Bunker

Bunker (pronounced buhng-ker)

(1) A large bin or receptacle; a fixed chest or box.

(2) In military use, historically a fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground with overhead protection provided by logs and earth or by concrete and fitted with above-ground embrasures through which guns may be fired.

(3) A fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground and used for a variety of purposes.

(4) In golf, an obstacle, classically a sand trap but sometimes a mound of dirt, constituting a hazard.

(5) In nautical use, to provide fuel for a vessel.

(6) In nautical use, to convey bulk cargo (except grain) from a vessel to an adjacent storehouse.

(7) In golf, to hit a ball into a bunker.

(8) To equip with or as if with bunkers.

(9) In military use, to place personnel or materiel in a bunker or bunkers (sometimes as “bunker down”).

1755–1760: From the Scottish bonkar (box, chest (also “seat” (in the sense of “bench”) of obscure origin but etymologists conclude the use related to furniture hints at a relationship with banker (bench).  Alternatively, it may be from a Scandinavian source such as the Old Swedish bunke (boards used to protect the cargo of a ship).  The meaning “receptacle for coal aboard a ship” was in use by at least 1839 (coal-burning steamships coming into general use in the 1820s).  The use to describe the obstacles on golf courses is documented from 1824 (probably from the extended sense “earthen seat” which dates from 1805) but perhaps surprisingly, the familiar sense from military use (dug-out fortification) seems not to have appeared before World War I (1914-1918) although the structures so described had for millennia existed.  “Bunkermate” was army slang for the individual with whom one shares a bunker while the now obsolete “bunkerman” (“bunkermen” the plural”) referred to someone (often the man in charge) who worked at an industrial coal storage bunker.  Bunker & bunkerage is a noun, bunkering is a noun & verb, bunkered is a verb and bunkerish, bunkeresque, bunkerless & bunkerlike are adjectives; the noun plural is bunkers.

Just as ships called “coalers” were used to transport coal to and from shore-based “coal stations”, it was “oilers” which took oil to storage tanks or out to sea to refuel ships (a common naval procedure) and these STS (ship-to-ship) transfers were called “bunkering” as the black stuff was pumped, bunker-to-bunker.  That the coal used by steamships was stored on-board in compartments called “coal bunkers” led ultimately to another derived term: “bunker oil”.  When in the late nineteenth century ships began the transition from being fuelled by coal to burning oil, the receptacles of course became “oil bunkers” (among sailors nearly always clipped to “bunker”) and as refining processes evolved, the fuel specifically produced for oceangoing ships came to be called “bunker oil”.

Bunker oil is “dirty stuff”, a highly viscous, heavy fuel oil which is essentially the residue of crude oil refining; it’s that which remains after the more refined and volatile products (gasoline (petrol), kerosene, diesel etc) have been extracted.  Until late in the twentieth century, the orthodox view of economists was its use in big ships was a good thing because it was a product for which industry had little other use and, as essentially a by-product, it was relatively cheap.  It came in three flavours: (1) Bunker A: Light fuel oil (similar to a heavy diesel), (2) Bunker B: An oil of intermediate viscosity used in engines larger than marine diesels but smaller than those used in the big ships and (3) Bunker C: Heavy fuel oil used in container ships and such which use VLD (very large displacement), slow running engines with a huge reciprocating mass.  Because of its composition, Bucker C especially produced much pollution and although much of this happened at sea (unseen by most but with obvious implications), when ships reached harbor to dock, all the smoke and soot became obvious.  Over the years, the worst of the pollution from the burning of bunker oil greatly has been reduced (the work underway even before the Greta Thunberg (b 2003) era), sometimes by the simple expedient of spraying a mist of water through the smoke.

Floor-plans of the upper (Vorbunker) and lower (Führerbunker) levels of the structure now commonly referred to collectively as the Führerbunker.

History’s most infamous bunker remains the Berlin Führerbunker in which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) spent much of the last few months of his life.  In the architectural sense there were a number of Führerbunkers built, one at each of the semi-permanent Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) created for the German military campaigns and several others built where required but it’s the one in Berlin which is remembered as “the Führerbunker”.  Before 1944 when the intensification of the air raids by the RAF (Royal Air Force) and USAAF (US Army Air Force) the term Führerbunker seems rarely to have been used other than by the architects and others involved in their construction and it wasn’t a designation like Führerhauptquartiere which the military and other institutions of state shifted between locations (rather as “Air Force One” is attached not to a specific airframe but whatever aircraft in which the US president is travelling).  In subsequent historical writing, the term Führerbunker tends often to be applied to the whole, two-level complex in Berlin and although it was only the lower layer which officially was designated as that, for most purposes the distinction is not significant.  In military documents, after January, 1945 the Führerbunker was referred to as Führerhauptquartiere.

Führerbunker tourist information board, Berlin, Germany.

Only an information board at the intersection of den Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, erected by the German Goverment in 2006 prior to that year's FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football)) World Cup now marks the place on Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse 77 where once the Führerbunker was located.  The Soviet occupation forces razed the new Reich Chancellery and demolished all the bunker's above-ground structures but the subsequent GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) abandoned attempts completely to destroy what lay beneath.  Until after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) the site remained unused and neglected, “re-discovered” only during excavations by property developers, the government insisting on the destruction on whatever was uncovered and, sensitive still to the spectre of “Neo-Nazi shrines”, for years the bunker’s location was never divulged, even as unremarkable buildings (an unfortunate aspect of post-unification Berlin) began to appear on the site.  Most of what would have covered the Führerbunker’s footprint is now a supermarket car park.

