Blister

Blister (pronounced blis-tah or blis-ter)

(1) A thin vesicle on the skin, containing watery matter or serum and induced typically by caused by friction, pressure, burning, freezing, chemical irritation, disease or infection.

(2) In botany, a swelling on a plant.

(3) A swelling containing air or liquid, as on a painted surface.

(4) In medicine, something applied to the skin to raise a blister; a vesicatory (blister agent) or other applied medicine (mostly archaic).

(5) In glass-blowing, a relatively large bubble occurring during the process.

(5) In roofing, an enclosed pocket of air, which may be mixed with water or solvent vapor, trapped between impermeable layers of felt or between the membrane and substrate.

(7) In military jargon, a transparent bulge or dome on the fuselage of an airplane, usually for purposes of observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes as a housing for rearward air extraction.

(8) In photography, a bubble of air formed where the emulsion has separated from the base of a film, usually as a result of defective processing.

(9) In metallurgy, a form of smelted copper with a blistered surface.

(10) A dome or skylight on a building.

(11) The moving bubble in a spirit level.

(12) The small blister-like covering of plastic, usually affixed to a piece of cardboard or other flat sheet, and containing a small item (pens, hardware items etc).

(13) As “blister pack” or “blister card”, the packaging used for therapeutic or medicinal tablets in which the pills sit under small blister-like coverings, often labeled sequentially (1,2,3 or Mon, Tue, Wed etc) to aid patients.

(14) As “blister packaging” a type of pre-formed packaging made from plastic that contains cavities; a variant of bubble-wrap.

(15) In slang, an annoying person; an irritant.

(16) The rhyming slang for “sister”, thus the derived forms “little blister”, “big blister”, “evil blister” et al).

(17) In slang, a “B-lister” (ie a celebrity used for some purpose or invited to an event when it’s not possible to secure the services of an “A-Lister”.  In industry slang, the less successful celebrity managers are “blister agencies”.

(18) To raise a blister; to form or rise as a blister or blisters; to become blistered.

(19) To criticize or severely to rebuke (often as “blistering attack”).

(20) To beat or thrash; severely to punish.

(21) In cooking, to sear after blanching

1250–1300: From the Middle English blister & blester (thin vesicle on the skin containing watery matter), possibly from the Old French blestre (blister, lump, bump), probably from the Middle Dutch blyster & bluyster (swelling; blister), from the Old Norse blǣstri (a blowing), dative of blāstr (swelling).  All the European forms are from the primitive Indo-European bhlei- (to blow, swell), an extension of the root bhel- (to blow, swell).  The verb emerged late in the fifteenth century in the sense of “to become covered in blisters” and the medical use (of vesicatories) meaning “to raise blisters on” is in the literature from the 1540s.  The noun & adjective vesicatory dates from the early eighteenth century was from the Modern Latin vesicularis, from vesicula (little blister), diminutive of vesica (bladder).  In historic medicine, a vesicant (plural vesicants) or vesicatory (plural vesicatories) is used as an agent which induces blistering.  Typically a chemical compound, the primary purpose was intentionally to create a blister to draw blood or other bodily fluids to the surface, often in an attempt to relieve inflammation, improve circulation in a specific area, or treat various conditions indirectly by this counter-irritation technique.  Historically, vesicatories were commonly used with substances like cantharidin (from blister beetles) being applied to the skin to achieve this effect but in modern medicine the practice is (mostly) obsolete because more effective and less invasive treatments now exist.  Blister & blistering are nouns, verbs & adjectives, blistered is a verb & adjective, and blisterlike, blisterless & blistery are adjectives; the noun plural is blisters.

1968 MGC Roadster with bulge, blister and the bulge's curious stainless steel trim.

The MGC (1967-1969) was created by replacing the MGB’s (1962-1980) 1.8 litre four cylinder engine with a 2.9 litre (178 cubic inch) straight-six, something which necessitated a number of changes, one of which was the bonnet (hood) which gained a bulge to accommodate the revised placement of the radiator and, on the left-hand side, a small blister because the forward of the two carburettors sat just a little too high to fit even with the bulge.  Because to raise the whole bulge would have the bonnet look absurd, the decision was taken just to add a blister.  A blister (in this context) is of course a type of bulge and where a blister ends a bulge begins is just a convention of use, blisters informally defined as being smaller and of a “blister-like shape”, something recalling one appearing on one’s foot after a day in tight, new shoes.  A blister (which some seem to insist on calling a “teardrop” in they happen to assume that shape) also differs from a scoop in that it’s a enclosed structure whereas a scoop has an aperture to permit airflow.  There are however some creations in the shape of a typical blister which are used for air-extraction (the aperture to the rear) but these tend to be called “air ducts” rather than blisters.  MGC’s bulged and blistered bonnet has always been admired (especially by students of asymmetry) and both the originals (in aluminium which is an attraction in itself) and reproduction items are often used by MGB owners, either just for the visual appeal or to provide greater space for those who have installed a V8.  The apparently superfluous stainless steel trim piece in the bulge (there's no seam to conceal) is believed to be a motif recalling the small grill which was in a similar place on BMC’s (British Motor Corporation) old Austin-Healey 3000 (1959-1967), the MGC created because the 3000 couldn’t easily be modified to comply with the increasingly onerous US regulations.  Because there were doubts the cost of developing a replacement would ever be recovered, the decision was taken to build what was, in effect, a six-cylinder MGB.  The considerable additional weight of the bigger engine spoiled the MGB’s almost perfect balance and although a genuine 120 mph (195 km/h) machine, the MGC was never a critical or commercial success with only 8,999 (4,542 roadsters & 4,457 coupés) produced during its brief, two season life.

