Rod - yes, that's my understanding of how the term changed, too. That's happened to lots of other words and terms over the years, as well. Take "hacker" for example. That used to mean an electronics hobbyist who fooled around with bread-boarded components back in the day when personal computing was in its infancy. Then it got morphed into the evil meaning it has nowadays, largely by the media, I believe. But, again, the meaning of "freds" appears to be location dependent to some extent.
On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 10:47:08 AM UTC-6, Rod Holland wrote: > > The term "fred" used to be associated with touring cyclists (c.f. the old > phreds mailing list), and was sometimes expanded to Fenders and Racks Every > Day. Some time in the last decade there was a sense inversion, and the name > started getting hung on kitted carbon riders (with the implication that > their gear is faster than their skill); I associate that shift with the > Bike Snob, but only because that's where I first encontered it. > > Seems to me the old usage was actually embraced as a positive identity by > many of those it described, while the newer usage is merely derogatory. > > rod > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
