Today's podictionary word brought to you by GoToMeeting. Try it free for 30 days by following the link www.gotomeeting.com/podcast I've found that I am a pretty busy guy these days and so for the next few weeks or months I'm going to be occasionally recycling some of my favorite episodes. I think most people won't have heard or read them before because I'll be reaching deep into the archives, often back to a time when I had hundreds or even tens of listeners instead of thousands—and when I had no readers at all. So today's episode is a re-recording of my very first episode. For those who listen I'll give you a little sample of how I sounded back in June of 2005, before I got comfortable with microphones. The podictionary word for today is chauffeur , a hired driver—or these days more likely a parent shuttling kids around.
The word chauffeur is older than the internal combustion engine. It first appeared in a French dictionary in 1680, which means it must have been used in speech before that.
1680 was coincidentally the same year a Dutch physicist named Christian Huygens designed the first internal combustion engine, but Huygens's engine was supposed to be fueled by gunpowder and never actually got built. Some of the first cars that did get build didn't use gunpowder or gasoline. It was the age of the steam engine and so the first cars ran on steam.
A steam engine has a firebox and a boiler, the boiler produces steam to drive the pistons. This is an external combustion engine.
To keep the thing going you have to keep stoking the firebox.
In French chaud means “hot” and chauffeur literally meant the person who keeps things hot by stoking the fire.
Cars only really got rolling around 1900 after gasoline engines came into play and it was right around then that the word moved from French to English, but at first it didn't refer to hired drivers, it meant instead an automobile enthusiast, since cars were still sort of a hobby for the rich. This meaning didn't hold on for more than a few short years and so for most of its time in English a chauffeur has been the hired driver. [portions of this episode originally aired June 2, 2005]