Republic P-47C Thunderbolt with the original colonnaded canopy (top) and the later P-47D with blister canopy (bottom).

When the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (1941-1945) entered service with the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) in 1942, it was the largest, heaviest, single seat, piston-engined fighter ever produced, a distinction it enjoys to this day.  However, one thing it did share with some of its contemporaries was the replacement in later versions of the colonnaded canopy over the cockpit by an all-enveloping single panoramic structure which afforded the pilot unparalleled visibility, something made possible by advances in injection molding to fabricate shapes in Perspex, then still a quite novel material.  These canopies were adopted also for later versions of the The Supermarine Spitfire (1938-1948) and the North American P-51 Mustang (1941-1946) but the historians of aviation seem never to have settled on a description, opinion divided between “bubble-top” and “blister top”.

In military aviation, “blister” is more familiar as a use to describe the transparent bulge (or dome) on the fuselage of an airplane, usually for purposes of observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes to house a rearward air extraction device.  However, because of other linguistic traditions in military design, the “blisters” used as gun mounting position were also described with other words, the use sometimes a little “loose”.  One term was barbette (plural barbettes), a borrowing from the French and used historically to mean (1) a mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the parapet and (2) (in naval use), the inside fixed trunk of a warship's gun-mounting, on which the turret revolves and used to contain the hoists for shells and cordite from the shell-room and magazine.

Also used was turret, from the Middle English touret, from the Old French torete (which endures in Modern French as tourette), a diminutive of tour (tower), from the Latin turris.  In architecture (and later adoptions like electronic circuitry and railcar design), turrets tended to be variations of or analogous with “towers” but in military use there was a specific evolution.  The early military turrets were “siege towers”, effectively a “proto-tank” or APC (armoured personnel carrier) in the form of what was essentially a “building on wheels”, used to carry ladders, casting bridges, weapons and soldiers equipped with the tools and devices need to storm so fortified structure such as a fort or castle.  From this evolved the still current idea notion of an armoured, rotating gun installation on a fort or warship and as powered land vehicles and later flying machines (aircraft) were developed, the term was adopted for their various forms of specialized gun mountings.  In aircraft, the term blister came later, and allusion to the blister-like shape increasingly used to optimize aerodynamic efficiency, something of little concern to admiralties.

Mar-a-Lago, Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida.

Another military blister was the cupola (plural cupolas or cupolae), from the Italian cupola, from the Late Latin cūpula (a small cask; a little tub), from the Classical Latin cuppella, from cuppa & cūpa (tub), from the Ancient Greek κύπελλον (kúpellon) (small cup), the construct being cūp(a) + -ula, from the primitive Indo-European -dlom (the instrumental suffix) and used as a noun suffix denoting an instrument.  The origin in Latin was based on the resemblance to an upturned cup, hence the use to describe the rounded top of just about any structure where no specific descriptor existed.  In military use, a cupola is basically a helmet fixed in place and that may be on a building, a ship or an armored vehicle, the function being to protect the head while offering a field of view.  Sometimes, especially in tanks or armored cars, guns or flame-throwers were integrated into cupolas and in naval gunnery, there was the special use to describe the dome-like structures protecting a (usually single) gun mounting, something which distinguished them from the larger, flatter constructions which fulfilled the same purpose for multi-gun batteries.  Turrets and cupolas are among the architectural features of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) winter palace on Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida.

Northrop P-61 Black Widow:  A prototype with the troublesome dorsal blister turret (left), the early production P-61A with the blister removed (upper right) and the later P-61B with the blister restored (lower right).

The attractive aerodynamic properties of the classic blister shape was an obvious choice for use in aircraft but even then, they weren’t a complete solution.  The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first aircraft designed from a clean sheet of paper as a night-fighter, cognizant of the experience of the RAF (Royal Air Force) which during the Luftwaffe’s (the German air force) Blitz of London (1940-1941) had pressed into service day-fighter interceptors.  Designed to accommodate on-board radar, the Black Widow was heavily gunned and incorporated notable US innovations such as remote control firing mechanisms.  Part of the original was a remotely-controlled blister turret on the dorsal section which proved the shape’s aerodynamic properties worked only when pointed in the appropriate direction; when pointed at right-angles to the aircraft’s centre-line, the tail section between the twin-booms suffered severe buffeting.  Accordingly, the blister turret was deleted from the early production versions but the early experience of the military confirmed the need for additional firepower and after a re-design, it was restored to the slightly lengthened P-61B.  The integration of so many novel aspects of design meant the P-61 didn’t enter service until 1944 and, as the first of its breed, it was never a wholly satisfactory night-fighter but it was robust, had good handling characteristics and offered the advantage of being able to carry a heavy payload which meant it could operate as a nocturnal intruder with a lethal disposable load.  It was however in some ways a demanding airframe to operate, the manufacturer recommending that when fully-loaded in its heaviest configuration, a take-off run-up of 3 miles (4.8 km) was required.  Although its service in World War II (1939-1945) was limited, remarkably, like the de Havilland Mosquito (DH.98), the Black Widow was also a Cold War fighter, both in service until 1951-1952 because of a technology deficit which meant it wasn’t until then jet-powered night-fighters came into service.  The Black Widow was in 1949 (by then designated F-51), the first aircraft in service in the embryonic USADC (US Air Defense Command), formed to defend the country from any Soviet intrusion or attack.

Xanax (Alprazolam), a fast-acting benzodiazepine.  It is marketed as anti-anxiety medication and supplied in blister packs.

