Ancestor

Ancestor (pronounced an-ses-ter or an-suh-ster)

(1) A person from whom one is descended (maternal or paternal); forebear; progenitor (often used in the plural and by convention, applied usually to (1) great grand-parents or earlier or (2) those already deceased).

(2) In biology, the actual or hypothetical form or stock from which a (usually dissimilar) organism has developed or descended.

(3) An object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one; in linguistics, a word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.

(4) A person who serves as an influence or model for another; one from whom mental, artistic, spiritual etc descent is claimed.

(5) In the law of probate, person from whom an heir derives an inheritance; one from whom an estate has descended (the correlative of heir).

(6) In figurative use, one who had the same role or function in former times (now rare except as a literary device).

1250–1300: From the Middle English ancestre, auncestre & ancessour (one from whom a person is descended).  Ancestre & auncestre were from the (early) Old French ancesre & (the later) ancestre (which endures in modern French as ancêtre), from the Latin nominative antecēssor (one who goes before (literally “fore-goer”), from the Classical Latin antecēdere (to procede), the construct being ante (before), from the primitive Indo-European root ant- (front, forehead (and influenced by the derivatives meaning "in front of, before")) + cedere (to go), from the primitive Indo-European root ked- (to go, yield).  Ancessour was from the Old French ancessor, from the Latin accusative antecessorem, from antecedo (to go before), the construct being ante (before) + cedo (to go).  Both rare outside of technical literature, the present participle is ancestoring and the past participle ancestored.  Synonyms include forebear, forefather, founder, antecedent, ascendant, foremother, forerunner, precursor, primogenitor, progenitor, antecessor & foregoer.

The now rare (and probably extinct) antecessor (a doublet of ancestor) dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "an ancestor" and a century later as the more generalized "a predecessor".  The noun ancestry (series or line of ancestors, descent from ancestors) was from the early fourteenth century auncestrie, from the Old French ancesserie (ancestry, ancestors, forefathers) from ancestre, the spelling modified in English under the influence of ancestor.  The adjective ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) dates from the 1520s, from Old French ancestrel (the spelling in Anglo-French auncestrel) (ancestral) from ancestre.  The alternative form ancestorial co-existed for decades after the 1650s but presumably can still be used for linguistic variety although it’s probably obsolete and may thus be thought an affectation.  The adverb ancestrally followed the adjective.

The familiar spelling in Modern English was in circulation by the early fifteenth century and the alternative spellings ancestour, antecessour, auncestor & auncestour (etymologists nothing even more as errors in medieval transcription rather than linguistic forks) are all long obsolete.  The noun plural is ancestors and the always rare feminine form ancestress, dating from the 1570s, is probably extinct except in historic reference.  In the biological sciences and the study of human genealogy, the derived terms include cenancestor (the last ancestor common of two or more lineages, especially the universal last common ancestor (LCA) of all life and grandcestor (not precisely defined but used to refer to more distant ancestors, especially (collectively) those for whom no identifiable records exist.  One interesting modern creation is trancestor (a forebear or forerunner to a trans person, or to modern transgender people in general).

Conventions of use

Depending on context, the word ancestor can be used (1) to refer to those who constitute one’s direct lineage (father, grandmother, great grandfather etc), (2) one’s ethnic heritage (English, German, Persian etc), or (3) the line of ancient evolutionary descent ((hominoidea, hominiade etc).  Such forbears (usually synonymous with ancestor but can be used more generally (eg political forebares), even without an (often implied) modifier) are also in some sense one’s predecessors (from the Middle English predecessour, from the Old French predecesseor (forebear), from the Late Latin praedēcessor, the construct being prae- (pre-) (before; prior to) + dēcessor (retiring officer), Latin dēcēdō (I retire, I die (source of the English decease)) but that word tends to be used where the human relationships are not familial or with objects.  One’s ancestors are thus (1) exactly known (back as many generations as records exist which, depending on the family, may be recent or stretch back centuries), (2) hypothesized (earlier generations the details of which are undocumented or of which there is no awareness), (3) a generalized expression of ethnic extraction (slavic, Polish-Scottish etc) and (4) an expression of human evolution.

Lindsay Lohan's family tree.  Genealogists traditionally use a trunk and branch metaphor because it's the best way graphically to display the procreative ways of one's ancestors.  

Ancestry is thus not something exclusively human and extends to non-human animal species, plant life and even organisms which are not alive in some senses of the word such as viruses.  So usefully understood is the concept of ancestry that that the word is used even in fields like cosmology (discussing the evolution of planets, stars etc), software (the industry’s naming conventions (1.0, 1.1, 2.0 etc) inherently ancestral), geology (noting the transformative process by which liquid magma becomes rock) and generally in fields such as philosophy, musicology, architecture, painting or any discipline where there is some discernible relationship between an idea or object and that which can be defined as a predecessor.

