I think was spawned from old
> Henry Ford's station hack, a wooden sided van used to transport folks from
> the railroad station to town. How the Brits got shooting brake out of that
> I can't figure.
The more common English term for station wagon is "estate." An estate
doesn't become a shooting brake until it eclipses some ungodly price,
like 80,000 pounds or so. (If memory serves, Aston-Martin recently
introduced a new shooting brake model.) In contrast to the more
mundane functions of an estate (the vehicle), apparently a shooting
brake's only purpose in life is to ferry the gentlemen hunters and
their equipment from the estate (the house) to the hunting grounds
and back. In pampered luxury of course.
I've never seen the true derivation of "shooting brake". Anybody got
an Oxford Dictionary handy? And I still want to know the difference
between a convertible, a roadster, and a drop-head coupe! :^)
--
T.J. Higgins | tjhiggin@ingr.com | (205) 730-7922
Intergraph Corp. | Mapping Sciences Division | Huntsville, AL, USA
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