Derailleur gears operates the lever while pedalling, the change in cable tension moves the chain-guide from side to side, "derailing" the chain onto different sprockets. For more information about the choice of particular gear ratios and sprocket sizes, see Bicycle gearing. "Derailleur" is a French word, spelled "dérailleur" in French, derived from the derailment of a train from its tracks. Its first recorded use was 1930. At least one notable bicycle industry author has attempted to promote the anglicized spelling of "derailer". As of 2013, however, neither Merriam-Webster nor the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for "derailer". Various derailleur systems were
Ascent of the A-Word the book as an "often raucously funny account of what seems to be America’s most popular insult" which manages to be neither "exceedingly snarky" nor "overly academic and pretentious". Ascent of the A-Word Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years is a 2012 book by the American linguist Geoffrey Nunberg which analyzes the history of the epithet "asshole". In "Ascent", Nunberg traces to World War II the origins of the word as an epithet, when it was used as a term of abuse for superior officers considered abusive or self-important. Following the soldiers' return home from the war,