Nor is it unique to human ancestry that ancestors are individually identified and named to the extent possible.  In the pedigree breeding of animals (cats, dogs etc), the papers exist to trace the lineage of these beasts back further than a goodly number of the world’s population can manage, the best known example of which is are thoroughbred race horses for to qualify as one, it must be possible to trace the descent of each individual back to three Arabian stallions brought to England in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries: Byerley Turk (1680s), Darley Arabian (1704), & Godolphin Arabian (1729).  Ancestry is also important to those other thoroughbreds, royalty and the aristocracy, for upon it depends inheritance of title, land, wealth and occasionally countries.  Vital therefore but as a guarantee of blue-blooded purity it’s long proved a challenge to maintain because of the proclivity of both species to sire bastard progeny and it could be dangerous too, wars over such matters not unknown and the odd inconvenient bastard has met an unfortunate end.

The muscle car and its ancestors

1970 Plymouth Hemi Roadrunner.

The definition of the muscle car is sometimes disputed and the term is more useful if the net is cast a little wider but the classic definition is “an American mid-sized (intermediate) two-door, four seat car produced between 1964-1972 and powered by the large engines hitherto reserved for the full-sized lines”.  That’s precise but also excludes many machines most (definitionally non-obsessive) folk include when considering the muscle car era such as the highest-performance version of the two-seat sports cars (Chevrolet Corvette, AC Shelby Cobra, AMC AMX), the full-sized machines (Ford Galaxie, Chevrolet Impala etc), the pony cars (Ford Mustang, Pontiac Firebird etc) and the compacts (Chevrolet Nova, Dodge Dart etc).

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS454 Convertible (LS6).

Apart from what frankly was the craziness of the muscle cars, one reason the machines of the era remain so memorable is that the 1960s represented the industry's last days of relative freedom.  The regulations imposed by government on designers went from being in the 1950s a manageable nuisance (the few rules which existed sometimes just versions of industry protection) to something annoying intrusive by the late 1960s before in the 1970s becoming truly restrictive and costly.  That most of the regulations were a very good idea and in the interest of just about everybody is not the point.

1956 Chrysler 300B.

There had in the 1950s been something of a power race as manufacturers competed to offer increasingly powerful V8s although in that era, there were no intermediate, compact or pony cars, each manufacturer offering essentially a one-size-fits-all range so the biggest, most powerful engines tended to be installed in the most luxurious and expensive of their lines.  The car with the most obvious claim to ancestry is probably the 1949 Oldsmobile 88 which used the new 303 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Rocket V8 which was modest enough compared with what would follow but was certainly a step in the muscle car direction.  Similarly, the 1955 Chrysler 300 was probably the first post-war US sedan blatantly to emphasize performance and it did offer the corporation's most powerful engine but it was still in the same body as the rest of the range.  More convincing ancestors perhaps were offerings by Chevrolet and (improbably) Rambler which offered high-power options in usually inoffensive sedans but the lift was achieved not by increased capacity but the technological advance of fuel-injection.  The tradition was thus of muscular rather than muscle cars (as subsequently defined), the latter needing the smaller platforms which would appear in the early 1960s.

1964 Pontiac GTO.

The first muscle car is usually said to be the 1964 Pontiac GTO, created by offering the 389 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8 as an option in the intermediate Tempest, the largest engine otherwise available the (now slightly downsized) 326 (5.3 litre) cubic inch unit.  The original GTO was an option package rather than a designated model, this a contrivance to work-around an edict from General Motors (GM, Pontiac’s corporate parent) which didn’t permit the big engines to be used in the intermediate platform.  Such was success of the (highly profitable) GTO that GM rapidly withdrew the prohibition and a rash of imitators immediately emerged, both from the corporation’s other divisions and those under the umbrella of the competition, Ford and Chrysler.

1962 GAZ-21 Volga (rebuilt to M-23 (KGB (V8) specifications)).

GM in the 1960s was in many ways an innovative corporation but also, as circumstances demanded, imitative: The 1962 Chevy II (later Nova) was conceptually a copy of the 1960 Ford Falcon, the 1966 Chevrolet Camaro a response to the 1964 Ford Mustang and the 1965 Chevrolet Caprice was inspired by the debut of the Ford LTD a few months earlier.  That’s accepted orthodoxy but the accepted wisdom has long been the idea of putting a big-car’s big engine into an intermediate-size platform began in 1964 with the arrival of the Pontiac GTO.  It may be however that Pontiac got the idea from America’s ideological foe, the Soviet Union, which anticipated the concept by two years because between 1962-1970, GAZ produced the intermediate sized M-23 Volga (a special-variant of the M-21) for the exclusive use of the KGB and other Soviet “special services”.  Equipped with the 5.53 litre (337 cubic inch) V8 engine from the big GAZ-13 Chaika (Gull) (1959-1981 and in the Soviet hierarchy, second only to the even bigger ZIL limousines (1936-2012)), the car was said to be a not entirely successful piece of engineering but it was certainly faster than the four-cylinder model on which it was based.  It’s never been clear just what was the top speed because the speedometer was calibrated only to 180 km/h (112 mph) but one intrepid KGB apparatchik claimed to have achieved that and reported his Volga was “still accelerating”.  Like some of the US muscle cars which were produced only in small numbers, in its eight-year run, GAZ made only 603 M-23 Volgas (rare thus compared with a US equivalent, the 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda which in that year alone numbered 670) but it perhaps more than the GTO deserves a place in history as the first muscle car.

