Breakdown (pronounced
breyk-doun)
(1) Of
machines, a breaking down, wearing out, or sudden loss of ability to function
efficiently; something, typically a vehicle or other machine that has
experienced mechanical failure.
(2) In
political science (of societies), economic collapse, societal fracturing etc.
(3) In mental
or physical health, a form of collapse (figurative & literal), associated
typically (1) with a sudden worsening of physical health (although that may be
the culmination of long-existing issues) or (more commonly) mental stability,
resulting in an inability to carry on normal activities; an instance of these
manifestations.
(4) In
relationships (personal or institutional), a fracturing of previous feelings or
arrangements between parties; a failure of or within a relationship; often as a
prelude to a “break-up”; a failure or loss of organization in a system.
(5) An
analysis or classification of something; division into parts, categories,
processes etc; a separation of a thing into components; decomposition,
fragmentation.
(6) The detailed
categorization, itemization or listing of the components of a thing (usually in
printed or digital form).
(7) In biology
& chemistry, the natural process of decomposition; specifically in chemistry,
the breaking of chemical bonds within a compound to produce simpler compounds
or elements; an instance of this.
(8) In physics,
the sudden (sometimes damaging) transition of an electrical insulator to a
conductor when subjected to a sufficiently strong voltage, caused by the
partial or complete ionization of the insulator; an instance of this; also, the
minimum voltage at which this occurs.
The classic example is an electric discharge passing through faulty
insulation or other material used to separate circuits or passing between
electrodes in a vacuum or gas-filled tube.
(9) In
bodybuilding, gym routines etc, the “drop set” (a weight training technique).
(10) In veterinary
use (equine medicine), injury to a horse's leg causing lameness; an instance of
this.
(11) In rugby
union, the short period of open play immediately after a tackle and before and
during the ensuing ruck (and, to some extent, the maul).
(12) In film,
television (and such) production, a detailed description of a forthcoming
project or screenplay which identifies all the required elements, such as the
cast, costumes, equipment, props, special effects etc (separate from financing
aspects likely also to involve multiple breakdowns, often on spreadsheets).
(13) In
forestry, an act of splitting logs of wood using a large saw in a sawmill; the
saw used or (rarely) the building in which the process is carried out (use of
the term uncommon outside New Zealand.
(14) In music,
a part of a piece of a composition that differs from other parts in that it
features improvisation or is stripped down (played using fewer instruments or performed
by a soloist).
(15) In
music, a synonym of “percussion break” (a percussion-focused segment of a song,
interpolated through cutting, mixing, and other techniques in order to create “rhythmic
music”).
(16) In
music, (especially the ominous-sounding sub-genres metalcore, grindcore, &
deathcore (the distinction best explained by experts)), a section of a song, characterized
by a lower tempo, greater “heaviness” and intensity of sound.
(17) In
music, a loud, lively dance from folk traditions, historically conducted
usually in a rural setting, most prevalent in the US, south of the Mason-Dixon
Line; the terms “hoedown” & “shindig”
are related; a piece of music played for such an event, historically especially
the rapid bluegrass tunes featuring the five-string banjo.
1832: The
construct was break + down. Break was
From the Middle English breken, from the Old English brecan (to divide solid
matter violently into parts or fragments; to injure, violate (a promise,
undertaking etc.), destroy, curtail; to break into, rush into; to burst forth,
spring out; to subdue, tame (the past tense of bræc & past participle of
brocen), from the Proto-West Germanic brekan, from the Proto-Germanic brekanan
(source also of the Old Frisian breka, the Dutch breken, the Old High German
brehhan, the German brechen and the Gothic brikan), from the primitive
Indo-European root bhreg- (to break).
There evolved strong linguistic links with brick, brake &
breach. The thirteen century past tense “brake” became archaic but the past participle “broken” endured, the shortened form “broke” in use by at least the mid 1300s and said by the OED (Oxford English
Dictionary) to be “exceedingly common” during the eighteenth & nineteenth
centuries. The alternative form is the
hyphenated break-down and in scientific use the two spellings can be applied for
different purposes. Breakdown is a noun;
the noun plural is breakdowns.
