Bucket

Bucket (pronounced buhk-it)

(1) A deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semi-circular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit etc; a pail.

(2) Any container related to or suggesting this.

(3) In earth-moving and related machinery, any of the scoops attached to or forming the endless chain in certain types of conveyors or elevators.

(4) The scoop or clamshell of a steam shovel, power shovel, or dredge.

(5) A vane or blade of a waterwheel, paddle wheel, water turbine, or the like.

(6) In dam design, a concave surface at the foot of a spillway for deflecting the downward flow of water.

(7) In basketball, an informal term for the field goal; the part of the keyhole extending from the foul line to the end line.

(8) In seat design, as "bucket seat", most associated with cars, an individual seat for one person (as opposed to the bench seat for two or more).

(9) In ten-pin bowling, a "leave" of the two, four, five, and eight pins, or the three, five, six, and nine pins.

(10) To lift, carry, or handle in a bucket (often followed by up or out).

(11) In slang, to ride a horse fast and without concern for tiring it; also, used as slang for driving fast, both mostly UK use.

(12) To handle (orders, transactions, etc.) in or as if in a "bucket shop".

(13) In computer operating systems, as download bucket, a unit of storage on a direct-access device from which data can be stacked and retrieved; a storage space in a hash table for every item sharing a particular key.

(14) A unit of measure equal to four (Imperial) gallons (UK archaic).

(15) In Canadian (mostly Toronto) disparaging slang, a suggestion someone uses crack cocaine.

(16) In slang, an old vehicle that is not in good working order (often as rust bucket).

(17) In variation management, a mechanism for avoiding the allocation of targets in cases of mismanagement.

(18) As "bucket bag", the leather socket for holding the whip when driving (horses and sled-dogs), or for the carbine or lance when mounted (cavalry use).

(19) The pitcher in certain orchids.

(20) A type of narrow brimmed hat, and as slang, hats in general; the use as “brain bucket” is specific to crash helmets.

(21) In rowing, to make, or cause to make (the recovery), with a certain hurried or unskilful forward swing of the body.

(22) A pulley (a now obsolete Norfolk dialectical use).

(23) As "bucket bong", an improvised form of drug paraphernalia assembled for the purpose of smoking weed and consisting of a bucket filled with water and a plastic bottle with the bottom surface removed.  Social media platforms host instructional video clips for those who wish to hone their technique. 

(24) As "bucket list", (1) a list of tasks to be undertaken following discussions (the idea of them being put "in a bucket") and (2) a list of the things one wishes to have done before one dies (ie "kicks the bucket"). 

1250–1300: From the Middle English buket & boket, partly from the Anglo-Norman buket & buqet (tub, pail) and partly from the Old English bucc (bucket, pitcher), (a variant of būc (vessel, belly (cognate with the Old High German būh & the German Bauch)) + the Old French –et.  The suffix –et was from the Middle English -et, from the Old French –et & its feminine variant -ette, from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta & -ittum).  It was used to form diminutives, loosely construed. The Anglo-Norman words (which in Norman had existed as boutchet & bouquet) were from the Old French buc (abdomen; object with a cavity), from the Vulgar Latin būcus (similar forms were the Occitan and Catalan buc, the Italian buco & buca (hole, gap), from the Frankish būk (belly, stomach).  Both the Old English and Frankish terms derive ultimately from the Proto-Germanic būkaz (belly, stomach).  The modern meaning "pail or open vessel for drawing and carrying water and other liquids" emerged by the mid-thirteenth century, the link to the idea conveyed by the Old English buc (pitcher, bulging vessel (originally "belly")) is that buckets were originally crafted from leather before being made of word and later metal.

Lindsay Lohan taking the #ALSIceBucketChallenge on the Jimmy Fallon show, August 2014.  The Ice Bucket Challenge was a viral event to promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as motor neuron disease and in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease) and raise money for research.

In idiomatic use, a “drop in the bucket” is a small, usually inadequate amount in relation to what is needed or requested.  To “kick the bucket” (dating from 1785) means “to drop dead” which may be from the unrelated (1570s) bucket (beam on which something may be hung or carried), from the French buquet (balance), a beam from which slaughtered animals were hung (by the heels or hooves).  This may also have been reinforced by the notion of suicide by hanging after standing on an upturned bucket (apparently once a most popular choice for the purpose).  The related “bucket list” is the list of things one should do before dropping dead dates only from 2007 but had earlier been used in coding to describe algorithm sorting.  To “drop the bucket on” is (mostly Australian slang) to implicate, incriminate, or expose, used also in the form to “give (someone) a bucketing”.  Showing a concern for public opinion (an under-researched aspect of the dynamics of totalitarian systems), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) used the phrase in this sense in 1939 during the negotiations for the Nazi-Soviet Pact when he observed it would be wise to tone down the effusive language describing the friendship between the two dictatorships which were, at least on paper, ideologically opposed (although the various similarities between the two were, even then, acknowledged as quite striking): "For many years now, we have been pouring buckets of shit on each other's heads, and our propaganda boys could not do enough in that direction. And now, all of a sudden, are we to make our peoples believe that all is forgotten and forgiven? Things don't work that fast."  To say the rain is “bucketing down” suggests hard rain or anything in great quantity.  In that sense former National Party (Australia) leader Tim Fischer (1946-2019) in 1998 promised lease-holders of agricultural land the 1998 Native Title Amendment Act would include “bucket loads of extinguishment” (of native title) on those lands.  He was as good as his word.

