Do Americans know what 'Heath Robinson' means?

Question

In simple terms it means 'an over complicated piece of machinery.' Named after the cartoonist.

I'm using the phrase in an email to an American colleague and just wanted to know if he'd understand what I meant.

(I've been to the US but never found myself using this phrase there before!)

Answer 1

I have no idea who or what that is.

Answer 2

Heath Robinson was a machine used by British codebreakers at Bletchley Park during World War II to solve messages in a German teleprinter cipher, the Lorenz SZ40/42. It was the predecessor to the Colossus computer. It was dubbed "Heath Robinson" by the Wrens who operated it, after cartoonist William Heath Robinson.

The machine was designed by Max Newman, and construction began in January 1943. C. E. Wynn-Williams designed the electronic counters, and engineers at the Post Office Research Station engineered other parts of the machine. A prototype was operational by June 1943.

Answer 3

Well, I'm an American living in Canada (dual citizen). looking it up on the internet I found this:

He was a wonderful illustrator, who seemed to be able to ease himself into the spirit of a work in a magical way: as just one example, those for an edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1914 were superb.

His enduring fame, and the reason why his name entered the language during his lifetime, was a result of the other side of his work — comic drawings. The typical Heath Robinson creation was of some machine for carrying out a whimsical purpose, such as one to train cat burglars, or stretch spaghetti, or put square pegs into round holes. These meticulously conceived and magnificently executed drawings were miracles of ineffective ingenuity. Every participant was clearly intent on serious purposes while managing some aspect of an absurdly over-complicated construction of magnets, pulley wheels and conveyor belts, all linked and controlled by lengths of knotted string. Nothing in his creations was pristine. Every part of his daft machines told of regular use over a long period, often patched or amateurishly repaired. He said that a large part of the joke came from the style that showed the artist had complete belief in what he was drawing.

Something Heath Robinson, meaning a device that was simultaneously absurdly ingenious and impracticable, became services slang during the First World War, as a result of a series of cartoons in which he mocked the enemy (such as harnessing the German army to a goose to teach it to goose-step). The Dictionary of National Biography remarks of these cartoons: “The Germans (wearing the uniforms of the Franco-Prussian War) invented ‘frightful’ means of teasing, discomfiting or embarrassing our troops who (looking scarcely less ridiculous) confounded them.”

In the USA, the equivalent is a Rube Goldberg device, a term that dates from the 1930s. Goldberg created essentially the same kind of unnecessarily complicated device for carrying out some simple task, though — as befits a trained engineer — his were practical, albeit weirdly convoluted. However, his draughtsmanship doesn’t begin to compare with that of the classically trained Heath Robinson.

Answer 4

i didnt untill i checked oit out on wiki:

Heath Robinson was a machine used by British codebreakers at Bletchley Park during World War II to solve messages in a German teleprinter cipher, the Lorenz SZ40/42. It was the predecessor to the Colossus computer. It was dubbed "Heath Robinson" by the Wrens who operated it, after cartoonist William Heath Robinson.

The machine was designed by Max Newman, and construction began in January 1943. C. E. Wynn-Williams designed the electronic counters, and engineers at the Post Office Research Station engineered other parts of the machine. A prototype was operational by June 1943.

Answer 5

cdnyankee has got it exactly,especially the knotted string-elastic bands-old chairs-teaspoons etc

The illustrations were much loved and I think Punch magazine carried them

A major point was that if you traced out the belts,wheels etc-it seemed to work

Hence ,in practical engineering,anything jury rigged or made to hang together-BUT WORKING-was said to be "a bit Heath Robinson"hence the affectoinate use of the term at Bletchley Park
It was made up in situ from available parts-and it worked on a pro-tem basis

As all may know by now,wikipedia doesn't get it right every time!

Answer 6

I saw a robinson esque machine on an episode of family guy, so some do

Answer 7

In America, this would be called Rube Goldberg.

Answer 8

It means you need to open your eyes and go over there and build the bridge between the imagined ideal you have of America and the reality.

Answer 9

Its some sort of camera rigging, that all I know

Answer 10

This one doesn't.

Answer 11

We know all about Heath Robisons because we always talka about dis when no one else be around. Especially deem foreign debbils be tellin us we don know nuttin.