Cereal (pronounced seer-ee-uhl)
(1) Any
plant of the grass family yielding an edible grain (wheat, rye, oats, rice,
corn, maize, sorghum, millet et al).
(2) The
grain from those plants.
(3) An edible
preparation of these grains, applied especially to packaged, (often process) breakfast
foods.
(4) Of
or relating to grain or the plants producing it.
(5) A hamlet
in Alberta, Canada.
(6) As Ceres International Women's Fraternity,
a women's fraternity focused on agriculture, founded on 17 August 1984 at the
International Conclave of FarmHouse fraternity.
1590s:
From the sixteenth century French céréale
(having to do with cereal), from the Latin cereālis
(of or pertaining to the Roman goddess Ceres), from the primitive Indo-European
ker-es-, from the root ḱer- (to grow”) from which Latin gained also sincerus (source of the English sincere)
and crēscō (grow) (source of the English
crescent). The noun use of cereal in the
modern sense of (a grass yielding edible grain and cultivated for food) emerged
in 1832 and was developed from the adjective (having to do with edible grain),
use of which dates from 1818, also from the French céréale (in the sense of the grains). The familiar modern use (packaged grain-based
food intended for breakfast) was a creation of US English in 1899. If used in reference to the goddess Ceres, an
initial capital should be used. Cereal, cereology
& cerealogist are nouns and ceralic is an adjective; the noun plural is
cereals.
Cereal is often used as modifier (cereal farming, cereal production, cereal crop, non-cereal, cereal bar, pseudocereal, cereal dust etc) and a cereologist is one who works in the field of cerealogy (the investigation, or practice, of creating crop circles). The term “cereal killer” is used of one noted for their high consumption of breakfast cereals although some might be tempted to apply it to those posting TikTok videos extolling the virtue of adding “Pilk” (a mix of Pepsi-Cola & Milk) to one’s breakfast cereal. Pilk entered public consciousness in December 2022 when Pepsi Corporation ran a “Dirty Sodas” promotion for the concoction, featuring Lindsay Lohan. There is some concern about the high sugar content in packaged cereals (especially those marketed towards children) but for those who want to avoid added sugar, Pepsi Corporation does sell “Pepsi Max Zero Sugar” soda and Pilk can be made using this. Pepsi Max Zero Sugar contains carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, caffeine, citric acid, potassium benzoate & calcium disodium EDTA.
TikTok, adding Pilk to cereal and the decline of Western civilization.
A glass
of Pilk does of course make one think of Lindsay Lohan but every mouthful of
one’s breakfast cereal is something of a tribute to a goddess of Antiquity. In 496 BC, Italy was suffering one of its
periodic droughts and one particularly severe and lingering, the
Roman fields dusty and parched. As was
the practice, the priests travelled to consult the Sibylline oracle,
returning to the republic’s capital to report a new goddess of agriculture had
to be adopted and sacrifices needed immediately to be made to her so rain would
again fall on the land. It was Ceres who
was chosen and she became the goddess of agriculture and protector of the crops
while the caretakers of her temple were the overseers of the grain market (they
were something like the wheat futures traders in commodity exchanges like the Chicago
Board of Trade (CBOT)). It was the will
of the goddess Ceres which determined whether a harvest was prolific or sparse
and to ensure abundance, the Romans ensured the first cuttings of the corn were
always sacrificed to her. It’s from the Latin
adjective cereālis (of or pertaining
to the Roman goddess Ceres) English gained “cereal”.
For
millennia humanity’s most widely cultivated and harvested crop, cereal is a
grass cultivated for its edible grain, the best known of which are rice, barley,
millet, maize, rye, oats, sorghum & wheat.
