So is the nacelle custom made?
That’s a recent meaning of the very old word ‘bespoke’, accuse and complain being older uses.
Sounds like a worthwhile advance in fuel efficiency, but ‘generation’ blah blah is hype. PR types are a version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf - when there really is something outstanding no one will believe them.
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At this stage of jet engine development, 5% is a pretty impressive step.
You are older than I thought, K. You think the meaning of “custom-made” for “bespoke” is recent? Were you born in the 15th century?
Merriam-Webster says, ‘In the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including “to speak,” “to accuse,” and “to complain.” In the 16th century, bespeak acquired another meaning—“to order or arrange in advance.” It is from that sense that we get the adjective bespoke, referring to clothes and other things that are ordered before they are made.…’ (Source: merriam-webster dot com /dictionary/bespoke .)
Watching the usage or popularity of words is often entertaining. Bespoke has in the past mostly been sparingly used in relation to clothing, especially men’s suits, as a ritzy synonym for the pedestrian descriptive “custom”. And I do seem to see it appearing more often in relation to other custom or customized products.
Another word I’ve watched become popular over the past 20 years or so is “existential”. You once rarely saw the term unless associated with the “existentialism” movement. Now it is an everyday adjective used lavishly by media writers, seemingly to imply something deeper and more important than its book definition of affirming the existence of a thing. A problem is not just a problem, it is an “existential problem”, which seems intended to imply it is a really, really important and immediate problem worthy of your full and close attention to what the writer wishes to say about it. In the military we had mission creep, this is definition creep.