The first part of the complex to be built was the Vorbunker (upper bunker or forward bunker), an underground facility of reinforced concrete intended only as a temporary air-raid shelter for Hitler and his entourage in the old Reich Chancellery.  Substantially completed during 1936-1937, it was until 1943 listed in documents as the Luftschutzbunker der Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter), the Vorbunker label applied only in 1944 when the lower level (the Führerbunker proper) was appended.  In mid January, 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker and, as the military situation deteriorated, his appearances above ground became less frequent until by late March he rarely saw the sky,  Finally, on 30 April, he committed suicide.

Bunker Busters

Northrop Grumman publicity shot of B2-Spirit from below, showing the twin bomb-bay doors through which the GBU-57 are released.

Awful as they are, there's an undeniable beauty in the engineering of some weapons and it's unfortunate humankind never collectively has resolved exclusively to devote such ingenuity to stuff other than us blowing up each other.

The use in June 2025 by the USAF (US Air Force) of fourteen of its Boeing GBU-57 (Guided Bomb Unit-57) Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) bombs against underground targets in Iran (twelve on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant and two on the Natanz nuclear facility) meant “Bunker Buster” hit the headlines.  Carried by the Northrop B-2 Spirit heavy bomber (built between 1989-2000), the GBU-57 is a 14,000 kg (30,000 lb) bomb with a casing designed to withstand the stress of penetrating through layers of reinforced concrete or thick rock.  “Bunker buster” bombs have been around for a while, the ancestors of today’s devices first built for the German military early in World War II (1939-1945) and the principle remains unchanged to this day: up-scaled armor-piercing shells.  The initial purpose was to produce a weapon with a casing strong enough to withstand the forces imposed when impacting reinforced concrete structures, the idea simple in that what was needed was a delivery system which could “bust through” whatever protective layers surrounded a target, allowing the explosive charge to do damage where needed rtaher than wastefully being expended on an outer skin.  The German weapons proved effective but inevitably triggered an “arms race” in that as the war progressed, the concrete layers became thicker, walls over 2 metres (6.6 feet) and ceilings of 5 (16) being constructed by 1943.  Technological development continued and the idea extended to rocket propelled bombs optimized both for armor-piercing and aerodynamic efficiency, velocity a significant “mass multiplier” which made the weapons still more effective.

USAF test-flight footage of Northrop B2-Spirit dropping two GBU-57 "Bunker Buster" bombs.

Concurrent with this, the British developed the first true “bunker busters”, building on the idea of the naval torpedo, one aspect of which was in exploding a short distance from its target, it was highly damaging because it was able to take advantage of one of the properties of water (quite strange stuff according to those who study it) which is it doesn’t compress.  What that meant was it was often the “shock wave” of the water rather than the blast itself which could breach a hull, the same principle used for the famous “bouncing bombs” used for the RAF’s “Dambuster” (Operation Chastise, 17 May 1943) raids on German dams.  Because of the way water behaved, it wasn’t necessary to score the “direct hit” which had been the ideal in the early days of aerial warfare.

RAF Bomber Command archive photograph of Avro Lancaster (built between 1941-1946) in flight with Grand Slam mounted (left) and a comparison of the Tallboy & Grand Slam (right), illustrating how the latter was in most respects a scaled-up version of the former.  To carry the big Grand Slams, 32 “B1 Special” Lancasters were in 1945 built with up-rated Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engines, the removal of the bomb doors (the Grand Slam carried externally, its dimensions exceeding internal capacity), deleted front and mid-upper gun turrets, no radar equipment and a strengthened undercarriage.  Such was the concern with weight (especially for take-off) that just about anything non-essential was removed from the B1 Specials, even three of the four fire axes and its crew door ladder.  In the US, Boeing went through a similar exercise to produce the run of “Silverplate” B-29 Superfortresses able to carry the first A-bombs used in August, 1945. 

Best known of the British devices were the so called “earthquake bombs”, the Tallboy (12,000 lb; 5.4 ton) & Grand Slam (22,000 lb, 10 ton) which, despite the impressive bulk, were classified by the War Office as “medium capacity”.  The terms “Medium Capacity” (MC) & “High Capacity” referenced not the gross weight or physical dimensions but ratio of explosive filler to the total weight of the construction (ie how much was explosive compared to the casing and ancillary components).  Because both had thick casings to ensure penetration deep into hardened targets (bunkers and other structures encased in rock or reinforced concrete) before exploding, the internal dimensions accordingly were reduced compared with the ratio typical of contemporary ordinance.  A High Capacity (HC) bomb (a typical “general-purpose” bomb) had a thinner casing and a much higher proportion of explosive (sometimes over 70% of total weight).  These were intended for area bombing (known also as “carpet bombing”) and caused wide blast damage whereas the Tallboy & Grand Slam were penetrative with casings optimized for aerodynamic efficiency, their supersonic travel working as a mass-multiplier.  The Tallboy’s 5,200 lb (2.3 ton) explosive load was some 43% of its gross weight while the Grand Slam’s 9,100 lb (4 ton) absorbed 41%; this may be compared with the “big” 4000 lb (1.8 ton) HC “Blockbuster” which allocated 75% of the gross weight to its 3000 LB (1.4 ton) charge.  Like many things in engineering (not just in military matters) the ratio represented a trade-off, the MC design prioritizing penetrative power and structural destruction over blast radius.  The novelty of the Tallboy & Grand Slam was that as earthquake bombs, their destructive potential was able to be unleashed not necessarily by achieving a direct hit on a target but by entering the ground nearby, the explosion (1) creating an underground cavity (a camouflet) and (2) transmitting a shock-wave through the target’s foundations, leading to the structure collapsing into the newly created lacuna. 