Almost all cereals are annual crops (ie yielding one harvest per
planting) although some strains of rice can be grown as a perennial and an advantages of cereals is the differential in growth rates and temperature
tolerance means harvesting schedules can be spread from mid-spring until late
summer. Except for the more recent
hybrids, all cereals are variations of natural varieties and the first known
domestication occurred early in the Neolithic period (circa 7000–1700 BC). Although the trend in cultivated area and specific yield tended over centuries
to display a gradual rise, it was the “green revolution” (a combination of new
varieties of cereals, chemical fertilizers, pest control, mechanization and
precise irrigation which began to impact agriculture at scale in the mid
twentieth century) which produced the extraordinary spike in global
production. This, coupled with the
development of transport & distribution infrastructure (ports and bulk
carriers), made possible the increase in the world population, now expected to
reach around 10 billion by mid-century before declining.
Serial (pronounced seer-ee-uhl)
(1) Anything published, broadcast etc, in short
installments at regular intervals (a novel appearing in successive issues of a
magazine (ie serialized); a radio or TV series etc).
(2) In library & publishing jargon, a publication in
any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological
designation and intended to be continued indefinitely.
(3) A work published in installments or successive parts;
pertaining to such publication; pertaining to, arranged in, or consisting of a
series.
(4) Occurring in a series rather than simultaneously
(used widely, serial marriage; serial murderer, serial adulterer etc).
(5) Effecting or producing a series of similar actions.
(6) In IT, of or relating to the apparent or actual
performance of data-processing operations one at a time (in the order of occurrence
or transmission); of or relating to the transmission or processing of each part
of a whole in sequence, as each bit of a byte or each byte of a computer word.
(7) In grammar,
of or relating to a grammatical aspect relating to an action that is habitual
and ongoing.
(8) In
formal logic and logic mathematics (of a relation) connected, transitive, and
asymmetric, thereby imposing an order on all the members of the domain.
(9) In
engineering & mass-production (as “serial number”), a unique (to a certain
product, model etc) character string (which can be numeric or alpha-numeric)
which identifies each individual item in the production run.
(10) In music, of, relating to, or composed in serial
technique.
(11) In modern art, a movement of the mid-twentieth
century avant-garde in which objects or constituent elements were assembled in
a systematic process, in accordance with the principles of modularity.
(12) In
UK police jargon, a squad of officers equipped with shields and other
protective items, used for crowd and riot control.
1823: From the New Latin word seriālis, from the Classical Latin seriēs (series), the construct being serial + -al on the Latin
model which was seriēs + -ālis. It was cognate to the Italian seriale.
The Latin seriēs was from serere (to join together, bind),
ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ser- (to bind, put together, to
line up). The -al suffix was
from the Middle English -al, from the
Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the
third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or
numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al. It was use to denote the sense "of or
pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns)
originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously
and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action. The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete). The
–alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship
with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension
two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating
adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an
intensified meaning. The suffix -ālis was
added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective
of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the
effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the
semantic field. If the root word ends in
-l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or
subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris). Serial, serializer , serialization serialism
& serialist are nouns, serialing,
serialize & serialed are verbs, serializable
is an adjective and serially is adverb; the noun plural is serials.
The adjective serial (arranged or disposed in a rank or row;
forming part of a series; coming in regular succession) seems to have developed
much in parallel with the French sérial although the influence of one on the other
is uncertain. The word came widely to be
used in English by the mid nineteenth century because the popular author Charles
Dickens (1812–1870) published his novels in instalments (serialized); sequentially,
chapters would appear over time in periodicals and only once the series was
complete would a book appear containing the whole work. The first use of the noun “serial” to mean “story published in successive numbers of a periodical” was in 1845 and that came from the adjective; it was a clipping of “serial novel”.
