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  #106  
Old October 2nd 05, 05:18 PM
Floyd Davidson
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"Nostrobino" wrote:
In this case "prime" is clearly used to ditinguish the main lens
from the supplementary lens.


Thanks to both of you. These tend to support my recollection that this
misuse of "prime" first appeared c. 1990, and also that the term was still
in correct use at the same time. I would be very interested to see if anyone
can produce a substantially earlier example of "prime" being used to mean
fixed focal length.


What difference does that make? As long as you want to claim it
means "the term was still in correct use", you are simply wrong
no matter what.

The "correct" use has evolved. Get used to it because it
won't regress.

On the other hand, it you rid yourself of this insistance that
whatever the use was at some specific point in time is "correct"
as opposed to all evolution that happened at a later date being
"incorrect", then yes it is interesting to catalog the
evolutionary process to see when it changed and to compare that
to the external factors that guided that evolutionary process
(such as the appearance of higher quality zoom lenses at prices
that made the distinction between fixed focal length lenses and
zoom lenses so important that jargon had to be developed to
easily mark the distinction).

--
FloydL. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)