Semantic Sunday: Hold-down, Holdown, or hold down? 4

[skeletron]

Deciding to put this in the Structural forum rather than the Language/Grammar skills.

What is the term you use to callout the metal brackets at the end of a shearwall?

Hold-down: compound proper noun
hold down: two-word general noun
Holdown: the Simpson/Mitek proper noun

 

[lexpatrie]

I've had meticulous drafter point this out to me, generally in the literature it's holdown. So the product name or category involves holdown. That's what I go with, though the terminology doesn't come up that often, just on a section cut or two. I was using the more Germanic portmanteau of Holddown before. I flagged it for revision on a set and they came over with the Simpson Catalog. So they won.

 

[271828]

I would say hold-down. No big preference, though.

Another critical entry for Semantic Sunday is shearwall vs shear wall vs shear-wall. At the firms I worked for, it was "shearwall" so I got used to that. It seems that most people use shear wall, though, so I guess it's ok if they're wrong. LOL

 

[bugbus]

I don't deal with those particular brackets but I would almost definitely say 'hold-down'.

Similarly I would say '... we have specified a 10-mm-thick plate..." or "the girder has an L-shaped cross section", note no hyphen in cross section (as a noun), but 'cross-sectional' would have it.

I don't know where I've picked up these rules, studying other languages seems to force you to look back at the English rules and learn them properly. I try to be precise in what I'm writing.

Grammar is pretty poor among engineers from what I've seen. I used to try to correct it in reports we were sending out to clients, but it was just too much effort.

 

[bugbus]

@271828, another example is wingwall or headwall. These seem to be better written as one word in my opinion.

 

[271828]

I'd go with wingwall or headwall also. Maybe someone in here got a double major in engineering and philosophy, specializing in the philosophy of language, and can explain why one sounds better. LOL

 

[sandman21]

IBC/CBC/ASCE all have hold-down

 

[Eng16080]

After reading too many emails from builders, I'm not sure which is correct anymore: Floor Joist or Floor Joyce?

 

[Lomarandil]

I did have a recent project with plans calling out "Diaframs". If you read that out loud, you'll guess the state pretty easily.

 

[WesternJeb]

My favorite is I-beam or Eye-beam.

 

[JLNJ]

You want to hold down the hold-down corners with a holdown.

 

[WinelandV]

...with a holdown.

That extra "d" is just superfluous and inefficient.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

 

[RPGs]

The real debate--are they footings or footers? lol

 

[IRstuff]

Footers are the margin areas between the edge of the physical page and the text on the page ;-)

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[Luceid]

holdown just looks off to me - I think the extra "d" makes it work in my head. But I also can't stand how "holddown" looks. So I guess I've landed on hold-down.

 

[CrabbyT]

Simpson, Mitek, and Clark Dietrich call em holdowns, so that's what I call em too.

I doubt it really matters, but I can imagine some fringe case scenario where a shear wall fails, a court case ensues, and the plaintiff (contractor) tries to allege that the defendant (engineer) spec'd "hold-downs" and the only place they could procure them was Amazon. Maybe they'd allege that the engineer directed them to purchase a counterfeit connector, and someone could get ordered to test the materials.

I realize that sounds ridiculous, but it's plausible enough for me to just call em holdowns. Also, it's less letters, and I don't have to test my muscle memory looking for the dash key.

 

[milkshakelake]

Can we just nuke the English language and start over? For example, we don't need the letters 'c', 'k', 's', and 'q' being all confusing and redundant. And why does 'a' make different sounds? And why do "use" and "utilize" mean the same thing?

Anyway, I agree with Luceid that holddown looks weird, so hold-down is better. Hold down literally means something else, like what I do to my wife when she's not behaving well, so that's out of the question. Holdown is just incorrect, but manufacturers use it, so I think we're just stuck with it.

 

[phamENG]

I'm on board with hold-downs, but glancing back at drawings I've used all three at various points this year...

Footing is a foundation, footer is the bottom of a page.

an we just nuke the English language and start over? For example,

There was a punk band in the early 90s called "Ghoti Hook". The phonetic pronunciation is NOT what you think. LPS to anyone who can figure it out and explain it.

 

[Tomfh]

Hold down OK
Hold-down OK
Holdown NOT OK

 

[CrabbyT]

There was a punk band in the early 90s called "Ghoti Hook"

More punk!! Clever name. I've seen Reel Big Ghoti 3 times, but I've never even heard of these guys. I guess they're still making music though, just found a vid on YouTube of their set at Furnace Fest from about a month ago. Thanks for sharing, gonna have to check these guys out. Banana Man definitely rocks.