The etymology of camouflet has an interesting history in both French and military mining.  Originally it meant “a whiff of smoke in the face (from a fire or pipe) and in figurative use it was a reference to a snub or slight insult (something unpleasant delivered directly to someone) and although the origin is murky and it may have been related to the earlier French verb camoufler (to disguise; to mask) which evolved also into “camouflage”.  In the specialized military jargon of siege warfare or mining (sapping), over the seventeen and nineteenth centuries “camouflet” referred to “an underground explosion that does not break the surface, but collapses enemy tunnels or fortifications by creating a subterranean void or shockwave”.  The use of this tactic is best remembered from the use on the Western Front in World War I, some of the huge craters now tourist attractions.

Under watchful eyes: Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (b 1939; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) delivering a speech, sitting in front of the official portrait of the republic’s ever-unsmiling founder, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989).  Ayatollah Khamenei seemed in 1989 an improbable choice as Supreme Leader because others were better credentialed but though cautious and uncharismatic, he has proved a great survivor in a troubled region.

Since aerial bombing began to be used as a strategic weapon, of great interest has been the debate over the BDA (battle damage assessment) and this issue emerged almost as soon as the bunker buster attack on Iran was announced, focused on the extent to which the MOPs had damaged the targets, the deepest of which were concealed deep inside a mountain.  BDA is a constantly evolving science and while satellites have made analysis of surface damage highly refined, it’s more difficult to understand what has happened deep underground.  Indeed, it wasn’t until the USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey) teams toured Germany and Japan in 1945-1946, conducting interviews, economic analysis and site surveys that a useful (and substantially accurate) understanding emerged of the effectiveness of bombing although what technological advances have allowed for those with the resources is the so-called “panacea targets” (ie critical infrastructure and such once dismissed by planners because the required precision was for many reasons rarely attainable) can now accurately be targeted, the USAF able to drop a bomb within a few feet of the aiming point.  As the phrase is used by the military, the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant is as classic “panacea target” but whether even a technically successful strike will achieve the desired political outcome remains to be seen.

Mr Trump, in a moment of exasperation, posted on Truth Social of Iran & Israel: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."  Actually, both know exactly WTF they're doing; it's just Mr Trump (and many others) would prefer they didn't do it.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) claimed “total obliteration” of the targets while Grand Ayatollah Khamenei admitted only there had been “some damage” and which is closer to the truth should one day be revealed.  Even modelling of the effects has probably been inconclusive because the deeper one goes underground, the greater the number of variables in the natural structure and the nature of the internal built environment will also influence blast behaviour.  All experts seem to agree much damage will have been done but what can’t yet be determined is what has been suffered by the facilities which sit as deep as 80 m (260 feet) inside the mountain although, as the name implies, “bunker busters” are designed for buried targets and it’s not always required for blast directly to reach target.  Because the shock-wave can travel through earth & rock, the effect is something like that of an earthquake and if the structure sufficiently is affected, it may be the area can be rendered geologically too unstable again to be used for its original purpose.

Within minutes of the bombing having been announced, legal academics were being interviewed (though not by Fox News) to explain why the attacks were unlawful under international law and in a sign of the times, the White House didn't bother to discuss fine legal points like the distinction between "preventive & pre-emptive strikes", preferring (like Fox News) to focus on the damage done.  However, whatever the murkiness surrounding the BDA, many analysts have concluded that even if before the attacks the Iranian authorities had not approved the creation of a nuclear weapon, this attack will have persuaded them one is essential for “regime survival”, thus the interest in both Tel Aviv and (despite denials) Washington DC in “regime change”.  The consensus seems to be Grand Ayatollah Khamenei had, prior to the strike, not ordered the creation of a nuclear weapon but that all energies were directed towards completing the preliminary steps, thus the enriching of uranium to ten times the level required for use in power generation; the ayatollah liked to keep his options open.  So, the fear of some is the attacks, even if they have (by weeks, months or years) delayed the Islamic Republic’s work on nuclear development, may prove counter-productive in that they convince the ayatollah to concur with the reasoning of every state which since 1945 has adopted an independent nuclear deterrent (IND).  That reasoning was not complex and hasn’t changed since first a prehistoric man picked up a stout stick to wave as a pre-lingual message to potential adversaries, warning them there would be consequences for aggression.  Although a theocracy, those who command power in the Islamic Republic are part of an opaque political institution and in the struggle which has for sometime been conducted in anticipation of the death of the aged (and reportedly ailing) Supreme Leader, the matter of “an Iranian IND” is one of the central dynamics.  Many will be following what unfolds in Tehran and the observers will not be only in Tel Aviv and Washington DC because in the region and beyond, few things focus the mind like the thought of ayatollahs with A-Bombs.

