Arbor lights

[d7666]

Mention of the forum's abbreviation and jargon list

districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/9167/tutorial-railway-slang-abbreviations-jargon

in another thread remnded me to post|ask this where it says :

Harbor lights Route indicator on a signal

Isn't the correct term for junction route indicator "arbor" not "harbor" (or even "harbour?) ?

When I came into the LU environment years back, this was a new term to me. I knew the main line slang (feathers) but not heard this one. Because I heard not read it I at first thought it was some kind of marine connection with dock or quay navigation, but subsequently told it is "arbor" meaning branch, as in branch of a tree, from the Latin.

Even thought there was a discussion in here about it some time back ? And ISTR writing arbor myself in a.n.other thread and no-one challenged it.... and not being challenged in a forum of anoraks usually means it is correct

Even now I'm not absolutely sure if arbor is right ? Is it ?

[Chris M]

I can't immediately find where, but I'm sure that District Dave himself wrote about this exact subject in the very early days of the forum or maybe it was on the website? He too was surprised to learn the correct term is "arbour" not "harbour", suspecting that the latter is based on the incorrect assumption that "arbour" is a result of the traditional London accent dropping initial "h" from words.

[Dstock7080]

Quite an early thread in this Forum:
districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/2607/harbour-lights

[Chris M]

And the quote from yourself in that thread comes from an even earlier one - districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/1483/arbor-arbour-harbour, which is the source of the comment from Dave I remembered.

[tut]

I suppose the thing about language is that if enough people agree on the form and usage of a word then it becomes correct. For example, did you know that 'adder' (as in the snake) was originally 'a nadder' before it was erroneously reanalysed as 'an adder'. This must surely be particularly true of slang and jargon, especially terminology that is very specific to a particular place or organisation and which is specifically taught to new people. If everyone is teaching, learning and saying 'arbor lights' then what can you say, it has become the name by which they are known.

Having said that, as a linguist (and not wanting to rain on anybody's parade), I find the idea that 'harbour lights' are "actually" 'arbor lights' very, very unlikely.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly harbour lights are (as the kids say) "a thing". Simply stick 'harbour navigation lights' into Google images and you can see them and learn all about what they are what they do and they are used to let ships know where they are going. 'Harbour lights' was also the title of a number of old films and songs. So it's a phrase that people would have recognised.

By contrast, we have to ask ourselves what the chances are that some train drivers would have come up with a nickname for a signalling indication that's based on Latin? I mean it's not even the official, fancy, technical name, it's a slang term. Slang terms among working class people aren't known for their Latin origins. And to seal the deal (for me, personally), as we've seen, 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. It means 'tree'.* Why would you name your 'branch lights' after a Latin word that doesn't even mean 'branch' but means something that has branches. Oh but coincidentally sounds almost identical to a well-established phrase that refers to lights that are genuinely used in navigation in another industry. Does it not seem much more likely that 'harbour lights' has been pronounced ''arbour lights' and then a folk etymology has been dreamed up (which very commonly happens, I'm sure we've all heard that posh comes from 'port out, starboard home'...)?

*According to Wiktionary, 'arbor' can apparently refer metonymically to 'something made from a tree, of wood' (for example an oar), but it's still a big stretch.

[d7666]

Jun 6, 2022 21:46:16 GMT tut said:

I suppose the thing about language is that if enough people agree on the form and usage of a word then it becomes correct. For example, did you know that 'adder' (as in the snake) was originally 'a nadder' before it was erroneously reanalysed as 'an adder'. This must surely be particularly true of slang and jargon, especially terminology that is very specific to a particular place or organisation and which is specifically taught to new people. If everyone is teaching, learning and saying 'arbor lights' then what can you say, it has become the name by which they are known.

Having said that, as a linguist (and not wanting to rain on anybody's parade), I find the idea that 'harbour lights' are "actually" 'arbor lights' very, very unlikely.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly harbour lights are (as the kids say) "a thing". Simply stick 'harbour navigation lights' into Google images and you can see them and learn all about what they are what they do and they are used to let ships know where they are going. 'Harbour lights' was also the title of a number of old films and songs. So it's a phrase that people would have recognised.

