enunciator
n.— «I am all too familiar with the 34th Street-8th Avenue Station. Do I go to the downtown local track and hope that a C comes first? Or do I cast my lot with the A express option? It’s maddening. I wonder if they could have some “enunciator” device in the mezzanine below that would indicate whether a local or express was coming.» —“Answers About Mass Transit, Part 3″ New York Times: City Room June 12, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
You must log in to post a comment.
Up Your Alley (episode #1504) 07/30/2018: Book recommendations, including a collection of short stories inspired by dictionaries, and a techno-thriller for teens. Or, how about novels with an upbeat message? Publishers... [more]
Piping Hot (episode #1503) 07/23/2018: The game of baseball has alway inspired colorful commentary. Sometimes that means using familiar words in unfamiliar ways. The word stuff, for example, can refer... [more]
Mimeographs and Dittos (episode #1502) 06/24/2018: In this episode: How colors got their names, and a strange way to write. The terms blue and orange arrived in English via French, so... [more]
Spicy Jambalaya 06/18/2018: Teen slang from the South, and food words that are tricky to pronounce. • High schoolers in Huntsville, Alabama, told Martha and Grant about their... [more]
Chopped Liver 06/10/2018: There's a proverb that goes "beloved children have many names." At least, that's true when it comes to the names we give our pets. "Fluffy"... [more]
This is clearly a misprint of “annunciator”. Originally, these were simple electromechanical devices which would indicate that an event had occurred and would remain indicating until reset. The word was certainly being used to refer to the large, electromechanical boards indicating train details at stations when I lived in Philadelphia in the eighties.