Of the word "bust"

The Great Bust: The Depression of the Thirties (1962) by Jack Lang (left), highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy (b 1996, who has never been accused of misleading advertising, centre) and The people's champion, Mr Lang, bust of Jack Lang, painted cast plaster by an unknown artist, circa 1927, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia.  Remembered for a few things, Jack Lang (1876–1975; premier of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) 1925-1927 & 1930-1932) remains best known for having in 1932 been the first head of a government in the British Empire to have been sacked by the Crown since William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837) in 1834 dismissed Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; prime minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841).

Those learning English must think it at least careless things can both be (1) “razed to the ground” (totally to destroy something (typically a structure), usually by demolition or incineration) and (2) “raised to the sky” (physically lifted upwards).  The etymologies of “raze” and “raise” differ but they’re pronounced the same so it’s fortunate the spellings vary but in other troublesome examples of unrelated meanings, spelling and pronunciation can align, as in “bust”.  When used in ways most directly related to human anatomy: (1) “a sculptural portrayal of a person's head and shoulders” & (2) “the circumference of a woman's chest around her breasts” there is an etymological link but these uses wholly are unconnected with bust’s other senses.

Bust of Lindsay Lohan in white marble by Stable Diffusion.  Sculptures of just the neck and head came also to be called “busts”, the emphasis on the technique rather than the original definition.

Bust in the sense of “a sculpture of upper torso and head” dates from the 1690s and was from the sixteenth century French buste, from the Italian busto (upper body; torso), from the Latin bustum (funeral monument, tomb (although the original sense was “funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned”)) and it may have emerged (as a shortened form) from ambustum, neuter of ambustus (burned around), past participle of amburere (burn around, scorch), the construct being ambi- (around) + urere (to burn),  The alternative etymology traces a link to the Old Latin boro, the early form of the Classical Latin uro (to burn) and it’s though the development in Italian was influenced by the Etruscan custom of keeping the ashes of the dead in an urn shaped like the person when alive.  Thus the use, common by the 1720s of bust (a clipping from the French buste) being “a carving of the “trunk of the human body from the chest up”.  From this came the meaning “dimension of the bosom; the measurement around a woman's body at the level of her breasts” and that evolved on the basis of a comparison with the sculptures, the base of which was described as the “bust-line”, the term still used in dress-making (and for other comparative purposes as one of the three “vital statistics” by which women are judged (bust, waist, hips), each circumference having an “ideal range”).  It’s not known when “bust” and “bust-line” came into oral use among dress-makers and related professions but it’s documented since the 1880s.  Derived forms (sometimes hyphenated) include busty (tending to bustiness, thus Busty Buffy's choice of stage-name), overbust & underbust (technical terms in women's fashion referencing specific measurements) and bustier (a tight-fitting women's top which covers (most or all of) the bust.

The other senses of bust (as a noun, verb & adjective) are diverse (and sometimes diametric opposites and include: “to break or fail”; “to be caught doing something unlawful / illicit / disgusting etc”; “to debunk”; “dramatically or unexpectedly to succeed”; “to go broke”; “to break in” (horses, girlfriends etc): “to assault”; the downward portion of an economic cycle (ie “boom & bust”); “the act of effecting an arrest” and “someone (especially in professional sport) who failed to perform to expectation”.  That’s quite a range and that has meant the creation of dozens of idiomatic forms, the best known of which include: “boom & bust”, “busted flush”, “dambuster”, “bunker buster”,  “busted arse country”, “drug bust”, “cloud bust”, belly-busting, bust one's ass (or butt), bust a gut, bust a move, bust a nut, bust-down, bust loose, bust off, bust one's balls, bust-out, sod buster, bust the dust, myth-busting and trend-busting.  In the sense of “breaking through”, bust was from the Middle English busten, a variant of bursten & bresten (to burst) and may be compared with the Low German basten & barsten (to burst).  Bust in the sense of “break”, “smash”, “fail”, “arrest” et al was a creation of mid-nineteenth century US English and is of uncertain inspiration but most etymologists seem to concur it was likely a modification of “burst” effected with a phonetic alteration but it’s not impossible it came directly as an imperfect echoic of Germanic speech.  The apparent contradiction of bust meaning both “fail” and “dramatically succeed” happened because the former was an allusion to “being busted” (ie broken) while the latter meaning used the notion of “busting through”.

Continuity

Continuity (pronounced kon-tn-oo-i-tee or kon-tn-yoo-i-tee)

(1) The state or quality of being continuous; logical sequence, cohesion or connection; lack of interruption.

(2) A continuous or connected whole.

(3) In political science, as “continuity theory”, an approach to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).

(4) In narratology, a narrative device in episodic fiction where previous and/or future events in a series of stories are accounted for in present stories.

(5) As bicontinuity (the sate of being bicontinuous), (1) in topology: homeomorphic (a continuous bijection from one topological space to another, with continuous inverse) and (2) in physics, chemistry (of a liquid mixture), being a continuous phase composed of two immiscible liquids interacting through rapidly changing hydrogen bonds.

(6) In film production, as “continuity girl” (the now archaic title in film production (now called “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”)) for the person responsible for ensuring the details in each scene conform to the continuity of the narrative.

