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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
DR, was: No Lunars Era
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Dec 6, 21:16 -0400
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Dec 6, 21:16 -0400
Peter Fogg wrote: > I don't know that its all that interesting, but assume 'ded' is an > abbreviation for 'deduced' (reckoning) and 'dead' a mis-writing (or hearing) > of 'ded' that has become commonly accepted. That is commonly suggested (even stated as though it was a confirmed truth) but it just doesn't ring true -- to me anyway. As has been argued often enough before, abbreviating "deduced" to "ded" would be typical of 20th century practice but the expression "dead reckoning" goes back much further to times when abbreviations and acronyms were far less prevalent. My own guess is that DR is termed "dead" because it is not alive, meaning that it is not updated through the use of new information on position. But for all I know it is an anglicization of a Portuguese navigational term. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus