trasmissione, giunti, etc. (was: of translations, transmissions and joints)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Copious thanks to Luca for his scrupulous investigation of these terms in his
polyglot dictionary.

Minor reservation: an industry, trade, or profession will often have its own
particular meaning for a term, differing from the general language, and a
company can have its own distinct meanings, differing from that of other
companies in the same industry. As Luca says, 'trasmissione' or, in English
'transmission' (same in French, Cassell's says) is that which transmits.
Alfaspeak, as used by Fusi, d'Amico, Tabucchi and probably others is a subset
of Italian, perhaps but not necessarily uniform with Fiatspeak. Etcetera.

Fusi and d'Amico & Tabucchi generally list trasmissione, frizione, cambio di
velocita, and ponte posteriore separately, and usually list just two joint
types in the trasmissione; cardano and giunto elastico. (When they get to the
fwd cars the giunti omocinetici appear, which should be a constant velocity
joint.

The reason the parts books use crociera rather than giunto cardanico appears
to be that a complete universal joint (which Fusi calls a giunto cardanico)
consists of the crociera and two yokes which are usually integral with a shaft
or a flange. The one instance I could find in my parts books of a separate
yoke keyed onto a tapered shaft is a 'forcella' (forked implement, says
Cassell's) completing the universal joint at the steering box of a Sprint
Speciale, Sprint Zagato, and ironblock 2000 Spider; late Berlinas are probably
similar. The center universal on a Giulietta consists of a flangia, crociera,
and manicotto (muff), the splined sleeve.

John Fox had referred to Hooke's joints, and I knew the term from somewhere
else, so a reasonable question is what, if anything, is the difference between
a cardan joint and a Hooke's joint. My initial WAG was that it is the width of
the English Channel, the same part being Hooke's in England and Cardan's in
France. If so, the Hooke would have been Robert Hooke (1635-1703), an English
experimental philosopher, the term philosophy embracing scientific
experimentation generally rather than philosophy in the modern sense. The
Petit Larousse, my only French dictionary, confirms the 'cardan' guess, with a
twist; it gives the savant Cardan as the etymological source for the cardan,
which it clearly describes as what we call a universal joint. Back in the
biographical section it identifies Jerome Cardan (1501-1576) as the Italian
mathematician and philosopher to whom we owe the resolution of the equation of
the third degree and the joint which bears his name. So, Italian, and more
than a century before Hooke.

Luca's Hoepli gave him 'Giunto a Croce = Oldham coupling'; I couldn't find a
person named Oldham, but a place: in England, in Lancaster, a center of the
weaving industry and thus an early center of machinery applied to manufacture.
Only a guess, and probably inconsequential.

Finally, Eric Storhok, Roy Oppedisano, Peter Webb, John Fox, Beatle Bayly and
probably others have referred to the flex-couplings as 'guibos' in the last
couple of days. Once when I used that spelling on the Digest Fred landed on me
with a correction which I strongly suspect was really written by the best
informed lurker of all, Don Black. Black's reasons for staying in deep
background are good ones, but occasionally some particularly egregious crime
against Alfa would provoke him into a circuitous anonymous correction. Anyhow,
it is 'giubo', GIU as in Giulietta, with the 'bo' from Boschi, the engineer
who developed some patentable aspects of the ancient flexible coupling and
manufactured them in Italy with that company name. Undoubtedly, there will
always be 'guibo' as a vernacular alternate spelling - - irregardless.

John H.
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