The early
nineteenth century use was in the sense of “a collapse, a falling apart”, and
was of machinery or mechanical processes; the use in metal health (as “nervous
breakdown”) documented in the medical literature since 1866 but clinical or
oral use may have a longer history. As a
transitive verb, the phrase “break down” was in use by at least the late
fourteenth century (in the sense “take down by breaking” while as an
intransitive verb (“come down by breaking”), use seems to have emerged in the
late 1820s. As early as 1856 the use is
attested in the sense of “to fail through incapacity, excess emotion etc” and
this presumably influence the adoption a decade later in the context of
discussing mental health (it was in the mid nineteenth century something
recognizable as “psychiatry” (in the modern understanding) began to evolve. The noun (specifically of machinery) was in
use by at least 1838 while the meaning “an analysis in detail” emerged in US
management jargon in the mid 1930s, based on the notion of “breaking a process
into its component parts to permit better analysis of both the pieces and the
whole” (an extension of the verbal phrase in use earlier in the decade in the
sense of “analyze, classify”. The American
folk dance tradition of “a noisy, lively dance sometimes accompanied by singing”
was documented by 1864 but historians suggest the musical form dated back
decades and was recorded in writing only when witnesses from the North were
documenting conditions in the South towards the end of the US Civil War
(1861-1865). Breakdown became a common
element in formation (breakdown crane, breakdown lane, breakdown lorry,
breakdown truck, breakdown point, breakdown voltage, climate breakdown, electrical
breakdown, mental breakdown, nervous breakdown, organizational breakdown, structural
breakdown, supply-chain breakdown etc.
World Rugby's
Laws of Rugby Union (2026 edition).
Although
the word “breakdown” is not used, the rules (14, 15 & 16) regulating the
well-known concept are detailed on pages 68-80.Because
just about any object could be broken, “break” widely was adapted, even serving
(of paper & fabric) a la the later senses of “cut”, “tear” or “divide”
although in Old English the sense of a broken bone was always “brecan”. The intransitive sense of “be or become
separated into fragments or parts under action of some force” dates from the
late twelfth century, extending within decades to “make a first and partial
disclosure” while the idea of “lessen, impair” was current by the late
1400s. The sense of in some way to “destroy
continuity or completeness” was from at least the 1740s while in 1882 the
phrase “to break” is recorded in reference to physical currency (ie convert
large denomination banknotes or coins into smaller units of the same total value). Although in principle rugby union remains a
simple game (once with a four-page rule book), under the auspices of the wise
men of the IRB (International Rugby Board, 1886-2014) and later the equally diligent
men & women of World Rugby (since 2014), the core rule book is now a hefty
100-odd pages so while it remains simple (relatively speaking; it’s a game of “shapes”
rather than “angles”) to play, it’s quite a challenge for referees and as an example, during a breakdown, one referee might find a half-dozen transgressions to penalize while another would “allow the game to flow”, the latter approach preferred by most spectators. In those hundred pages, the word “breakdown”
doesn’t appear but that aspect of the game is covered by rules 14 (Tackle), 15 (Ruck)
& 16 (Maul).
The
figurative sense of “breaking someone’s heart” (although in modern medicine
it’s now acknowledged people can “die from (figuratively) broken heart”) was in
use by the late 1300s and other such adaptations included “break bread together” (share food) (late 1300s); “break ground" (to dig or plough land for agricultural
purposes) (1670s and by 1710 that literal use was extended figuratively to mean “begin
to execute a plan”)." To break the
ice as to “overcome the feeling of restraint in a new acquaintanceship” and was
from the late 1500s, the reference being to the “coldness" of encounters
of strangers. The familiar break wind (the
sanitized form of “a fart”) was documented in the 1550s but, farts being more
ancient, use could have predated that.