(7) In film production, the scenario (in the industry jargon a synonym of “continuity”) of script, scenes, camera angles, details of verisimilitude etc, in the sequence in which they should appear in the final cut.

(8) In fiction (especially in television series but also in film and literature), as “continuity nod”, a reference, to part of the plot of a previous series, volume, episode etc.

(9) In audio & visual production (radio, podcasts, television, internet et al), the spoken part of a script that which provides introductory, transitional or concluding material in non-dramatic (documentaries and such) programmes (some production houses include in their staff establishment the position “continuity announcer”).

(10) In film projection, the continuous projection of a film, using automatic rewind.

(11) In mathematics, a characteristic property of a continuous function.

(12) In mathematics, as semicontinuity (of a function), the state of being semicontinuous (that it is continuous almost everywhere, except at certain points at which it is either upper semi-continuous or lower semi-continuous).

(13) In mathematics, as equicontinuity, (of a family of functions), the state of being equicontinuous (such that all members are continuous, with equal variation in a given neighborhood).  The Lipschitz continuity was named after German mathematician Rudolf Lipschitz (1832–1903); the Scott continuity was named after US logician Dana Scott (b 1932).

(14) In mathematics, as hemicontinuity, the state of being hemicontinuous (having the property that if a sequence of points in the domain of a function converges to a point L, then either the sequence of sets that are the images of those points contains a sequence that converges to a point that is in the image of L, or, alternatively, for every element in the image of L, there will be a sub-sequence in the domain whose image contains a convergent sequence to that element.

(15) In marketing, in the plural, as “continuities”, sets of merchandise, given away for free or sold cheaply as promotional tool (the idea being the continuity of the customers returning).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English continuite (uninterrupted connection of parts in space or time), from the Old & Middle French continuité, from the Latin continuitatem (nominative continuitās) (a connected series (the construct being continu(us) (continuous) + -itās (equivalent to the English continu(e) +‎ -ity), from continuus (joining, connecting with something; following one after another) from the intransitive verb continere (to be uninterrupted (literally “to hang together”).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Continuity is a noun, continuance, & continuousness are nouns, continue is a verb, continuous & continual are adjectives and continually is an adverb; the noun plural is continuities.

The adjective continuous (characterized by continuity, not affected by disconnection or interruption) dates from the 1640s and was from either the French continueus or directly from the Latin continuus.  The verb continue (was in use by at least the mid-fourteenth century) in the form contynuen (maintain, sustain, preserve) which by the late 1300s has assumed the meaning “go forward or onward; persevere in”.  It was from the thirteenth century Old French continuer and directly from Latin continuare (join together in uninterrupted succession, make or be continuous, do successively one after another), from continuus.  The sense of “to carry on from the point of suspension” emerged early in the fifteenth century while the meaning “to remain in a state, place, or office” dates from the early 1400s, the transitive sense of “to extend from one point to another” was first documented in the 1660s.  The word entered the legal lexicon with the meaning “to postpone a hearing or trial” in the mid fifteenth century.

The noun continuation (act or fact of continuing or prolonging; extension in time or space) dates from the late 1300s, from the thirteenth century Old French continuation and directly from the Latin continuationem (nominative continuatio) (a following of one thing after another), a noun of action from past-participle stem of continuare.  The adjective continual was from the early fourteenth century continuell (proceeding without interruption or cessation; often repeated, very frequent), from the twelfth century Old French continuel and directly from the Latin continuus.  The noun continuance (perseverance, a keeping up, a going on) dates from the mid-fourteenth century, from the thirteenth century Old French continuance, from continuer.  Continuance seems to have been the first of the family to appear in the terminology of legal proceedings, used since the late fourteenth century in the sense of “a holding on or remaining in a particular state”, in courts this by the early fifteenth had extended to “the deferring of a trial or hearing to a future date” and in some jurisdictions lawyers to this day still file an “application for continuation”.  The now widely used discontinuation (of legal proceedings; of a product range etc) has existed since at least the 1610s in the sense of “interruption of continuity, separation of parts which form a connected series” and was from the fourteenth century French discontinuation, from the Medieval Latin discontinuationem (nominative discontinuatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of discontinuare.

Page 1 of IMDb's (Internet Movie Database) listing of discontinuities in Mean Girls (2004).

A discontinuity: In Mean Girls, a donut (doughnut) appeared with a large bite taken from it while a few seconds later it had endured just a nibble.

In film production, the job title “continuity girl” seems to have been retired in favor of “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”, one of the terms culled in the process of gender neutrality which also claimed most of the “best boys” (they’re now styled with titles such as “assistant chief lighting technician” or “second lighting technician”.  Whether myth or not, the industry legend is the “best boy” job title really did begin with the request “give me your best boy” although that wasn’t something as ominous as now it may sound.  The first known reference to a continuity girl in a film’s credits was in the US 1918 and the job involved ensuring the “continuity” (in the industry “scenario” is synonymous) of the final cut appeared as a seamless narrative.  The job was required because although a single scene in a film might appear to be a contiguous few minutes, the parts assembled in the editing process to produce it may be made up of takes shot days or even months weeks and possibly in different places.  Among a myriad of tasks, what a continuity girl had to do was maintain a database with the details of each piece of film (vital for the editing process) and ensure the details of each shot (clothes, haircuts, props (including their exact placement) and environment (climate, time of day etc) are in accordance with the previous footage.  The detail can be as simple as the time displayed on a wall clock and it matters because there’s a minor industry of film buffs who go through things frame-by-frame looking for discontinuities, all of which gleefully they’ll catalogue on various internet sites.