By 1914 this had been extended to film distribution and the same idea
would become a staple of radio and television production, the most profitable
for of which was apparently the “mini-series”, a term first used in 1971
although the concept had been in use for some time. Serial number (indicating position in a
series) was first recorded in 1866, originally of papers, packages and such and
it was extended to soldiers in 1918. Surprisingly
perhaps, given the long history of the practice, the term, “serial killer” wasn’t
used until 1981 although the notion of “serial events” had been used of
seemingly sequential or related murders as early as the 1960s. On that model, serial became a popular
modifier (serial rapist, serial adulterer, serial bride, serial monogamist, serial
pest, serial polygamy etc)
For those learning English, the existence of the homophones “cereal” & “serial” must be an annoying quirk of the language. Because cereals are usually an annual crop, it’s reasonable if some assume the two words are related because wheat, barley and such are handled in a “serial” way, planting and harvesting recurrent annual events. Doubtless students are told this is not the case but there is a (vague) etymological connection in that the Latin serere meant “to join together, to bind” and it was used also to mean “to sow” so there is a connection in agriculture: sowing seeds in fields. For serial, the connection is structural (linking elements in a sequence, something demonstrated literally in the use in IT and in a more conceptual way in “serial art”) but despite the differences, both words in a way involve the fundamental act of creating order or connection.
Serial art by Swiss painter Richard Paul Lohse (1902–1988): Konkretion I (Concretion I, 1945-1946), oil on pavatex (a wood fibre board made from compressed industrial waste) (left), Zwei gleiche Themen (Two same topics, 1947), colored pencil on paper (centre) and Konkretion III (1947), oil on pavatex.
In modern art, “serial art” was a movement of the mid-twentieth
century avant-garde in which objects or constituent elements were assembled in
a systematic process in accordance with the principles of modularity. It was a concept the legacy of which was to
influence (some prefer “infect”) other artistic schools rather than develop as
a distinct paradigm but serial art is still practiced and remains a relevant
concept in contemporary art. The idea
was of works based on repetition, sequences or variations of a theme, often
following a systematic or conceptual approach; the movement was most active
during the mid-twentieth century and a notable theme in Minimalism, Donald Judd
(1928-1994), Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) (there must have
been something “serial” about 1928) and Richard Paul Lohse (1902-1988) all pioneers
of the approach. Because the techniques
of the serialists were adopted by many, their style became interpolated into
many strains of modern art so to now speak of it as something distinctive is
difficult except in a historic context. The
embrace by artists of digital tools, algorithms, and AI (Artificial Intelligence)
technologies has probably restored a new sort of “purity” to serial art because generative
processes are so suited to create series of images, sculptures or digital
works that explore themes like pattern, progression, or variation, the
traditional themes of chaos, order and perception represented as before. In a way, serial art was just waiting for
lossless duplication and the NFT (Non-fungible token) and more conservative
critics still grumble the whole idea is little different to an architect’s
blueprint which documents the structural framework without the “skin” which
lends the shape its form. They claim it's the engineering without the art.
In IT
hardware, “serial” and “parallel” refer to two different methods of
transmitting data between devices or components and the distinction lies in how
data bits are sent over a connection. In
serial communication, data was transmitted one bit at a time over as little as
single channel or wire which in the early days of the industry was inherently
slow although in modern implementations (such as USB (Universal Serial
Bus) or PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express)) high speeds are
possible. Given what was needed in the
early days, serial technology was attractive because the reduction in wiring reduced
cost and complexity, especially over the (relatively) long distances at which
serial excelled and with the use of line-drivers, the distances frequently were
extended to hundreds of yards. The
trade-off was of course slower speed but these were simpler times. In parallel communication, data is
transmitted multiple bits at a time, each bit traveling simultaneously over its
own dedicated channel and this meant it was much faster than serial
transmission. Because more wires were
demanded, the cost and complexity increased, as did the potential for interference
and corruption but most parallel transmission was over short distances (25 feet
(7½ metres) was “long-distance”) and the emergence of “error correcting”
protocols made the mode generally reliable.
For most, it was the default method of connecting a printer and for
large file sizes the difference in performance was discernible, the machines
able to transmit more data in a single clock cycle due to simultaneous bit
transmission. Except for specialized
applications or those dealing with legacy hardware (and in industries like small-scale manufacturing where such dedicated machines can be physically isolated from the
dangers of the internet, parallel and serial ports and cables continue to render
faithful service) parallel technology is effectively obsolete and serial connections
are now almost universally handled by the various flavours of USB.
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