The also familiar “to break (something) out” could come from anywhere
but was recorded in the 1890s as dock-worker’s slang describing freeing
cargo prior to unloading. The ironic
theatrical good luck incantation “break a leg” was definitely in use early in
the twentieth century and similar forms exist also in Italian &
German. According to some sources, in
the seventeenth century it was used euphemistically (of a woman) to convey “to
have a bastard child.”
Cup of char. Under the Raj, the ritual of the "tea break" in the Indian Civil Service became codified (time span; size of cup according to the official's grade of employment).
The
thirteenth century noun use (act of breaking, forcible disruption or separation)
came from the verb but apparently not until the late 1500s was it customary to
speak of “daybreak” or “break of day” but that notion was by the 1720s in use
with the meaning “a sudden, marked transition from one course, place, or state
to another”. The first meal of the day
(ie when one “breaks one’s overnight fasting)” was by the mid fifteenth century
routinely called “breakfast”. The sense
of a “short interval between spells of work” began in schools in the 1860s and
the concept came widely to be applied (sport, employment etc) and was sometimes
codified in rigid forms (by the Indian Civil Service’s “tea break” in 1911 and
the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in broadcasting in 1940). The meaning “stroke of luck” (widely used:
“lucky break” or “give me a break”, “never give a sucker an even break” etc) is
believed derived from billiards (a game in which the “opening break” (first
shot) scatters the ordered balls and is attested from 1865). The use in music began in the 1920s when jazz
musicians began to refer to “improvised passages or solos” thus, the idea being
something that was a “break” between structured sections. The original dance form called “breakdown”
(defined by the OED as “a riotous dance, in the style of the negroes”) was
probably from some time in the nineteenth century but definitely was from south
of the Mason-Dixon Line although element of the style probably can be
identified in the folk traditions of many cultures.
Raygun Breaking.
Australian breakdancer (breaker) Dr Rachael “Raygun” Gunn (b 1987), during her much-discussed “highly original” performance at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Between 2020-2026, Dr Gunn was a lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language & Literature at Macquarie University Faculty of Arts, Sydney, Australia. Her Ph.D thesis (2017) was titled Deterritorializing
Gender in Sydney's Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl's Experience of B-boying in
which she explored “The intersection of gender and Sydney's breaking culture”. The Ph.D was in the (obviously wide) field “cultural studies” but after her appearance in Paris was publicized, on X (formerly known as Twitter) there was much comment about universities conferring “doctorates in break dancing” being a sign of decline in academic standards.
The more modern “breakdance” seems to have
begun in New York City in the 1970s; it was when DJs (disc jockey) played
exclusively the “rhythmic break sections from pop-dance songs” and crowds
danced accordingly, originally presumably impromptu but the discipline later
evolved into choreographed structures. If,
upon entering a room, one sees breakdancing in progress, one’s comment to
one’s companion should be: “We are among barbarians.” Break dancing was included as a “sport” in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris although the participants are said to prefer it be called “breaking” and the appearance in Paris is thought to have been an attempt to seek the younger demographic not attracted by the charms of “Olympic traditions” such as Greco-Roman wrestling. The reaction was mixed and, at this time, Breaking is not on the schedules of either the 2028 (Los Angeles) or 2032 (Brisbane) games.
Although “down”
can be used also as a noun, verb, adjective & preposition, as an element in
the noun “breakdown”, it operates as an adverbial particle. What it does is modify the meaning of the
verb “break” (in this sense “indicating separation or failure” to create the new
noun. In this context (in a descending
direction, from a higher to a lower place, degree, or condition), the pre 1000 down
was from the Middle English doun & doune (down), from the Old English dūne
(down), an aphetic (loss of a word's initial unstressed vowel) form of adūne
(down, downward), from the earlier ofdūne (down (literally “off the hill”), the
construct being of- (of, off) + -dūn(e) (hill, mount, dune, down). Influencing the development from directional
phrases to prepositions were the Old Frisian adverb dene (down (literally “(to
the) floor”)), the Middle Low German dāle (down, downwards (literally “(in/to
the) dale/valley”) from which the German Low German gained dal (down). The form was cognate with the Scots doon
(down) and can be compared with the Saterland Frisian deel (down (literally
“to/into the dale”)) and the West Frisian del (down). The familiar meaning “in a descending
direction, from a higher to a lower place, degree, or condition” was inherited
from a late development in the Old English that produced a shortened form of the
earlier ofdune. While in general Germanic,
this sense development of “hill" uniquely was English. As a preposition used to mean “in a
descending direction upon or along”, use dates from at least the late
fourteenth century. As an idiomatic
form, the uses in English of “down” (both literal and figurative) are legion.
