Dash Boards

Cars all have dashboards now. But have you ever really thought that word? Dash-board? Strange word, right? In many instances, where a word comes from is quite simple but dates to a time when certain practices were more common.

The dashboard was originally on sleighs. This was back before automobiles were invented. When the horses pulled the sleigh, they would kick up all sorts of mud and muck into the driver's face and sometimes on the rest of the sleigh's occupants. To hamper this, a piece of leather or wood was placed in such a fashion up front to stop the debris. Most of the debris was caused by the horses' dashing, and the board prevented the debris. Some people believe that the dashboard came from that notion of "the horses dash, and the board prevents it", hence a dash-board. However, it's more accurate if you look at the definition of dash in the older meaning of the word: to strike or smash often violently, to bespatter, to splash. So, it's more accurate to say it's a board that takes splashes and strikes.

The placement of the board hasn't changed much, so when automobiles came along, the board was used to also help prevent the same debris from being kicked up by the road and wheels (since the first automobiles didn't have windshields). The name stuck, and with each passing year, the dashboard stayed, but the original meaning was lost. The complexity of the dashboard changed with padding being introduced in the 1940's and common practive by the 1970's, and airbags becoming a common addition by the 1990's. The time between the 1940's-1960's saw all sorts of different designs of instruments being added to the dashboards, which are now relatively similar in function and inclusion.

However, the dashboard itself is an old tradition, dating back a long, long time, when our cars were just horses and sleds.

Bet you didn't know that!