According to this article, "a 1936 book called Typewriting Behavior" made "comparisons of the new keyboard to a jeep and the old one to an ox".

Jeeps were invented in 1941. Some origin theories of the name date back as far as WW I (but for recruits, not vehicles). If the author truly used this comparison in 1936 it would be a tremendous citation for the word's origin.

Or perhaps the comparison was made in a later edition of the book. Don't know.

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mechanicum 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think they mixed up their sources. The jeep/ox comparison appears to be from the 1944 US Navy report: https://archive.org/details/APracticalExperimentInSimplified...

(Typewriting Behavior, for the curious: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.74878/page/n11...)

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goosedragons 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Popeye introduced a character named "Eugene the Jeep" in 1936. Could have also been the origin of Jeep for the vehicle.

	▲	IAmBroom 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, that's one of the popular theories. I personally prefer reuse of the existing word "jeep" meaning "new recruit" to mean "new vehicle". But that's just an opinion.

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tylerflick 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is not the first historical inaccuracy I’ve noticed from this site.