motors and engines

["Denis, Jean" <Jean_Denis@domain.elided>]

OK,OK, in deference to our defender of the King's English, I concede that an
"engine" is any mechanical device (like a "difference engine") and a "motor"
is one that creates motion.

HOWEVER, "Engine" is a more noble seeming word and i'm going to stick with
that as a label for infernal combustion devices. "Motor" is like the French
"Moteur" which is the only translation for Engine or Motor, regardless
(well, ok, there is a french word "engin" but it is only used in the context
of "engines of war"- Dad once worked for "Les Engins Matra"). And Engine and
the same root as "Engineer" - which is what i'm supposed to be :-DD. But in
French, (which is what i am, except for the other 50% of my jeans, which are
Italiano and therefore, not required to be adept of the King's English),
Engineer translates as "Ingenieur" which has the meaning "ingenious",
inferring that an engineer is an "ingenious creator of devices", or
something like that.

When exposed to the awesome, thunderous bellow of a large Pratt&Whitney war
machine radial or, the equally inspiring but completely different wail of an
Alfa device - one tends to prefer to attach the more powerful and noble
seeming word "Engine" to the thing. Personal preference, i guess.

Any musings on the characteristics of the Italiano "Motore" and "Ingenario"
and etc.?

Jean Denis
(currently running off at the keyboard/mouth)

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