Tube (pronounced toob or tyoob)
(1) A hollow (usually cylindrical or oval) body of metal,
glass, rubber or other material, used especially for conveying or containing
liquids or gases.
(2) A small, collapsible, cylinder of metal or plastic
sealed at one end and having a capped opening at the other from which paint,
toothpaste, or some other semi-fluid substance may be squeezed or pumped.
(3) In anatomy & zoology, any hollow, cylindrical
vessel or organ:
(4) In botany, the lower part of a gamopetalous corolla or gamosepalous
calyx, below the lobes but used generally of any other hollow structure in a
plant
(5) As “inner tube” a rubber, synthetic or composite
construction in the form of a torus (doughnut-shaped) which sits inside the
tyres of bicycles, motorcycles and certain other vehicles for the purpose of
sustaining inflation (now rare on passenger vehicles which tend to use “tubeless”
tyres.
(6) In semi-formal use (originally UK colloquial but now
trademarked), the London RTS (rapid transit system) railway system (should use
initial upper case). The name comes from
the tube-like tunnels drilled for most on the original underground sections but
“The Tube” is used of the whole network (which does extend beyond London)
including the above-ground sectors. “Tube”
is used variously of (1) the service, (2) of the cylindrical tunnels and (3)
the rolling stock (the trains and carriages).
The term is also used in other places to describe underground railways.
(7) In electronics as “electron tube” (clipped usually to
“tube”); as the “vacuum tube”, the predecessor of the transistor.
(8) In materials, as “nanotube”, small carbon
constructions some 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
(9) In fashion variously as (1) “tube top” (a
tight-fitting, sleeveless garment extening from the armpits to the waist or
hips, (2) “boob tube” a shorter type of tube top which covers only the breasts
(often labeled as “bandeau tube top”) and (3) “tube skirt” (a close fitting skirt
which differs from the similar “pencil skirt” which is tapered).
(10) In slang, a television set (also used as “boob tube”
with “boob” used in the sense of “someone stupid or foolish”, an allusion either
to the inanity of much of what was broadcast or slur upon the audience). Historically, television screens (like
pre-modern computer monitors) used a “cathode-ray tube” and this was the
original source of the idea of televisions as “on the tube”.
(11) In the slang of surfers, the curled hollow space
formed when a cresting wave pitches forward when breaking.
(12) In the slang of clinical medicine, to intubate.
(13) In Australian Slang, a can of beer.
(14) In slang, a telescope (now rare and used usually as
a deliberate archaism).
(15) To furnish with a tube or tubes.
(16) To convey or enclose in a tube.
(17) To form or render into the shape of a tube; to make
tubular.
1590-1600: From the Middle French tube, from the Latin tubus (tube, pipe), related to tuba (long trumpet; war-trumpet), of
obscure origin, but possibly connected to tībia
(shinbone, reed-pipe). The idiomatic for
“down the tube(s)” (into a ruined, wasted, or abandoned state or condition; lost,
finished) dates from the early 1960s and carries the same meaning as “down the
drain”. Despite the similarity of the
words and the shapes of the structures, etymologists believe tub (open vessel
used for liquids or other substances) was unrelated to tube. Tub was from the late fourteenth century Middle
English tubbe & tobbe, from a continental Germanic source
such as the Middle Dutch tubbe, the Middle
Low German tubbe & tobbe or the Middle Flemish tubbe, all of uncertain origin. Tube, tubage & tubing are nouns &
verbs, tubulure is a noun, tubed is a verb, tubular, tubey, tubiform, tubesque,
tubeless, tubelike, tubish, tuboid & tuboidal are adjectives; the noun
plural is tubes.
