NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Wind & Current Navigation
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2003 Apr 22, 18:05 -0700
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2003 Apr 22, 18:05 -0700
On Tuesday, April 22, 2003, at 12:48 PM, George Istok wrote: > I have always thought that navigation and piloting were separate > concepts. From the American Heritage Dictionary: piloting n. 1. The occupation or service of a pilot. 2. Nautical. Coastal navigation, as by reference to buoys and soundings. If we poke around in the etymological soil for the roots of the word pilot, we find that it goes back to the Indo-European root ped-, meaning �foot.� From the lengthened-grade suffixed form pedo- came the Greek word pedon, �blade of an oar,� and in the plural, �rudder.� In Medieval Greek there is assumed to have existed the derivative pedotes, �steersman,� which passed into Old Italian and acquired several forms, including pedota, and pilota, the form that was borrowed into Old French as pilot. English borrowed the word from French, and as pilot it has moved from the water to the air, first being recorded in 1848 with reference to an airborne pilot�a balloonist. navigate v. 1. To plan, record, and control the course and position of (a ship or an aircraft). 2. To follow a planned course on, across, or through: navigate a stream. [Latin navigare, navigat- : navis, ship; see nau- below + agere, to drive, lead; see ag- below.] I'll check the OED later... Dan
