Phial

Phial (pronounced fahy-uh)

A small container or bottle, used to store liquids.

1350–1400: From the Middle English viole (vessel used for holding liquids), (a variant of fiole which existed also as phiole & fiole), from the Old French fiole, via the Old Provençal fiola, from the Medieval Latin phiola, from the Latin phiala (a broad, flat, shallow cup or bowl), from the Ancient Greek φιάλη (phiálē) (flat vessel, dish, flat bowl for drinking or sacrificing) of unknown origin.  The evolution was influenced also by the twelfth century Old French fiole (flask, phial) which at least in parts accounts for the of proliferation of spelling in Middle English (fiole,phiole,phial,fial,viole,vial,viele and the modern vial).  Phial is a noun & verb; the noun plural is phials.

Lindsay Lohan pouring from modern civilization's most ubiquitous phial (or vial), PepsiCo Pilk promotion, December 2022.  

The aluminium can used to contribute much to litter, both as thoughtlessly they were discarded when empty and because the sealing tabs were detachable, beaches & parks in the 1970s notorious for being strewn with the things.  The problems substantially were solved by (1) making a fee payable when the cans were handed in to a recycling centre and (2) changing the tab's design so the whole mechanism remains attached.  Aluminium does consume large amounts of electricity during the production process but if "green energy" can be used it's one of the less environmentally destructive metals and, (1) being light it reduces the fuel load required during transportation & storage and (2) being non-ferrous it doesn't rust.  It is one of the best and most economical efficient metals to recycle.

Phial is a doublet of vial.  In technical use (in science), some institutions have drawn distinctions between the two (1) phials being larger than vials and (2) vials are for liquids related to medicine and phials for other fluids but in general use they remain interchangeable (although consistency within documents is obviously recommended).  In the US, early in the twentieth century, phial became close to extinct after hundreds of years of being nearly as common as vial while elsewhere in the English-speaking world, vial emerged as the preferred form during the post-war years and phial seems now a romantic form restricted to fiction, historical and spiritual writing.  Vial must never be confused with its homophone vile.  A vial is a noun describing a vessel in which liquids are kept; vile is an adjective, applied most often to morally dubious characters like crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).  "Vial Hillary" works about as well as "crooked Hillary". 

The Seven Phials

The seven phials (translated also as cups or bowls) are a set of plagues in the New Testament (Revelation 16), apocalyptic events seen in the vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, by John of Patmos.  Seven angels are given seven phials, each a judgement of the wrath of God, to be poured upon the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist after the sounding of seven trumpets.  In the twenty-first century, end-of-times theorists, religious fundamentalists and the habitually superstitious have taken an increased interest in the seven phials because the text in Revelation can be variously interpreted including as a foretelling of AIDS, chronic pollution, species extinction, climate change, wild fires, floods and the rule of various autocrats.

Michelangelo (1475–1564), Last Judgment (circa 1540), Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

When the first phial is emptied, foul and painful sores are inflicted upon those bearing the mark of the beast and those who worship the image of the beast.   

When the second phial is emptied, the seas and the oceans become bitter and all life in the sea dies.

When the third phial is emptied, the rivers turn to blood; angels begin praising God's holy judgments.

When the fourth phial is emptied, the sun causes a major heatwave to scorch the planet with fire; the incorrigible and wicked refuse to repent while they blaspheme the name of God.

When the fifth phial is emptied, a thick darkness overwhelms the kingdom of the beast. The wicked continue to stubbornly defame the name of God while refusing to repent and glorify God.

When the sixth phial is emptied, the great river Euphrates dries up so that the kings of the east might cross to begin battle.  Three unclean spirits with the appearance of frogs come from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  These demonic spirits work satanic miracles to gather the nations of the world to battle against the forces of good during the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus says his coming will be like that of a thief in the night, urging his followers to stay alert.

When the seventh phial is emptied, a global earthquake causes the cities of the world to crumble collapse.  All mountains and islands are shaken from their foundations.  Giant hailstones rain down upon the planet and plagues are so severe the incorrigible’s hatred intensifies as they continue to curse God.

