Bulldog Drummond

Book review time.  Continuing my WWI kick, this series was written by a British Officer.  Hollywood B-movies (Ray Milland!) were made of the tales, with an American slant, and other earlier films and plays.   Quite popular in the interwar years.  Gentleman and valet solve crimes.   That sort of thing.

Gun content.   The gentleman carries a small Colt revolver.  Also referred to as an automatic.  The description makes me think it is actually something like the good ol Pocket Hammerless in .32 or .380.  Maybe  a Vest Pocket, even.

But the point...  A British Army officer and author after years of war still mixes the terms revolver and automatic.  I'm beginning think there was a time it was acceptable to call any pistol a 'revolver', whether it had a rotating cylinder or not.  That no one in the 20's was bothered if you called an M1911A1 a "Colt 45 revolver automatic".  Nomenclature being inexact and interchangeable.  At least on this.  Revolver = Any Handgun.  I keep noticing it everywhere in old stuff.  Just like we notice the clip/magazine stuff.  And even Glock Service Revolvers that all the police carry and journalist write about.