Lindsay Lohan released the track Xanax in 2019.  With a contribution from Finnish pop star Alma (Alma-Sofia Miettinen; b 1996), the accompanying music video was said to be “a compilation of vignettes of life”, Xanax reported as being inspired by Ms Lohan’s “personal life, including an ex-boyfriend and toxic friends”.  Structurally, Xanax was quoted as being based around "an interpolation of" Better Off Alone, by Dutch Eurodance-pop collective Alice Deejay, slowed to a Xanax-appropriate tempo.

Xanax by Lindsay Lohan

I don't like the parties in LA, I go home

In a bad mood, pass out, wake up alone

Just to do it all over again, oh

Looking for you

Only one reason I came here

Too many people, I can't hear

Damn, I got here at ten

Now it's 4 AM

I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care about us

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe

No, I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care 'bout us

 

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

 

I try to stay away from you, but you get me high

Only person in this town that I like

Guess I can take one more trip for the night

Just for the night

 

Only one reason I came here

Too many people, I can't hear

Damn, I got here at ten

Now it's 4 AM

 

I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care about us

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe

No, I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care 'bout us

 

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

Xanax lyrics Universal © Music Publishing Group

Ballistic

Ballistic (pronounced buh-lis-tik)

(1) A projected object having its subsequent travel determined or describable by the laws of exterior ballistics, most used in denoting or relating to the flight of projectiles after the initial thrust has been exhausted, moving under their own momentum and subject to the external forces of gravity and the fluid dynamics of air resistance

(2) Of or relating to ballistics.

(3) In slang and idiomatic use, (as “go ballistic”, “went ballistic” etc), to become overwrought or irrational; to become enraged or frenziedly violent.  For those who need to be precise is describing such instances, the comparative is “more ballistic” and the superlative “most ballistic”.

(4) Of a measurement or measuring instrument, depending on a brief impulse or current that causes a movement related to the quantity to be measured

(5) Of materials, those able to resist damage (within defined parameters) by projectile weapons (ballistic nylon; ballistic steel etc), the best-know use of which is the “ballistics vest”.

(6) As “ballistics gel(atin)”, as substance which emulates the characteristics and behavior under stress of human or animal flesh (used for testing the effect of certain impacts, typically shells fired from firearms).

(7) As “ballistic podiatry”, industry slang for “the act of shooting oneself in the foot”, used also by military doctors to describe soldiers with such self-inflicted injuries.  The more general term for gunshot wounds is “ballistic trauma”

(8) In ethno-phonetics, as “ballistic syllable”, a phonemic distinction in certain Central American dialects, characterized by a quick, forceful release and a rapid crescendo to a peak of intensity early in the nucleus, followed by a rapid, un-controlled decrescendo with fade of voicing.

(9) As “ballistic parachute”, a parachute used in light aircraft and helicopters, ejected from its casing by a small explosion.

1765–1775: The construct was the Latin ballist(a) (a siege engine (ancient military machine) for throwing stones to break down fortifications), from the Ancient Greek βαλλίστρα (ballístra), from βάλλω (bállō) (I throw). +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The modern use (of the big military rockets or missiles (those guided while under propulsion, but which fall freely to their point of impact (hopefully the intended target)) dates from 1949 although the technology pre-dated the label.  The term “ballistic missile” seems first to have appeared in 1954 and remains familiar in the “intercontinental ballistic missile” (ICBM).  The figurative use (“go ballistic”, “went ballistic”) to convey “an extreme reaction; to become irrationally angry” is said to have been in use only since 1981 which is surprising.  To “go thermo-nuclear” or “take the nuclear option” are companion phrases but the nuances do differ.  The noun ballistics (art of throwing large missiles; science of the motion of projectiles) seems first to have appeared in 1753 and was from the Latin ballist(a), from the Ancient Greek ballistes, from ballein (to throw, to throw so as to hit that at which the object is aimed (though used loosely also in the sense “to put, place, lay”)), from the primitive Indo-European root gwele- (to throw, reach).  In the technical jargon of the military and aerospace industries, the derived forms included (hyphenated and not) aeroballistic, antiballistic, astroballistic, ballistic coefficient, quasiballistic, semiballistic, subballistic, superballistic & thermoballistic.  In science and medicine, the forms include bioballistic, cardioballistic, electroballistic and neuroballistic.  Ballistic & ballistical are adjectives, ballisticity, ballistician & ballistics are nouns and ballistically is an adverb; the wonderful noun plural is ballisticies.

The basilisk was a class of large bore, heavy bronze cannons used during the late Middle Ages and in their time were a truly revolutionary weapon, able quickly to penetrate fortifications which in some cases had for centuries enabled attacks to be resisted.  Although there were tales of basilisks with a bores between 18-24 inches (460-610 mm), these were almost certainly a product of the ever-fertile medieval imagination and there’s no evidence any were built with a bore exceeding 5 inches (125 mm).  As a high-velocity weapon however, that was large enough for it to be highly effective, the 160 lb (72 kg) shot carrying a deadly amount of energy and able to kill personnel or destroy structures.  Because of the explosive energy needed to project the shot, the barrels of the larger basilicks could weigh as much as 4000 lb (1,800 kg); typically they were some 10 feet (3 m) in length but the more extraordinary, built as long-range devices, could be as long as 25 feet (7.6 m).  Despite the similarity in form, the name basilisk was unrelated to “ballistics” and came from the basilisk of mythology, a fire-breathing, venomous serpent able to kill and destroy, its glace alone deadly.  It was thus a two part allusion (1) the idea of “spitting fire” and (2) the thought the mere sight of an enemy’s big canons would be enough to scare an opponent into retreat.