Fringe

Fringe (pronounced frinj)

(1) A decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip; an edging consisting of hanging threads, tassels etc.

(2) In architecture, engineering, gardening, interior decorating et al, anything resembling or suggesting this (sometimes used loosely).

(3) An outer edge; margin; the periphery.

(4) In political science, something regarded as peripheral, marginal, secondary, or extreme in relation to something else; Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views (famously as the “lunatic fringe”).

(5) In optical physics, one of the alternate light and dark bands produced by the diffraction or interference of light.

(6) In tax law, as “fringe benefit”, a non-cash element of earning treated as income for taxation purposes (sometimes at a concessional rate).

(7) To furnish with or as if with a fringe; to serve as a fringe for, or to be arranged around or along so as to suggest a fringe; to be a fringe.

(8) In hairdressing, a style in which hair sits vertically across the forehead (synonymous with “bangs”, the predominant US form although the latter describes a wider range of cuts and, under the influence of social media, is now widely used).

(9) In botany, the peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.

(10) In structured performance art, a series of events conducted in parallel with (though not formerly a part of) an established festival (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe et al).

1325–1375: From the Middle English frenge (ornamental bordering; material for a fringe), from the Old French frenge (thread, strand, fringe, hem, border) (which endures in Modern French as frange), from the Vulgar Latin frimbia (a metathetic variant of the Late Latin plural fimbria (fibers, threads, fringe)), from the Latin fimbriae (fringe) of uncertain origin.  It was related to the German Franse and Danish frynse and came to replace the native Middle English fnæd (fringe), byrd (fringe) & fasel (fringe) from the Old English fæs (fringe) & fnæs (fringe).  As a verb which described “to decorate with a fringe or fringes”, use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The meaning “a border, a boundary, an edge” dates from the 1640s while the figurative sense of “an outer edge, the margin” didn’t come into use until the 1890s although fringe had been an adjective since 1809.  The use of the technical term “fringe benefits” was first recorded in 1952.  Fringe is a noun, verb & adjective, fringed & fringing are verbs and fringeless, fringelike & fringy are adjectives; the noun plural is fringes.

For those seeking an example of the fecundity of the human imagination, Urban Dictionary has listing of their contributor’s suggesting of forms in which fringe is an element including mini-fringe, fringe fries, Tetris fringe, stoner fringe, wannabe fringe, minge fringe, vagina fringe, fringe of wisdom, fringe sex, clunge fringe, stu fringe, fringed purse, fringe flicker, pube fringe, fringe binge, fanny fringe, block fringe, fringed unicorn, fringe wizzle, chocolate fringe, box fringe, fringe of darkness, fringe sleeper, fucking fringe & grunge fringe.  Especially in those with some anatomical reference, there may be some overlap in meaning but it remains an impressive list.

Slides from the research which identified the Beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase lunatic fringe gene (now called LFNG), an an essential mediator of somite segmentation and patterning.

In the science of genetics, “lunatic fringe” was too tempting to resist. As in many fields in science, the privilege of allocating a name for a gene is granted to whomever discovered it and those working on fruit flies and other creatures concocted, inter alia: Tinman (fruit flies with a mutated Tinman gene do not develop a heart); Casanova (Zebrafish with a mutation in the Casanova gene develops two hearts); INDY (I’m not dead yet (a reference to a line in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) a mutation in the INDY gene prolongs the lifespan of fruit flies; Cheap Date (fruit flies with a mutation in the Cheap Date gene become highly sensitive to alcohol); Dracula (Zebrafish with a mutated Dracula gene are hyper-sensitive to light and soon die; Sonic Hedgehog (Fruit fly embryos with mutated Sonic hedgehog gene develop spikes that resembles a hedgehog); Pinhead (a fruit fly gene which resembled humans colloquially called "pinheads"); Groucho Marx (a gene in metazoa that induces excess facial bristles); Ken & Barbie (Mutations in Ken and Barbie result in fruit flies without external genitalia; Grim & Reaper (the genes Grim & Reaper regulate the death process (apoptosis) in fruit flies).  Even the names of some of genes discovered in fruit fly (and other non-human) research proved to be controversial because so many were shared with humans and accordingly the Human Genome Organization’s (HUGO) gene naming committee was petitioned to change them.   As part of this linguistic sanitization, three christened during the decoding of the human genome (Lunatic Fringe, Manic Fringe & Radical Fringe) were anonymized respectively as LFNG, MFNG & RFNG.

