# Why



## Alex Greig (Sep 20, 2005)

Why is a compound bow called a compound bow?


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## Christopher Lee (Apr 14, 2005)

My guess is:

H W Allen filed patent application number 3,486,495 on 23rd June 1966 for an "Archery bow with draw-force multiplying attachments". 

Here, the term 'multiplying' can also be intepreted as 'compounding' which beasically meant 'to put together (parts) so as to form a whole : COMBINE - compound ingredients or to form by combining parts - compound-medicine.

That's the semantic take.

Now, what probably happened, knowing popular consumer culture and norms was:

The big turning point for Allen came when he sent a sample bow to Tom Jennings, a famous American bowyer and the technical editor of "Archery World" magazine. Jennings thoroughly tested the bow and published the results in the May 1967 edition of the magazine. *The title of Jenning's article effectively christened the new bow and gave it the name by which it would be known in future.*_ Jennings article was called "A Bow With Compound Interest"._


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## Alex Greig (Sep 20, 2005)

Thank you for the reply


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## Christopher Lee (Apr 14, 2005)

Alex, the full article is here: 

http://www.oldbasingarchers.co.uk/compound/tbww.htm


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## [email protected] (Jul 31, 2003)

Chris,

The article was very informative. Thanks.

But where's Jenning's "The Bow With Compound Interest"?. Or was that it?


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## ski-kat (Oct 26, 2005)

One little known fact of interest (or maybe not) is that Tom Jennings took out a license from Allen, but never, ever payed him a penny in royalties. Allen sued and won in court 10+ years later. But crooked Tom (and this I'm theorizing) drained his corporation. It subsequently went bankrupt (fact). Sometime later, Fred Bear Archery bought the Jennings corporation (Sportlab).


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