As soon as it appeared in Europe, it was understood the nature of battlefields would change and the end of the era of the castle was nigh.  It was the deployment of the big cannons which led to the conquest of Constantinople (capital of the Byzantine Empire now Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye) in 1453 after a 53 day siege; the city’s great walls which for centuries had protected it from assault were worn down by the cannon fire to the point where the defenders couldn’t repair the damage at the same rate as the destruction.  In an example of the way economics is a critical component of war, the Austrian cannon makers had offered the cannons to the Byzantines but the empire was in the throes of one of the fiscal crises which determined to outcomes of so many conflicts and had no money with which to make the purchase.  The practical Austrians then sold their basilisks to the attacking Ottoman army and the rest is history.  Despite such successes, the biggest of the basilisks became rare after the mid sixteenth century as military tactics evolved to counter their threat by becoming more mobile and the traditional siege of static targets became less decisive and smaller, more easily transported cannon, lighter and cheaper to produce, came to dominate artillery formations.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol, Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Building, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent, England.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol was a basilisk built in 1544 in Utrecht (in the modern-day Netherlands), the name derived from it being a presented to Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) as a for his daughter (the future Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603) although the first known reference to it being called “Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol” dates from 1767. Some 24 feet (7.3 m) in length and with a 4.75 inch (121 mm) bore, it was said to be able to launch a 10 lb (4.5 kg) ball almost 2000 yards (1.8 km) although as a typical scare tactic, the English made it known to the French and Spanish that its shots were heavier and able to reach seven miles (12 km).  Just to makes sure the point was understood, it was installed to guard the approaches to the cliffs of Dover.  Modern understandings of the physics of ballistics and the use of computer simulations have since suggested there may have been some exaggeration in even the claim of a 2000 yard range and it was likely little more than half that.  Such use of propaganda remains part of the military arsenal to this day.

It was fake news:  Responding to viral reports, the authoritative E!-News in April 2013 confirmed Lindsay Lohan did not "go ballistic" and attack her ex-assistant at a New York City club.  For some reason, far and wide, the fake news had been believed.

Despite the costs involved and the difficulties in maintaining and transporting big cannons, some militaries couldn’t resist them and predictably, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), who thought just about everything (buildings, tanks, trains, monuments, cars, battleships et al) should be bigger, oversaw some of the most massive artillery pieces ever built, often referred to by historians as “super heavy guns”.  The term is no exaggeration and the most striking example were the Schwerer Gustav and Dora.  With a bore of 31.5 inches (800 mm), the Schwerer Gustav and Dora apparatus weighed 1350 tons (1225 tonnes) and could fire a projectile as heavy as 7.1 tons (6.4 tonnes) some 29 miles (47 km).  Two were built, configured as “railway guns” and thus of most utility in highly developed areas where rail tracks lay conveniently close to the targets.  The original design brief from the army ordinance office required long-range device able to destroy heavily fortified targets and for that purpose, they could be effective.  However, each demands as crew of several thousand soldiers, technicians & mechanics with an extensive logistical support system in place to support their operation which could be fewer than one firing per day.  The Schwerer Gustav’s most successful deployment came during the siege of Sevastopol (1942).  Other big-bore weapons followed but success prove patchy, especially as allied control of the skies made the huge, hard to hid machines vulnerable to attack and even mounting them inside rock formations couldn’t resist the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) new, ground-penetrating bombs.

Schwerer Gustav being readied for a test firing, Rügenwalde, Germany, 19 March 1943, Hitler standing second from the right with Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) to his right.  Hitler referred to huge gun as “meine stählerne faust” (my steel fist) but it never fulfilled his high expectations and like many of the gigantic machines which so fascinated the Führer (who treated complaints about their ruinous cost as “tiresome”) it was a misallocation of scarce resources.

It was the development of modern ballistic rockets during World War II (1939-1945) which put an end to big guns (although the Iraqi army did make a quixotic attempt to resurrect the concept, something which involved having a British company “bust” UN (United Nations) sanctions by claiming their gun barrel components were “oil pipes”), the German’s A4 (V-2) rocket the world’s first true long-range ballistic missile. The V-2 represented a massive leap forward in both technology and military application and briefly it would touch “the edge of space” before beginning its ballistic trajectory, reaching altitudes of over 100 km (62 miles) before descending toward its target.  Everything in the field since has to some degree been an evolution of the V-2, the three previous landmarks being (1) the Chinese “Fire Arrows” of the early thirteenth century which were the most refined of the early gunpowder-filled rockets which followed a simple ballistic path, (2) the eighteenth century Indian Mysorean Rockets with the considerable advance of metal casings, the great range a shock to soldiers of the British Raj who had become accustomed to enjoying a technology advantage and (3) the British Congreve Rockets of the early nineteenth century, essentially a refinement of Mysorean enhanced by improved metallurgy and aerodynamics and made more effective still when combined with the well organized logistics of the British military.

Obliterate

Obliterate (pronounced uh-blit-uh-reyt (U) or oh-blit-uh-reyt (non-U))

(1) To remove or destroy all traces of something; do away with; destroy completely.

(2) In printing or graphic design, to blot out or render undecipherable (writing, marks, etc.); fully to efface.

(3) In medicine, to remove an organ or another body part completely, as by surgery, disease, or radiation.