By contrast, we have to ask ourselves what the chances are that some train drivers would have come up with a nickname for a signalling indication that's based on Latin? I mean it's not even the official, fancy, technical name, it's a slang term. Slang terms among working class people aren't known for their Latin origins. And to seal the deal (for me, personally), as we've seen, 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. It means 'tree'.* Why would you name your 'branch lights' after a Latin word that doesn't even mean 'branch' but means something that has branches. Oh but coincidentally sounds almost identical to a well-established phrase that refers to lights that are genuinely used in navigation in another industry. Does it not seem much more likely that 'harbour lights' has been pronounced ''arbour lights' and then a folk etymology has been dreamed up (which very commonly happens, I'm sure we've all heard that posh comes from 'port out, starboard home'...)?

*According to Wiktionary, 'arbor' can apparently refer metonymically to 'something made from a tree, of wood' (for example an oar), but it's still a big stretch.

While I don't completely disagree with the comment a latin originated word is not likely to have originated as "working class slang", what evidence do you have that the term really is original slang or originally used by train drivers (or other "working classes"). You have evidence that it was not so named, formally or informally, by a classically educated LT signalling engineer or operating manager or other similar person ? It is exactly the sort of thing someone like Robert Dell, OBE FIRSE FIEE FIMechE, might have come up with.

Also, I did not say it was latin; I said "from the latin" e.g. London is not latin, but is from the latin Londinium.

[tut]

Jun 6, 2022 22:45:27 GMT d7666 said:

Jun 6, 2022 21:46:16 GMT tut said:

I suppose the thing about language is that if enough people agree on the form and usage of a word then it becomes correct. For example, did you know that 'adder' (as in the snake) was originally 'a nadder' before it was erroneously reanalysed as 'an adder'. This must surely be particularly true of slang and jargon, especially terminology that is very specific to a particular place or organisation and which is specifically taught to new people. If everyone is teaching, learning and saying 'arbor lights' then what can you say, it has become the name by which they are known.

Having said that, as a linguist (and not wanting to rain on anybody's parade), I find the idea that 'harbour lights' are "actually" 'arbor lights' very, very unlikely.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly harbour lights are (as the kids say) "a thing". Simply stick 'harbour navigation lights' into Google images and you can see them and learn all about what they are what they do and they are used to let ships know where they are going. 'Harbour lights' was also the title of a number of old films and songs. So it's a phrase that people would have recognised.

By contrast, we have to ask ourselves what the chances are that some train drivers would have come up with a nickname for a signalling indication that's based on Latin? I mean it's not even the official, fancy, technical name, it's a slang term. Slang terms among working class people aren't known for their Latin origins. And to seal the deal (for me, personally), as we've seen, 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. It means 'tree'.* Why would you name your 'branch lights' after a Latin word that doesn't even mean 'branch' but means something that has branches. Oh but coincidentally sounds almost identical to a well-established phrase that refers to lights that are genuinely used in navigation in another industry. Does it not seem much more likely that 'harbour lights' has been pronounced ''arbour lights' and then a folk etymology has been dreamed up (which very commonly happens, I'm sure we've all heard that posh comes from 'port out, starboard home'...)?

*According to Wiktionary, 'arbor' can apparently refer metonymically to 'something made from a tree, of wood' (for example an oar), but it's still a big stretch.

While I don't completely disagree with the comment a latin originated word is not likely to have originated as "working class slang", what evidence do you have that the term really is original slang or originally used by train drivers (or other "working classes"). You have evidence that it was not so named, formally or informally, by a classically educated LT signalling engineer or operating manager or other similar person ? It is exactly the sort of thing someone like Robert Dell, OBE FIRSE FIEE FIMechE, might have come up with.

Also, I did not say it was latin; I said "from the latin" e.g. London is not latin, but is from the latin Londinium.