1971 Plymouth Hemi Roadrunner.

Between 1964-1970, the muscle car movement would evolve into wilder and increasingly more powerful machinery, an evolution which unfolded in unison with similar developments on the ever lighter pony car platforms.  Things peaked in 1970 but by then the writing was not so much on the wall as on bill papers in the Congress and the revised contract schedules of insurance companies, an onrush of safety and emission-control regulation alone perhaps enough to kill the muscle car ecosystem but the enormous rise in insurance premiums was the final killer.  The combination of affordable high power in cars with dubious handling and braking in packages which appealed to males aged 17-25 had proved a lethal combination and the insurance industry reacted.  In name, the muscle cars would linger on for a couple of seasons but demand had collapsed a combination of circumstances which pre-dated the first oil shock in 1973 which would otherwise likely have been the death knell.

Ancestors of the muscle car

1936 Buick Century 66S Coupé (Fisher body style # 36457).

Although the improvement in the economy remained patchy, Buick rang in the changes for 1936, re-naming its entire line.  Notably, one newly designated offering was the Century, a revised version of the model 60, created by replacing the 233 cubic inch (3.8 litre) straight eight with the 320 cubic inch (5.2 litre) unit from the longer, heavier Roadmaster.  Putting big engines into small cars was nothing new and during the interwar years some had taken the idea to extremes, using huge aero-engines, but those tended to be one-offs for racing or speed-record attempts.  In Europe, (slightly) larger engines were sometimes substituted and British manufacturers often put six cylinder power-plants where once there had been a four but their quest was usually for smoothness and refinement rather than outright speed and the Century was really the first time a major manufacturer had used the concept in series production.  It’s regarded by many as the last common ancestor (LCA) of the muscle car.

Much muscle: 1933 Napier-Railton, fitted with a 23.9 litre (1461 cubic inch) W12, naturally aspirated aero-engine.  Between 1933-1937, it would set 47 world speed records in England, France and the United States.  Fuel consumption at speed was an impressive 4.2 mpg (imperial gallons) (67.29 litres/100 kilometers).

The Century gained its name from British slang, “doing the century” meaning to attain 100 mph (161 km/h) on a public road, then a reasonable achievement given the machinery and the roads of the day.  In production between 1936-1942, the Buick’s positioning of the Century in the market was hinted at by initially offering a range of four two door coupés & convertibles and a solitary four door sedan although subsequent demand saw further variations of the latter added in 1938.  Always the most expensive of the short wheelbase (SWB) line, the high-performance Century was as much a niche model as the later muscle cars would be and the Century never constituted more than 10% of production but demand was steady and it remained available until civilian production of cars was prematurely curtailed early in 1942.

1958 Jaguar 3.4.  VDU 881 was a Jaguar factory car on loan to Mike Hawthorn (1929–1959; FI world champion 1958) who tuned it further and used it both as a road car and for racing.  In VDU 881 he was killed in a motorway accident in treacherous conditions and although high speed was certainly a factor, the exact reason for the crash will never be known, the most common theory being the behavior of the early radial-ply tyres which, although raising the limits of adhesion beyond that of the earlier cross-plys, did tend suddenly to lose grip at the limit rather than gradually and predictably sliding towards that point.

One obvious spiritual ancestor from across the Atlantic was the Jaguar 3.4 (1957-1959), created by the same formula which would become Detroit’s muscle car template: take a big engine from a big car and put it in a small car.  The Jaguar 2.4 had been on sale since 1955, a successful incursion into the market segment BMW would later define with the 3 Series (1975-).  Jaguar had not deliberately neglected the small saloon segment since 1949 but in the early post-war years lacked the capacity to add another line, their resources fully absorbed by production of the XK120 (1948-1654) sports car and the big saloon, the Mark V (1948-1951).  It wasn’t until after the new big car, the Mark VII (1951-1956) had been released that attention (as Project Utah) could be turned to development of a smaller line and that emerged in 1955 as the 2.4, running a short-stroke, 2.5 litre (152 cubic inch) version of the XK-six, the package carefully honed to ensure a genuine 100 mph (161 km/h) was attainable (although when the heavier Mark 2 was released in 1959, the claim was no longer made and it wasn't until 1967 when the cylinder head was revised the magic "ton" was restored for the last of the line (the re-named 240).  Instantly successful, it quickly became the company’s biggest seller and within two years, responding to demand, a 3.4 litre (210 cubic inch) version was released.

Bob Jane in 1959 Jaguar Mk 2 3.8 (with 4.1 litre engine) winner of the Australian Touring Car Championship, Mallala, South Australia, 1963.

Because of the importance of the US market, much emphasis was put on the availability of an automatic transmission but the manual versions were also much fancied, rapid on the road and in racing but even at the time, there were comments that perhaps the power available exceeded the capability of the platform.  Jaguar did (at least partially) acknowledge things weren’t ideal by offering disc brakes, an option which proved popular.  Substantial revisions to the underpinnings weren’t however undertaken until the release in 1959 of the Mark 2 (the earlier 2.4 & 3.4 retrospectively dubbed Mark 1) which much improved the car’s manners.  However, although now fitted with a 3.8 litre (231 cubic inch) XK-six, the new car was heavier so there wasn’t that much of a lift in performance and, at the limit, both could be a handful, even in the hands of experts.  So, even if some don't call it a muscle car, it could behave like one.