Satirical
engraving LADIES! LADIES! Mystery of
Modern Modesty, Fun magazine, 12 March, 1870. At the time there was a national debate about
the operation of the Matrimonial Causes
Act (1857) and the Women's Property
Act (1870).
The 1857 Act created a Court
of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and it was in many ways an advance in women’s
rights in that it made divorce more accessible but there was an inherent
unfairness (something perhaps not surprising in a law emerging from an all-male
parliament). While, as before, men could
divorce their wives on the basis of adultery alone, a woman was compelled to
prove not only her husband’s adultery but also an additional cause (one or more
of cruelty, desertion, incest, rape, sodomy or bestiality). It was a sexual double standard, the origins
of which can be traced to Biblical scripture and reinforced in law the notion a
woman's infidelity was inherently worse than that of a man. Despite that hurdle, the acts did make things
slightly better for women in that for
the first time there was statutory protection ensuring a divorced woman’s future
earnings and property were shielded from claims by an ex-spouse. Gradually, other reforms further improved
things but what didn’t change until the “no fault” principle to some degree civilized
divorce proceedings was that the act made “break-ups after break-downs” into a
spectator sport and there were tabloid newspapers with sometimes pages of
coverage of the antics of the famous or the more salacious conduct by others.
Breakdownism
is legal slang referencing the “no-fault” principle existing in many
jurisdictions as grounds for divorce.
First becoming popular during the 1970s, it essentially created “divorce
on demand”, a reform that has had far-reaching effects (both good and ill) and is
thus far thought the “final state” of Western divorce law; certainly it’s an
advance “contested” divorces (often highly entertaining matters for others than
the parties whose infidelities were being publicized, sometimes with
appropriate photographic evidence. The
classic “contested divorce” was a creature of the old Matrimonial Causes Act (1857); prior to that a “complete divorce”
permitting remarriage almost always required a private Act of Parliament, a procedure
expensive and highly public. It was also
time-consuming, demanding (1) proceedings in an ecclesiastical court seeking an
order of separation, (2) in the case of a husband seeking divorce, a successful
action for “criminal conversation” (damages against the adulterer) in a
common-law court, (3) a correctly drafted private divorce bill introduced into the
House of Commons (“first reading”), (4) debate(s) on the bill (“second reading”)
that might see the matter (5) “referred to committee for consideration”, (5) a
vote in on the bill (“third reading”) that, if passed would see the bill (proposed
law) sent to “the other place” (House of Lords) for (6) three readings,
possible committee stages and a vote. If
the bill survived all that, it became an act and upon (7) royal assent being
granted (by a monarch or their representative (governor, governor-general etc)
it was valid law and the divorce had happened.
The subsequent (8) “gazetting” (publication in the Government Gazette) was
merely procedural.
