Patterns of Innovation in the Language of the Oil Field
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8728531 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lalia Phipps Boone (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1949 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 31-31 |
| Publication date | 1949-02-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Speech (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/486511 |
| OpenAlex | W2328450897 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
THE VOGABULARY characteristic of oil workers is incomprehensible to the 1 uninitiated, but nevertheless it is largely made up of familiar Englisil elements; these workers have taken words they already knew and changed their meanings, and have made new compounds to meet their special needs. The result is a very extensive and constantly increasing body of technical terms and slang.1 This language is highly descriptive and cololful. It is commonly believed that its special character lies in its profanity and obscenity, but I seriously doubt that it is more profane or less printable than the language of any other group of men who are engaged in dangerous work in somewhat isolated localities. A brief consideration of some of the sources and peculiarities of tIlis highly specialized language gives an interesting view of one phase of modern English usage. Oil-field jargon, as I have said, is composed mostly of terms already in the English language. These terms come from almost every walk of life-navigation, sports, zoology, medicine, religion, home, and farm, with home and farm terms probably more prolific than the others. A term comes into being because what it signiSes resembles an object in one of these other fields of interest. This similarity may be in actual appearance. The hayrack, sometimes called hay rake or finger board, in the upper portion of a derrick really does look like a hayrack on the farm; but its purpose is quite different. It is used to keep pipe straight in the derrick, or, in Seld terminology, to keep pipe from swarming. The resemblance between pipe that is out of control and bees swarming is unmistakable, but the remark that 'the driller is in a swarm' shows a transfer from concrete to abstract: he is confused and worried and irritable. A Christmas tree resembles the conventional Christmas tree in appearance because of its profuse display of different-sized valves, or gates, a variety of connections including nipples and slopers, and the choke, which is more commonly called a Now bean or cracked valve. It is unlike the conventional Christmas tree in that it remains 'decorated' and in use every day in the year
Field (mathematics · Linguistics · Oil field · Petroleum engineering · Pure mathematics · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Lexicography and Language Studies · Mathematics · Geology · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.02 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1985 - 1985 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |