It's always fun to make guesses about unfamiliar words. The Tensor has a post on this very subject, introducing "two separate bits of terminology associated with modern sport fencing: homologated and maraging." If you already know these words, you're presumably a fencer (and I'd be interested to know how you pronounce the latter, since it seems to have undergone a curious process of foreignizing in some circles in the few decades of its existence). If you don't, take a stab (so to speak) at the meaning of "homologated jackets, britches, and masks" and "maraging blades" (or, more properly as far as I can tell, "maraged blades"). Then pop over to The Tensor and get the facts (which suprised me).
Posted by languagehat at May 9, 2006 10:43 AMhomo logo; logic and man leading to [1] "to approve,or countenance or it be [2] Civil law to confirm officially,
so my ill informed guess be: officially approved clothing of those that be fencing and using special steel for ones epee.
Ah! that word 'fence' leads to some interesting situations.
I used to fence when I was growing up in Los Angeles, and we pronounced "maraging" as "m?ra???."
Posted by: David Boyk at May 9, 2006 11:39 PMHmm, maybe the IPA didn't come through. "Muh-raa-zhing," anyway.
Posted by: David Boyk at May 9, 2006 11:40 PMYeah, apparently that's the standard "fencing pronunciation." But it's very odd, because it's a compound based on mar(tensite) + aging, two perfectly good English words; I guess fencers just feel more comfortable with terminology that sounds French!
Posted by: language hat at May 10, 2006 06:59 AMA propos, why hasn't LanguageHat updated his email?
Posted by: george sala at May 10, 2006 01:04 PMNot sure what you mean. The Gmail address is my current one.
Posted by: language hat at May 10, 2006 01:36 PMSteve here is now the #3 "hat" google. With a few more links he will become the Hat of the Universe.
Posted by: John Emerson at May 10, 2006 03:15 PMHomologated is very familiar if you are connected or follow reasonably closely any form of motor sport (auto racing or rallying).
Paul
homologated sounds familiar for any italian-speaker (maybe also in other romance languages). in Italian it's quite an every-day word (omologato). It's used to describe an object which is approved by a sport federation or which fits in all the features stated by the law. E.G. if you ride a motorbike you must wear a homologated (omologato) helmet. I heard that there's quite a lot of latinate words which sound rare, obsolete, or obscure in English, while their italian cognate is quite common in every-day speech. Is that true?
P.S. I'd never heard the word maraging before.
I was wondering if there is a spanish word for maraging, but seems there is not.
Maraging steel is 18Ni-4,5Mo-7Co-0,3Ti and was developed in 1960 by International Nickel Company ....
"Maraging" is actually the technical term for what goes on immediately prior to my putting up a post on my blog. I know what I want to say, but the letters aren't quite in the right order...
Posted by: ramage at May 12, 2006 07:26 PMI forgot to say that homologated comes actually from greek: homos = the same & logeo = say, declare.
Posted by: maitreya at May 13, 2006 04:00 AMOdd... I've only ever heard "homologated" as a description of a Spanish legal process -- specifically, in the context of someone needing to have a degree from a non-Spanish university "translated" so that it could be used to meet the requirements of a particular job in Spain.