1590–1600: From the Latin oblitterātus, perfect passive participle of oblitterō (blot out), from oblinō (smear over) and past participle of oblitterāre (to efface; cause to disappear, blot out (a writing) & (figuratively) cause to be forgotten, blot out a remembrance), the construct being ob- (a prefixation of the preposition ob (in the sense of “towards; against”)) + litter(a) (also litera) (letter; script) + -ātus (-ate).  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  True synonyms include black out, eliminate, exterminate, annihilate, eradicate, delete, erase & expunge because to obliterate something is to remove all traces.  Other words often used as synonyms don’t of necessity exactly convey that sense; they include obscure, ravage, smash, wash out, wipe out, ax, cancel and cut.  Obliterate & obliterated are verds & adjetives, obliteration & obliterator are nouns, obliterature & obliterating are nouns, verb & adjective, obliterable & obliterative are adjectives and obliteratingly is an adverb; the noun plural is obliterations.

Social anxiety can be "obliterated".  Who knew?

The verb obliterate was abstracted from the phrase literas scribere (write across letters, strike out letters).  The noun obliteration (act of obliterating or effacing, a blotting out or wearing out, fact of being obliterated, extinction) dates from the 1650s, from the Late Latin obliterationem (nominative obliteratio), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of oblitterāre (to efface; cause to disappear, blot out (a writing) & (figuratively) cause to be forgotten, blot out a remembrance).  The related late fourteenth century noun oblivion (state or fact of forgetting, forgetfulness, loss of memory) was from the thirteenth century Old French oblivion and directly from the Latin oblivionem (nominative oblivio) (forgetfulness; a being forgotten) from oblivisci, the past participle of oblitus (forget) of uncertain origin.  Oblivion is if interest to etymologists because of speculation about a semantic shift from “to be smooth” to “to forget”, the theory based on the construct being ob- (using ob in the sense of “over”) + the root of lēvis (smooth).  For this there apparently exists no documentary evidence either to prove or disprove the notion.  The Latin lēvis (rubbed smooth, ground down) was from the primitive Indo-European lehiu-, from the root (s)lei- (slime, slimy, sticky).

Obliterature

The noun obliterature is a special derived form used in literary criticism, the construct being oblit(erate) + (lit)erature.  It describes works of literature in some way "obliterated or mad void", the most celebrated (or notorious according to many) being those which "interpreted" things in a manner not intended by the original author but the words is applied also to texts deliberately destroyed, erased or rendered unreadable, either as an artistic statement or as a result of censorship, neglect, or decay.  La biblioteca de Babel" (The Library of Babel (1941)) by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was a short story which imagined a universe consisting of an infinite library containing every possible book but all volumes are some way corrupted or comprise only random strings of characters; all works wholly unintelligible and thus useless.  The chaotic library was symbolic of the most extreme example of obliterature in that all works had been rendered unreadable and devoid of internal meaning.

Nazis burning books, Berlin, 1933.

Probably for a long as writing has existed, there has been censorship (and its companion: self-censorship).  Some censorship is official government policy while countless other instances exist at institutional level, sometimes as a political imperative, some time because of base commercial motives.  The most infamous examples are literary works banned or destroyed as political or religious repression including occasions when the process was one of public spectacle such as the burning of books in Nazi Germany, aimed at Jewish, communist and other “degenerate or undesirable” authors.   The critique: “They burn the books they cannot write” is often attributed German-Jewish poet, writer and literary critic Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) whose work was among the thousands of volumes placed on a bonfire in Berlin in 1933 but it’s a paraphrase of a passage from his play Almansor (1821-1822), spoken by a Muslim after Christian had burned piles of the holy Quran: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.”  (That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.")

The Address Book (1983) by French conceptual artist Sophie Calle (b 1953) was based on an address book the author found in the street which, (after photocopying the contents) she returned to the owner.  She then contacted those in the book and used the information they provided to create a narrative about the owner, a man she had never met.  This she had published in a newspaper and the man promptly threatened to sue on the grounds of a breach of his right to privacy, demanding all examples of the work in its published form be destroyed.  Duly, the obliterature was performed.  Thomas Phillips' (1937–2022) A Humument: A treated Victorian novel (in various editions 1970-2016) is regarded by most critics as an “altered” book, a class of literature in which novel media forms (often graphical artwork) are interpolated to change the appearance and sometimes elements of meaning.  Phillips use as his base a Victorian-era novel (William (WH) Mallock's (1849–1923) A Human Document (1892)) and painted over its pages, leaving only select words visible to create new narratives, many of which were surreal.  This was obliterature as artistic device and it’s of historic interest because it anticipated many of the techniques of post modernism, multi-media productions and even meme-making.

Erasure Poetry takes an existing text and either erases or blacks-out (the modern redaction technique) words or passages to create a new poem from the remaining words; in the most extreme examples almost all the original is obliterated, with only fragments left to form a new work.  Ronald Johnson (1935–1998) was a US poet who in 1977 published the book-length RADI OS (1977), based on John Milton's (1608–1674) Paradise Lost (1667-1674) and used the redactive mechanism as an artistic device, space once used by the obliterated left deliberately blank, surrounding the surviving words.

Some critics and literary theorists include unfinished and fragmentary work under the rubric of obliterature and while that may seem a bit of a definitional stretch, the point may be that such texts in many ways can resemble what post modern (and post-post modern) obliterature practitioners publish as completed work.  There are many unfinished works by the famous which have been “brought to conclusion” by contracted authors, the critical response tending to vary from the polite to the dismissive although, in fairness, it may be that some things were left unfinished for good reasons.  The Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was extraordinarily prolific and apparently never discarded a single page, leaving a vast archive of unfinished, fragmented, and often unreadable manuscripts, the volume so vast many have never been deciphered.  It’s interesting to speculate that had Pessoa had access to word processors and the cloud whether he would have saved as much; if he’d lived in the age of the floppy diskette, maybe he’d have culled a bit.

