Re: swipe the credit card or slide the credit card?

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 20:04:46 -0800 (PST), zhengquan posted:

Hello,
In the supermarket, why do we use swipe the card rather than slide the
card?

swipe means

1 ~ (at) sb/sth to hit or try to hit sb/sth with your hand or an
object by swinging your arm:

Is there a hit action in that?

No, but there need not be.

Merriam-Webster Online says:



Main Entry: swipe
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): swiped; swip·ing
Date: circa 1825

intransitive verb :
to strike or move with a sweeping motion

transitive verb:
1 : to strike or wipe with a sweeping motion

2 : steal, pilfer

3 : to slide (a card with a magnetic strip or bar code)
through a slot in a reading device so that information
stored on the strip can be processed (as in making a purchase)

As you can see, the 3rd sense is obviously of recent origin, but is
based on sense 1 of the definition, specifically, "to wipe with a
sweeping motion. This sense is also heard when referring to running a
cloth over a surface.

As for the definition you supplied, it looks a lot like it came from a
dictionary intended for people learning English. I say this because it
uses abbreviations that are non-standard in English, and which should
never be used if you ever hope to write English properly. The
abbreviations I am referring to are "sb" and "sth". Using them will
immediately mark you as a non-native speaker of English.

This sort of dictionary is also very limited in its definitions. As
you can see, Merriam-Webster has more definitions.

For questions of this type, one resource you might want to try is
http://www.onelook.com which will supply a list of dictionaries in
which to find the word you seek.

I hope this helped.

.

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