[LMB] [SPAM?] Re: TSK: Beguilement Re-read -- Questions for Chapter 1.

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William A Wenrich" <wawenri at msn.com>


> Jacki in Canberra wrote:
>
> <<<A peculiarity of expression that has struck me on this read through
> is the frequent use of the phrase "swap out". Is this a particularly
> USian expression? as it is not one I'd ever heard or come across
> before this book and it did take me a short pause to realise what was
> meant by it. There are other words that I as a non-USian English
> speaker would be more likely to use instead and the two most obvious
> to me are 'change' (WRT soiled dressings) or 'replace' (WRT to Dag's
> tools). The recurrence of the expression after the first two or three
> uses was then enough to start throwing me out of  the story-thread.>>>
>
> I've mostly heard the phrase in connection with machine tools or drill 
> bits.

The term's been around a long long long time in the USA... for that matter, 
it;s used extensively in computer technology, for "swap file" and "swapping 
out parts".