Clip vs. Magazine

[Knief]

Knightrider,

One's refusal to correct their mistake is just plain stupid. After one finds out that they have been misusing a word, why should that person not make any effort to change that habbit and use the right word? You know that it's called a magazine, why type "clip" next time you're talking about the device feeding bbs into your gun? Ignorance is one thing, but lazy stupidity is much harder to excuse.

[knightrider]

I have spent a lot of time surfing the web on this topic. This is my theory.....While it my be true that it is called a magazine (mag) I believe millions of people refer to it using a type of slang term, clip. There are tons of web sites called: Clips and more, Gun clips, etc. then when you enter them they refer to them as magazines. I believe they do this because clip is a very common way people refer to magazines.....whether it is right or wrong. All I was trying to say was that everyone apparently has their own way to refer to the device that feeds BBs into their guns. Now calling someone ignorant for calling something a term they may have been brought up with seems narrow minded. Thank you for trying to educate us on this topic....but I have my doubts that you are going to be able to change the way millions of people refer to magazines.

[Velox]

Not knowing the correct term for something (or having been taught the wrong term by circumstance or upbringing) is ignorance, almost by definition. However, I don't think anyone's condemning that - most of us are ignorant about most topics, after all. I think what's objectionable is the willful continuation of incorrect usage.

For example, I've met a lot of people who refer to their monitors as "the computer." I'm not irritated that they don't know the difference. I've met some who can't understand the difference even when it's been explained to them - frustrating, but not inexcusable. However, I'm not happy when someone who *does* know the difference doesn't bother.

All fields have specialized vocabularies to one degree or another. Anything with any degree of complexity requires specific usages to enable people to communicate efficiently and clearly on the topic. The people in those fields don't typically fault the public at large for not being familiar with them (see the "everybody's ignorant" bit above.) However, someone who enters into a field and declines to use the specialized terms becomes a problem. It's confusing, for one thing, but I think the main cause of resentment is the implied arrogance. You're basically saying that since that's the word you use everyone has to modify their language to accomodate you, clarity and custom be damned. This tends to offend.

That's my take on it, anyway. For my part, I prefer to learn the correct nomenclature when I get into a new subject. For one thing, I feel like a doof if I'm using the wrong words, but mainly I find that not using the correct terminology makes enemies and makes it harder for me to get the information I want.

[Zorak]

Velox - you're exactly right.

My 3-year-old (at the time) daughter was bitterly dissappointed when I built a new computer and never took the monitor apart. She bitterly insisted that the monitor was the computer. To this day I think she feels like I cheated.

[knightrider]

You're basically saying that since that's the word you use everyone has to modify their language to accomodate you, clarity and custom be damned. This tends to offend.

That would be the opposite of what I was trying to say...I understand the correct term is magazine...I am saying it is near impossible for you to get the millions of people, who are in some way involved with guns, to stop calling them clips because you want them too. As I understand it, it is a lot of people's customs to call them a clip. While this may be the wrong term....I for one will not condem them or call them ignorant for saying potatoe vs potato.

I will always use the term magazine here....but out of the custom I grew up with I will probably always call them a clip when I am loading up at home.

Like I said before thank you for the education.

[Knief]

Velox said it better than I could have.

I'm not trying to get the mass populace to learn the lingo, but on a gun related forum the participants should learn the correct names for the things they're talking about. You don't go to a car forum and ask people what you can do to get your "stoppy thingies" to stop squealing, or where you fill up your "turny things" "juice." You ask about your brakes and your power steering fluid, right? Well the same goes on this forum. Your "clip" isn't having problems feeding because you don't have a clip. Your mag is having trouble feeding.

My mom will never know the difference between a clip and a magazine, but then again, she isn't trying to have an educated discussion about them with 800 gun nuts. By the same token, I don't know all of the stitching patterns that she uses when she sews, but I'm not the one dealing with them in my everyday life.

I'm just going to quote velox here, since he got it right

Not knowing the correct term for something (or having been taught the wrong term by circumstance or upbringing) is ignorance, almost by definition. However, I don't think anyone's condemning that - most of us are ignorant about most topics, after all. I think what's objectionable is the willful continuation of incorrect usage.

[Zorak]

This isn't potatoe vs potato, it's potato vs tomato. A clip is a whole different sort of part from a magazine, not a slang term.

[knightrider]

This isn't potatoe vs potato, it's potato vs tomato. A clip is a whole different sort of part from a magazine, not a slang term.

It may not be technically a slang term but that is how many people use it.

[knightrider]

By the way The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says this:

Clip: A cartridge holder.

Magazine: A container for holding cartridges.

[Motown]

Yes and the Merriam Webster dictionary put to rest the eternal debate of the difference between "magazine" and "clip" with a terse one word difference- Container

Really, it's not a trick/rhetorical question or a brainteaser.

[Jacko]