So one
really had to want a divorce and have the means to obtain one; given all that,
it’s not surprising wives and husbands were sometimes murdered as a “work-around”. One handy solution was however available to
certain colonial administrators resident in places where the Islamic Sharia
courts operated, applicants often finding the judges much more sympathetic to
men wishing quickly to rid themselves of now unsatisfactory wives. The concept of “breakdownism” ended most of
the legal entertainment and the notion of “irreconcilable differences” became
the standard expression cited as grounds for divorce. Regrettably, the tale of one eighteenth century
bishop “bribing or persuading" a parliamentary draftsman to insert in an
innocuous (and thus not diligently scrutinized) bill the line: “the Bishop of xxx is declared divorced” appears
to be apocryphal and may have begun as an illustrative example of the supremacy
of parliament over sovereign & church before becoming a “legal legend”. It probably is a good thing members of the House of Lords no longer debate whether or not to grant someone a divorce because that would at times have meant Lord Peter “Mandy” Mandelson (b 1953) having a vote and the thought of him opining on matters of the conduct and personal morality of others is something to ponder. The term “meltdownism” is non-standard and
used of those for whom “having meltdowns” seems a calling or who obviously “stage”
them as a tactic.
Barnes Auto advertising, circa 1939.
In business
before World War I (1914-1918)
Barnes Auto operates a towing business in Brisbane,
Australia, their trucks still adorned in striking blue and orange stripes.
Around 1937, the decision was taken to build
a “
streamlined breakdown lorry” and while
designers in Europe and the US had for some years been applying
aerodynamic techniques to heavy trucks, most were produced to improve average speeds and lower fuel consumption
on (relatively) high-speed, long-distance routes.
Influenced by advances in aviation,
streamlining since the 1920s increasingly had appeared on vehicles on both
sides of the Atlantic, the best remembered the grand prix and LSR (land-speed
record) machines but stylists (with and without wind-tunnel data), applied the
techniques both to mass-market and expensive vehicles so trucks were a logical
subject for study given the importance to operators of time and running costs.
Whether Barnes Auto’s 78 HP (horsepower) breakdown
lorry, geared as it was to suit its purpose, would often have attained speeds
at which the presumed aerodynamic advantages would have rendered either better
performance or economy is dubious and the shape may have been more an art deco
inspired “rolling advertisement” rather than a piece of
functionalism but, if
that was the case, it worked because it appears to be the only Brisbane “tow
truck” of the era to have survived as a feature in the photographic
record.
Certainly, compared with other trucks at the time on the road, the blue & orange striped machine
must have been eye-catching.
Barnes' Breakdown Lorry fully loaded, three behind, one in front.
Lorry is of
uncertain origin but thought most likely from the dialectal English lurry (to lug or pull about, to
drag). The use emerged in the early to
mid-nineteenth century and was applied initially small carts or wagons (both
hand propelled and horse-drawn), use quickly extending to the open carriages
used on railroads to haul goods or commodities.
In much of the English-speaking world, from the early twentieth century,
use transferred to motorized vehicles used for the same purpose and that made
sense because the earliest powered lorries literally were the same “carriages”
with an engine and drive-train added. “Lorry” in that sense endures in some places in the old British Empire
(notably in India & Pakistan where the linguistic inheritance of the Raj
remains strong) but in many places (certainly North America), “truck” (and
other specialized forms) became preferred.
Even in some places where use of “lorry” lingers, it's now often a sometimes rare niche word describing freight-vehicles larger than “pick-ups”
but smaller than “trucks”. In Australia
and New Zealand, it's possible “lorry” may go extinct as those who grew up with
the word age and die.
“Tugboat Annie”, waiting for a breakdown needing a tow, Mankato, Minnesota, US, 1937.
The coach-built
body was created by (the still operating) Watt Brothers of Wolloongabba on a
1938 Dodge two-ton truck chassis, shortened, reinforced and converted to full
forward control. Although new to
Brisbane, similar lines had been seen in US, notably on “Tugboat Annie”, built
in Mankato, Minnesota and based on a 1937 International cabover tow truck;
presumably such things provided the template followed by the Watts. The 78 HP, six cylinder engine (one of the
variants of Chrysler’s long-serving “flathead six, 1924-1963), was connected
through a series of reduction gears via a double-faced clutch to a double jib
hoist capable of a ten-ton lift with the lifting and trailing gear arranged so
four vehicles simultaneously could be towed: three at the rear, one in front,
an apparatus now unlikely much to impress Australian regulatory. There doesn’t appear to be
footage of the breakdown lorry on the move with four broken–down cars attached
(three to the rear, one in front) but it would have required a driver with
skill and experience, especially to handle the behaviour of the one ahead, the
whole ensemble presumably acting like something centrally “hinged”. On aspect that would have assisted in that
was the outstanding visibility the styling afforded a driver, the extremities
of the load being a critical thing to monitor.
