Quote:
Originally Posted by russell_w_b
... German 1930s 'Feldspracher' (spelling?)...
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I think that's right. My recollections of schoolboy German suggests that Feld means "field" and Spracher (with, more correctly, an umlaut over the 'a') means "speaker", hence Feldsprecher means a field telephone rather than a Fernsprecher ("distance-speaker") which is a normal telephone.
German has a wonderful logic when it comes to making up new words for newly-invented bits of equipment. In the excellent Winter 2009 BVWS Bulletin there is mention of the well-named Farbfernsehgerat (colour distance vision apparatus)...