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

 

[DoubleStud]

Crawl space, crawlspace or crawl-space?

 

[EngDM]

Hold down OK
Hold-down OK
Holdown NOT OK

From the Simpson website: "Holdowns (or “hold downs”) are steel structural connectors that resist tension loads and forces imposed on walls and other framing elements. These connectors are secured with machine bolts or screws to connect either wood or cold-formed metal studs, typically to the foundation. Our selection of holdowns include options for vertical and horizontal applications in projects ranging from light-duty to heavy-duty loads."

The use of holdowns might be so that they can pattent it more easily since the word is their in-house terminology?

 

[phamENG]

Thanks for sharing, gonna have to check these guys out.

Full disclosure: my brother was the punk rocker in the family. I listened to some of it and enjoyed it, but never got into it (or any music, really...). I'll never forget him asking me to pronounce their name, though, and then making fun of me when I got it wrong. Big brothers are the best...

I go with Crawl Space

 

[Wallache]

Whole-down, because they hold the whole building down.

 

[RPGs]

When people say footers it takes all my willpower to not correct them, but it's usually homeowners or (less-sophisticated) contractors that say it and I want to save any confrontations for more important things.

I use crawlspace and holdown (even though it pains me to use a word that is flagged as misspelled) because I spec a Simpson product for it 90% of the time. I get ragged on site frequently for being "Mr. Simpson," but I always laugh because I don't really disagree with the notion--all in good fun.

 

[Eng16080]

I always thought footer was a southern thing, like south of D.C. or something.

I hear ya on the "Mr. Simpson" thing. For me, it was always: "You must own a lot of stock in Simpson."

 

[Tomfh]

From the Simpson website: "Holdowns (or “hold downs”) ar

Fair enough.

I’m not familiar with the product.

 

[phamENG]

Eng16080 - I am south of DC (about 4 hours) and it's footings. There are folks who say footer, and it drives me nuts.

 

[driftLimiter]

Tie down ok
Tie-down ok
Tiedown ok

thats the Breyer notation for it, i like this one. However I'm sure on my plans i've said all the different types of Holdown mentioned above.

 

[skeletron]

Wow. Good to see so many of us are taking this issue to task in our day-to-day.

I've always despised the proprietor's "holdown" because it looks wrong. Phonetically, I would read it as "həʊld" + "OHN". I've used it here and there (mainly because of the @EngDM's reasoning) but despise it and have never committed it to my MS Word dictionary. Personally, I'm transitioning to hold-down in all of my documents because that spelling is generally how the word is treated in the Code. Also, I like the look of the hyphenated word rather than separate words. I am currently reviewing another firm's drawings and, by a weird twist of fate, looking through their details for a hold-down system. They've used all three spellings on the same drawing...the chaos will never end.

 

[BAretired]

I prefer anchor, but of the options given, I prefer hold_down. Doesn't seem to be causing confusion, though.