Because of the four-vehicle capacity, an impressive 600 feet (183 metres)
of wire rope was carried, the location of the connection-points on the towed
vehicles an important factor in maintaining directional control while in
movement. The Breakdown Lorry served
throughout World War II (1939-1945) and wasn’t replaced (by a conventionally
styled, English-built, crew cab Dodge) until the mid 1950s. Regrettably, Barnes proved unsentimental
about retired equipment and once deemed obsolete, Breakdown Lorry was sent to a local rubbish dump,
meaning an improbable piece of art deco history was lost but, because of the
evidence in photographic archives, the distinctive lines attracted the
model-makers, Autocult releasing one in 1:43 scale.
The
Breakdown Lorry with Douglas DC-3, Brisbane International Airport, circa 1942
(colorized image).
In Australia, the
DC-3 was operated by the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force), Ansett Airlines,
TAA (Trans Australia Airlines, ANA (Australian National Airways) and a myriad
of smaller operators. Produced mostly
between 1936-1945, over 600 were built; robust, economical to operate and with
an admirable safety record, it was for years a mainstay of civil aviation and General
Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; POTUS 1953-1961), who often travelled in one
while Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces (1943-1945), reckoned the DC-3
was one of the tools (others including the bazooka and Jeep) that made Allied
victory in World War II possible by 1945.
The DC-3 in the photograph is "Kyilla" (registered as VH-UZJ),
the first one imported into Australia (the invoiced cost Aus£41,000). Delivered in November 1937, it flew with AoA
(Airlines of Australia, an operator that in 1931 originally traded as NEA (New
England Airlines) before in 1942 being absorbed by ANA). Between 1939-1940, Kyilla was leased (“temporarily
impressed” the wartime terminology) to the RAAF to cover a “delivery gap” and
in 1943 it commenced regular service in ANA.
Autocult's 1:43 scale model.
Trucks in
the era were anyway low-geared (in some jurisdictions, above a certain gross
weight, maximum speeds as low as 30-40 mph (50-70 km/h) sometimes were imposed
but the gearbox in the Barnes Breakdown Lorry had an unusually low ratio first-gear (a so-called “stump puller” of the type often seen in agricultural
vehicles), enabling it to ascend even the steepest grades, allowing
vehicles to be recovered from hilly terrain.
The apparatus used for the double jib hoist must have been intriguing to
see and the mechanism, developed in-house by Barns was fine piece of
engineering, combining intricacy with robustness while eschewing needless
complexity. In that it followed the
maxim on design and problem-solving coined by German architect Professor
Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950): “The simplest form is not always the best, but
the best is always simple.” That was a
refinement of novacula Occami (Occam's razor), a principle attributed to the English
Franciscan friar, theologian
& philosopher Guillelmus de Ockham (William of Ockham circa 1287–1347). Occam’s razor (the idea one of “cutting away
the unnecessary”) recommends
searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of
elements; on that basis it was styled also as lex parsimoniae (law of parsimony),
often glossed as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate (Entities
must not be multiplied beyond necessity).
Even today the mechanism on a tow truck is a fine example of Professor
Tessnow’s maxim being applied with brutish efficiency although modern
regulations mean something as intriguing as Barnes’ “four strand” arrangement can
no longer be used.
