Joystick and Cockpit

The latest enquiry via BBC local radio in Coventry (28 July 23) concerns two early aviation terms.

The most curious aspect of this is that they come to be used for aviation within a year of each other, according to available documentation. The earliest documented use of ‘joy stick’ is as slang for a baseball bat, in 1908, but according to a diary entry of 1910 (appearing in print in 1935), it is in use for the multidirectional pivoting lever that controls the ailerons and rudder of a plane.

 

The mechanism that the joystick superseded was the ‘cloche’, invented by Bleriot, which had a similar pivoting lever, at the base of which was a metal hemisphere, open side downwards, from the edge of which, at four opposing points, were connected the wires which controlled the movements of the ailerons and rudder. Cloche, being the French for bell – think of a hotel counter bell.

 

Cockpit was a much older word, appearing in 1556 as the arena for cock-fighting (‘arena’ meaning ‘sand’, takes that etymology back to Roman amphitheatres). Within two years it was being used metaphorically, for the site of battles or campaigns; and by the end of the century Shakespeare used it as a metaphor for a theatre, in Henry V, perhaps developing the military connotation.

 

Later metaphorical/physical usages included the business area of Whitehall government and the more crowded part of a ship. By 1904 the word was being applied to the driver’s compartment of a racing car, from which it was an easy progression to the same area on a biplane or monoplane, in 1909.

Neither term seems to have made it into phrasebooks in use in the First World War until 1917, arguing a strong American English influence. The earliest use I have found is in Termes D'Aviation / Glossary of Aviation Terms published in New York in 1917, which gives 'joystick' as 'manche a balai', and 'cockpit' as 'carlingue'.

Of course, both words have slang usages, conveniently apportioned to male and female body parts.

 

All dates from the OED.