Lunatic Fringe, Canterbury, England.

In parts of the English-speaking world, it’s not uncommon to find a hairdressing salon called Lunatic Fringe but it’s less common in North America where the preferred term for what in the UK, Australia etc was traditionally called a fringe, is “bangs”.  Under the influence of social media and other cultural exports, the Americanism has spread and bangs is now commonly heard everywhere and it’s proved technically useful for professional hairdressers who often distinguish between the classic fringe and a variety of cuts called bangs (which might be considered partial fringes), typically a cut which involves some strands cut short in front of the face or longer, usually thicker strands at the sides to “frame the face”.  The origin of the use of “bangs” in this context is mysterious, some claiming it was a clipping of the hairdresser’s phrase “bang off” which meant to cut the hair in front of the face short, straight & even while others suggest a link with “bang tail”, a dressage cut done to horsetails for equestrian events where the tail hairs would be cut straight across.

Lindsay Lohan with fringe cut with the alluring “dangling in the eyes” look, known as early as 1875 as "the lunatic fringe" (left), in costume as Cleopatra in Liz & Dick (2012) with straight cut fringe (centre) and with curtain bangs which are layered but not quite a bottleneck (right).

There is art & science associated with bangs because not all variations suit all face shapes and certainly aren’t suitable (or even technically possible) with all types of hair.  Additionally, some really work only if complementary makeup is applied but the core base for the decision is almost always the shape of the face, particularly the curve of the jaw-line and essentially they pivot from four points: above the brows, at eye level, at cheekbone level and at the jaw-line.  As a general principle, the hairdresser’s four point rule for bangs is (1) square or heart-shaped faces look best with something wispier or feathered fringe to add softness, (2) oblong face shapes work well with blunt-cut bangs, (3) round faces can gain the effect of elongation with side-swept or curtain bangs and (4) oval-shaped faces will usually accommodate any bang.  In the jargon of professionals there are curtain bangs, bottleneck bangs, blunt bangs, curly bangs, side-swept bangs, layered bangs, choppy bangs, braided bangs, wispy bangs, wavy bangs, micro bangs, shaggy bangs, piecey bangs, JBF bangs & clip-in bangs.

Ali Lohan (b 1993) photographed with her pregnant sister wearing Sandal-Malvina Fringe Tank Dress (left).  The shoes are Alexandre Birmen Clarita Platforms although, as the pregnancy progresses, the Instagram feed can be expected increasingly to feature sensible and comfortable footwear such as Nike’s Air Vapormax Multicolor sneakers (right).

Fringe “festivals” (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe et al).are events which “piggy-back” on mainstream “official” events (Edinburgh Festival; Adelaide Festival et al).  They began as “pirate events” but often became so popular they really came to be considered part of the event and schedules of both came to be designed in conjunction.  The notion of them being “fringe” referenced (1) their components being exhibited or preformed not in the main performance spaces but in places on the periphery and (2) their content being (allegedly) avant-garde (“edgy” in arty talk) or too controversial to be staged in the main event.

Theodore Roosevelt in fringed jacket with Winchester Model 1876, customized with a half-round octagonal barrel, pistol grip, deluxe checkered wood, case-hardened receiver and a shotgun-style butt.

