Where does the word “sabotage” come from?
“Claimed explanations include: 1) Sabotage is a term of French origin coined during the railway strike of 1910, when workers destroyed the wooden shoes, or sabots, that held rails in place, thus impeding the morning commute.[citation needed] 2) The word dates from the Industrial Revolution: it is said that powered looms could be damaged by angry or disgruntled workers throwing their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots, hence the term Sabotage) into the machinery, effectively clogging the machinery. This is often referenced as one of the first inklings of the Luddite Movement. However, this etymology is highly suspect and no wooden shoe sabotage is known to have been reported from the time of the word’s origin. 3) The word comes from the slang name for people living in rural areas who wore wooden shoes after city-dwellers had begun wearing leather shoes; when employers wanted strikebreakers, they would import ‘sabots’ (rural workers) to replace the strikers. Not used to mac
