Hi everyone, please excuse me as a newcomer if I am not following procedure. In aviation to prang an aircraft is something akin to wreck it, typically on takeoff or landing: "He stalled the aircraft on takeoff and pranged it." At least that’s what I’ve gotten from numerous contexts. I had never heard this word before and am wondering whether it is perhaps British (I am American), or simply aviation-specific? Does anyone have a lead on its roots?

Thanks,
Mike

Prang is often heard in Canada in reference to smacking up your car, though not necessarily against another.

I’ve heard it as both noun and verb:

"I pranged the car."
"Look at the prang on your car."

The American Heritage Dictionary, which says the word is imitative in origin, offers this definition:

———-
prang tr.v.
Chiefly British

1. To crash (an airplane, for example).
2. To damage by colliding with (a car, for example).
3. To bomb from the air.
————

Google returns 31,000 hits for prang, many of which indicate the word is also a surname in Germany.

Prang + Car returns 3,250 hits, and indicates that prang is also used as a noun in the U.K., New Zealand, Australia and Zambia. Prang + airplane returns under 500 hits, mostly in the United States.

Many thanks. Canada, eh?

Mike

I think the word prang originated as slang in the Royal Air Force during WW2. Fighter pilots liked to project a nonchalant, sometimes flippant image - presumably as a way to distance themselves from the high fatality rates.
A fatal crash was described as "going for a Burton" or "buying it" and a crash was known as a prang.
No idea how the word itself originated though..onamatopeia, perhaps?

I think prang is often used in the UK to describe a car accident resulting in minor damage. If your car did a few somersaults and exploded upon hitting a concrete pillar that would normally not be described as a prang.

Jonah

I support the RAF view. The curious phrase ‘wizard prang’ describes a spectacular one.

Bryn

Who remembers reading of a pilot called Pontius who had been flying so long he used to get pterodactyls in his prop.