I require answers!

[azilut]

Here's a question for you Englishey types.

The sirens in Greek mythology sang a beautiful song that lured sailors to their doom. An alarm "siren" makes a horrible noise that is supposed to keep you out of harm's way. How the hell did the latter get named after the former?

Comments

OED to the rescue

[_dubiosity_]

Siren (n)

I. 1. An imaginary species of serpent. Obs.
This sense is derived from glossarial explanations of L. sirenes in the Vulgate text of Isaiah xiii. 22, where the Wycliffite versions have ‘wengid edderes’ and ‘fliynge serpentis’.

2. Class. Mythol. One of several fabulous monsters, part woman, part bird, who were supposed to lure sailors to destruction by their enchanting singing.
In early use frequently confused with the mermaid.

3. fig. One who, or that which, sings sweetly, charms, allures, or deceives, like the Sirens.

4. A drone bee. Obs. rare.

5. One or other of the eel-like gradient and tailed amphibians belonging to the family Sirenidæ, native to N. America; esp. the mud-iguana, Siren lacertina.
So named by Linnæus on account of the statement made to him by Dr. Garden, that it had a sort of singing voice.

6. Anat. (See first quot. and cf. sense 9.)

7. a. An acoustical instrument (invented by Cagniard de la Tour in 1819) for producing musical tones and used in numbering the vibrations in any note. Cf. SIRENE.

b. An instrument, made on a similar principle but of a larger size, used on steamships for giving fog-signals, warnings, etc. Also, more generally, a device which produces a piercing note (freq. of varying tone), used as an air-raid warning, or to signify the approach of a police car, etc.; the noise itself. Formerly, a motor-horn.

II. attrib. and Comb.

8. a. Attrib., in sense ‘characteristic of, resembling that of, a Siren’, as siren air, beauty, note, etc.

b. Appositive, as siren daughter, enemy, hag, etc.

c. Forming adjs. or advs., as siren-haunted, -voiced; siren-like.

9. In sense 6, as siren form, formation, -like.

10. In sense 7b, as siren alarm, signal, -trumpet; siren suit, a one-piece costume resembling overalls or a boiler-suit, orig. designed for wear by women in air-raid shelters; later, worn by either sex, and as a fashion garment.

Siren (v)

1. trans. To allure, entice, persuade. rare.

2. intr. To make signals with the siren. Also (of a police car, etc.), to proceed with siren blaring; to make one's way thus. Also sirening ppl. a.

*----------------------*

This acoustic instrument angle might make a sound (pun thoroughly intended) justification for the two extremes. Originally a nice sound that gradually got more and more like the cacaphonous exclamation that we have today.

Derek

I knew there was a reason I talk to geeks...

[azilut]

Thank you. That sounds reasonable - it started out as a musical instrument, and the name carried over to other sound-producing instruments that used the same design principles.