Three covers used for Leah McLaren’s The Continuity Girl (2007, left); not all Chick lit titles used vibrant or pastel shades in the cover art.  The Continuity Girl (2018, right) by Dr Patrick Kincaid (b 1966) is an unrelated title.

The Continuity Girl (2007) was the debut novel of Canadian journalist Leah McLaren (b 1975), the protagonist being a continuity girl named Meredith Moore.  A classic piece of Chick lit (the construct being chick (slang for “a young woman” + lit(erature)), a now unfashionable term describing novels focused on women and their feelings) the plotline involves Ms Moore’s biological clock tick-tocking to the psychological moment on her 35^th birthday: she wakes up feeling a sudden acute yearning for a baby.  In a Chick lit sort of way, her solution was to leave her predictably pleasant Canadian life and head for London where she plans to select a man on the basis of her assessment of his genetic suitability for breeding, seduce him and, in the way these things happen, fall pregnant.  Things of course don’t work out quite that effortlessly but, being Chick lit, there’s much self-realization, self-discovery and self-expression on the path to a happy ending.

In political science, “continuity theory” is an approach (in two aspects) to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).  The first aspect was the notion there existed “continuity” in the persistent influence of long-term social, political, cultural, and institutional developments in German history, dating at least from the time of Martin Luther (1483–1546) contributed to the particular nature of Imperial Germany (1871-1918), the failure of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and the Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) which, structurally, was the distinguishing feature of the Third Reich (1933-1945).  This idea has underpinned a number of major historical studies but has always been contested because another faction (which has at times included a significant proportion of the German population) which argues that Nazism was uniquely radical and an aberration in the nation’s history.  Most controversially, some proponents of continuity theory extend the application to the post war years, examining how former Nazis, neo-Nazis and their ideologies persisted (and at times have flourished) both in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany (1949-1990)) and the unified state formed 1990 after the FRG absorbed the GDR (German Democratic Republic (the old East Germany)).

Adolf Hitler (left) looking at Ernst Röhm (right), Nürnberg, 3 September 1933.  Some nine months later, Hitler would order Röhm's discontinuation (murder).  Photograph from the Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives), Bild (picture) 146-1982-159-22A.

The theory’s other aspect was structural and was essentially an analysis of the extent to which the Nazi state operated under the constitutional and administrative arrangements inherited from the Weimar Republic, the state which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) claimed “his” National Socialist revolution had overthrown.  The indisputable fact that the Nazi dictatorship was fundamentally different from Weimar at the time obscured the continuity but maintaining the Weimar constitution was hardly unique.  Hitler choose also to adapt the existing mixed economic model, something which upset some of the more idealistic souls in his movement who had taken seriously the “socialist” bit in “National Socialism” and led to the infamous Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird) a purge executed between 30 June-2 July 1934, when the regime carried out a number of extrajudicial executions, ostensibly to crush what was referred to as “the Röhm Putsch” (Ernst Röhm (1887–1934; chief of the Sturmabteilung (the stormtroopers (the SA)), head of the four-million strong SA had certainly in the past hinted at one but there’s no doubt no such thing was imminent).

The USGS’s (US Geological Survey (1879)) depiction of the Mohorovičić discontinuity (the Moho).

The Mohorovičić discontinuity (which geologists tend to call “the Moho”) is the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle, the extent defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismic waves as they pass through changing densities of rock.  The phenomenon is named after Croatian geophysicist Andrija Mohorovičić (1857–1936; one of the seminar figures in modern seismology), who first published his findings (based on seismographic observations of shallow-focus earthquakes) in 1909.

Choke & Choker

Choke (pronounced chohk)

(1) To be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe (solid & semi-solid objects such as food or fumes or particles in the air which cause the throat to constrict); asphyxiate, strangle, suffocate, throttle.

(2) Full to the point of obstruction (usually as “choked with”); block up, bung up, clog, congest, jam, obstruct, stop up.

(3) In forestry, to seize a log, felled tree etc with a chain, cable, or the like, so as to facilitate removal.

(4) In engineering, any mechanism which, by narrowing or blocking a passage, regulates the flow of air, gas etc.

(5) In fluid mechanics (of a duct), to reach a condition of maximum flow-rate (immediately before the choke-point), due to the flow at the narrowest point of the duct becoming sonic.

(6) In electronics, an inductor having a relatively high impedance, used to prevent the passage of high frequencies or to smooth the output of a rectifier (also called the choke-coil.

(7) In combat sports (wrestling, karate etc), a type of hold (of the throat) which can result in strangulation.

(8) A constriction at the muzzle end of a shotgun barrel which varies the spread of the shot.

(9) To enrich the fuel mixture of an ICE (internal-combustion engine) by diminishing the air supply to the carburetor (a choke a specific component of a carburetor althouh the term is used loosely).

(10) To make or install a choke in a device.

(11) To stop by or as if by strangling or stifling:

(12) To stop by filling; obstruct; clog

(13) To suppress a feeling, emotion, etc (often as “choke up”, choke down” or “choke back”).

