[Tagging] Karting...

[Richard Welty]

On 1/21/11 5:26 PM, Steve Doerr wrote:
> On 10/01/2011 14:03, John Smith wrote:
>> On 10 January 2011 23:52, Steve Bennett<stevagewp at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> Definitely with a k. I actually tagged this sport recently, I took a
>>
>> Did I really need to say british english? cart with a k is american 
>> english.
>
> The whole concept is American, including the spelling. 'Kart' is short 
> for 'go-kart'. The word 'go-cart' is listed in the OED with various 
> meanings, the earliest being what we would now call a baby-walker. But 
> none of the meanings there correponds to the modern 'go-kart', which 
> the OED defines solely by reference to a quotation from "The Times" of 
> 12 February 1963: "The name ‘go-kart’ was given to a miniature racing 
> car, which consisted of a bare skeleton or chassis of small size 
> mounted on four wheels and powered by a light two-stroke internal 
> combustion engine, with the driver's seat a few inches from ground 
> level."
>
to provide more context, the Kart as we know it was invented by Art Ingels,
a car builder at Kurtis Kraft (a well known race car firm in Southern 
California)
in 1956.

given where he worked, it's not at all surprising that he spelled it 
with a K

richard