Rant on the "Gear" word

"Gear", like "kit", is just a generic term for equipment. No big deal. Plenty of other stuff more worthy of a rant.

Calm down dear.

'Gear' seems perfectly acceptable to me, though I agree about 'gears'. It's not to do with the sort of gears you're talking about, it's closer to: 

Gear sounded to me like a pretty old word and I was fairly sure it probably hadn't originally referred to cog wheels. So I looked it up in the OED. The first recorded usage is 1200. It is indeed a Middle English word derived from an older Norse or Saxon one. It was first used ( in writing ) to indicate wheels working upon each other by means of teeth in 1829. Before that it had a long and varied history of usage, covering, clothes, tools, possessions, equipment, stuff, pus, sexual organs, harnesses and virtually anything else you can think of. So using it to mean hifi equipment is paradoxically closer to the historical usage of the word than the rather specialised and much later application to gear wheels. 

Fab gear, as they used to say. 

Never too sure who "they" are though.

I like the word "gears" it sounds abit Ali G..

laters.

Language changes, accept it.  Some people are more detailed in their approach to language, most are not.  

I'm very impressed with the OED post.  

The OED is a kind of miracle. I'm very far from being a scholar - I just don't have the temperament for it - but I find there's something beautiful in the unselfish, dedicated scholarship the OED embodies. 

A motor is a device that imparts motion beyond itself. Thus is is entirely reasonable to call a car a motor as it imparts motion to its passngers and driver, and equally it is reasonaly to call the engine in a car a "motor" as it imparts motion via the "gears" to the car! In fact any motor merely turns chemical, or thermal, or electrical [et cetera] energy into motivic [kinetic] energy ...

ATB from George.

PS: I believe that there is a publication of some vintage called the "Motoring Times." I have never read it. I use a bicycle instead! But the title seems clear and not an example of wrong English usage. Perhaps a pedant would like to correct me on this if I am wrong. Now that is called feeding a line! Pedants do please come along!

My car has got a motor. It's also got a engine. What does that make it ?

Well, it's a hybrid and gives me 65mpg so I don't really care what people call it

Is "gear" any worse than "set".

Whoever started the use of "set" in here should be taken out and birched....oops, sorry George, I had forgotten it was you!

"Kit" however is perfectly acceptable as we all know.

Regards

Jim

So,are these your definitive words?Can I use "kit"for my English(which is not my first language)?Thank you

Could this be game, set, and match to Mr Lawson?

Perhaps I should revert to the much disliked [hereabouts] Gramohone and Wireless-set?

ATB from George

Bicycle... pedal-cycle... cycle... bike, all fine by me.

But i never like the way people often refer to a bicycle as a - 'push-bike'!

I mean, you don't push it, you pedal it...

unless of course they can't get up that hill!  

Debs

The term 'gears' is most often used by people who do not have English as their first language.  It has its origin in 1970s Holland.

When I was in a band at Art School & doing the pubs & clubs we always referred to the equipment & mixing desks as the gear! You would never hear anyone say" Bring the Kit in".

And that was a very long time ago!

People have used the word 'gear' in this general way for hundreds of years (see my post above). It only really seems to be Mike who finds it odd. Using "gears" in the same way is less common, but  hey, each to his own... 

The official nomenclature shall therefore be set as "sistim" - to cause maximum annoyance to all.

Sorry Adam, that doesn't annoy me.

Adam,  dis is sistim

Dis ama soun sistim

Rastafari  ............  I got jammin cumin on,  need be gettin down ahhh praising the almighty Jah

.......  need to drop a Tuff Gong on de mashin  

NB:   Not a gearbox in sight 

"In the same vein as gear for sistim - why do people say they like a "flutter" on the horses?

Why not just say a bet on the horses...eh?"

I can't really tell you why they say it, but I can tell you they've been saying it (or something like it) since at least 1874.

Ah, but you have mixed up pro equipment known as gear and domestic equipment known as kit.  A common mistake!

Cheers

Jim