Can you explain to me how we get from the word analogy to analogue? Analog(ue) in the sense of electrical devices.

I dont know if I asked that very well but I'm sure you know what I mean.

That question and answer could win you a free book...
dB-

http://www.imponderables.com/gotone.html

an analogy is a comparison that depends on similarity

an analog is the thing that is similar

analog electronics are electronics that take a change in a signal--whether acoustic or electrical--and relay it in some manner as a change in voltage or current. in other words, analog stuff makes an analog of the initial signal.

Mr. Midgett is correct.

For extra credit, tell them the etymology of "O.K.", which happens to be the only word that has been included, untranslated, in every spoken language on the planet (discounting proper nouns, in which case "Coke" is probably a close second).

ginandtacos.com wrote:For extra credit, tell them the etymology of "O.K.", which happens to be the only word that has been included, untranslated, in every spoken language on the planet (discounting proper nouns, in which case "Coke" is probably a close second).

I've got this one:

"The etymology of OK was masterfully explained by the distinguished Columbia University professor Allen Walker Read in a series of articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964.

The letters, not to keep you guessing, stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s.

Read buttressed his arguments with hundreds of citations from newspapers and other documents of the period. As far as I know his work has never been successfully challenged.

The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 and spread to New York and New Orleans in 1839. The Boston newspapers began referring satirically to the local swells as OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes."

Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."

Most of these acronyms enjoyed only a brief popularity. But OK was an exception, no doubt because it came in so handy. It first found its way into print in Boston in March of 1839 and soon became widespread among the hipper element.

It didn't really enter the language at large, however, until 1840. That's when Democratic supporters of Martin Van Buren adopted it as the name of their political club, giving OK a double meaning. ("Old Kinderhook" was a native of Kinderhook, New York.)

OK became the warcry of Tammany hooligans in New York while beating up their opponents. It was mentioned in newspaper stories around the country.

Van Buren's opponents tried to turn the phrase against him, saying that it had originated with Van Buren's allegedly illiterate predecessor, Andrew Jackson, a story that has survived to this day. They also devoted considerable energy to coming up with unflattering interpretations, e.g., "Out of Kash, Out of Kredit, and Out of Klothes."

Newspaper editors and publicists around the country delighted in coming up with even sillier interpretations-- Oll Killed, Orfully Konfused, Often Kontradicts, etc.--so that by the time the campaign was over the expression had taken firm root nationwide.

As time went on, though, people forgot about the abbreviation fad and Old Kinderhook and began manufacturing their own etymologies. Here's a sampling:

(1) It's a derivative of the Choctaw Indian affirmative "okeh." Andrew Jackson, who figures in many stories about OK, is said to have introduced the word to the white man.

(2) Another Jackson story has it that he used to mark OK for "oll korrect" on court documents. In the one example of this that was actually unearthed, however, the OK was found actually to be OR, for "order recorded," a common courthouse abbreviation.

(3) It was a telegraphic signal meaning "open key," that is, ready to receive. Others say OK was used for "all right" because A and R had already been appropriated for other purposes. Big problem with this theory: the first telegraph message was transmitted in 1844, five years after OK appeared.

(4) It stands for O. Kendall & Sons, a supplier of army biscuits that stamped its initials on its product.

(5) It comes from Aux Cayes, already discussed. A variant is that it comes from the French au quai, "to the dock," said of cotton that had been approved for loading on a ship.

(6) It stands for Obediah Kelly, a railroad freight agent, who used to mark his initials on documents to indicate all was in order.

(7) It comes from the Greek Olla Kalla, "all good."

(8) A German general who fought on the side of the Americans in the Revolutionary War used to sign documents OK for Ober-Kommando.

There are dozens of other interpretations, all equally knuckleheaded. Pay them no mind. If Professor Read says OK = oll korrect, that's good enough for me."

www.straightdope.com

ginandtacos.com wrote:Mr. Midgett is correct.

For extra credit, tell them the etymology of "O.K.", which happens to be the only word that has been included, untranslated, in every spoken language on the planet (discounting proper nouns, in which case "Coke" is probably a close second).

Rumor I heard was it a Red Cross slang term from World War I, meaning "0 Killed"

Seems a little far fetched to me.

That gentleman is quite incorrect. "O.K." is an artifact of the presidency of Martin van Buren.

No, seriously.

He was referred to almost exclusively by his nickname, "Old Kinderhook" (a reference to his birthplace) and made a habit of approving White House documents by signing them "O.K."

Using the phrase to approve things became standard operating procedure in the halls of government and in Washington, and within the next decade it had fairly spread throughout the country. For some reason it stuck rather than dying out (like most slang terms) and is pretty much the only word one could be guaranteed to hear anyplace on earth.

This is, in fact, the honest truth, and all other speculation as to where the term originated and what it means are like so much horse crap.

the word analogy relates to the word analogue in this way

analogue: noun: a person or thing seen as comparable to another. eg. an interior analogue of the exterior world
adjective]: relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity, voltage etc. eg. as in a synthesizer the changes in voltage are used to model the sound wave

analogy: noun: a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification
eg. the interpretation of logical functions by analogy with machines

the definitions above come from the shorter oxford english dictionary, so they are ultimately correct, the comparison below is the distillation of a discussion i had with a work colleague that this thread was the basis for. it may or may not be the case but we thought it sounded right....

to compare the two. in digital sound reproduction (eg a compact disc) the sound reproduced is an analogy of the original sound recorded based on the digital code that's stored, whereas on a vinyl record or audio cassette the reproduced sound is a direct analogue of the original sound recorded

edited for grammatical reasons

According to the chick in a recent Godard flick, O.K. originated in the American civil war when a clerk transcribing casualty figures started abbreviating "0 Killed" to "0K". I don't see why this is any less plausible than a number of the other suggestions mentioned above. It is of course possible that the expression has a number of etymological roots and was amalgamated at a later point. We all want to believe that the version we've heard and subscribed to for however long is the "true" root, but honestly, how the hell can any of us know?

My argument for the above (i.e. American civil war) suggestion is that military slang tends to proliferate within a wider language base and stick more tenaciously than slang (which, let's face it, is by nature ephemeral) originating in other contexts. How would the initials of a president (initials, incidentally, without even a vague intrinsic cognitive link to the meaning of OK) become firstly synonymous with the idea of "OKness" and secondly available to the lips of thousands of English speakers? Surely a relatively infinitesimal number of people ever saw this man's correspondence. There is, on the other hand, a quite plausible semantic link between "0 Killed" and "OK".

I'm trying to imagine how often during the Civil War (as the one account goes) or WWI (as the other does) anyone would have cause to write anything meaning "0 killed". More to the point, I don't really see how this would have come into ordinary slang. I do admit that it seems a little more plausible than coming off of van Buren's personal memos, but not by a lot.

Personally, I always thought the theory about coming from the Choctaw "okeh" seemed most likely, since English is full of words from nearly every other human language. But I guess most scholars dismiss that one.

Prof. Read's theory, quoted at length above, is the only one I've heard that cites documentary evidence, and plenty of it at that, so that's the one I'm going to tentatively accept.

I accept snopes.com's word as nearly gospel on most questions of this nature, but it appears they haven't addressed it (yet?)