The “lunatic fringe” is really not a phrase from political science (although not a few academics seem to enjoy using it); and in this context it was coined by a politician and is a favorite in popular journalism.  Although many dictionaries early in the twentieth century are said to have described “lunatic fringe” as “a splendidly prejudicial British phrase, with its suggestion of hair dragged villainously low over the forehead or edging the circumference of the face in the way that magistrates disapprove of”, it seems first to have been used of political matters by Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in a letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) on 4 November 1913.   In the letter, he wrote: “I have got some very amusing letters from the lunatic fringe. . . . It is extraordinary how they take hold of people who are just a little mad themselves.”

Lindsay Lohan with "lunatic fringe".

Thereafter, the phrase became widely known and has since been used of extremist groups or individuals with radical or unconventional views.  It’s in a sense a successor to the way “ultra” was earlier used (ultimately as both noun and adjective) as a prefix (ultra-Tory, ultra-revolutionary etc) before emerging in its own right as a “curtailed word”.  In modern use, it’s handy in that it’s politically agnostic: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) could say of his Democratic Party challenger, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) that he was “…a candidate that will destroy this country and he may not do it himself. He will be run by a radical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country” as effortlessly as earlier Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) could describe the Republican Party’s Tea Party faction as “… a lunatic fringe which the Republican leadership should reign in or else the country would suffer.”  However, although President Roosevelt may have thought he was coining something original, some forty years earlier the phrase had some currency among hairdressers in West Virginia, the Wheeling Daily Register in July 1875 reporting “…lunatic fringe is the name given to the fashion of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang down over the forehead.”

Gundeck

Gundeck (pronounced guhn-dek)

(1) Historically, on warships of the sail era, any deck (other than the weather deck) having cannons in permanent place from end to end.

(2) As gundecking, navy slang for falsifying records (now used also in merchant and other commercial shipping) and a synonym of “pencil whip” (to falsify records to convey the impression tasks have been completed).

1670–1680: The construct was gun + deck. Gun (in this context) was from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English gunne & gonne (an engine of war that throws rocks, arrows or other missiles from a tube by the force of explosive powder or other substance), from the “Lady Gunilda”, a very big crossbow with a powerful shot, the second element of the term from the Old Norse.  Originally restricted to the largest of projectile-launchers, “gun” was later applied to all firearms, pistols beginning to be described thus from circa 1745 although the military resisted the spread, preferring to restrict “gun” to mounted cannons, especially the big, long-barrelled (almost always big-bore) devices used with high velocity and long trajectory shells.  Hence the phrase “great guns” (used by both the army & navy) which were distinguished from small arms (muskets, pistols, rifles) and most western militaries still insist pistols are “side arms” rather than guns.  The idiomatic uses seem all to be modern: The use to describe a “thief or rascal: dates from 1858, the phrase “jumping the gun” was US English from 1812 which referenced a sporting competitor anticipating the starter’s pistol and “guns” to mean “a woman’s breasts” is said to be from as recently as 2006, the coining presumably because it was felt there weren’t a sufficient number of slang terms to use in anatomical tribute.  The origin of “son of a gun” is contested.  One theory suggests it dates from the eighteenth century when women sometimes accompanied sailors on long voyages, giving (as seems inevitable) birth on board, the most convenient place being the space between the cannons on the gundeck.  Such a child would therefore be called a “son of a gun” although this doesn’t account for the girls, the explanation for that perhaps as simple as “daughter of a gun” not so effortlessly rolling of the tongue.  There is no documentary evidence to support this and most etymologists appear to suggest the phrase was merely a euphemism for the vulgar “son of a bitch”.  Best of all however was the US Civil War (1861-1865) era story which in which “son of a gun” was used to explain a young lady’s otherwise inexplicable pregnancy by claiming a fired musket ball had passed through a man’s testicle before lodging in her ovaries.  There has never been any medical support for the theory but it’s not impossible the explanation was accepted (if not actually believed), south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The construct of the name Gunnhildr (of which there are many variations) was the Old Norse gunnr (battle, war), from the primitive Indo-European gwhen- (to strike, kill) + hildr (battle), which technically creates a pleonasm but the duplication may be related to the wish to emphasise the size of the weapon.  The linguistic technique is noted in other languages such as that of the Darkinjung people (the original inhabitants of a part of costal New South Wales (NSW), Australia) in which the word for “water, pond etc” was woy and their name for a large body of water was woy woy (which endures as the name of the town Woy Woy, situated next to a deep tidal channel).  In a military context, the woman's name meant “battle maid”, some of the variations (Hilda, Gunilda, Gunhild, Gunhilda, Gunnhildr et al) familiar from Wagnerian interpretations.  Another Middle English adaptation of the women’s name Gunilda was gonnilde (cannon) and it appears also in a military stocktake (written in Anglo-Latin), a munitions inventory of Windsor Castle dating from 1330: “... una magna balista de cornu quae Domina Gunilda ...”  In the usual military manner, ancillary pieces picked up names associated with their primary device, hence the early fourteenth century gonnilde gnoste (spark or flame used to fire a cannon).  Something which might provide some insight into the (male) military mind is the frequency with which women’s names were used of the most extraordinarily powerful artillery pieces (Mons Meg, Big Bertha, Brown Bess et al).  The other influence on the development of the word may have been the Old French engon, a dialectal variant of engin (engine), the word engine’s original meaning better understood as something like “machine” or “constructed device”.

