In a recent post Pat corrected my use of the word truck driver. Is not the term truck supplanting lorry in this country especially for very large vehicles? Truck seems to be a common term now in the freight industry and indeed amongst drivers, we have a local charity called East Coast Truckers for example.
When you think about it lorry is an odd word. Where did it come from? Truck seems to have a longer history.
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Lorry is an odd word.
When I first moved to the states, which was 25 or so years ago now, I became very self-conscious about using the word "lorry" to Americans, since 99% of them didn't understand and the other 1% treated me like I'd said something the educational level of "rubber-ducky-wucky".
So I switched to "truck", which from habit I mostly still use today.
I had similar self-consciousness when talking about "tights", but "hose" is really no better.
Still, Zero might know where the word "lorry" comes from since I seem to remember reading somewhere that its an old railway term.
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A truck (US, CA, AU, NZ) or lorry (UK and Ireland) is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo.
Etymology[edit]
The word "truck" might have come from a back-formation of "truckle" with the meaning "small wheel", "pulley", from Middle English trokell, in turn from Latin trochlea. Another explanation is that it comes from Latin trochus with the meaning of "iron hoop". In turn, both go back to Greek trokhos (τροχός) meaning "wheel" from trekhein (τρέχειν, "to run"). The first known usage of "truck" was in 1611 when it referred to the small strong wheels on ships' cannon carriages. In its extended usage it came to refer to carts for carrying heavy loads, a meaning known since 1771. With the meaning of "motor-powered load carrier", it has been in usage since 1930, shortened from "motor truck", which dates back to 1916.[1][2]
"Lorry" has a more uncertain origin, but probably has its roots in the railway industry, where the word is known to have been used in 1838 to refer to a type of truck (a freight car as in British usage, not a bogie as in the American), specifically a large flat wagon. It probably derives from the verb lurry (to pull, tug) of uncertain origin. With the meaning of "self-propelled vehicle for carrying goods" it has been in usage since 1911.[3][4]
Before that, the word "lorry" was used for a sort of big horse-drawn goods wagon.
International variance[edit]
In the United States, Canada, and the Philippines "truck" is usually reserved for commercial vehicles larger than normal cars including pickups and other vehicles having an open load bed. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the word "truck" is mostly reserved for larger vehicles; in Australia and New Zealand, a pickup truck is usually called a ute (short for "utility"), while in South Africa it is called a bakkie (Afrikaans: "small open container"). In the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Ireland and Hong Kong lorry is used instead of truck, but only for the medium and heavy types.
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Seems a bit out of date since "truck is widely" used now in the UK. Lorry already seems to carry a slightly old fashioned air.
It seems a bit like the term "biker" . Almost unknown I think in the UK 30 years ago but now commonly used for motorcyclists.
Interesting how language changes.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Wed 16 Apr 14 at 21:58
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Racking my brains, I'm fairly sure we referred to ourselves as bikers in the early 70s.
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>> Racking my brains, I'm fairly sure we referred to ourselves as bikers in the early
>> 70s.
Around the early 70's "biker" was coming in and supplanting Greasers, Rockers, ton-up boys even ( snigger ) "Leather boys"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghA7tIBVBwU
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I think you are right. It originally had Hell's Angel type connotations but is now increasingly being used to mea someone who rides a motor bike.
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>> I think you are right. It originally had Hell's Angel type connotations but is now
>> increasingly being used to mea someone who rides a motor bike.
>>
As a long-standing member of the VMCC, I can assure you that use of the term "biker" amongst the more senior members of that august body is likely to engender the cold stares and pin-dropping silence normally associated with farting in church.
They are "motorcyclists".
Amongst drivers, the terms lorry, wagon and (pertaining to artics) unit seem to be used fairly equally. Truck is more commonly used of pick-ups and Transit-type vehicles, "rig" is only used by the sort of HGV drivers who have tassled curtains, fancy paint jobs and a dozen spot-lights on the front, or by those who aspire to such fripperies.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Wed 16 Apr 14 at 22:32
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It would seem that you are right.
"a truck; a long, flat wagon," 1838, British railroad word, probably from verb lurry "to pull, tug" (1570s), of uncertain origin. Meaning "large motor vehicle for carrying goods" is first attested 1911.
Source; International Etymology Dictionary.
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Plenty of references to lorry or, more frequently lurry, in books about the railways. Lots were drawn by steam wagons.....also a term for lorry.
I have a photo in one of my books of a Yorkshire steam wagon with it's 'rully '. ....Wiki........ railway usage , railroad car , hand-pulled wagons , toy wagon , other uses wain , discuss talk:wagon#merger proposal , date february 2013
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Oh do shut up all of you.
Call it a lorry
Call it a truck
Call it a wagon
I don't give a damn.
