Most "professions" or occupations have a language of their own ..... We usually call it Jargon ...... and over the years such expressions, which once only made sense to those directly involved, creep into more common usage ~ often eventually displacing other words or expressions.
My father, for instance, always referred to the cobbler (shoe mender) as the "Snob".
This was no reflection on the man himself ... as far as Dad was concerned all cobblers were "Snobs" and indeed the older members of the trade referred to themselves as such.
You never hear it these days, rather we refer to the "shoe repairer" or the "heel bar" ... seldom even the cobbler let alone the snob but Dad had been in the shoe trade for donkeys years. When he left school at age 14 it was to start work as an apprentice with Barratts where one of his daily tasks was to fetch and carry repairs to and from the "Snob". I have been known to suggest to a wife that, whilst in town, she might care to drop a pair of shoes off at the Snob's ..... my request has always been met with a look of utter incomprehension.
Another example would be the use of RTA (Road Traffic Accident) to describe a car crash. This came from the Police and crept into general use. I understand that the police, as I am sure our resident rozzer will confirm, no longer use RTA but prefer RTI or Road Traffic Incident as they now look for reasons that the crash occurred. The German police have always used this as their starting point. There are laws regarding vehicle maintenance and usage. Accident implies that there is no fault but the Germans have always believed that someone has broken one of the many laws and regulations and that will be what caused the crash thus they start their investigation into the crash by seeking to find which law was broken.
And that is the end of today's lecture.
