Trimming and Balancing Devices: Some Thoughts on What Is, or Is Not, a Tab

Abstract

IT is remarkable how even in these days quite an important device can creep into common use practically ”unbeknownst,“ and become a regular feature almost as soon as it has first been noticed. Typical of such little causes from which great tilings spring is the ”tab.“ The word is not one of which we are enamoured, but it seems already to have become established, so there is little use in kicking against the pricks. Actually, it is difficult to find a substitute, ”flap“ having already been appropriated to the movable surface of which the tab forms an appendage. There is justification for the adoption of the term in the definition, which according to one dictionary is, “a small flap forming an appendage to something”—in this instance, the larger, main, flap. So we must try to forget its more familiar connotation of a label attached to something for identification purposes and become accustomed to its use in the more general dictionary sense.

Citation

(1935), "Trimming and Balancing Devices: Some Thoughts on What Is, or Is Not, a Tab", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 7 No. 12, pp. 297-298. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb029993