Deck (in this context) was from the mid-fifteenth century Middle English dekke (covering extending from side to side over part of a ship), from a nautical use of the Middle Dutch dec & decke (roof, covering), from the Middle Dutch decken, from the Old Dutch thecken, from the Proto-West Germanic þakkjan, from the Proto-Germanic þakjaną and related to the German Decke (covering, blanket) and the Proto-Germanic thakam (source also of the noun thatch), from the primitive Indo-European root steg & teg- (to cover).  It was thus a doublet of thatch and thack.  In English, the sense was soon extended by the Admiralty from “covering” to “platform of a ship” and the apparently mysterious use from the 1590s meaning “the pack of playing cards necessary to play a game” may have been an allusion to the cards being stacked like the decks of a big ship.  In audio engineering, the tape deck was first documented in 1949, apparently a reference to the flat surface of the old reel-to-reel tape recorders.  Dating from 1844, the deck chair gained its name from their well-publicized use on ocean liners.  The phrase “on deck” was an old admiralty term (famously “all hands on deck”) meaning “ready for action or duty” and by the 1740s it had entered general (non-nautical) use, in the US by 1867 entering the lexicon of baseball in the sense of “a batter waiting a turn at the plate”  The phrase “clear the desks” is now used in many contexts (and a favourite in corporate jargon) but originally was an instruction during a sea-battle to remove from the deck of a ship the wreckage of the engagement (downs masts, sails & spars, the dead and injured etc) which might interfere with a renewal of action.  Perhaps surprisingly, it’s documented only since 1852 but was likely to have been in use at sea for generations and it may be a variation of the French débarasser le pont. (clear the bridge).

Ships of the line

HMS Victory’s 32 Pounders on the Lower Gundeck.

Over time, warships evolved from two or three masted galleons into big, multi-decked affairs, the largest of which (those which would evolve into the dreadnoughts and the successor battleships of the twentieth century) were known as “ships of the line” which would form the backbone of the Western world’s great navies between the seventeen and nineteenth centuries before they gave way to the steam-power.  The idea of the “ship of the line” and the gundeck were intertwined because naval combat evolved into a fighting formation called the “line of battle” in which the opposing fleets manoeuvred to form lines so the guns could be fired in broadside (a simultaneous discharge of all the guns arrayed on one side of a ship).  Physics dictated the advantage in battle lay with the biggest ships with the biggest guns, thus the appearance of ships of the line with two, three or even four gundecks.  Of course, as decks with heavy guns were added, the centre of gravity rose and the need to find the optimal compromise balancing speed, stability and firepower preoccupied naval architects.

Model of HMS Royal William (1719), built as a First Rate (100 gun) triple-gundecked ship of the line, it only ever saw active service as a second and third rate ship.

