• tiramichu@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Why is “helicopter” commonly shortened to “helo” rather than “heli” ?

    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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      4 months ago

      What’s really neat linguistically is that “helicopter” isn’t a compound of “heli” and “copter,” but rather “helico” (as in helix, helical) and “pter” (as in pterodactyl).

      “Rebracketing” is when this happens (i.e., the split in the word is moved in colloquial language).

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        “helico” (as in helix, helical) and “pter” (as in pterodactyl)

        Oh, yeah. For those people that keep insisting that the rotating wing is not an helix… go change the name!

    • Lupus@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      In German it is the other way around, Helikopter gets shortened to heli

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      Not 100% sure on this, but it may be due to ‘helo’ being more audibly distinct than ‘heli’ over a shitty garbled radio?

      It could also be from different regional/national accents of English pronouncing helicopter as basically hee-lo-copter, sort of like how there are different pronunciations of Uranus or nuclear?

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        shitty garbled radio

        Which is the standard method of communication aviation has somehow agreed on using “for safety reasons”.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          Well, to expand on that theory, ‘helo’ would have originated almost entirely with the radio tech of 50s and 60s military.

          A whole lot of lingo basically makes sense if you understand its origin, but when the term keeps being used for decades and decades, its removed from that context and doesn’t seem to make much sense in a modern context.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Heliskiing would be a lot more interesting if it was a fuel-efficient way to return the helicopter to the airport down in the valley after flying something up to the mountain.

        • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          What? You mean other than bolting two snowboards to the bottom of each skid and not being a total bitch about it?