Float

Float (pronounced floht)

(1) To rest, move or remain on the surface of a liquid (to be buoyant; to be supported by a liquid of greater density, such that part (of the object or substance) remains above the surface) or in the air.

(2) By metaphor, to move lightly and gracefully.

(3) By metaphor, information or items circulating (often as “floating around” or “floating about”).

(4) Figuratively, to vacillate (often as “floating between’).

(5) As applied to currencies, to be allowed freely to fluctuate in the forex (foreign-exchange) markets instead of trading at a fixed or managed rate.

(6) In the administration of interest rates, periodically to change according to money-market conditions.

(7) In the equities markets, the offering of previously privately held stock on public boards; an offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange (now famous as the IPO (initial public offering)).

(8) In the bond markets, an offering.

(9) In theatre, to lay down (a flat), usually by bracing the bottom edge of the frame with the foot and allowing the rest to fall slowly to the floor.

(10) An inflated bag to sustain a person in water (life preserver; lifebuoy).

(11) In plumbing, in certain types of tanks, cisterns etc, a device, as a hollow ball, that through its buoyancy automatically regulates the level, supply or outlet of a liquid.

(12) In nautical jargon, a floating platform attached to a wharf, bank or the like to be used as a landing; any kind of buoyancy device.

(13) In aeronautics, a hollow, boat-like structure under the wing or fuselage of a seaplane, helicopter or flying boat, keeping it afloat in water (aircraft so equipped sometimes called “float planes”).

(14) In angling, a piece of cork or other material for supporting a baited line in the water and indicating by its movements when a fish bites.

(15) In zoology, an inflated organ that supports an animal in the water; the gas-filled sac, bag or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.

(16) A vehicle bearing a display, usually an elaborate tableau, in a parade or procession.

(17) In banking, uncollected checks and commercial paper in process of transfer from bank to bank; funds committed to be paid but not yet charged against the account.

(18) In metal-working, a single-cut file (a kind of rasp) of moderate smoothness.

(19) In interior decorating, a flat tool for spreading and smoothing plaster or stucco.

(20) In stonemasonry, a tool for polishing marble.

(21) In weaving and knitting, a length of yarn extending over several rows or stitches without being interworked.

(22) In commerce, a sum of physical cash (stored usually in a safe, cash-box or cash-register (till), used to allow cashiers to provide change to customers.  What’s “in the till” at the end of a day’s trading is (minus the float), the day’s revenue.

(23) In geology and mining, loose fragments of rock, ore etc that have been moved from one place to another by the action of wind, water etc.

(24) To cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density.

(25) To move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating (as in “floating downstream” etc).

(26) In aviation, to remain airborne, without touching down, for an excessive length of time during landing, due to excessive airspeed during the landing flare.

(27) To promote an idea for discussion or consideration.

(28) As expression indicating the viability of an idea (as in “it’ll never float”, conveying the same sense as “it’ll never fly”).

(29) In computing applications (graphics, word processing etc), a visual effect in which an element within a document appears to “float” above or beside others; on web pages, a visual style in which styled elements “float” above or beside others.

(30) In UK use, a small (often electric) vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term “milk float” (and historically, the now obsolete “coal float”).

(31) In trade, to allow a price to be determined by the markets as opposed to one set by a trader.

(32) In insurance, premiums taken in but not yet paid out.

(33) In computer programming, as floating-point number, a way of representing real numbers (ie numbers with fractions or decimal points) in a binary format

(34) A soft beverage with a scoop of ice-cream floating in it.

(35) In poker, a manoeuvre in which a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.

(36) In knitting, one of the loose ends of yarn on an unfinished work.

(37) In transport, a car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer combination; a lowboy trailer.

(38) In bartending, the technique of layering of liquid or ingredients on the top of a drink.

(39) In electrical engineering, as “float voltage”, an external electric potential required to keep a battery fully charged

(40) In zoology, the collective noun for crocodiles (the alternative being “bask”).

