posted on Oct, 10 2006 @ 11:15 AM
in fact that whole story is erroneous
sabotage (n.)
1910, from Fr. sabotage, from saboter "to sabotage, bungle," lit. "walk noisily," from sabot "wooden shoe" (13c.), altered (by association with
O.Fr. bot "boot") from M.Fr. savate "old shoe," from an unidentified source that also produced similar words in O.Prov., Port., Sp., It., Arabic
and Basque. In Fr., the sense of "deliberately and maliciously destroying property" originally was in ref. to labor disputes, but the oft-repeated
story that the modern meaning derives from strikers' supposed tactic of throwing old shoes into machinery is not supported by the etymology. Likely
it was not meant as a literal image; the word was used in Fr. in a variety of "bungling" senses, such as "to play a piece of music badly." The
verb is first attested 1918 in Eng., from the noun. Saboteur is 1921, a borrowing from Fr.
so like many things the popular story of shoes being thrown into machinery is complete nonsense
get my point ?