turbine » turban

Chiefly in:   wind turban , steam turban , gas turban , water turban

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • They investigated wind power, but the anemometer reading at their farm showed average winds of 5 miles an hour, which is not enough to justify a wind turban. (California Materials Exchange, Last updated: August 26, 2005)
  • His approach is to use a dual system of a gas turban and a steam turban to create energy in the power plant. (Jewish Virtual Library, Cooperation Between Israel and the State of Utah, 2006)
  • I know you wanted to initially to put a wind turban on a hill on your property and just sort of give the electricity free away to the town. (CNN, rush transcript, December 23, 2004)
  • A representative from Plain States Energy met with the County Board to give an overview of a wind Turbans project in the northern part of Todd County. (Independent News Herald, Legal Notices for the Week of April 12, 2006, Minutes of the Meeting of the Todd County Board of Commissioners held on March 7 & 13 2006)
  • You have been most kind in helping locate certain items that can be more effective at Antique Acres than at most other shows like an old Hurdy-Gurdy water powered paddle mill that powered a gold mine stamping mill, a 12 inch water powered Pelton wheel, and a 6 inch water Turban wheel. (Gas Engine Magazine)

Analyzed or reported by:

Ken Lakritz writes about this eggcon, “whether it has a semantic basis is pretty dubious”, but I don’t agree: For members of non-turban-wearing cultures, a turban is fundamentally something that goes round and round and round.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2006/05/21 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Carol Shenk , 2006/08/22 at 8:14 pm

    I recently heard a public radio story about “turbans” used to generate electricity from ocean wave energy. I think they said that at one location there were “forty underwater turbans.”

  2. 2

    Commentary by Katherine Luketina , 2006/08/29 at 2:30 am

    I disagree that ‘for members of -turban-wearing cultures, a turban is fundamentally something that goes round and round and round.’

    The pronunciation of the word ‘turbine’ as ‘turban’ is peculiar to the USA. Most other people in the English-speaking world pronounce ‘turbine’ with a long ‘i’ rather than pronouncing ‘ine’ as ‘an’. A related regional difference in pronunciation occurs with the word ‘missile’. Whenever a person from the USA on my TV or radio discusses dropping missiles, which happens all too frequently, I momentarily wonder why on earth they are dropping prayer books (missals).

  3. 3

    Commentary by Mel Brittingham , 2006/08/29 at 3:21 pm

    I think I’ve discovered a new magic item for role-playing games.

  4. 4

    Commentary by Mac , 2006/09/29 at 3:06 am

    I can see “wind turban”, since that is, after all, how one puts one on.

    Also, I know at least one person will not get this, as one person has already failed to understand the joke about the turban “going round and round and round”.

  5. 5

    Commentary by Devin , 2006/10/05 at 10:01 pm

    Katherine, you can’t say any pronunciation is “peculiar to the USA” because we have way more dialects than that. In my dialect, we say “turbine” with a long “i”, but “missile” with a short “i”.

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