By the turn of the eighteenth century, the definitive shape of a ship of the line had emerged.  The galleons protruding aft superstructure had been abandoned and they could displace as much as 2000 tons and be 200 feet (60 m) in length with crews of 500-800 sailors.  The cannons were arrayed along the (typically) three gundecks, the 30-odd heaviest guns (32-48 lb) on the lower gundeck, a similar number of 20-24 pounders in the middle with 24-30 12 pounders on the upper, the allocation reflecting the naval architects’ concerns with weight distribution.  The Royal Navy, rated it ships of the line according to firepower, the categories being third rate (up to 70 guns), second rate (70-100 guns) & first rate (over 100 guns) but the admirals were also realists, Lord Nelson (1758-1805) reckoning that on shore, a 12-gun fort could hold its own against a 100 gun ship of the line, a lesson which had apparently been forgotten when in 1915 some pre-dreadnoughts were sent to bombard the fortifications on the Gallipoli Peninsular when an unsuccessful attempt was made to force the straits of the Dardanelles and take Constantinople.

Gundecking

The term “gundecking” was naval slang for the falsification of records (and a synonym of “pencil whip”).  The origin of the tem is speculative but the most plausible explanation is said to relate to midshipmen (the lowest rung of the navy’s commissioned ranks) on the gundeck performing their celestial navigation tasks which (three time a day), were used to determine a ship's position using the morning star sights, the noon sun line, and the evening star sights.  However, not all midshipmen were as diligent as their captain would have hoped and rather than completing the dreary business of computing from fresh observations, simply reckoned the position on the basis of the speed and direction earlier recorded by their more contentious shipmates.  In other words, they made an educated guess and wrote down what they thought the numbers should be.  The term gundecking is now used to indicate the falsification of documentation in order to avoid doing the work required and in commercial shipping, the word is heard in cases which come before the courts.  There are stringent regulations which restrict how ships may process their bilge water (a truly disgusting mix of oil, water and sewerage) and on cruise ships with thousands of passengers there’s a lot of it and it’s an expensive business, ships’ engineers required to maintain hourly records of the purification processes prior to discharge into the open sea.  Because it costs a fraction as much to falsify the records and simply discharge the untreated bilge, some are tempted to “gundeck” the books and just open the valves on what is known as a “magic pipe” which is a straight line from bilge to ocean.  Fines in the order or US$40 million have been imposed so the costs of gundecking can be high.

Lindsay Lohan on community service, armed with a pair of ratchet loppers, gardening, Brooklyn Women's Shelter, New York City, 2015.

In 2015, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles found Lindsay Lohan had been doing a bit of gundecking in recording as “community service” the hours spent working with the charity group Community Service Volunteers (CSV) during the time she was in London appearing in a West End production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the-Plow (1988).  Some of the hours claimed were absorbed lobbying the US insurance company Esurance to donate US$10,000 (£6,440) to the CSV although a statement issued by CSV confirmed Ms Lohan had volunteered on the organisation's “Positive Futures” project, which works with teenagers in Hackney, adding “She has built strong relationships with the young volunteers she has worked with on the scheme.”  The community service order dates from traffic offences in 2012 and the judge found some of her activities in London, including “meeting & greeting” fans didn’t qualify as “community service” and ordered the gundecked hours be annulled with a further 125 hours to be performed.

Ratio

Ratio (pronounced rey-shoh (U) or rey-shee-oh (non-U))

(1) The relation between two similar magnitudes with respect to the number of times the first contains the second.

(2) The proportional relation; rate.

(3) In finance, the relative value of gold and silver in a bimetallic currency system.

(4) In mathematics, a quotient of two numbers or quantities.

(5) In western legal systems, the slang for ratio decidendi, the substantive part(s) of the judgment.

(6) In the metrics of the internet, the number of comments to a post or other expression on social media relative to the number of likes (a high ratio assumed to suggests disagreement with the contents of the original post).