International

International (pronounced in-ter-nash-uh-nl)

(1) Between or among nations; involving two or more nations.

(2) Of or relating to two or more nations or their citizens.

(3) Pertaining to the relations between nations.

(4) Any of the four international socialist or communist organizations formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with initial capital letter).

(5) A labor union having locals in two or more countries.

(6) An organization, enterprise, or group, especially a major business concern, having branches, dealings, or members in several countries (often styled as multi-national or multinational).

(7) An employee, especially an executive, assigned to work in a foreign country or countries by a business or organization that has branches or dealings in several countries.

(8) A casual term for sporting matches played between national teams in many sports (rugby, cricket, football eta al) and applied also to individuals selected for those contests.

1780: A compound word, inter + national, coined apparently by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham  (1748-1832) in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1870) and appears also in A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace (1786–1789) which forms part IV of the Principles of International Law.  Inter was from the Latin inter (between, amid), a form of prepositional inter (between).  Nation existed in Middle English as nacioun and nacion, borrowed from Old French nation, nacion and nasion (nation), from the Latin nātiōnem, accusative of nātiō and gnātiō (nation, race, birth) from natus & gnatus, past participle stem of nasci & gnasci (to be born).  In displaced the native Middle English when it emerged as theode, thede (nation), from the Old English þēod, the Middle English burthe (birth, nation, race, nature) and the Middle English leod, leode, lede (people, race), all ultimately from the Old English root lēod.  Variations of nation exist in most European languages including the Saterland Frisian nation, the West Frisian naasje, the Dutch natie, the Middle Low German nacie and the German, Danish and Swedish nation.

The socialist hymn The Internationale was written in 1871 by French anarchist (and confessed freemason) Eugène Pottier (1816-1887) and the International Date Line (IDL) was first standardized in 1884 (although it's since been tinkered with for reasons reasons both administrative and opportunistic).  Multinational, in the sense of trans-national corporations was first noted in 1921 and is often used in a derogatory manner; when CEO of Ford Motor Company in the mid-1970s, Lee Iacocca (1924-2019) was sensitive to this and said he preferred the term internationalism.  That never caught on, probably because it had traditionally been a word associated with the left and fellow travelers with faith first in the League of Nations (LN; 1920-1946) and subsequently the United Nations (UN; 1945). 

The Internationals

The International Workingmen's Association (later known as the First International) was an international structure intended to unite a myriad of anarchist, socialist and communist political groups with the still embryonic trade union movements.  Essentially, it was meant to be a broad, left-wing, working-class organization devoted to bringing the class struggle to fruition.  Founded in 1864, it quickly gained a membership of millions but, by 1872, communist and anarchist factions had split the movement; it was dissolved in 1876.

The Second International was formed in 1889 as a grouping of the newly-created socialist and labour political parties.  Although emblematic of the utopian spirit in the workers’ parties of the pre-1914 world, the Second International did attempt to construct coherent platforms and was in some way a precursor of the march through the institutions approach three generations later.  They attempted to exclude from their councils the anarcho-syndicalists and unionists who had splintered the First International but in this had limited success.  The Second International was dissolved in 1916 amid much rancor, both about (1) the way leaders of labour parties seemed anxious to collaborate with the capitalists becoming, in effect, a stratum above the working class and (2) the way, on nationalist grounds, they supported their own bourgeois in the bloody slaughter of the First World War.

The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International was formed in 1919 as an outgrowth of the creation of the Soviet Union and, in its original formation, advocated world communism.  This was to be achieved by “…all available means, including armed force” and aimed to overthrow the international bourgeoisie to be replaced by an international soviet republic as a transitional phase before the “…complete abolition of the state".  The vicissitudes of history gradually wore this down to the point where Soviet practice, if not orthodoxy, had become “socialism in one state”.  Ostensibly to improve relations with London and Washington (although his motives were influenced more by a desire to weaken parts of the communist movement), Comrade Stalin unexpectedly dissolved the Third International in 1943.

Comrade Stalin & Comrade Trotsky.

The Fourth International was founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), directly to oppose what Soviet communism had become under Comrade Stalin (1878-1953) which Comrade Trotsky considered counter-revolutionary and essentially a fascist state under the control of a bureaucratic elite directed by Stalin.  The Fourth International suffered its own splits and, despite attempts at re-unification, no longer exists as a single trans-national grouping.  However, with its inherently anti-authoritarian core, the doctrines of the Fourth International retain a popular, almost romantic following and around the planet there exist Trotskyite groups for those attracted by the defense of workers' internationalism.  Comrade Stalin had Comrade Trotsky assassinated in 1940; the murder weapon an ice-axe.  In the way of these things, calls for a fifth international were heard only months after the formation of the Fourth.  Indeed, in response to the increasingly plaintive cries, over the decades, several were announced but all soon withered away.  Still longed for by a handful, the movements seem never to have progressed beyond the stage of running lamington drives.

Lindsay Lohan with former special friend Samantha Ronson, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 2008.

Bathymetry

Bathymetry (pronounced buh-thim-i-tree)

(1) The science and practice of the measurement of the depths of oceans, seas, rivers or other large bodies of water.

(2) The data derived from such measurement, especially as compiled in a data set or topographic map.