The obliteration of animal carcasses with explosives

Strictly speaking, “to obliterate something” means “to remove or destroy all traces” which usually isn’t the case when explosives are used, the result more a wide dispersal of whatever isn’t actually vaporized but there’s something about the word which attracts those who blow-up stuff and they seem often to prefer obliteration to terms which might be more accurate.  As long as the explosion is sufficiently destructive, one can see their point and obliteration does memorably convey the implications of blowing-up stuff.  The word clearly enchanted the US Forest Service which in 1995 issued their classic document Obliterating Animal Carcasses with Explosives, helpfully including a step-by-step guide to the process.  Given it’s probably not a matter about which many have given much thought, the service explained obliterating large animal carcasses was an important safety measure in wilderness recreation areas where the remains might attract bears, or near picnic areas where people obviously wouldn’t want rotting flesh nearby.  A practical aspect also is that in many cases there is no way conveniently to move or otherwise dispose of a large carcass (such as a horse or moose which can weigh in excess of 500 kg (1100 lb) which might be found below a steep cut slope or somewhere remote.  So, where physical transportation is not practical, the chemistry and physics of explosives are the obvious alternative, the guide recommending fireline devices (specially developed coils containing explosive powder), used also to clear combustible materials in the path of a wildfire. 

Interestingly, the guide notes there will be cases in which the goal might not be obliteration.  In some ecosystems, what is most desirable is to disperse the carcass locally into the small chunks suited to the eating habits of predators in the area and when properly dispersed, smaller scavenging animals will break down the left-overs, usually within a week.  To effect a satisfactory dispersal, the guide recommends placing 20 lb (9 kg) of explosives on the carcass in key locations, then using a detonator cord to tie the charges together, the idea being to locate them on the major bones, along the spine.  However, in areas where there’s much human traffic, obliteration is required and the guide recommends placing 20 lb (9 kg) pounds of explosives on top and a similar load underneath although it’s noted this may be impossible if the carcass is too heavy, frozen into the ground, floating in water or simply smells too ghastly for anyone to linger long enough to do the job.  In that case, 55 lb (25 kg) of fireline should be draped over the remains although the actual amount used will depend on the size of the carcass, the general principle being the more explosives used, the greater the chance obliteration will be achieved.  Dispersal and obliteration are obviously violent business but it’s really just an acceleration of nature’s decomposition process.  Whereas a big beast like a horse can sit for months without entirely degrading, if explosives are used, in most cases after little more than a week it’d not be obvious an animal was ever there.  With regard to horses however, the guide does include the warning that prior to detonation, “horseshoes should be removed to minimize dangerous flying debris.”  Who knew?

It’s important enough explosives are used to achieve the desired result but in carcass disposal it's important also not to use too much.  In November 1970, the Oregon Highway Division was tasked with blowing up a 45-foot (14 m) eight-ton (8100 kg) decaying whale which lay on the shores near the town of Florence and they calculated it would need a half-ton (510 kg) of dynamite, the presumption being any small pieces would be left for seagulls and other scavengers.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.  The viewing crowds had been kept a quarter-mile (400 m) from the blast-site but they were forced to run for cover as large chunks of whale blubber started falling on them and the roof of a car parked even further away was crushed.  Fortunately there were no injuries although most in the area were splattered with small pieces of dead whale.  Fifty years on, Florence residents voted to name a new recreation ground Exploding Whale Memorial Park in honor of the event.

Dreadnought

Dreadnought (pronounced dred-nawt)

(1) A type of battleship armed with heavy-calibre guns in turrets: so called from the British battleship HMS Dreadnought (1906); a name used by the Royal Navy for many ships and submarines.

(2) A garment made of thick woolen cloth that can defend against storm and cold.

(3) A thick cloth with a long pile (known also as fearnought).

(4) Slang a heavyweight boxer in the heavyweight class.

(5) By extension, something the largest or heaviest in a given field.

(6) A person who fears nothing; something that assures against fear.

(7) A type of acoustic guitar with a very large body and a waist less pronounced than in other designs, producing a deep, "bold" sound.

1800-1810: The construct was dread + nought.  Dread was from the Middle English dreden, from Old English drǣdan (to fear, dread), aphetic form of ondrǣdan (to fear, dread), from and- +‎ rǣdan (from which English picked up read); corresponding to an aphesis of the earlier adread.  The Old Saxon was antdrādan & andrādan (to fear, dread), the Old High German was intrātan (to fear) and the Middle High German entrāten (to fear, dread, frighten).  Nought was from the Middle English nought & noght, (noȝt), from the Old English nōwiht & nāwiht (the construct being nay +‎ a +‎ wight), which in turn came from ne-ā-wiht, a phrase used as an emphatic "no", in the sense of "not a thing".  In the transition to Modern English, the word reduced gradually to nought, nawt and finally not; a doublet of naught.  The alternative spelling (though never used by the Admiralty) is Dreadnaught.  Dreadnought is a noun; the noun plural is dreadnoughts.

The dreadnoughts

HMS Dreadnought, 1906.

Launched in 1906, HMS Dreadnought is often said to have revolutionized naval power, the design so significant it proved the final evolution of what had, by the late nineteenth century, evolved into the battleship.  Subsequent vessels would be larger, faster, increasingly electronic and more heavily armed but the concept remained the same.  HMS Dreadnought rendered instantly obsolete every other battleship in the world (including the rest of the Royal Navy) and all other battleships then afloat were immediately re-classified as pre-dreadnoughts.  In naval architecture, so epoch-making was the ship that it changed the nomenclature in navies world-wide: after 1906 there would be pre-dreadnoughts, semi-dreadnoughts, demi-dreadnoughts & super-dreadnoughts (hyphenated and not),  The adjective dreadnoughtish was non-standard but was used to describe ships of a design beyond that of the orthodox battleship of the late nineteenth century but with only some of a dreadnought's distinguishing characteristics.  Presumably someone in the Admiralty would have coined dreadnoughtesque but no document seems to have survived as proof.    