1630–1640: From the Latin ratiō (a doublet of ration and reason) (a reckoning, account, numbering, derivation, calculation) from the base of rērī (to judge, think).  The original meaning in English, dating from the 1630s (reason, rationale, calculation, reckoning, numbering, calculation, judgment) mirrored the Latin practice while the mathematical sense "relationship between two numbers" is attested from the 1650s.  The use in theological texts in the sense of "reason, rationale" was a tribute to the original meaning in Latin (a reckoning, account, numbering, derivation, calculation), hence also the idea of "a business affair; course, conduct, procedure".  From this also emerged (in a transferred sense and applying to mental action), the meaning "reason, reasoning, judgment, understanding, that faculty of the mind which forms the basis of computation and calculation" (the ultimate origin of this being rat-, the past-participle stem of reri (to reckon, calculate (and also "to think, judge, believe), from the primitive Indo-European root re- (to think, reason, count).  The Latin ratio often was used to represent or translate the Greek logos (computation, account, esteem, reason) in works of philosophy, though the range of senses in the two do not wholly overlap because ratio lacks the essential "speech, word, statement" meaning which exists in the logos.  The familiar modern meaning "corresponding relationship between things not precisely measurable" had become common by the early nineteenth century.

Ratio Decidendi and Obiter Dictum

The ratio decidendi is a phrase in legal Latin meaning "reason (or rationale) for the decision” and the professional oral & verbal shorthand is ratio.  It’s the ratio decidendi which justifies the judgment and expresses the legal principle(s) which determine the outcome.  The ratio decidendi either creates or is consistent with legal precedent and in the common law’s hierarchical system, lower courts are required to follow precedents established by higher courts.

Obiter dictum the complimentary legal Latin phrase meaning "by the way" and the legal slag is variously dicta or (more commonly) obiter.  The obiter is the collective term for other substantive material in the judgment but not part of the reasoning for the decision, the remarks or observations made by a judge that do not form a necessary part of the decision.  There exists an informal test called the Wambaugh Inversion to determine whether a judicial statement is ratio or obiter.  This involves asking whether the decision would have been different, had the statement been omitted.  If so, the statement is crucial and is ratio; if not, it is obiter.  The rarely used plural for ratio is rationes decidendi whereas, because of the rules of Latin, obiter is used almost always in the plural as obiter dicta.  The difference between the ratio and the dicta is a most useful distinction but would be more helpful if judges could be prevailed upon to make if clear which is which; even bullet-point summaries would be handy.  One suspects many judges think themselves fine stylists of the language, a view not always shared by their captive audience.

B2BR: The bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio

Lindsay Lohan's bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio (B2BR), calculated by pinkmirror.com.  Her admirable B2BR ratio of 1.07 contributed to her overall beauty score of 8.5 (out of 10), putting her in the "beautiful" category.  The above image is rendered in the 1:2 aspect ratio of the DL envelope, favored by architects because the result is thought pleasing to the eye.  

Architects and engineers use all sorts of ratios in their calculations, some to improve aesthetic appeal and some to optimize specific strength.  In internal combustion engines, ratios are commonly used (compression ratio, connecting rod-to-stroke ratio et al) and in building design, the "DL envelope ratio" (1:2) references the standard DL envelope (110 x 220 mm; 4⅓ x 8⅔") which, when applied in architecture, is considered to produce a shape pleasing to the eye, apparently because it closely corresponds with the natural field of human vision.  In the beauty business there are also ratios, used predictably to compartmentalize various aspects of women's appearance so their degree of attractiveness can be reduced to a number.  The site pinkmirror.com helpfully provides an interactive analysis page, one component of which is the bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio (B2BR), a measure used in facial anthropometry (the study of facial measurements and proportions) and cosmetic and restorative surgery.  The B2BR compares the distance between the two temporal bones (bitemporal distance) with the distance between the two zygomatic bones (bizygomatic distance) in the face.  Notionally, the B2BR is set at 1:1 (a baseline for calculation purposes rather than an ideal) and if bitemporal distance is greater than that of the bizygomatic, the ratio will be greater than 1, indicating a relatively narrow midface whereas if the bizygomatic distance is greater, the ratio will be less than 1, indicating a relatively wide midface.  In medicine the B2BR is used as an indicative diagnostic tool which can be helpful in assessing certain genetic conditions that affect facial structure and in cosmetic & restorative surgery its used as one of the measures of facial proportions when planning treatments.  Some advanced systems in cosmetic facial surgery no use CAD (computer assisted design) software and 3D printing (essentially "prototyping" the "new" face) and the B2BR is one of the critical metrics used in both.

