Words mean things. Crazy, I know, but they do. And they have specific meanings.
Lately I’ve been encountering a lot of misused terms. These three groups of people are the ones that have been driving me up the wall and down the other side lately.
– People who identify something as a cello when it is very obviously a double bass. If you’re going to tag or describe a photo or other item, make sure it actually is or depicts what you say it is. Otherwise, you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
– People who describe something as “vintage” when it’s under twenty years old.
– People who describe or tag something as “antique” when it’s less than fifty years old. (The stickler in me defines it as one hundred years or older, but I understand that’s not how the rest of the world operates. Let’s compromise on a nice round eighty.)
Gah.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog-reading.
This page made me shake my head. If, in 1998, an antique firearm was defined as a firearm manufactured prior to 1898, then it has *everything* to do with the dictionary definition of an antique… I just hope the man is less ignorant when it comes to actally teaching the firearm safety course that we’re supposed to be attending.
Sorry no.
MW:
“1: a relic or object of ancient times2 a: a work of art, piece of furniture, or decorative object made at an earlier period and according to various customs laws at least 100 years ago b: a manufactured product (as an automobile) from an earlier period”
If an antique firearm had “*everything* to do with the dictionary definition” you wouldn’t have all the fun sub clauses on what an “antique firearm” is and is not allowed to shoot.
The important thing for you to know though is that it’s not on the test. Drop me a line if you want some heads up, I did them last year and sadly the trick is to not think too much :/
That’s actually kind of interesting. I see Jan’s point about the 100 years or older, which is the guts of the dictionary definition and what we usually mean when we refer to the definition of an antique, but looking at the other stuff in the dictionary definition makes me wonder about how the Canadian Criminal Code uses the term. So according to the page on antique firearms, a gun cannot be considered a work of art or a decorative object. If the dictionary had specified “purely decorative” I’d agree, but I’ve seen some beautiful working guns that are displayed as decorative and pieces of art, and I’m sure there are friends of mine would would make a case for guns being art, too.