1KPerDay
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D'oh!
Phrases Related to Guns, Shooting, and Hunting in the English Language
- Thread starter Speedo66
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1KPerDay
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good one
.308 Norma
Member
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but one I hear a lot on those TV crime solver shows is, "There was (or wasn't) a smoking gun."
Bandit67
Member
That reminds me. How about flexing biceps referred to as "guns" lol
I see the terms load-out, recoil, ricochet, shelling, broadside, flak, and Kentucky windage used often these days by folks who, I suspect, have no clue of their origins. Muzzle, breech, lock, stock and ramrod have all gained very different meanings than they had on the frontier.
Archie
Member
A specific use phrase from artillery meaning a person of slow mental processes. "Short Round". A shot from an artillery piece that for some reason lands short of the intended target; possibly endangering one's own troops.
Oh yeah! Experienced both versions as an 81mm mortarman.
Both can produce very undesirable results.Another sayin' related to the mortars with a dual meaning:
He's half a bubble off
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hps
OP
OP
Speedo66
Member
Yup, penicillin also referred to as the “silver bullet”.
Archie
Member
I have heard the above phrase as a comparison to a carpenter's level. Usually in terms of emotional and mental 'balance' more than intelligence.
Howland937
Member
Shooting in the dark here...
That's probably where it originated and was adapted to the mortars as "leveling the bubbles" on the sight is final step in acquiring your target.
On one occasion, we drew a lot of very old, or at the very least poorly stored 81mm HE light for a range session which actually had to be cut out of the individual cardboard tubes with bayonets. I had a new member on one gun who had never fired a live round before. After demonstrating the steps in preparing and firing the round, I had him go through the steps. He was a bit nervous but dropped the round in the tube and it went off but didn't sound right. Turned out to be a short round which fell close enough that we heard shrapnel cutting through trees forward of the line.
A day or two went by and another platoon member handed me a piece of paper with this cadence: Grab your pots and hit the ground, Shortshot "Jonesy" fired a round, Sound off....... Seventeen platoon members thought it was funny, but.....
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hps
Robert Highhawk
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Are you going to pull those pistols or you just gonna stand there and whistle Dixie
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
The original Armalite AR-15 most certainly was an automatic firearm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLite_AR-15
.308 Norma
Member
"bit the bullet"
"once the smoke cleared"
"once the smoke cleared"
Agreed, the ArmaLite AR-15, Produced 1959–1964[3, was
an automatic rifle, per linked article, however, currently produced AR 15's ARE auto loading rifles, not automatic rifles.
Common use of the term "automatic firearm" by today's main stream media to imply that the semi-automatic firearm is, full auto, not what could, and should more precisely be described as auto loader is simply dishonest. Whether the term is used out of simple ignorance or in a deliberate attempt to deceive those unfamiliar with the proper nomenclature of the firearm, is of no consequence. The end result is that it makes all firearms much more sinister in the eyes of the non-shooting public. IOW, words matter.
Wilkipedia said:
Regards,
hps
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stillquietvoice
Contributing Member
Top gun
Grape shot
Canister
Grape shot
Canister
He had the drop on me.
See the second part of the definition. An expert marksman. I am not sure which is the older usage, though.
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
You seem to be really hung up on this. I have a Colt Automatic Pistol called a 1911 that fires Colt Automatic cartridges. It is not fully automatic as most AR15s are not either. Autoloading guns are automatics, they just are not fully automatic as already pointed out to you.
Many AR15s can certainly be made to be fully automatic with just a simple change of parts. I know people with fully automatic AR15s. I have AR15s that could be converted.
The gun community referred to such guns automatics for decades. That it is out of favor and that you don't like that the media now uses the terminology to our detriment does not change the correctness of the use. "Automatic" is a perfectly valid descriptor.
You noticed.
Yes, I am.Valid, yes, concise, no. In the past, such careful selection of precise descriptive vocabulary was not a concern. However, that was when journalism professors stressed the fact that the reporter's opinion should never be evident in the presentation of a subject, and journalists honored that procrustean rule.
Back then, there was no need for further differentiation between the two distinctly different firearms. With today's hostile environment toward the 2A, (especially SA weapons) and the fact that agenda based reporting is apparently acceptable, if not encouraged by many, if not most main stream media it behooves us all to encourage use of more precisely descriptive adjectives.
Double Naught Spy said:
You and I, as well as most here on THR fully understand the difference between full automatic and semi automatic, but the non-shooting, general public does not. Therein lies the problem. MSM can and has used these incorrect adjectives to confuse the undecided general pulic and sway public opinion to support their agenda.
To the uninformed, automatic means full automatic; we all realize that AR 15's can be modified to full automatic by changing a few parts, but they don't. We also understand that in 1986 a federal law was passed (albeit questionably...see very interesting article @: https://www.nraila.org/articles/19990729/fully-automatic-firearms ) by which the number of fully automatic firearms in civilian hands was frozen at an estimated 150,000, making the manufacture or conversion of a self loading firearm to fire full automatically illegal, but they don't.
We are both on the same page; my preoccupation with carefully descriptive adjectives is probably overboard, but in this day and age, words matter. Wouldn't it be nice if the media used correctly descriptive adjectives?
Regards,
hps
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