HMS Dreadnought.

Her main design features were speed, armor, steam turbine propulsion and, especially, firepower almost exclusively of weapons of the largest caliber.  In the decades after her launch, British, German, American, Japanese and other navies would build larger and heavier dreadnoughts until, during world war two, their utility was finally seen to been eclipsed by both aircraft carriers and submarines.  The last dreadnought, HMS Vanguard, launched in 1946, was scrapped in 1958 but the US Navy maintained until 2004 (on either the active or reserve list), at least one of the four battleships it retained from World War II (1939-1945) when the last was decommissioned.

HMS Dreadnought, 1908.

That it was the Royal Navy which first launched a dreadnought doesn’t mean the British Admiralty was alone in pursuing the concept.  Naval strategists in several nations had noted the course of battle between the Russian and Japanese fleets in 1905 and concluded the immediate future of naval warfare lay in the maximum possible deployment of big guns, able to launch attacks from the longest possible range, subsidiary smaller caliber weapons seen even as a disadvantage in battle.  That the Royal Navy was the first with such a ship afloat was a testament to the efficiency of British designers and shipbuilders, not the uniqueness of its plans.

Much read in palaces, chancelleries and admiralties around the word was a book released in 1890 called The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 by US naval officer and theorist Captain Alfred Mahan (1840-1914).  Published in what, in retrospect, was a historical sweet-spot (technologically and politically) for the views it espoused, it brought Mahan great fame and exerted an extraordinary influence on diplomacy, military planning and the politics of the era.  The book was not alone the cause of the naval arms-race in the decade before World War I (1914-1918) but was at least a sharp nudge, push or shove depending on one’s view.  Curiously though, although a work primarily about naval strategy, while many of the maritime powers seemed convinced by Mahan’s arguments about the importance of naval sea power in geopolitics, not all admiralties adopted the strategic template.  What all agreed however was they needed more ships.

The nineteenth century of Pax Britannica ("British Peace", echoing the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire), describes the century of relative great-power stability between the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) and the outbreak of war in 1914 encompasses the idea of British Empire as the global hegemon, a role possible only because the Royal Navy enjoyed an unchallenged ability to patrol and protect the key maritime trade routes.  The effective control of these transport corridors not only guaranteed the security of the British Empire but it meant also the British effectively controlled maritime access to much of Asia, the Americas, Oceania the south Pacific, although, one factor in the success was it was that London ran things essentially in accordance with US foreign policy, assisting Washington in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine which upheld the US preponderance of interest in the Americas.  It can be argued the roots of the so-called "special relationship" took hold here.

The British Empire, in terms of the impression created by a map of the world on which its colonies and dependencies were colored usually in some shade of red, was deceptive, the remit of the local administrators sometimes extending little beyond the costal enclaves, even the transport links between towns not always entirely secure.  Never did the Empire posses the military resources to defend such vast, remote and disparate territories but it was the control of the sea, uniquely in history, which allowed the British for centuries to maintain what was, with no disparagement intended, a confidence trick.  The reason the empire could be maintained was not because of control of big colonies, it was all the little islands dotted around the oceans which enabled the navy to operate outposts which housed the ports and coaling stations from which ships could make repairs or provision with fuel, food and water.  All those little dots on the map were the "keys to the world".  Mahan’s book had drawn its influential conclusions from his study of the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; what the British did was take advantage of the circumstances of the nineteenth century and deploy their sea power globally, in competition when necessary, in cooperation when possible and in conflict when required.  The practical expression of all this was British naval policy: that the Royal Navy must be of sufficient strength simultaneously to prevail in war against the combined strength of the next two biggest navies, either in separate theatres or as a massed fleet.

By the early twentieth century, economic and geopolitical forces combined to render the policy impossible to maintain, Britain no longer able to operate in “splendid isolation” (another somewhat misleading phrase of the era), needing alliances to spread the load of imperial defense.  It wasn’t just the rapid growth of the German fleet which had changed the balance of power but that alone was enough for the British and the French to reach an accommodation which is remembered as the Entente Cordiale (Cordial Agreement) of 1904 which may or may not have been an alliance but was enough of one for the admiralties in Paris and London cooperatively to organize the allocations of their fleets.  It certainly illustrated Lord Palmerston's (1784–1865) doctrine that the country had neither eternal allies nor perpetual enemies but only permanent interests for despite the centuries of enmity between Britain and France, the self-interest of both dictated the need to align against the German threat.

Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS New Zealand, 1911.

It was in this atmosphere the great naval arms race took place, plans for which were laid before the Wright brothers had flown a hundred–odd feet, barely off the ground, torpedoes were in their infancy and submarines were little threat more than a few miles from the coast.  The measure of a fleet was its battleships and their big guns and whichever side could put to sea the most firepower was winning the race.  It intrigued the navalists, strategists and theorists who knew from history that such a race, if left to run, could end only in war, the great, decisive set-piece battle of which would be the clash of massed fleets of battleships on the high seas, trading shell-fire at a range of twenty miles (32 km), before closing for the kill as the battle climaxed.  Dreadnought was one strand of the theorists’ imagination but there were others.  There was a school of thought which favored an emphasis on radio communications and a greater attention to the possibilities offered by the torpedo and, most influentially, what seems now the curious notion of a complimentary range of faster capital ships, essentially battleships with the big guns but little armor, the loss of protection off-set by the few knots in speed gained; these ships were called battlecruisers.  The argument was they could fight at such range nothing but a battleship would be a threat and those the battlecruiser could outrun because of their greater speed.  It seemed, to many, a good idea at the time.