(14) In sport, to grip a bat, racket, club etc) farther than usual from the end of the handle (to shorten the grip).

(15) To suffer from or as from strangling or suffocating.

(16) To become obstructed, clogged, or otherwise stopped.

(17) To become too tense or nervous to perform well (used most often in competitive sport, specifically in the sense losing by performing badly at a critical point, when in a winning position).

(18) In slang, the inedible centre of the head of an artichoke.

1150–1200: From the Middle English choken & cheken, a variant of achoken & acheken, from the Old English ācēocian (to suffocate), from the Old English ċēoce & ċēace (jaw, cheek) and cognate with the Old Norse kōk (gullet) and the Icelandic kok (throat) & koka (to gulp).  The transitive verb emerged in the late thirteenth century and by the late 1300s was being used in the sense of “to stop the breath by preventing air from entering the windpipe”; “to make to suffocate, deprive of the power of drawing breath” and that was used of persons as well as swallowed objects.  In that. It was a shortened form of the twelfth century acheken, from Old English ācēocian, probably from the root of ċēoce & ċēace (the spelling ceoke was also used).  In the narrow technical sense “choking” has been the cause of death of a number of rock stars including the guitarist Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), Led Zeppelin’s drummer John Bonham (1948-1980) and AC/DC’s vocalist Bon Scott (1946-1980) although in all cases the critical “inhalation of vomit” which induced them to choke to death was caused by substance abuse.  In the same vein, the singer Janis Joplin suffered a fatal head injury in a fall while affected by drugs and alcohol; all these deaths may be regarded as “death by misadventure”.  The alternative forms choak & choake are obsolete; chock is dialectal.  Choke is a noun & verb, chokage & choker are nouns, choking is a noun & verb, chokeable is an adjective and choked is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is chokes.

The intransitive verb dates from the early fifteenth century when it was used to mean “gasp for breath”, in line with the figurative use in agriculture & horticulture (the Biblical notion of weeds stifling the growth of useful plants a Biblical image).  The term “choked up” (overcome with emotion and unable to speak) seems first to have been documented in 1896, the use possibly related to the earlier use of the word (choke-pear (1530s), crab-apple (1610s), choke-cherry (1785)) of fruits with an untypical degree of astringency and it’s thought the botanical link inspired Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) to define the figurative use as “any aspersion or sarcasm, by which another person is put to silence”.  The noun chokage emerged in the 1840s while the term chokehold (tight grip around a person's neck to restrict breathing) was first used in 1962. The idea of a “choke” in sport in the sense of “losing by performing badly at a critical point, when in a winning position” dates from 1907 and comes from baseball where it referred to a “clutch hitter” (the hitter at the plate upon whom winning depended) “choking up” and failing to perform; the phrase “to fail in the clutch” similar in meaning.

Interchangeable choke for shotgun.

Although (except in the odd, curious niche), rendered obsolete by fuel injection, the carburetor is a device which continues to exert a fascination in those with a fondness for mechanical intricacy and an inclination to tinker.  Carburetors are devices used on ICEs (internal combustion engine) to produce the mix of fuel (typically petrol (gas)) & air required for combustion and in mainstream use they lasted into the twenty-first century.  Most carburetor were fitted with a choke, an instrument controlled by the driver and what the choke did was provide an enriched mixture (ie more fuel, less air) to make starting easier from cold.  The term “choke” was already known in engineering but the most direct comparison was probably from ballistics, chokes (some types described as “adjustable chokes”) fitted to shotguns as early as 1875.  A shotgun’s choke is a device (or constriction) at the muzzle end of the barrel which controls the spread (or pattern) of the shot as it exits the barrel.  By altering the spread, chokes allow shooters to customize their gun's performance for different purposes (ie hunting, target shooting, home defense et al).  When a shotgun cartridge is discharged, the begin to spread out immediately upon leaving the barrel (in slang they’re sometimes called “scatter guns” and a choke modifies this spread by narrowing or widening the diameter of the barrel at the muzzle.  This affects the density and size of the shot pattern at different distances.

Pellet field streams using various chokes.

In the industry, the classification of chokes is determined by the extent to which they narrow the barrel and the most common types are: (1) Cylinder: these are not fitted with a choke and thus there’s no constriction; they’re most suitable for short-range shooting. (2) Improved Cylinder: These have a slight constriction, thereby offering a moderately wide spread suitable for short and medium range targets. (3) Modified: A variation of the Improved with more constriction, lengthening the effective range.  (4) Full: Thos provides a narrow bore, creating a tight pattern for long-range accuracy, (5) Extra full: As the name implies, an even smaller bore, popular for turkey hunting or precision shooting.  There are also (1) fixed chokes (integral with the barrel and thus unchangeable) and (2) interchangeable chokes which are detachable inserts a shooter can swap according to the shooting to be done.

1971 Chrysler (Australia) Valiant Charger R/T E38 (choke knob arrowed). On the Australian 1973 Ford Falcon XA GT, a choke knob was a driver's only clue the car was fitted with RPO (Regular Production Option) 83, a (variable) collection of parts which needed to be installed on series production cars to permit their use in competition.   

