Aqua-lung

:See Aqualung for other meanings of the word "aqualung".

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Aqua-lung was the original name for the first open-circuit SCUBA diving equipment, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau in 1942. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve. Before that, there were a few attempts at constant-flow compressed-air breathing sets. Aqualung and Aqua Lung are registered trademarks for diving equipment.

Related Topics:
SCUBA - Emile Gagnan - Jacques Cousteau - Diving cylinder - Diving regulator - Breathing gas - Pressure - Trademark

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In Britain, for very many years after public interest in scuba diving began around 1953, the word "aqualung" was commonly used in speech and in publications as a generic term for divers' open-circuit demand-valve-controlled breathing apparatus; and also in figurative uses such as "the water spider's aqualung of air bubbles". The word got into the Russian language as a generic noun "akvalang".

Related Topics:
Generic - Water spider - Russian language

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In the USA, U.S.Divers managed to fend this tendency off and keep "Aqualung" as a trade name and let the word "scuba" be the generic.

Related Topics:
USA - U.S.Divers - Generic

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Over time, the word "SCUBA" came into common usage for that type of equipment, but with the increasing popularity of a different, "closed circuit" type of SCUBA, named the "rebreather", a need has arisen for another short but precise word to describe the original open-circuit SCUBA.

Related Topics:
SCUBA - Rebreather

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