1860–1865: The construct was bathy- + -metry.  The prefix bathy- (the alternative form in oceanography and related fields is batho-) was from the Ancient Greek βαθύς (bathús) (deep), zero-grade of the root of βένθος (bénthos), possibly from the primitive Indo-European gehd- (to sink, submerge) or perhaps cognate with the Sanskrit गाढ (gāḍha) (profound, intense, deep, dense, thick, fast, deep (of a color)).  Despite the appearance, it’s unrelated wither to βυσσός (bussós) or βυθός (buthós).  The construct of the suffix –metry (used to form nouns relating to measures and measurement) was -meter +‎ -y.  Metre was from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron) (measure), from the primitive Indo-European meh- (to measure) + -τρον (-tron) (a suffix denoting an instrument, as in ancient Greek ἄροτρον (plow) and familiar in English for the used in electronics and physics such as cyclotron.  The –y suffix is from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (-y, -ic), from the Proto-Germanic -īgaz (-y, -ic), from the primitive Indo-European -kos, -ikos, & -iḱos (-y, -ic).  It was cognate with the Scots -ie (-y), the West Frisian -ich (-y), the Dutch -ig (-y), the Low German -ig (-y), the German -ig (-y), the Swedish -ig (-y), the Latin -icus (-y, -ic), the Sanskrit -इक (-ika) and the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós); a doublet of -ic.  The –y suffix was added to (1) nouns and adjectives to form adjectives meaning “having the quality of” and (2) verbs to form adjectives meaning "inclined to".

Bathymetry bathymetrist & bathymeter are nouns, bathymetric & bathymetrical are adjectives and bathymetrically is an adverb; the noun plural is bathymetries.  The derived noun paleobathymetry describes the bathymetry of prehistoric seas.  Paleo was from the Ancient Greek παλαιός (palaiós) (old), from πάλαι (pálai) (long ago).  Most etymologists suggest it was probably cognate with the Mycenaean Greek parajo, which is generally held to mean “old”.  If true, this connection hints at a link with the Proto-Hellenic palai(y)ós and casts doubt on the once often proposed etymology from the primitive Indo-European kwel.

In the UK, the Royal Navy's early use of bathymetric data was to add indications of depth to the Admiralty's charts, the most famous of which was the one which drew the "hundred fathom line" around the British Isles.

When coined in the mid-nineteenth century, bathymetry referred to the ocean's depth relative to sea level, reflecting the information available, given the technology of the time. In the twentieth century, it came to mean “sub-marine topography”, the rendering in images of the depths and shapes of underwater terrain.  In this it’s analogous with topographic maps of land masses which represent the three-dimensional features (or relief) of overland terrain.  Bathymetric maps typically represent variations in sea-floor relief by depicting the changes with color and contour lines called depth contours or isobaths.  Bathymetry provides the baseline data which made possible the modern discipline of hydrography which measures the physical features of a water body.  Hydrography compliments bathymetric data with measurements of the shape and features of shorelines, the characteristics of tides, currents and waves as well as the physical and chemical properties of the water itself.

Bathymetry is thus the study and mapping of the sea floor. It involves obtaining measurements of the depth of the ocean and is the equivalent to mapping the height of features on land.  Bathymetric data is used for a range of purposes including charting and ship navigation, fisheries management, establishing baseline data to support environmental monitoring, the determination of maritime boundaries, alternative energy assessments (most obviously regarding offshore wind and wave & tidal energy), research into coastal processes and ocean currents (the best known aspect of which is tsunami modelling, assessment of the environmental impact on marine geology of resource extraction proposals and the identification of geohazards, such as underwater landslides

Bathymetry map of East Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS), a United States National Marine Sanctuary 100 nautical miles (190 km) off Galveston, Texas, in the north-western Gulf of Mexico.

However, despite the progress of over a century, relatively little is known about the sea floor compared with the surface of the Earth, the Moon and indeed many of the solar system’s other planets and moons.  By area, most map of the sea floor are derived from satellites an low resolution, provide only a vague indication of water depth although whatever the limitations, the technology is clever, the satellite altimetry measuring the height of the ocean surface.  If hills or maintains exist on the seabed at the point of the image, the gravitational pull around that area will be greater and hence the sea surface will bulge and from this measurement maps can be generated showing general features over a large area at low resolution.  More precise maps can be built using single beam echosounders which produce a single line of depth points directly under the equipment.  Taken usually from a moving vessel, they’re typically used to identify general sea floor patterns or schools of fish.  More accurate, high definition maps can be generated by using devices called multibeam echosounders (or swath echosounders) and airborne laser measurements (LADS) which capture swathes of data by acquiring multiple depth points in each area, these data grabbers are accurate to within 1 metre (39 inches).  It was a bathymetric survey which revealed the world’s tallest mountain is not Mount Everest but the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii.  Much of its base is on the ocean floor, some 6,000 m (19,685 feet) below the sea-surface and its peak is the highest point in the state of Hawaii, giving an overall height of 10,000 m (32,808 feet).  Mauna Kea is thus a significantly higher feature than Mount Everest which rises 8,800 m (28,870 feet) odd.

Bathymetry in progress: Lindsay Lohan with claw-footed bathtub, music video release of Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father) (2005).

