Are Racking Loads PC? 1

[charliealphabravo]

Hi all,

Sorry if I seem to be lowering the bar but in the interest professionalism I'd like to ask if the use of the terms "racking" or "racked" when referring to the displacement caused by lateral loading of a frame is still the preferred terminology. In the past several years I have had several reviewers object to the use of the term on grounds of politeness but I don't know how else, in a single word, to describe the failure/displacement mechanism.

Again sorry to bring the conversation down to a bathroom/lockeroom level. I guess in the practice of engineering I have gotten desensitized to the bold use of words that would make a grade school kid titter. I mean really this one is rather tame I think compared to some others in common use.

Regards
cab

 

[msquared48]

Personally, I always thought it was a measure of the number of hats and coats you could hang off a four-point buck.

That being said, I still use the term for non-specific lateral forces on a frame. But rarely.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[JAE]

Lateral displacement
Horizontal deflections (displacement)
Frame sway

 

[MiketheEngineer]

It moved too far sideways and just broke. Don't know why.. It just did. Then you are racked...

 

[rb1957]

next you'll complain about male and female couplings.

 

[csd72]

God forbid using any nuts and screws!

 

[dhengr]

WOW.... I can’t play here any longer, it’s too complicated, I just don’t get it anymore.

Charlie.... Did they ever explain to you, what in their dirty little perverted minds ‘a racking load or movement’ in the structural context meant, or how it offended them? Maybe you need some new, unstupid, reviewers, or at least explain to them that you are equally offended by having to deal with their little minds, even though infrequently.

Mike..... In engineering we’ll never get the big bucks, but I usually try for a more-hatter, than four points, when deer hunting. And usually hope to meet a dear of the fairer sex after hunting who also has a nice rack.

JAE.... RE above, after hunting; I meant two frontal lateral displacements, the ones who still have horiz. deflections instead of drooping cantilevers are too young to be interested in me, but not me in them; and from behind they have a real nice frame sway.

MiketheE.... ya got me.

Rb1957.... Today you are not PC if you limit couplings to male and female, you must be any (all, same kind) inclusive. But, sell em an extension chord or air hose with both male or both female end fittings and they will better understand where you’re coming from or going to, and your dirty terminology. What they do with that extension chord in the privacy of their own home is their own business and none of ours. But, if they need that extension chord in an emergency they will better understand the utility of male and female, a wonderful combination, sometimes.

Now I’m gona hit the rack and rack up a few ZZZ’s.

 

[rb1957]

i'm happy not being PC, in fact i (and i suspect most of us) take it as a compliment.

i've aways found male couplings, well, don't, umm, "couple" together ... maybe it's a fallability of our design practices.

 

[hokie66]

We, as responsible engineers, must fight back against this PC rubbish. How many more perfectly fine words do these idiots want to steal for some stupid new meaning? I must be living in a bubble...what does "rack" mean to them?

 

[rb1957]

sigh ... breasts

 

[MiketheEngineer]

If bored - Google "Sex Nut". I guess I won't do that at work - but check out McMaster-Carr or Grainger.

Most of you see them EVERYDAY

 

[hokie66]

Thanks for the education, rb. What useful word will these nuts (oh, that's one) will rule out next?

 

[dhengr]

Hokie:

You’ve been away too long. The expression is ‘____ has a nice rack,’ but of course us clean minded engineers would be referring to ‘a pipe rack,’ ‘a coat and hat rack,’ I racked my brain to think of some others, but the better side of my brain reverted back to more important racks, because I already got my ZZZ’s for the afternoon.

 

[hokie66]

I admit to being a troglodyte. I think we were equally as crude in my day, and we had names for various parts of the anatomy, but I was unfamiliar with that one. Guess I'm just not up with the current "culture".

 

[msquared48]

Rack on.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[csd72]

I have also heard them called 'lungs', do doctors then have to stop using that term.

"you have a problem with the organ that processes the air you breathe...."

h

 

[Once20036]

I hope you never have to submit an erection plan.

 

[spats]

There's quite a few structural/construction terms that have a sexual connotation, but I have to bite my tongue or they're sure to pull this thread.

 

[trainguy]

csd - your post reminds me of the old joke:

What's better than roses on a piano?

Tulips on an organ.


tg

 

[rb1957]

hopefully we've succeeded in making sure no-one ever asks about political correctness again.

mind you, it'll be a shame, as this has been one of the most amusing threads in quite a while.