Trivia Question

[Sturn]

I have a question that I've always wondered about. I understand the origins of the small craft names being related to real world naval vessel nomenclature - "ship's boat", "launch", etc.

Why "air/raft"? I know what a raft is, but why not just "air raft"? Why the "/"?

Just something I always wondered about, even in my original youthful Traveller days. I always figured there was some reason from modern naval nomenclature.

I have a strange feeling I'm going to look and feel very stupid when someone replies with a very obvious answer.......

 

[BlackBat242]

Air raft... as opposed to water raft.

Or space raft.

Or rift raft. :smirk:

 

[far-trader]

I can't recall if this came up in the questions of the game thread a while back. I think it might have. Can't recall the answer if there was.

Best I can think now is it needed something to break up the rr since airraft looks odd. A hyphen might have worked as in air-raft (I've seen and done it that way) but I guess the slash just looks more... I dunno, spacey?

 

[Sturn]

Air raft... as opposed to water raft.

Or space raft.

Or rift raft. :smirk:

Yeah, I got that all on my own. It was the "/" I was inquiring about.

 

[Sturn]

Best I can think now is it needed something to break up the rr since airraft looks odd. A hyphen might have worked as in air-raft (I've seen and done it that way) but I guess the slash just looks more... I dunno, spacey?

Thanks. That makes sense. But why not a space like most phases? Air Raft?

 

[captainjack]

Thanks. That makes sense. But why not a space like most phases? Air Raft?

well.....air raft would be hard to trademark....air/raft, not so hard. So, I suspect that's why (as a retro/rationalization).

Since the design is supposed to be a classic, it's probably become like band-aid or xerox, in any case.

 

[Gruffty]

Simple answer, dredged up from the murky depths of my memory:

Air/raft = simple typo, someone hit the "/" key instead of the space bar. Note that, depending on which book or rules you're reading (CT, MT etc) it's either "Air/raft" or "air/raft".

ISTR Vacc suit is a similiar typo.

 

[far-trader]

...ISTR Vacc suit is a similiar typo.

Well, not to cast Marc in a bad light but iirc when I asked about it somebody said he'd once admitted publicly that Vacuum was one of the words that always gave him problems spelling. He'd usually spell it Vaccum, so his natural abbreviation for a Vacuum Suit came out Vacc Suit. Which is kinda catchy actually.

There's a fun thread somewhere here where we came up the explanation that it was a trademarked acronym (like Scuba) and worked out a bunch of different sources for the acronym

 

[Sturn]

..and now this possibly explains why I have always had trouble spelling vacuum. I always tend to put two "Cs" in it. Do I have Marc and his game to blame for this since I started playing Traveller in my youth!

 

[Gadrin]

In EC Tubbs Dumarest saga they use the term "raft", though you'd have to ask Marc Miller where the term came officially from.

I saw it in Jack of Swords book.

You might try posting on the SJG bbs, where Loren Wiseman posts/responds regularly.

http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

 

[Plankowner]

And then cross-post any replies here for the rest of us who don't do GURPS!

THANX

 

[Gadrin]

And then cross-post any replies here for the rest of us who don't do GURPS!

THANX

most of the guys over there are CT fans too. not everyone but a significant amount I'd say. you could easily discuss most of the original flavors over there.

 

[BlackBat242]

I think he is hinting that he is not really interested in going there just to see the answer... or for any other reason.

I know I don't look at a large numbers of forii that might have something interesting to me... just because I don't have time to.

What would be so hard for you to either copy whatever answer is given and post it in this thread... or just link to it?