Confusingly, although it was almost always the case a choke would be part of a carburetor (cable activated by a control in the driver’s cabin), the word “choke” was also used of carburetors in a different context and potentially more confusingly still, when used thus, it was often synonymous (and sometimes used interchangeably) with “throat”, “barrel” and “venturi”.  In the now arcane world of carburetors inhabited by those familiar with the things, this casual use isn’t a problem because the four words are known to refer to different components, although even experts rarely dwell on the details: (1) The throat is the main passage (there can be as many as four in a single carburetor, not necessarily all of the same bore (although if there are four they are usually sized in pairs)) through which air flows and a throat encompasses the entire internal air pathway.  (2) The barrel is the cylindrical tube that houses the throat, venturi and in many cases the throttle valve; the barrel is the structural element through which the air and fuel are mixed and delivered.

Weber-style IDF twin choke downdraft carburettor with chrome ram tubes (left), pair of Weber 40 IDA triple barrel carburetors (centre) and Holley Dominator 4500 1150 CFM Square Bore four barrel carburetor with fitting kit.

In US use, “barrel” is the most common way of describing carburetors (two barrel, four barrel) and the standard abbreviation is “bbl”.  That seems inexplicable by the usual conventions of English but is a historic legacy from the petroleum industry where it was used to denote a barrel of oil.  The specification and paint scheme of early oil barrels were standardized by Standard Oil, and the abbreviation “bbl” became widely used to signify a “standardized blue barrel”, hence the apparently superfluous “b”; over time, “bbl”, became the universal shorthand for barrel, even outside the oil industry. (3) The venturi is a specific narrowing of a carburetor's throat or barrel, the primary purpose of which is to create a pressure drop due to the “venturi effect” (a phenomenon of fluid dynamics) in which as air flows through the narrowed section, its velocity increases and its pressure decreases (surface friction at this scale not significant).  The pressure drop induced by the venturi effect draws fuel from the fuel bowl into the air stream for mixing and atomization.  (4) Choke in this context is simply another way of saying “barrel” and the choice is dictated by local conventions of use; In Europe it was common to speak of a “two choke” carburetor whereas if used by a US manufacturer this would be a “two barrel”.  There was trans-Atlantic respect for this tradition and in both communities tend to use the correct terminology of each other’s devices although hot-rodders in the US did like slang such as the evocative “four-holer”.  Despite that, Ford did for a while muddy the waters by using the terms to 2V and 4V (ie 2 venturi & 4 venturi) to refer both to two & four barrel carburetors but also the two different cylinder heads designed for each.  People got used to that but it did latter induce confusion elsewhere when 2V & 4V came to be understood as “two valve” & “four valve” (ie per cylinder).

Model Tessa Fowler (b 1992) wearing fabric chokers.

Choker (pronounced choh-ker)

(1) In fashion, a piece of jewelry or ornamental fabric, worn as a necklace or neckerchief, snug around the throat (use based on the “choker chain” used to restrain dogs).

(2) One who, or that which, chokes or strangles.

(3) A person administering a choking device (depending on context, either a class or machine operator or a murderous strangler).

(4) A neckcloth or high collar.

(5) As choker chain, a dog collar designed to pinch or squeeze the dog or other animal when the leash is pulled.

(6) In forestry, a chain or cable used to haul logs to a transportation point.

(7) In slang, any disappointing or upsetting circumstance.

(8) In slang, the traditional clerical collar worn by Christian clergy.

(9) In slang, a cigarette.

(10) A person who pratices autoerotic asphyxiation or paraphilia, a practice where someone temporarily cuts off their own air supply by means of a ligature or some other sort of self-asphyxiation device during sex or masturbation.

(11) In sport, one who “chokes” (losing by performing badly at a critical point, when in a winning position).

1550s: The construct was choke + -er.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The noun emerged in the 1550s in the sense of “one who chokes” an agent noun from the verb and from 1848 it was used to mean “large neckerchief”.  The use to mean “a kind of necklace worn against the throat” dates from 1928.  Choker is a noun; the noun plural is chokers.

Lindsay Lohan with choker at Moschino Fashion Show, London, June 2014.  A choker is a decorative accessory worn around the neck and differs from a necklace in that it sits higher (typically mid-way up the neck) and fits snugly.

In fashion, choker is a clipping of “choker chain”, a dog collar designed to pinch or squeeze the dog or other animal when the leash is pulled.  Chokers can be for any material (fabric, leather (studded varieties popular), metal etc), and are sometimes adorned with jewels or logos.  There are also chokers with LED (light-emitting diodes) displays in a variety of colors which are powered by a small button-battery, rechargeable via a USB (universal serial bus) port.  According to a normally reliable source (Urban Dictionary), a choker is (1) a symbol used by emos to convey a desire to engage in self-harm or even suicide or (2) a way certain young ladies advertise their especial fondness for and skill in performing fellatio (this should be treated as a gaboso (Generalized Association Based On Single-Observation).  In the BDSM (Bondage, Discipline (or Dominance) & Submission (or Sadomasochism) community, chokers are sometimes used as the “submissive collar”, given by dominants as a symbol of possession and sometimes augmented with a leash for purpose of public display.

Anna Teshu (b 1994, right), in choker and on leash with ex-boyfriend Nathan Riely (b 1988, left) while role-playing as a dog and handler.  If consensual, the "leashed partner" thing is a kink and a genuine ALC (alternative lifestyle choice), albeit one which has attracted some criticism, some suggesting the "leashed" are suffering from "false consciousness", an idea explored in other contexts by both Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).