I wish to fancy myself a seasoned traveler, so think about my shock after I realized I is likely to be utilizing the mistaken time period for a typical sort of bags.
Growing up, my dad and mom all the time stated “rollerboard” in reference to wheeled suitcase, and I adopted go well with. But on a current textual content thread, I observed a buddy wrote “rollaboard,” prompting me to query every thing I’ve ever believed.
But thankfully, I’m not the one one who’s confused. A very non-scientific online poll from 2010 discovered that 53% of respondents say “rollaboard,” 32% go together with “rollerboard” and 15% “have no idea.”
Still, formally talking, which is it? Rollaboard? Rollerboard? Roll-aboard? Roll Aboard? Something else solely? I turned to some specialists ― and the huge archives of the web ― to search out out.
“‘Roll aboard’ was the original term,” linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer advised HuffPost. “‘Rollaboard’ was trademarked by Robert Plath for his company Travelpro in 1991, though luggage appeared under the brand name “Roll-Aboard” as early as 1985.”
Indeed, a 1985 advertisement within the New Jersey newspaper the Daily Record presents a set of luggage with the descriptor “U.S. Luggage Roll-Aboard Group,” accessible at M. Epstein’s division retailer in Morristown.
“[The ad] claims a trademark, but does not look like luggage on wheels,” stated etymologist Barry Popik, who additionally shared the advert with HuffPost, together with many different clippings.
Poh Kim Yeoh / EyeEm by way of Getty Images
In the early Nineteen Nineties, Travelpro’s “rollabord” suitcase appeared in several newspapers. References to nonspecific “roll-aboard” baggage cropped up in 1994, and from 1993 onward, there have been ads for “rollerboard” suitcases as well. A 1999 clipping from a Canadian newspaper included a reference to “roller board suitcases.”
“‘Rollerboard’ began appearing as a more generic term in the 1990s,” Zimmer defined. “It may have started out as a misinterpretation of ‘roll-aboard,’ but it also avoided the trademarked term, as this 2003 USA Today article suggests.”
Even extra not too long ago, Jonathan Franzen used the phrase “rollerboard” in his 2018 e-book of essays “The End of the End of the Earth” ― a lot to the dismay of pilot and blogger Patrick Smith. Author Gary Shteyngart additionally went with that model of the time period in his novel “Lake Success,” which was revealed that very same yr.
Interestingly, “rollberboard” seems to have been trademarked by a skateboard company known as Rollerboard International, so the time period evokes a very totally different that means exterior the journey context.
In reference to the suitcase, Zimmer famous that “rollerboard” is a superb instance of an eggcorn ― an alteration of a phrase or phrase that outcomes from the misinterpretation or mishearing of a number of of its parts. The time period “eggcorn” is itself an eggcorn for “acorn,” and in contrast to a malapropism, this reshaping of the unique phrase or phrase nonetheless is smart and appears logical in the identical context, simply differently.
As lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower advised HuffPost, “It’s ‘roll-aboard’ ― which could be written with a hyphen, a space, or as a closed compound ― because it rolls aboard a plane.”
Still, the “rollerboard” eggcorn additionally has some logic as a result of the time period evokes an object with wheels, like a skateboard or a chunk of bags.
“Re-analyzing elements of words or compounds is known as ‘folk etymology’ among other names,” Sheidlower famous. “Often this happens when less-common words or elements are replaced by more-common ones.”
He shared the instance of “bridegroom,” which previously was extra like “bride-goom,” as “goom” was Middle English for “man” (stemming from “guma” and “brydguma” in Old English.) As “goom” fell out of use, the latter half of the phrase was changed with “groom” ― a extra frequent phrase that meant “boy” or “male child.”
“Another example is ‘wheelbarrel,’ a common variant of ‘wheelbarrow,’ because the word ‘barrow’ is relatively uncommon, and a wheelbarrow does look like something that could be made from a half of a barrel,” Sheidlower added. “In your example, neither ‘roll’ nor ‘aboard’ are particularly unusual, but ‘roller’ is very common, and ‘rollerboard’ is at least a plausible-sounding compound.”
So whereas “rollaboard” might have come first, the gist is that each “rollaboard” and “rollerboard” work simply high quality. And I not must query the character of my actuality ― not less than not with regard to this.