The original use in the 1590s was of the observed structures in anatomy and zoology (a hollow organ or passage in the body) and this was extended by the 1650s to mean “pipe or hollow cylinder” (especially a small one used as a conduit for liquids). The use to describe a “sealed container in tubular form” began in 1859 with the vacuum tube, later extended in electronics to a sealed tube containing electrodes (in wide use until the 1950s when transistors achieved mass-production). The use to describe televisions dates from 1959 and seems to have been as clipping of “cathode ray tube” (CRT, the technology use of pre-modern screens) or “picture tube”. “The Tube” was also late nineteenth century for wired telephones, the use derived from ships where voice traffic between places was sometimes carried by “speaking tube”, the same technology also used in horse-drawn carriages and early motor vehicles where the passenger compartment was sealed and separated from the drive or chauffeur. In limousines (with a glass partition or divider), speaking-tubes were still sometimes fitted as late as the 1960s because it was simple, reliable technology and over such short distances an electronic apparatus offer little advantage. London’s underground railway (an early London RTS (rapid transit system)) came to be known as “the Tube” in 1847, based on the tubular tunnels drilled to created the network; in 1900, in the press, it was dubbed the “Twopenny Tube” (a reference to the basic fare). “Tube” has come to be a slang for RTS systems in various places, even those with no tubular tunnels (a similar linguistic process to “wire” or “cable” for electronic transmission).
Tube maps (sort of): The London Underground maps, 1908 (left), 1933 (centre) and 2014 (right).
Although referred to almost universally as the “London Underground Map”, pedants like to point out (1) it’s a schematic (or diagram) rather than a map and (2) over half the “Underground” is above ground. The now familiar concept of the “map” was in 1931 devised by Henry Beck (1902–1974), then a 29 year old electrical draftsman, who envisaged the rail lines as wires, the stations as connectors and the whole network as an integrated and interconnected diagrammatic system, much like the electrical circuit boards he was accustomed to drawing. What was revolutionary about Mr Beck’s concept was he understood the purpose was different from a conventional map where scale mattered, rail lines had to be drawn in exactly the shape the assumed and topographic features were included. What people wanted in a map of “The Tube” was a navigation aid, something which made as simple as possible the task of working out the matter of getting from station-to-station.
The verb “to tube” (receive, enclose, or dispatch in a (pneumatic)
tube) was in use by at least 1870 and was a clipping of pneumatic-dispatch tube
(PDT), tubes first installed in 1859 in buildings for the rapid delivery of
documents between floors or offices and propelled by air pressure; for
dispatch, the documents were rolled and inserted in a small cylinder, the external
diameter of which was slightly less than the internal diameter of the tube
infrastructure. The noun tubage (insertion
of a tube into a cavity or canal) dates from 1880 and by 1896 it was being used
as a collective nouns for tubes. The
adjective tubular (having the form of a tube or pipe) was from the Latin tubulus (a small pipe) and was in the
early 1960s adopted in California’s surfing culture to describe the hollow,
curling waves, most ideal for riding.
Lindsay Lohan in green-hooped tube top (left) and Coco Avenue's range of boob tubes in designer colors (right).
In pneumatic tyres, although still common on bicycles and motor-bikes, inner tubes are now rare in passenger vehicle use but they are still produced for a variety of commercial application and they have been re-purposed for the recreational pastime of “tubing” (riding on the inflated inner tube of a large (truck, tractor etc) tyre), undertaken both as a water-sport and on ski-slopes. The jocular slang noun “tube-steak” emerged in 1962 to described “a frankfurter” (ie hotdog sausage), the term obviously a reference to the shape and given that, it’s remarkable it seems not to have been used as a slang for “penis” until the mid-1980s. The test-tube (cylinder of thin glass closed in rounded form at one end) was so named in 1909 because it was used to test the properties of liquids. Surprisingly, “test-tube baby” predates by decades modern IVF (In vitro fertilization) and was first used in 1935 in reference to artificial insemination. In the 1980s, “test tube baby” became the popular descriptor of IVF, “test tube” used as a synecdoche of the process rather than any suggestion of the use of the glass receptacles. The name “tube-top” (a women's close-fitting elastic top) made its debut in 1972 (although the style had been seen before); the “tube skirt” appeared the next season (again, a re-labeling) while the first “boob tubes” (a truncated version of the “tube top” which wraps only around the breasts) were advertized in 1977. Being elasticized, some wear boob tubes without a bra but they're available also with a "built-in" bra (like all forms of structural engineering, physics does limit what's possible) and some are made with a thicker material so a strapless bra unobtrusively can be worn underneath.