Super-Dreadnought: HMS Iron Duke, Port Said, 1921.

But it was the Dreadnoughts which captured the imagination and defined the era.  Impressive though she was, HMS Dreadnought was not long unique as navies around the world launched the own and, as happens in arms races, the original was quickly out-classed and the next generation of ships, bigger and more heavily gunned still, came to be known as super dreadnoughts.  War did come but the grand battle on the high seas which the navalists had, for a quarter century been planning, never happened.  There were smaller clashes of squadrons but the imperative of the Royal Navy was more practical and traditionally British: avoid defeat.  As Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), then First Lord of the Admiralty (minister for the navy), emphasized to the First Sea Lord (the navy’s senior admiral), against a continental empire like Germany, while the Royal Navy couldn’t in a year win the war, because Britain’s empire was maritime, they could lose it in one afternoon.  Accordingly, the Royal Navy made no sustained attempts to induce a massed battle, focusing instead on a blockade, keeping the German fleet confined to its ports.  It was the German admirals who attempted to force the British to a set-piece battle, venturing into the North Sea in May 1916 with a fleet of nearly a hundred, including sixteen dreadnoughts and five battlecruisers.  Against this, the British assembled a hundred and fifty odd with twenty-eight dreadnoughts and nine battlecruisers.  The action came to be known as the Battle of Jutland.

Imperial German Navy battlecruiser SMS Goeben, 1914.

On paper, although the result described as inconclusive, it was a tactical success for the Germans but strategically, the British achieved their goal.  The dreadnoughts barely engaged, most of the action confined to the battlecruisers and, unlike the smaller Battle of Tsushima (May 1905) in the Far East, fought by pre-dreadnoughts a decade earlier between the Japanese and Russian fleets, there was no winner in the traditional sense of naval warfare.  The German's tactical success in retrospect was something of a Dunkirk moment but the strategic implications were profound.  British losses were heavier but their numeric advantage was such they could absorb the loss and had the financial and industrial capacity to restore the fleet’s strength.  Damage to the German fleet was less but they lacked the time or capacity to build their navy to the point it could be used as a strategic weapon and it remained confined to its ports.  Both sides learned well the inherent limitations of the battlecruiser.

WWI era German U-Boot (Unterseeboot (under-sea-boat)), anglicized as U-Boat.

After Jutland, the German admirals concluded that to venture again against the British Home Fleet would either be an inconclusive waste or lead to the inevitable, decisive defeat.  They accordingly prevailed on the politicians and eventually gained approval to use the only genuinely effective weapon in their hands, the submarine.  It was the consequences of unrestricted submarine warfare which would bring the United States into the war in 1917 as a belligerent and without that intervention, the war would certainly have followed a different course and reached perhaps a different conclusion.

Although HMS Dreadnought lent her name to an era and remains one of the most significant warships built, she's remembered for the geopolitical reverberations in the wake of her launching rather than any achievement at sea, missing even the anti-climatic Battle of Jutland (1916) because of a scheduled re-fit.  Indeed, her only achievement of note in combat was the ramming and sinking of German U-Boat SM U-29 on 18 March 1915 although that does remain a unique footnote in naval history, being the only time a battleship deliberately sank an enemy submarine.  Dreadnought was decommissioned in 1920 and scrapped the next year.  Later, under the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty which sought to prevent another naval arms race, most of the surviving dreadnoughts were scrapped or scuttled but many of the super-dreadnoughts remained in the fleets, some not scrapped until after World War II.  The name has a strong resonance in the halls of the Admiralty (now the Navy Command in the UK's Ministry of Defense) and has been chosen for the class of vessels to replace the existing Vanguard class ballistic nuclear-missile submarines.  Now under construction, the first of the nuclear-powered Dreadnought class boats is expected to enter service early in the 2030s.

Dreadnought coats

The term “dreadnought coat” was adopted by the UK’s garment industry in 1908 to refer to a heavy, durable and water-resistant overcoat.  It was an opportunistic “borrowing” that verged on what would now be called “ambush marketing” and took advantage on the extensive publicity the name attracted during the so-called “naval scare” during that decade, the attraction being the arms-race had done the hard word of “brand-name recognition”.  The reference point of the design was the heavy “pea coat” (the construct being the Dutch pij (cowl) + the English coat) issued to Royal Navy sailors (although similar garments were worn in many navies).  Typically, naval pea coats were made from a thick wool yarn, designed to protect against the harsh maritime weather encountered in coastal environments as well as on the high-seas.  Pea coats were of rugged construction, almost always double-breasted and featured large lapels (for extra warmth around the neck, often turned up in cold weather) and deep pockets.

A dreadnought pea coat by Triple Aught ("Dreadnaught Peacoat" the spelling used) (left), Lindsay Lohan in dreadnought coat (London, June, 2014, centre) and in trench coat (London, October 2015, right).

To facilitate ease of movement and avoid becoming entangled in the ropes and chains which are a feature of a ship’ deck, the classic naval pea coat was hip-length, unlike the ankle-length great coats used by armies.  When the double-breasted design was extended to the civilian market, the pea coat was almost unchanged (although many were of lighter construction and navy blue remained the most popular color.  When the style of a pea coat is extended to something calf or ankle-length, it becomes a “dreadnought coat” which should not be confused with a “trench coat” which is of lighter construction, traditionally beige and belted and, as all fashionistas know, the belt is always tied, never buckled.