(41) In automotive engineering, as “floating axle”, a type of rear axle used mostly in heavy-duty vehicles where the axle shafts are not directly attached to the differential housing or the vehicle chassis but instead supported by bearings housed in the wheel hubs.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English floten, from the Old English flotian (to float), from the Proto-Germanic flutōną (to float), from the primitive Indo-European plewd- & plew- (to float, swim, fly).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian flotje (to float), the West Frisian flotsje (to float), the Dutch vlotten (to float), the German flötzen & flößen (to float), the Swedish flotta (to float), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Middle Low German vloten & vlotten (to float, swim), the Middle Dutch vloten, the Old Norse flota, the Icelandic fljóta, the Old English flēotan (to float, swim), the Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ) and the Latin plaustrum (wagon, cart).  It was akin to the Old English flēotan & Old Saxon flotōn (root of fleet).  The meaning “to drift about, passively to hover" emerged circa 1300 while the transitive sense of “to lift up, to cause to float (of water etc)” didn’t come into use for another 300-odd years and the notion of “set (something) afloat” was originally figurative (of financial matters), documented since 1778.  In the literal sense, float seems long mostly to have been restricted to stuff in the water and didn’t generally come to refer to things in the air until the 1630s, this extending to “hover dimly before the eyes” by at least 1775.  In medicine, the term “floating rib” was first used in 1802, so called because the anterior ends are not connected to the rest.  The Proto-Germanic form was flutojanan, from the primitive Indo-European pleu (to flow) which endures in modern use as pluvial.

Etymologists have concluded the noun was effectively a merger in the Middle English of three related Old English nouns: flota (boat, fleet), flote (troop, flock) & flot (body of water, sea), all from the same source as the verb.  The early senses were the now-mostly-obsolete ones of the Old English words: the early twelfth century “state of floating"”, the mid thirteenth century “swimming”, the slightly later “a fleet of ships; a company or troop” & the early fourteenth century “stream or river”.  From circa 1300 it entered the language of fishermen to describe the attachments used to add buoyancy to fishing lines or nets and some decades later it meant also “raft”.  The meaning “a platform on wheels used for displays in parades etc” dates from 1888 and developed either from the manner they percolated down a street or from the vague resemblance to flat-bottomed boats  & barges (so described since the 1550s).  The type of fountain drink, topped with a scoop of ice cream was first sold in 1915.  The noun floater (one who or that which floats) dates from 1717 as the verb's agent noun.

The last of the Imperial “land yachts”: 1975 Imperial Le Baron Four-Door Hardtop.  The best way to describe the driving experience was to imagine a yacht in a calm sea, proceeding effortless along in a good breeze, the sense being of “floating” atop the road.

From 1847 it was used in political slang to describe an independent voter (and in those days with the implication their vote might be “for sale”), something similar to the modern “swinging voter”.  By 1859 it referred to “one who frequently changes place of residence or employment” and after 1890 was part of US law enforcement slang meaning “dead body found in the water”.  The noun flotation dates from 1765, the spelling influenced by the French flotaison.  The adverb afloat was a direct descendent from the Old English aflote.  In idiomatic use, it was the boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) who made famous the phrase “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee” and “whatever floats your boat” conveys the idea that individuals should be free to pursue that which they enjoy without being judged by others.  The word often is used figuratively, the "land yachts" of the 1960s & 1970s (the huge Cadillacs, Lincolns, Imperials and such) were said to "float along the freeways" with their occupants isolated in an well-upholstered, air-conditioned ecosystem; there's since been nothing quite like them.  To “float someone’s boat” is to appeal to them in some way, the variant “whatever floats your boat” used to indicate a “live and let live” tolerance of the proclivities of others.  Float is a noun & verb, floater is a noun, floated is a verb, floating is a noun, verb & adjective and floaty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is floats.

Pie floaters: Despite a name suggesting specificity, pie floaters may be served with pie “floating” atop soup (left) or “submerged” beneath (right).

