Subject:
|
Re: Origin of "Bulldozer"
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.technic
|
Date:
|
Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:23:44 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
3113 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.technic, Nathan Bell wrote:
> Does anyone know where the name "bulldozer" came from? Is it because they do
> the work that bulls on a farm used to do and therefore give the bulls no other
> alternative but to "doze" (sleep) all day?
Nate-
This word first appears in writing in 1876 as the verb bulldoze which meant
"intimidate by violence". A bulldozer was therefore "one who intimidates by
violence". It is suggested that the word is simply a compound of bull "male
cow" and dose referring to a "dose" of whipping. The idea is supposedly that
the dose of whipping was severe enough for a bull.
Bulldoze may have been influenced by the bull in bullwhip. Bulldozing is
thought by some to have arisen after the American Civil War, when blacks were
sometimes given a bull-dose by racist whites in order to coerce them to vote for
a certain candidate. The "pushing around" meaning behind the term apparently
came to be applied to machinery which pushed earth around, some time in the late
1920s; the term is first recorded with that meaning in 1930.
This is a definition taken from a website.
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Origin of "Bulldozer"
|
| Does anyone know where the name "bulldozer" came from? Is it because they do the work that bulls on a farm used to do and therefore give the bulls no other alternative but to "doze" (sleep) all day? (20 years ago, 14-Feb-05, to lugnet.technic)
|
4 Messages in This Thread:
 
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