Modern electronics represent quite an advance over the nineteenth century techniques of bathymetric measurement which began with a heavy rope being thrown over the side of a ship, the only data gained being recording the length of rope it took to reach the seafloor.  These measurements were however incomplete, and prone to inaccuracy, the rope often shifted by sub-surface currents before reaching the seabed.  At best the data was indicative because the rope could measure depth only one point at a time and there was no way to tell if the point of impact was flat or sloping.  Depending on the area of interest, scientists would have needed dozens, hundreds or even thousands of measurements, something obviously rarely possible.  Accordingly, until the modern age, scientists and navigators estimated the topography of the seafloor and for experienced sailors, the hills and valleys were sometimes easy to predict but the sea can be deceptive and ocean trenches and sandbars often surprised navigators; many ships and cargos were lost to ships running aground.

Ping

Ping (pronounced ping)

(1) To produce a short, high-pitched resonant sound, like that of a bullet striking a sheet of metal (as a verb used without object).

(2) In computing, to send an echo-request packet to an IP address and use the echo reply to determine whether another computer on the network is operational and the speed at which the data is being transferred.

(3) Informally, to make contact with someone by sending a brief electronic message (text messages and later variations).  A ping can also be a notification in response to a message.

(4) A pinging sound.

(5) An infrasonic or ultrasonic sound wave created by sonar in echolocation or an acoustic signal transmitted to indicate a location.

(6) The Lord Chancellor, one of the courtiers in Giacomo Puccini's (1858-1924), opera Turandot (1926).

(7) In colloquial use, to flick something, usually with a finger-tip.

(8) In colloquial use, to be detected committing an offence (by a police officer, an umpire or referee) and subsequently penalized.

(9) In internal combustion engines (also referred to as pinking, knocking or detonation), when the combustion of the fuel/air mixture in the cylinder does not begin correctly in response to ignition by the spark plug.  The usual form in this context is the adjective "pinging".

1835: Partly onomatopoeic (imitative of the sound of a bullet whistling through the air or striking something sharply) and partly reflecting the influence of the (continuing) Middle English pingen (to push, shove, pierce, stab, prod, goad, urge, feel remorse, incite), from the Old English pyngan (to prick); used as a verb since 1855.  The meaning "short, high-pitched electronic pulse" is attested from 1943, the reference being to the sonar systems used on both submarines and surface vessels.  The noun plural was pings, the present participle pinging, the past participle pinged.  The non-standard forms are pang & pung (past participle) although one can understand why those learning English might assume they should exist.  Pingdemic was an invention of computer programmers.

The noun ping-pong was also based on sound and dates from 1901 as Ping-Pong, the trademark for table tennis equipment registered by Parker Brothers, both words imitative of the sound of the ball hitting a hard surface (said by some to have been attested since 1823; the game was much in vogue in the US 1900-1905.  In the figurative sense of "move or send back and forth without progress, resolution, or purpose", use dates from 1952, later extended (though a little more hopefully) to “ping-pong diplomacy” which referred to the US and the PRC (Communist China) agreeing to exchange ping-pong teams before sending diplomats.  The electronic arcade game “Pong” (1972) was an abbreviation of ping-pong although there is evidence pong had for some years been a truncated reference to the game proper.

Example of using ping to identify the ip address using the host name.

Ping is one of a small subset of commands which constitute the lingua franca of computer network administration software, included in almost all network tool bundles regardless of the local or network operating systems.  It is a utility which tests the connectivity and speed of a host running on any Internet Protocol (IP) network by measuring the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer, echoed back to the source.  Originally run exclusively from a command prompt, GUI (graphical user interface) versions have long been available and are handy for infrequent users who have never needed to memorize the syntax.  Ping sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request packets to the target host and waits for an ICMP echo reply, reporting errors, packet loss, and a statistical summary of the results, most usefully the duration (in milliseconds) of the minimum, maximum & mean round-trips.

The name ping was a borrowing from naval sonar terminology that sends a pulse of sound and listens for the echo to detect objects under water to determining their location, direction and speed.  The sonar systems used at sea included audible pings and some computer ping utilities include one as a novelty.  The original software was a Q&D (quick & dirty) utility created in 1983 to diagnose tiresome problems on a network, the name chosen because the method was analogous with sonar's echolocation.  The occasionally mentioned Packet InterNet Groper is a backronym created some years after the first versions of ping were distributed.