YouTube is a US social media and online video sharing
platform now owned by Google. It first
appeared in 2005 and is now the planet's second most visited internet site,
only Google search generating more traffic (as expressed in volumes of unique
visits per day). YouTube was emblematic
of the way the internet evolved in a manner somewhat different to that futurists had in preceding decades predicted. Although it was clear it would be an
inter-connected world of databases with content from “content providers”
available for download, few predicted the extent to which the terms “viewer”,
“user” and “content provider” would overlap; the upload phenomenon generally
was not predicted. Substantially, this
was technologically deterministic: with a high percentage of the world’s
population carrying cameras able to produce HD (high definition) photographs
and films which easily can be uploaded to a global distribution platform at
only marginal cost, a new industry emerged and others were disrupted or
destroyed.
In 1937, facing bankruptcy, the
three surviving Maserati brothers (Bindo (1883-1980), Ettore (1894-1990) & Ernesto
(1898-1975)) sold their eponymous company to the Orsi Group in Modena, the
arrangement including a decade-long consultancy for the trio. It’s not known if there was “no compete”
clause in place but the brothers waited until 1947 when the contract expired
before returning to San Lazzaro di Savena (near Bologna) where they founded Officine Specializzate per la Costruzione
Automobili Fratelli Maserati S.p.A. (O.S.C.A.), the intention being to
build small runs of racing cars for customers and for more than a decade production
continued. Most of the machines built used
small displacement engines to contest the various series for such things (then
popular in Italy) although in 1951 there was a one-off, 4.5 litre (273 cubic
inch) V12, soon rendered an orphan when the Formula One rules were changed.
Accordingly, subsequent OSCAs were
smaller and one of the most exquisite was the S187 which made its debut in
1956. Built to contest the
well-supported 750 cm3 (46 cubic inch) racing class, the name was derived
from the displacement of each of the engine’s four cylinders, a convention used
for years also by Ferrari. The smallest
engine O.S.C.A. ever made, it was of “square” configuration (the bore &
stroke both 62 mm (2.44 inch)) with double overhead camshafts (DOHC) and a pair
of twin-choke, side-draft Weber carburetors. Modest the displacement may have been but the
package generated an impressive 70 horsepower which, combined with low weight (a
svelte 450 kg (990 lb)) and effective aerodynamics, delivered class-leading
performance. That was despite the S187
being a little heavier than had been envisaged because constraints in time
& cash meant the planned multi-tubular space frame had to be abandoned,
replaced with a more conventional ladder frame chassis.
OSCA 750S NART (North American Racing Team), one of four with a clamshell body.
The delicate aerodynamic body was by
the coachbuilder Morelli and the S-187 (referred to usually as the 750S) was immediately
successful, gaining a class victory at the 1956 Mille Miglia, followed the next
year with a class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Although in 1959 still competitive in the 750 cm3
class, the brothers produced a new cylinder head which raised the output by 5
horsepower which may sound slight but it was a 7% lift (it would be like adding
some 30 hp to a 400 hp engine) and despite in competition being regularly run for sustained
periods at the 7700 rpm redline, reliability continued to be outstanding and
the 750S remained competitive until well into the 1960s. Nineteen were built.
End of the line: 1963 OSCA 1600 GT2
Unfortunately, age caught up with the Maserati brothers and in 1963 they sold O.S.C.A. to Count Domenico Agusta (1907–1971) who, in 1945, founded the MV Agusta motorcycle company, a move necessitated by the post-war peace treaty which included a ban on Italian aircraft production which obviously rendered unviable the aviation business Costruzioni Aeronautiche Giovanni Agusta S.A. (formed in 1923 by Count Giovanni Agusta (1879–1927)). The O.S.C.A. operation was closed in 1967.