Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Shooters/hunters/manufacturers using the wrong terminology

I warned students when I was conducting shotgun training and qualifications, that if I heard "shottie" or 'the gauge" in reference to their weapon they would fail the qualification. Only a few failed before they realized I was serious.

That made me laugh out loud.

"Long range hunting isn't hunting- it's shooting"

So explain to me in detail, what do you do to an animal with your rifle at close range ? club it to death ? stab it in the ear or eye hole with the barrel ? or do you shoot it ?

another one is ....

"Shooting an animal at long range is unethical because it doesn't allow an animal a chance to escape"

So, you miss a lot at short range ? allowing an animal to escape ?

Bravo!

"Huh? Since when has that been news? the fact that 6mm = 0.236" was well known in the early 1890s, for example."

Understood, Dan, but 1890 was a few years ago and one example (or 2 or 3, even) does not make a very strong case. I'd suggest to you a majority of shooters under age 50 would tell you that .284" = 7mm and, not be aware of the truth.

Maybe math is as important a subject as English is. It's not that difficult to remember that 1 inch = 2.54 cm. Then again, calculators have deprived several generations of useful numbers skills by now.

AI may well make things exponentially worse, and the irony is that those living in that future hell may have no idea what "exponentially" means.

Timberdoodle instead of woodcock sets my teeth on edge.

People say they are running something. I run my truck and shoot my rifles. I never run them.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

Drives me when people ask what grain bullet they should shoot - what pound should I weigh? What dollar do you make at your job? We are doomed.

100% the word caliber is used incorrectly so often by so many that should know different

A couple-three years ago I Googled various major rifle and ammo-company websites, and over 30 used caliber instead of cartridge. Most of the same ones still do, from Federal to Weatherby.

Whether this is a symptom of the decline and fall of Western civilization is another question. English (and especially American English) is a constantly evolving language, based on "common usage."

One that really gets me is "pair of binoculars ". To my thinking one is either using a binocular or a pair of oculars.

I also think caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet (essentially since a 30 caliber bullet is 0.308") but cartridge is 300 Win Mag or 308 Winchester etc.

Any "coolspeak",most of which have been mentioned. Boolit-I won't even open a post/add with this in the subject line.Optic instead of scope ,furniture instead of stock,"running". Hunting guns for close range"work". Nicknames for various cartridges. Every time someone mentions bear protection another poster will invariably have talked to an old guide whom advised him to file the front sight off of his bear protection handgun-this old guide must have warned half of the U.S. population.

Yep, saying a pair of binoculars is redundant, since "bi" already means pair. It's like saying "a pair of bicycles."

But it's such common usage that when I was writing the optics column for Petersen's Hunting in the 1990s, the second head editor of the magazine I worked for always changed "binocular" to "pair of binoculars."

Don't pay any attention to these ignorant fellas, let it go in one ear and out the other.

English is weird. Pants are a "pair of pants".

I hate it when someone says they are going to, or have used, an ATM machine. They should (justifiably) be punched in the face.

I had to punch in my PIN number on the ATM machine to do an EFT transfer

Yesterday I was watching a video on YouTube from Kentucky ballistics where destroyed a cheap 1911 with an overloaded cartridge. He mentioned that the normal working pressure for a 45 ACP was 38k psi. I turned the video off at that statement.

Before computers. Ads and catchy marquis on signs and bill boards would sometimes be intentionally mis-spelled for humorous affect. I had a teacher in school that pointed these out regularly as she felt obligated to, and she also took umbrage to the practice. She saw it as an assault on her life's work.

Popular musical lyrics, contemporary slang or figurative speech regularly butcher most languages. I doubt there's much help for it.

I read a book about the Holland Campaign in WWII.. Seems phone cables were ran all over the place and subjected to tampering by the enemy. Sometimes these slang or figurative speech phrases were used to double check whom was being spoken with.