Turandot

Turandot (1926) was Giacomo Puccini's (1858-1924) last opera and one which remained uncompleted at his death.  Puccini based the opera on the play Turandot (1762) by Venetian playwright Count Carlo Gozzi (1720–1806) which borrowed from one of the seven stories in the epic-length work by Persian poet Nizami (circa 1141–1209), the motif of seven aligned with the days of the week, the Persian seven-color scheme and the seven planets at that time known.  Turandot as told by Nizami is the story attached to Tuesday, the protagonist a Russian princess (Turan-Dokht (daughter of Turan)), a name often used in Persian poetry for Central Asian princesses.  Puccini seems to have moved the site of his Opera to China for no reason other than his interest in incorporating into the work Chinese musical themes, much as he’d been attracted to Japanese sounds for his earlier Madama Butterfly (1904).  Most people on the planet have never heard of Puccini and his operas but many will be at least vaguely familiar with one fragment of Turandot, Nessun dorma (Let no one sleep), among the most famous of the tenor arias, because of the global broadcast of a performance during the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Puccini completed the three-act structure before his death and it was in this form it was first performed at La Scala in Milan in April 1926, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), the conductor refusing to go beyond the point where Puccini stopped.  With an ending added by Franco Alfano (1875-1954), it was presented again the very next evening but performances have varied over the years, a few sticking to the original, some using one of the variations written by Alfano and others with different ending entirely, some better received than others.  Opera buffs and professional musicians have always been drawn to Turandot because it’s Puccini at his most musically innovative but audiences have never embraced it quite as they did the seductive butterfly which is a set-piece love story packed with melodies.  However, it’s now viewed also through a political lens, the specter of cultural appropriation and accusation of racial stereotyping looming over every aria.

From various stage productions: Ping, Lord Chancellor (baritone), Pang, Chief Steward of the Imperial Household (tenor) & Pong, Executive Chef of the Imperial Kitchen (tenor) are the triumvirate of courtiers in Puccini's Turandot.

The critique is that the depiction of a barbaric Chinese princess is an outdated orientalist construct of Chinese people and the idea of white people dressing and being made up as caricatures of those from the far east goes beyond mere cultural appropriation, the use of Chinese music, traditional dress and the perpetuating historical Western imagery being demeaning.  Beyond that, white audiences who are either oblivious to these concerns or dismissive of them are (at the very least) guilty of committing microaggressions and are casually asserting cultural superiority, if not actual white supremacy.

Obelisk

Obelisk (pronounced ob-uh-lisk)

(1) Classically, a tapering, four-sided shaft of stone, usually monolithic and having a pyramidal apex.  Most are vertical constructions.

(2) Something resembling such a shaft.

(3) An obelus.

(4) In printing, an alternative name for the dagger sign (†), especially when used as a reference mark.

1540-1550: From the sixteenth century French obélisque, from the Classical Latin obeliscus (obelisk, small spit), from the Greek obelískos (small spit, obelisk, leg of a compass), diminutive of obelos (a spit, pointed pillar, needle, broach; obelisk; bar of metal used as a coin or weight), of uncertain origin but said by etymologists to be pre-Greek.  Literal translations of obelos were variously “a spit, pointed pillar, needle”, the construct being obel(ós) + iskos, the diminutive suffix while the meaning in English was picked up from the Middle French obélisque.  The Greek obeliskos, reflecting the influence of Medieval translations, is sometimes translated as “leg of a compass".  The related adjectival forms are obeliscal and obeliskoid.  In printing, the sign resembling a small dagger dates from the 1580s; in dictionaries it's used to mark obsolete words (the Greek obelos also was "a mark used in writing; horizontal line used as a diacritic".

Ruins with an obelisk in the distance (1764), by Hubert Robert (1733–1808).

Lindsay Lohan walking in front of one of the Obélisques de Louxor (The Luxor Obelisks), Place de la Concorde in Paris, Paris Fashion Week, March 2010.

One of the Monoliths as depicted in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). 

The mysterious black structures in Sir Arthur C Clarke's (1917–2008) Space Odyssey series (1968-1997) became well known after the release in 1968 of Stanley Kubrick's (1928–1999) film of the first novel in the series, 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Although sometimes described as “obelisk”, the author noted they were really “monoliths”.  The noun monolith was from the French monolithe (object made from a single block of stone), from Middle French monolythe (made from a single block of stone) and their etymon the Latin monolithus (made from a single block of stone), from the Ancient Greek μονόλιθος (monólithos) (made from a single block of stone), the construct being μονο- (mono-) (the prefix appended to convey the meaning “alone; single”), from μόνος (monos) (alone; only, unique), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European mey- (little, small) + λίθος (líthos) (a stone; stone as a substance).  The English form was cognate with the German monolith (made from a single block of stone).  In recent years, enthusiasts, mischief makers and click-bait hunters have been erecting similar monoliths in remote parts of planet Earth, leaving them to be discovered and publicized.  With typical alacrity, modern commerce noted the interest  and soon, replicas were being offered for sale, a gap in the market for Christmas gifts between US$10,000-45,000 apparently identified.

Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968; Soviet pilot and cosmonaut and the first human to travel to “outer space”) with his 1965 Matra Djet (left), standing in front of the Покори́телям ко́смоса (Monumént Pokorítelyam kósmosa) (Monument to the Conquerors of Space), the titanium obelisk erected in 1964 to celebrate the USSR's pioneering achievements in space exploration.  The structure stands 351 feet (107 metres) tall and assumes an incline of 77° which is a bit of artistic licence because the rockets were launched in a vertical path but it was a good decision however because it lent the monument a greater sense of drama.  Underneath the obelisk sits the Музей космонавтики (Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics (known also as the Memorial Museum of Astronautics or Memorial Museum of Space Exploration)) and in the way which was typical of projects in the Brezhnev-era (Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader 1964-1982) USSR, although construction was begun in 1964, it wasn't until 1981 the museum opened to the public.

Martial

Martial (pronounced mahr-shuhl)

(1) Of a state or of people, inclined or disposed to war; warlike.