There's something wrong with the above verse. Discuss.
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Funny - my Irish friend (age 75) always says "lurry".
I prefer lorry or wagon to truck. A truck is a child's toy, Shirley?
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You can shut up too CGN. Punctuation be damned. Idiot (sorry, I know you aren't, but really!)
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I'm sure Pat's more than capable of answering for herself, but I get the impression she objects to being called a trucker.
Perhaps it's 'cos she drives a lorry?
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>> I'm sure Pat's more than capable of answering for herself, but I get the impression
>> she objects to being called a trucker.
>>
I can understand her objecting if the said vehicle is dirty, in which case she would surely be a dirty trucker ...
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:) a dirty trucker with a sense of humour.
Pat
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"sorry, I know you aren't, but really!"
Actually you don't know that and I fear your assessment may well be correct but I am a happy idiot and that is some consolation.
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HM has it spot on:)
I don't like being called a Trucker because for a female it's always prefixed by 'Lady'.
Lorry driver is generic and so it should be. It doesn't matter what sex I am, I drive a lorry and that's all there is to it!
Pat
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When I lived in Kenya, the locals called the Motor end of an articulated lorry a 'horse'
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>> HM has it spot on:)
>>
>> I don't like being called a Trucker because for a female it's always prefixed by
>> 'Lady'.
>>
>> Lorry driver is generic and so it should be. It doesn't matter what sex I
>> am, I drive a lorry and that's all there is to it!
>>
>> Pat
You could be a "Truckette" :-)
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>> You could be a "Truckette"
That would mean small truck. 'Truckerine' would be better (the French used to call female TV and radio announcers 'speakerines').
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Now you're both annoying me!
I don't want to be anything different to all the blokes who go out and do the job every day.
I don't want categorizing, naming, or treating and different, just remember I'm just the same as them but my two bumps are a bit higher up than theirs:)
Pat
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>> just remember I'm just the same
>> as them but my two bumps are a bit higher up than theirs:)
...and unless they are severely unwell, a tad more prominent.
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>>but my two bumps are a bit higher up than theirs:)
Don't worry, time will sort that out.
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>>
>> >> You could be a "Truckette"
>>
>> That would mean small truck. 'Truckerine' would be better (the French used to call female
>> TV and radio announcers 'speakerines').
>>
A Truckle, perhaps; or is that slightly cheesy? ;-)
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>> I am a happy idiot and that is some consolation.
Oh great. You made me think of it. Now I'm going to have get out Dostoyevsky again.
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My father was a long-distance lorry driver - it's on my birth certificate.
Oddly enough, I prefer to remember him as a trucker.
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Come on people - in Britain it's a lorry, in the USA it's a truck.
British English here, please. :-)
Harumph.
Colonel Blimp (Retd.)
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I use neither, I call them all wagons.
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Must be from the Leeds/Bradford area then!
Pat
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A friend from. Bradford always calls them wagons. Manufacturers seem to have decided on "truck"
www.scania.co.uk/products/trucks/
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>> A friend from. Bradford always calls them wagons.
Remember that from my childhood in the West Riding. My father, who was from Rochdale,used the term as did the warehouse staff at his employers base in Bolton.
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>>British English here, please. :-)
Now look....
I have this argument a lot and there's a couple of points to be made;
We speak English, Not British English, English. They speak American, not American English, American. There is no such language as American English. If they would just accept that and refer to their language as American, then they can treat it how they wish. But for as long as they insist on calling it English, then we will tell them how to speak it.
We do not have a British accent. In fact we have no accent, it is our language. They have an accent, and not a very good one.
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Just reading Zero's post on the origin of the word. My father always refers to a Lorry as a "Lurry" - mind you he did study classical Greek at one point in his long life. He also says "Cuventry" instead of Coventry...
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I use either. Depends on my choice of prefacing expletive and what sounds most natural with that.
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A waggon that's a lorry or truck has two 'g's I reckon...
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>> A waggon that's a lorry or truck has two 'g's I reckon...
I think you're right. It had been troubling me. All those pubs called the Waggon and Horses can't be wrong.
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OT - Did you know that the origin of Hire Purchase was for the financing of wagons? Coal wagons on't rail-roads , of course
.
(H.P. is asset hire for a period with title remaining with the finance company until the payment of a nominal purchase amount. *Just for the youngsters amongst us who only know PCP & Personal Loans!)
One of the original finance companies kept its original name - Wagon Finance -into the 1970s before being swallowed up by First National.
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Bikers and Motorcyclists are two distinct groups in the 2 wheeled world. I can guarantee you that Ted is a Motorcyclist as I am. We are gentlemen of the roads !
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Absolutely...Well said, that man. I'll pass it on to Ted !
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Lorry or Truck - Robin O'Reliant