One of the
many curiosities in English is despite “up” & “down” being diametric
opposites, “break down” and “break up” can mean the same thing. In human relationships, it’s not uncommon for
a “break-up” of a couple to follow a “break-down” in their relationship but
when applied to physical objects, some are said to be “broken down” while
others are “broken up”, despite the processes being conceptually much the
same. The apparent anomaly is explained
by the history of the industries involved and conventions of English. As a general principle,
of objects, “break down” means “to dismantle something into its constituent
parts or to reduce it to a simpler state”, meaning the term is used to emphasize
fragmentation, destroying the integrity of something as a single object. Despite that, the convention in the business
of “shipbreaking” (literally “cutting apart” vessels and using the metal as “scrap”) is of being “broken up”. The origin
of shipbreaking dates from the nineteenth century when the iron and later steel
that had come to be used for the structures was valued as scrap metal after a
vessel’s economic life had ended. This
involved sometimes dozens of workers stripping fittings from hulls before progressively
cutting or demolishing what remained, section by section, until nothing
recognizably nautical remained. In the
industry and in news reports, even then the process routinely was referred to as
“breaking up”.
Putting up a final struggle: HMS
Vanguard aground on the way to the wrecker's yard to be broken up, Portsmouth Harbour, England, 4 August, 1960.
Launched in 1946, Vanguard was the RN's (Royal Navy) last
dreadnought and
no nation has since commissioned a battleship. In the space of a half-century, the battleship shifted from the most powerful military weapon on earth to a white elephant and despite use of the word “battleship” during Donald Trump's (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) recent mention that the
USS Defiant would be the first of the new “Trump Class” of surface warships, the USN (US Navy) will not be launching any true “battleships”, the service having in 1992 struck from the list the last of the four Iowa Class ships commissioned between 1943-1944.
Obviously,
shipbreaking, while in a sense a well-planned and careful “disassembly”, was an
act of “total and final destruction”, the many pieces of metal sent to be
“melted down” before being transformed into something else (not necessarily
another ship). That use of the term was
different from the process undertaken by mechanics or technicians when
“breaking down” a piece of equipment. Something done typically to effect
repairs or maintenance, the emphasis very much on a carefully ordered process,
disassembly most systematic because all or some of the components removed would
need to be restored to their original positions when the thing was “put back
together”. So that’s how the conventions
emerged: (1) “breaking up” a destructive process and (2) “breaking down a step
in processes of repair, maintenance or upgrades. Deconstructing the elements at the
etymological level, there’s no reason why the terms couldn’t have been applied
the other way round but, by patterns of use, the idiomatic forms became fixed.
In the
furnaces fed by the shipbreakers, to “melt down” was literally to bring scrap
metal to its melting point, meaning it flowed like a liquid and could be
cooled to form into shapes able to be re-used (plates, bars, beams etc). In the post-war years, “meltdown” (first in
this context recorded in 1963) ominously became familiar as the graphical
encapsulation of what would happen to at least a large part of the core of a nuclear-reactor
were the fuel elements subject to inadequate cooling. The idea was the highly radioactive core
would become so hot it would “melt down”, through the floor to the earth
below. Depending on the thickness of the
facility’s concrete floor a core could in theory do exactly that but extending
the idea to the popular description “China syndrome” was fanciful.
That idiom was based on the notion that if one (in Europe) kept
digging a hole, eventually they’d dig “all the way to China” (“China” a
synecdoche for “other side of the world”).
In many places the geography would have been dubious but so too the
geology; even by 2026 the deepest hole ever dug remains Hole SG-3 (Kola
Superdeep Borehole) in Russia’s Murmansk region. Begun as a Soviet scientific project in 1970,
by 1989 it achieved a vertical depth of 12.7 kilometres (7.6 miles) into the
Earth's continental crust at which point the project had to be abandoned
because temperatures at the drill bit had reached 180°C (356°F), much hotter
than the expected 100°C (356°F). At that
level, rock becomes too soft successfully to drill. Technically, the 12.7 km depth was a
remarkable piece of applied engineering but to put the “China Syndrome” into
perspective that’s around 0.2% of the way to the planet’s centre (the Earth's
radius is some 6,371 kilometres (3959 miles)).