It's a good point, I should perhaps have added the additional proviso that it's quite hard to be certain about the origins of such very organisation-specific jargon terms. I'm sure you're right that it's the sort of thing Robert Dell could have come up with, but I do still find it really unlikely. I'm very suspicious. Firstly, it's a little bit pretentious, even in Robert Dell's time, at least outside of a technical context. And while he could perhaps have come up with it, I find it a little hard to imagine it then filtering down. It's not impossible, the word 'locomotive' springs to mind as a Latinate word that is in common usage on the railways, but it would be unusual. Then there's the inescapable fact that 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. I mean, maybe it was all a big pun on 'harbour lights', maybe that's why, but it doesn't pass my 'smell test'. What I can say is that I was never able to find any evidence that they were so named formally. The LT supplements to the traffic circular (yellow perils) that I've looked at all seem to use the term 'junction indicator'. If there's evidence that the term 'arbor lights' (or 'harbour lights' for that matter) was used in official publications or on technical drawings I would be very interested in seeing it. But I've only heard of its use as a slang term, which is why I approached the issue with that assumption. And on the balance of probabilities, given what I said about 'harbour lights' being 'a thing', it seems much more likely that 'harbour lights' became 'arbor lights', rather than the other way round. Someone could have come up with such a bizarre Latinate word, with such an unusual derivation, and it could have caught on. Or it could have all been a clever (albeit slightly pretentious) pun. There's a really nice apocryphal story that goes that when General Sir Charles Napier defied orders and captured the province of Sindh he sent the telegram 'peccavi' ('I have sinned'). And that was made-up and made its way into the papers. But it really strikes me as a bit of a just so story.

[brigham]

I'm not sure why anyone would perceive a junction indicator as 'harbour lights', rather than any other non rail-related kind of lights. There again, if the whole signal assembly were to be seen as a tree, then 'tree lights' would have been more likely.

Both 'Arbour and H'arbour are valid 'Cock-neigh-isms'. As the East End barber said, "Not the 'Air of the 'Ead, sir, the H'air of the H'atmosphere".

We need to find where the original word, whichever it is, is derived from.

[billbedford]

Jun 6, 2022 21:46:16 GMT tut said:

By contrast, we have to ask ourselves what the chances are that some train drivers would have come up with a nickname for a signalling indication that's based on Latin? I mean it's not even the official, fancy, technical name, it's a slang term. Slang terms among working class people aren't known for their Latin origins. And to seal the deal (for me, personally), as we've seen, 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. It means 'tree'.* Why would you name your 'branch lights' after a Latin word that doesn't even mean 'branch' but means something that has branches. Oh but coincidentally sounds almost identical to a well-established phrase that refers to lights that are genuinely used in navigation in another industry. Does it not seem much more likely that 'harbour lights' has been pronounced ''arbour lights' and then a folk etymology has been dreamed up (which very commonly happens, I'm sure we've all heard that posh comes from 'port out, starboard home'...)?

*According to Wiktionary, 'arbor' can apparently refer metonymically to 'something made from a tree, of wood' (for example an oar), but it's still a big stretch.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. The proximate derivation of the arbor in question is 'spindle'.  Even today an arbor is a common fitting in turning for holding work in a lathe:www.mcmaster.com/lathe-arbors/

Also thesaurus.com gives 'stem' and 'stalk' as synonyms for arbour as a spindle. Therefore I suspect this specific case derives from a dialect meaning that no longer in common use. 

[tut]

Jun 7, 2022 9:42:01 GMT billbedford said:

Jun 6, 2022 21:46:16 GMT tut said:

By contrast, we have to ask ourselves what the chances are that some train drivers would have come up with a nickname for a signalling indication that's based on Latin? I mean it's not even the official, fancy, technical name, it's a slang term. Slang terms among working class people aren't known for their Latin origins. And to seal the deal (for me, personally), as we've seen, 'arbor' doesn't even mean 'branch'. It means 'tree'.* Why would you name your 'branch lights' after a Latin word that doesn't even mean 'branch' but means something that has branches. Oh but coincidentally sounds almost identical to a well-established phrase that refers to lights that are genuinely used in navigation in another industry. Does it not seem much more likely that 'harbour lights' has been pronounced ''arbour lights' and then a folk etymology has been dreamed up (which very commonly happens, I'm sure we've all heard that posh comes from 'port out, starboard home'...)?

