Etymology of "bail/bale out"

[tempogain]

@Ender

bail is probably correct.

Not sure there’s any “correct” here. If someone shouts “BAIL OUT!” you’re not going to be saying, “Wait do you mean B-A-I-L or B-A-L-E?” They’re just variant spellings of something no one has any idea how it got started, except that it’s something US pilots apparently just made up in 1920 or so.

[Ducked]

@Tianmu

@Shaun008

@Tianmu

Well then we’re back to it making no sense to spell it like a hay bale.

But not just hay comes in bales, you can have a bale of wood, bale of paper, bale of clothes, bale of cotton, bale of cloth etc. all of can be tossed out of an airplane.

Of course. I understood the previous poster to be saying the use of the term “bail/bale out” predates the use of airplanes for such things, though. Then again, I suppose bales were also tossed out of wagons.

I meant predated the UK winter bale bombing referred to. Air drops per se probably predate the general use of the chute, IIRC TE Lawrence got resupply via Handley Page bomber and there are probably earlier exanples.

(https://www.epicflightcentenary.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/09/Stuart-Reid-Handley-Page-reaches-rendezvous-with-Lawrence-of-Arabia-AWM-ART14279_1.png)

[Ducked]

@jinyu

@Ducked

@jinyu

What if a behaved baa baa-dly and was arrested and the British bulldog magistrate required said sheep to relinquish a quantity of woof woof wool? Released on bail or on bale? The sheep’s in the dock, so probably the former?

Now you’re just talking bollocks

@Ducked

Jump down, turn around, pick a bale o’çotton

My bollocks are no match for yours

yeh. Never mind the quality, feel the thickness

[jinyu]

@superking

@jinyu

The sheep’s in the dock,

It’s the movie tag line we’ve all been waiting for. But what’s the film?

I’m thinking Ram-bo: First Blood? A sheep snaps and goes on a ram-page after he is arrested and abused by sadistic cops which triggers flashbacks of when he was tortured in Afghanistan by mutton munching mullahs?

@Ducked

Never mind the quality, feel the thickness

This brings us back to the etymology of crassula plants (from Latin crassus, thick):

@Liam_Og

Then the online dictionary suggested I needed to know the meaning of crassulaceous. Sounded promising but apparently it’s just a kind of plant

[superking]

@jinyu

Ram-bo:

Yes!!!

@jinyu

A sheep snaps and goes on a ram-page after he is arrested and abused by sadistic cops which triggers flashbacks of when he was tortured in Afghanistan by mutton munching mullahs?

It needs more woke
I’m just workshopping here but what if at some point the ram transitions into a wolf? A reversal of the wolf in sheep’s clothing scenario.

[Ducked]

That American (informal) usage was likely an extension of the apparently mandatory American plane exit term

Not mandatory for me, so I feel I can chose which one to extend also

[jinyu]

@superking

It needs more woke
I’m just workshopping here but what if at some point the ram transitions into a wolf?

A black sheep who, after years of struggle and rejection, embraces his inner wolf… the story comes to a predictably tragic end when the sheep - I mean the wolf - walks into the lupine lavatory

[superking]

@jinyu

the wolf - walks into the lupine lavatory

His todger is then ripped voraciously off and flies through the air and lands…in a pickle jar. Flashback and we are in 1763, we see Sir Percy Percy Percy of Percy who turns to camera and says, “The End?” The light fades and the credits roll. Cypress Hill begin to sing ‘When the sheep goes down, you better be ready.”

[Charlie_Jack]

@tempogain

Not sure there’s any “correct” here.
. . .
They’re just variant spellings of something no one has any idea how it got started, except that it’s something US pilots apparently just made up in 1920 or so.

Agreed, but I thought we were just hobby-horsing around.

[Liam_Og]

@tempogain

someone shouts “BAIL OUT!” you’re not going to be saying, “Wait do you mean B-A-I-L or B-A-L-E?”

For a banker over seeing a mortgage crisis it could quite possibly be both meanings simultaneously. To differentiate the meaning you’d need to listen to the tones. Bail out would have a rising tone, bale out a falling and both at the same time would have a high tone.

[Liam_Og]

@superking

Cypress Hill begin to sing ‘When the sheep goes down, you better be ready.”

Are you sure it wasn’t crassulaceous hill?

[superking]

@Liam_Og

crassulaceous

We call them succulents over ere, gaffer.

[Ducked]

@Ducked

@Tianmu

@Shaun008

@Tianmu

Well then we’re back to it making no sense to spell it like a hay bale.

But not just hay comes in bales, you can have a bale of wood, bale of paper, bale of clothes, bale of cotton, bale of cloth etc. all of can be tossed out of an airplane.

Of course. I understood the previous poster to be saying the use of the term “bail/bale out” predates the use of airplanes for such things, though. Then again, I suppose bales were also tossed out of wagons.

I meant predated the UK winter bale bombing referred to. Air drops per se probably predate the general use of the chute, IIRC TE Lawrence got resupply via Handley Page bomber and there are probably earlier examples.

(https://www.epicflightcentenary.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/09/Stuart-Reid-Handley-Page-reaches-rendezvous-with-Lawrence-of-Arabia-AWM-ART14279_1.png)

In April 1916 No. 30 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps carried out the first air supply operation in history. Food and ammunition were dropped to the defenders of Kut, but “as often as not their parcels go into the Tigris or into the Turkish trenches!”(Siege of Kut - Wikipedia)