In most of the English-speaking world, bucket is the preferred term.  Both bucket and pail are used throughout the US, pail most popular in the north, bucket more common elsewhere, especially in the mid-west and the south.  Bucket is a noun, verb and (less commonly) an adjective, the present participle bucketing and the past and past participle bucketed; the noun plural is buckets.

Mercedes-Benz 220 SE Coupé (foreground) & cabriolet (background) with standard rear bench seats, Frankfurt, September 1961 (left) & 1965 220 SE coupé with safari seat option (right).

One rarely specified option on the early Mercedes-Benz W111 (1961-1971; 220 SE, 250 SE, 280 SE & 280 SE 3.5) & W112 (1962-1967; 300 SE) coupés and cabriolets was the fitting of two individual (bucket) seats in the rear instead of the usual bench.  Individual seats in a car’s rear compartment had actually been not uncommon in the early days of motoring but by 1961, when the W111 coupé was released at the Geneva Motor Show, except for a few coach-built rarities, the option was unique.  The factory called then “safari seats”, the source of that being their special metal frame which actually permitted them to be removed and placed on the ground outside, the implication presumably that this would be handy for those on safari who wished to sit outside and watch the zebras.  Whether many of these machines were taken on safari isn’t known but the concept was transferrable to those going on picnics or watching the polo.  On both sides of the Atlantic, the fitting of individual rear-seats caught on for some high-end models but other than in some utility vehicles intended mostly for off-road use, no manufacturer made them removable.

A full bucket of veep.

In the US during the nineteenth century there was a joke about two brothers: "One ran off to sea and the other became vice-president; neither were ever heard of again."  That was of course an exaggeration but it reflected the general view of the office which has very few formal duties and can only ever be as powerful or influential as a president allows although the incumbent is "a heartbeat from the presidency".  John Nance Garner III (1868–1967, vice president of the US 1933-1941), a reasonable judge of these things, once told Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) being VPOTUS was "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (which is polite company usually is sanitized as "warm spit").  In the US, a number of VPOTUSs (Vice-President of the United States) have become POTUS (President of the United States) and some have worked out well although of late the record has not been encouraging, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963, POTUS 1963-1968), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961, POTUS 1969-1974) and Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2008-2017, POTUS 2021-2025 (God willing)) 1963-1968, all ending badly, in despair, disgrace and decrepitude respectively.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 1.0 (1995).

Microsoft's Internet Explorer (usually referred to as IE (IE7, IE8 etc by nerds) was in June 2022 officially retired.  It was released in 1995 as part of the Plus! package for Windows 95 which, remarkable as it now seems, shipped to an expectant and receptive market without any vision of it being a platform for internet access, Microsoft's preferred model their proprietary walled-garden the Microsoft Network (MSN).  The public’s reaction meant corporate belief in that model didn't last and MSN was soon re-positioned as just another place to go on the internet.  IE had its early controversies because of the use of code belonging to other companies and subsequently because it was given away or bundled with Microsoft's operating systems, thereby undermining the business model of competing companies which had developed browsers as shrink-wrap products to be sold for a profit.  With a few twists and turns, those issues worked their way (slowly) through US and European courts, Microsoft often using what had become the industry's preferred  solution: Throw money at the problem and it goes away.  That approach was applied too to product development and sometimes it needed to be, Windows 95, IE4 and the then mysterious “Active Desktop” ensemble resisting many attempts to secure stability.   

Lindsay Lohan in bucket hat.

Still, most competition thus eliminated, IE went on to great things and early in the century enjoyed a market-share which at its peak exceeded 90%, the penetration assisted greatly by IE being the choice of many corporations which began using the browser as their default interface for internal as well as external access.  However, this very success was what ultimately doomed IE as Microsoft was compelled to retain much legacy support within the browser to accommodate the corporations which generated so much of Microsoft’s revenue.  Newer competitors were able to offer faster, more flexible browsers with modernized interfaces and gradually gained critical mass, IE by 2020 confined mostly to those corporations using legacy applications with a specific dependence.  Indeed, although noting IE’s retirement, for the affected corporations Microsoft is retaining a small subset of software support on Windows Server 2019 and the Windows 10 LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel), the latter in five and ten year programmes.

Pol Roger Champagne ice bucket by Argit of France in nickel plated brass, circa 1920.

Unfashionable though it became, there was one aspect of IE which for years worked better than the implementation on other browsers: The handling of download buckets.  Download buckets are the places on operating systems which permit users to tag files for downloading as a batch, rather than having to download each individually.  For whatever reason, IE’s download buckets seemed for years always more stable than the newer entrants.  Even today, Microsoft’s own update catalogue offers support for a download bucket on IE but not on other browsers although, helpfully, Microsoft’s own (Chromium-based) Edge browser can be configured with an “IE mode” which continues to support the bucket, the “Add” and “Remove” options appearing as before.

Microsoft Update Catalog on IE (and Edge in IE mode).

Microsoft Update Catalog on Chromium-based browsers (and Firefox) in native mode.

Dry and wet: Lindsay Lohan takes the #ALSIceBucketChallenge on the Jimmy Fallon show, August 2014.