*According to Wiktionary, 'arbor' can apparently refer metonymically to 'something made from a tree, of wood' (for example an oar), but it's still a big stretch.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. The proximate derivation of the arbor in question is 'spindle'.  Even today an arbor is a common fitting in turning for holding work in a lathe:www.mcmaster.com/lathe-arbors/

Also thesaurus.com gives 'stem' and 'stalk' as synonyms for arbour as a spindle. Therefore I suspect this specific case derives from a dialect meaning that no longer in common use. 

That's really interesting, I didn't know that, thank you!

Nevertheless, I still don't really feel like I'm the one barking up the wrong tree here as it's all very tenuous and convoluted. None of these exactly mean 'branch'. Even if they did, why go for a rare dialectal word that means something vaguely tree- or wood-related, when you could just call them 'branch lights', 'branch' of course being the term by which railway branches are actually known. Also 'arbor = branch in Latin' is the explanation given in Underground News which I was responding to and do you notice how the Underground News was correcting a 'misheld belief' that they themselves had previously perpetuated? I mean does it not really seem to you that everybody was happily calling them 'harbour lights' until someone came across this fun, if convoluted and admittedly unlikely, alternative etymology? Does it not seem so much more likely to you that a well-known pre-existing phrase was adopted by railway workers and then corrupted, rather than that an unusual dialect word that relates to trees or wordworking was applied to a piece of electronic signalling equipment on the tenuous basis that the tree analogy is also used of railway lines branching off and that it was that that was subsequently corrupted?

Occam's razor is quite pertinent in etymological discussions, and usually (as in so many things) the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions, jumps and twists in the tail is usually the best one. And for me, honestly, I don't understand the attachment to 'arbor lights' which not only requires a more convoluted derivation, but which also hasn't yet been shown (in this thread or any other one linked here) to have any official basis. I mean it's a fun and interesting discussion and I've enjoyed it immensely, but it all feels like an item in one of those lists of unbelievable facts that you get in magazines and things that, in the end, often turn out to be unbelievable for a reason.

[d7666]

My application of Occam's Razor was that harbour lights and cockney dropping H is the convoluted answer and that Arbor = branch because someone named it is the simplest.

[tjw]

On the Southern we called them Lunars...

As many railwaymen had allotments I would suggest Arbour as in gardens.

[zbang]

Hitting the spindle/stalk thing, aren't signals sometimes called a 'stick'? As in "held at a red stick".

Fascinating discussion, 'ere.

[brigham]

'Stick' is a Southern thing. They are 'boards' in the North.

[trt]

Arbor Light is a type of ale, isn't it?

[zbang]

Jun 8, 2022 10:13:38 GMT brigham said:

'Stick' is a Southern thing.

London doesn't exactly qualify as North, and IIRC the word was used around the Underground at one time.

Anyway, might be one of those things whose origin is lost to the mists of time.

[d7666]

Jun 8, 2022 16:14:28 GMT zbang said:

Jun 8, 2022 10:13:38 GMT brigham said:

'Stick' is a Southern thing.

London doesn't exactly qualify as North, and IIRC the word was used around the Underground at one time.

Anyway, might be one of those things whose origin is lost to the mists of time.

Not 100% of tube drivers, or signallers, or anyone else, come from within sound of Bow Bells.

Many come from ooop norf, and other parts of the planet, and might already have another term other than stick, such as board (which I'd never heard of as a northern only thing anyway), and introduce its use.

When you consider LU can use the imported transpondic terms (signal) "cabin" or "car" where the big railway might use (signal) box or coach it becomes easier to accept origin of things get lost in time.