The “Elephant's Foot”, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine. It came more to resemble a boot but when first identified, it was though to be more “pachydermish”. So, in a nuclear meltdown, a core would have a long way to go and, in the most infamous example
to date, the core didn’t get even to the Earth’s surface. In April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant (in Ukraine, then one of the constituent SSRs (Soviet
Socialist Republic) of the Soviet Union (1922-1991)) exploded after a serious of
procedural errors in what was, with the darkest irony, supposed to be a routine
“safety test”. When the heat of the core
passed the “critical point of no return” the meltdown started, the core (a molten,
toxic, lava-like mixture of uranium fuel, graphite, steel and concrete (“corium” in the jargon) melted through the bottom of the reactor vessel, flowing
through pipes, corridors, and steam suppression pools inside the building. The core did however stay completely within
the facility’s basement levels (made from thick concrete) and it remains
radioactive although it has now cooled to the point where it’s possible to
stand relatively close without receiving a dangerous dose although, uranium being
almost inert, if left undisturbed, when (10 billion years from now) our Sun
expires (having “burned up” the fuel sustaining its nuclear fusion) some 25% of
it will remain extant and the Elephant's Foot will be about as radioactive as
its weight in bananas. A banana contains Potassium-40 and is about as radioactive as a typical carrot or potato but other foods are more so, Brazil nuts by a factor of more than three.
Bruno Ganz’s
“Hitler’s meltdown scene” in Downfall
(2004).
In
informal use, “meltdown” is used of sudden declines in stock prices or other
undesirable “sharp market corrections” but the most popular use is of “dramatic
performances” (of grief, rage, despair etc) consequent upon a sudden loss of
control over one’s feelings or behavior.
Mothers will be familiar with meltdowns by their toddlers, typically
over life-changing issues such as not getting an ice cream or the television being
switched-off. On screen, one of the most
famous depictions of a meltdown was the performance of Swiss actor Bruno Ganz
(1941-2019) as Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of
government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) in Downfall (2004), a study
of the characters in the Führerbunker during the “last days of the Third Reich”. The performance inspired an entire genre of “Hitler Rant Parodies”, the quality of which is “patchy”. Hitler’s meltdown came during a military briefing
after learning Waffen-SS (Armed SS) Obergruppenführer (general) Felix Steiner (1896–1966)
had failed to assemble the forces to launch a relieving attack Hitler had ordered against the Red
Army formations besieging Berlin. That
was by then militarily impossible but the unwelcome news induced in Hitler a
legendary rant of several minutes during which he ranged against those he
thought responsible for his predicament, notably the army’s officer corps and
even the previously trusted SS.
The SS (ᛋᛋ in Armanen runes; Schutzstaffel (literally “protection squadron” but translated variously as “protection squad”, “security section" etc) was formed (under different names) in 1923 as a Nazi party squad to provide security at public meetings (then often rowdy and violet affairs) and was later re-purposed as a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945). The SS name was adopted in 1925 and during the Third Reich the institution evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong to the point where some historians (and contemporaries) regarded it as a kind of “state within a state”. The Waffen-SS (armed SS (ie equipped with military-grade weapons)) existed on a small scale as early as 1933 before Hitler’s agreement was secured to create a formation at divisional strength and growth was gradual even after the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 and it was the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 which triggered the Waffen-SS’s expansion into a multi-national armoured force with over 900,000 men under arms. As well as the SS’s role in the administration of the many concentration and extermination camps, the Waffen-SS was widely implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Towards the end of the meltdown, Hitler, with tears in his eyes, admitted the war was “lost”, something that was by then (or should have been)
obvious to all in the bunker. Although
only two of those who witnessed the meltdown survived the war to tell the tale (Generaloberst (Colonel General) Alfred Jodl (1890–1946, chief of the OKW operations staff 1939-1945 and Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946; chief of OKW 1938-1945)),
such was the volume it was heard by many in an adjoining room and historians
agree Ganz’s performance captured the moment.