(2) Of, suitable for, or associated with war or the military.

(3) Characteristic of or befitting a warrior.

(4) As Martial Law, the administration of a country by the armed forces.

(5) In astronomy, Of or relating to Mars (obsolete except in historic use)

(6) In astrology, a celestial object under the astrological influence of the planet Mars (now rare).

(7) In science fiction (SF or SciFi), a synonym of Martian (inhabitant of the planet Mars) (archaic).

(8) In law, a trial conducted by a military court (usually administering military law but in special circumstances jurisdiction to civil law can be extended) (hyphenated in US use whereas in most of the English-speaking world a hyphen is used to differentiate between the noun (court martial) and verb (court-martial); the noun plural is courts martial.

(9) In chemistry & medicine, containing, or relating to iron (which alchemists symbolically associated with the planet Mars); chalybeate, ferric, ferrous (obsolete).

(10) In ornithology, as martial eagle, a large bird of prey of species Polemaetus bellicosus, native to sub-Saharan Africa.

(11) As a proper noun, a male given name from Latin, narrowly applied to certain historic persons (but some foreign cognates are modern given names); an Anglicized cognomen (given name) of the Spanish-born Roman poet and epigrammatist Marcus Valerius Martialis (circa 40-104).

1325–1375: From the Middle English martial (war-like, of or pertaining to war) from the Medieval Latin Mārtiālis (of Mars or war) from martiālis (belonging or dedicated to the Mārs, the Roman god of war, or to war), the construct being Mārti- (stem of Mārs) + -ālis (the Latin suffix used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  The sense of "connected with military organizations" (as opposed to civil) dates from the late fifteenth century and survives most obviously in the court-martial from the military system of justice.  The use (usually with a capital M-) in the sense of "pertaining to or resembling the planet Mars" emerged in English in the 1620s and the phrase Martial law (military rule over civilians) was first used in the 1530s.  Martial arts from 1909 cam to be the collective name for the fighting sports of Japan and the surrounding region (the Japanese bujutsu). 

Martial Law

Martial law describes the suspension of civilian government and the imposition of military control.  This is done typically as a temporary response to extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters, invasions, revolutions or pandemics but is commonly used in occupied territories.  Except for areas of occupation in which government may wholly be staffed by the military, most systems of martial law adopt a hybrid model, using at least some of any extant civilian administration.  The experience varies, martial rule becoming sometimes essentially permanent; Egypt has been under martial law almost continuously since 1967, the most recent declaration in 1981.  It can be a brutal and bloody business (Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan et al, many of the usual suspects in Africa often not bothering with formal declarations) or benign to the point hardly anyone notices (Fiji).  The post-war prosecution of the surviving Nazi leadership, generally known as the Nuremberg trials, was technically a series of International Military Tribunals (IMTs), conducted in occupied Germany under martial law.  In Australia, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur (1784–1854; Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) 1823-1836) imposed martial law between 1828-1830 during a violent conflict between colonists and indigenous peoples in Tasmania.  It remains the longest period of martial law in Australian history.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (b 1945) (left) with General Than Shwe (b 1933; chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) 1992-2011) (centre) and General Khin Nyunt (b 1939; prime-minister of Myanmar 2003-2004) (right), Yangon, Myanmar, September 1994.

Martial law in Myanmar (Burma) was associated with the creation of a new word: slorc (pronounced slork).  Not best pleased with election results in 1988, the military seized power, announcing the formation of the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC), dictionaries soon noting slorc had morphed from acronym to word, one suggesting it may endure as a synonym for junta (a military dictatorship, a borrowing from the used to describe the grand council of state in Spain and dating from the 1620s, from the Spanish junta (feminine of junto), from the Latin iunctus (perfect passive participle of iungō (join)).  Use however faded after 1997 when the SLORC (pronounced slork) was re-named SPDC (State Peace & Development Council) which, not rolling so well of the tongue, never caught on.

The SLORC's other contribution to language was changing the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar.  Both Burma and Myanmar are derived from the name of the majority Burman (Bamar) ethnic group, versions of both existing in Burmese and long used in different circumstances.  The regional variations had confused the British who, after decades of hegemony, since beginning occupation in 1854, annexed the country in 1886 (reputedly sustaining eight casualties in the battle), appending the territory as a province of British India under the Raj.  Prior to that, on maps and in documents, the spellings used had included Bermah, Burme, Birmah, Brama, Burmah, Burma & Burmah.  Even the usually decisive SLORC dithered, gazetting Union of Burma and then Union of Myanmar before settling on Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

Lindsay Lohan in martial mood.

Internationally, adoption has been mixed.  The United Nations (UN), on the basis that, as a general principle, when a recognized government advises the secretary-general a certain name and spelling should be used, that is followed, adopted Myanmar, a process hardly rare and one followed also by its predecessor (the League of Nations (1920-1946), Iran becoming Persia in 1935, the Upper Volta becoming Burkina Faso in 1954 etc.  Many countries and institutions follow the same protocol although the European Commission (the EC, the administrative component of the executive of the European Union (EU)), never happy except when sitting on the fence, uses "Burma/Myanmar".  On the Burma page of their World Factbook, the US Central Intelligence Agency CIA notes dryly “the US Government has not officially adopted the name.”