[d7666]

Jun 8, 2022 13:13:04 GMT trt said:

Arbor Light is a type of ale, isn't it?

Yes, that one came up for me during some googling of the term.

Perhaps we ought to seek it out all meet up and resolve this thread by a committee session on the stuff ?

[towerman]

Jun 8, 2022 16:14:28 GMT zbang said:

Jun 8, 2022 10:13:38 GMT brigham said:

'Stick' is a Southern thing.

London doesn't exactly qualify as North, and IIRC the word was used around the Underground at one time.

Anyway, might be one of those things whose origin is lost to the mists of time.

When I was first on the Underground drivers were always referring to signals as sticks.

[MoreToJack]

Plenty of drivers, signallers and controllers (myself included) still refer to signal as stick!

[jimbo]

And to hit the stick was to overrun a red signal and get tripped to a halt. Except there was at least one train that hit the stick because the green signal had leant towards the track and struck the top of the cab! And the train ran for some days with the small 'pig's ear' embedded in the cab roof. The 'pig's ear' allowed a driver to draw alongside a signal and still view the aspect displayed when the main lenses were by then out of view.

[tut]

You'll be pleased to know that 'board' also survives on the big railway, as does the phrase 'board a train down', which isn't something you've been able to do on the Underground for a long while now!

[brigham]

Jun 8, 2022 16:14:28 GMT zbang said:

Jun 8, 2022 10:13:38 GMT brigham said:

'Stick' is a Southern thing.

London doesn't exactly qualify as North, and IIRC the word was used around the Underground at one time...

That's right. 
London is in the South, and they refer to signals as 'sticks'.
That's how I came to observe that 'stick' is a Southern thing.

Good to have it confirmed, though.

[trt]

Jun 8, 2022 22:20:49 GMT jimbo said:

... And the train ran for some days with the small 'pig's ear' embedded in the cab roof. The 'pig's ear' allowed a driver to draw alongside a signal and still view the aspect displayed when the main lenses were by then out of view.

That's not where the phrase "making a pig's ear" comes from is it?

[Chris M]

Jun 9, 2022 9:37:53 GMT trt said:

Jun 8, 2022 22:20:49 GMT jimbo said:

... And the train ran for some days with the small 'pig's ear' embedded in the cab roof. The 'pig's ear' allowed a driver to draw alongside a signal and still view the aspect displayed when the main lenses were by then out of view.

That's not where the phrase "making a pig's ear" comes from is it?

No, although that phrase is newer than I would have guessed (first recorded in print in 1950). See www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pigs-ear.html for the origins of various phrases including pigs' ears

[d7666]

I occasionally hear the term "wrong signal (or stick) lowered" am I right to assume this maybe dates back to lower quadrant signals ? Must be pretty ancient if so ? When was the last lower quadrant signal removed from LT LU or whatever we were that week ? (I ought to know this; isn't there an LU poster somewhere with this event on ?)

[zbang]

Given that at one time the signals were flags held by a person, the term could well go back to that.

[d7666]

Jun 9, 2022 17:09:37 GMT zbang said:

Given that at one time the signals were flags held by a person, the term could well go back to that.

Well yes, good point.

I'm beginning to wish I not started this thread .

[Tom]

Jun 9, 2022 13:49:09 GMT d7666 said:

I occasionally hear the term "wrong signal (or stick) lowered" am I right to assume this maybe dates back to lower quadrant signals ? Must be pretty ancient if so ? When was the last lower quadrant signal removed from LT LU or whatever we were that week ? (I ought to know this; isn't there an LU poster somewhere with this event on ?)

North Weald was the last site on LT (as it was then) infrastructure to have semaphore signals, but they were upper quadrant. LT and their predecessors used lower quadrant, and the last of those was removed in 1953.

In response to post no.1 in this thread, it's worth pointing out that there are Junction Indicators (the line of three white lights), and Route Indicators (which are numeric), but the phrase 'Junction Route Indicator' is incorrect.

[brigham]

There was a lower-quadrant platform starter signal on a station served by LU, until fairly recently.