In the barbarian nation of Australia, a “pie floater” is a traditional beef meat pie (made allegedly with a flaky pastry crust and rich gravy but experiences may vary, especially in gas (petrol) stations (“servos” in the local vernacular)) served in a thick, bright green pea soup.  The original tradition appears to have been to place pie upside-down with soup poured over but, in the more than hundred years since, there have been variations on the theme, most obviously those served with pie atop soup, leaving much of the shell visible.  Optional additions include mashed potato, S&P (salt & pepper), Worcestershire sauce, a splash of malt vinegar and, of course, that standard Australian additive, tomato sauce (ketchup).  The credit for the floater’s creation is granted to the South Australian capital Adelaide (historically unusual in not being first settled by convicts) and there is evidence examples were on sale as early as the 1890s; by at least 1903 it was a standard menu item in the city’s “pie carts” and in 2003, the state government listed the pie floater as a “South Australian Heritage Icon”.  Some have suggested the appeal of the dish may lie deep in the human collective subconscious, evoking the “primordial soup” in which life on planet Earth either began or first flourished but not too much should be made of that.

Lindsay Lohan floating in the Aegean, June 2022.

In the modern age, currencies began to be floated in the early 1970s after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1944) under which most major currencies were set in value against the US dollar (fixed to gold at a rate of US$35 per ounce, a number still with roots in the days of Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727)).  That didn’t mean exchange rates were static because values were set by governments (in processes called devaluation & revaluation) rather than the spot market and those movements could be dramatic: In September 1949, the UK Labour Party government of Clement Attlee (1883–1967; UK prime minister 1945-1951) devalued Sterling 30.5% against the US dollar (US$4.03 to 2.80), a shift long overdue.  Why the UK government in the post-war years made the same mistake (over-valuing Sterling against the US$) as it did in 1925 when it re-adopted the gold standard has proved a rich vein mined by economists and political scientists.

The Bretton Woods system worked well (certainly for developed nations like the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of western Europe) in the particular (and historically unusual) circumstances of the post-war years but, by the late 1960s, with the US government having effectively printed a vast supply of dollars to finance expensive programs like the Vietnam War, an expanded nuclear arsenal, Lyndon Johnson's (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 and POTUS 1963-1969) “Great Society” and the space programme, rapidly, surplus dollars had built up in the holdings of foreign central banks and increasingly these were being shipped back to the US to be exchanged for physical gold bars, central bankers as well-schooled as any in the implications of "supply & demand".  In 1971, Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) administration responded to the problem of dwindling gold reserves by suspending convertibility, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and making the shift to floating exchange rates probably inevitable, the trend beginning when in 1973 Japan floated the Yen.  What Nixon did was formalize the US dollar as a "fiat currency", the money issued by the US Treasury acknowledged to have no intrinsic value (unlike a coin minted from a precious or semi-precious metal) with the "perceived value" based on people's faith in the government decree of the state declaring the paper notes (and their various non-physical expressions) as legal tender for all debts and taxes.

A Bloomberg chart tracking the effect of shifting the US dollar from its link with gold to a fiat currency.  Due to this and other factors (notably the oil price), in the 1970s, the bills of the 1960s were paid.

Others however moved more slowly, many adopting the tactic of the Australian government which, as late as 1983 was still running what was known as a “managed float”, a mechanism in which the prime minister, treasurer and head of the treasury periodically would meet and, using a “a basket of currencies”, set the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback (US$) and the other currencies (the so-called “cross-rates”).  Now, most major Western nations have floating currencies although there is sometimes some “management” of the “float” by the device of central bank intervention (buying to raise; selling to lower).  The capacity for this approach to be significant is however not as influential as once it was because the numbers in the forex markets are huge, dwarfing the trade in commodities, bonds or equities; given the volumes, movements of even fractions of a cent can mean overnight profits or losses in the millions.  Because some "floats" are not exactly "free floats" in which the market operates independently, there remains suspicion mechanisms such as "currency pegs" (there are a remarkable variety of pegs) and other methods of "fine tuning" can mean there are those in murky little corners of the forex world who benefit from these manipulations.  Nobody seem prepared to suggest there's "insider trading" in the conventional sense of the term but there are dark mutterings of some traders appearing better informed than others.