Null

Null (pronounced nuhl)

(1) Without value, effect, consequence, or significance; being or amounting to nothing; nil; lacking; nonexistent; something with a value or measure of zero; of or relating to zero.

(2) In electronics, a point of minimum signal reception, as on a radio direction finder or other electronic meter.

(3) In law, as null and void, without legal force or effect; not valid.

(4) In computing, Null (or NULL), a special marker and keyword in SQL (Structured Query Language) indicating that something has no value.

(5) In computing, the null character, the zero-valued ASCII character (also designated by NUL), often used as a terminator, separator or filler; this symbol has no visual representation; as null pointer (sometimes written NULL, nil, or None), used in computer programming for an uninitialized, undefined, empty, or meaningless value; as Null string, the unique string of length zero (in computer science and formal language theory).

(6) In computing, the null device, a special computer file (/dev/null on Unix systems) that discards all data written to it.

(7) In communications, as null modem, a specially wired serial communications cable.

(8) In mathematics, a zero value in several branches of the discipline including null set, a set that is negligible in some sense; of or relating to a set having no members or to zero magnitude; also an older term for the empty set.

(9) In physics, a point in a field where the field quantity is zero; as null vectors or curves in the causal structure of a Lorentzian manifold such as a Minkowski space-time.

(10) In statistics, as null hypothesis, a concept in hypothesis testing; companion concept is the null result, the absence of a hypothesized effect in the outcome of a scientific experiment

(11) In linguistics, as null (or zero) morpheme, a concept describing a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit in a language (a morpheme is not identical to a word) that has no phonetic form.

(12) In genetics, as null allele, a nonfunctional allele (a variant of a gene) caused by a genetic mutation.

(13) In political history as Stunde Null (a German military planning term meaning "Hour Zero"), a term referring to midnight on 8 May 1945 in Germany marking the end of World War II in Europe and the birth a new Germany (an attempt to dissociate post-war Germany from the Nazis).  The period immediately following this time is the Nachkriegszeit (the time after the war).

(14) One of the beads in nulled work (an ornamental craft producing work resembling beads strung on a rod).

1555–1565: From the Middle French nul, from the Latin nūllus from the Proto-Italic ne-oino-los from Proto-Italic oinos (one).  Synchronically nūllus was from ne (not) + ūllus (any) and thus meaning literally "not any".  The earlier form nulla (circa 1500), from the Italian nulla, from the Latin nūlla, feminine of nūllus (no one) was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ne, óynos & -lós.  Null is a noun, adjective & verb, nulled is a verb & adjective, nulling is a noun & verb, nullity, nullification & nullificationist are nous and nullify, nullified & nullifying are verbs; the common nouns plural are nulls and nullings.

Null Island.

Null Island is an imaginary island located at 0°N 0°E (thus “Null”, zero being one of null’s synonyms) in the South Atlantic Ocean, the point at which equator crosses the prime meridian.  It’s not clear when Null Island was first “discovered” but it delighted many when in 2011 it appeared on Natural Earth, a public domain map dataset created by volunteer cartographers and GIS (geographic information system) analysts.  A modest 1m² "land mass" (actually a buoy) located at 0°N 0°E in the digital dataset, Null Island was intended to help analysts flag errors in geocoding.  Somewhat analogous with the DNS (Domain Name System) which maintains a relationship between IP (Internet Protocol) addresses (which with computer networks communicate) and the familiar website names (which real people use), geocoding is a process which converts a physical address (such as a street address) into geographic coordinates, the most familiar of which are latitude and longitude.  It permits address to appear on digital maps and enables location-based services and applications to be integrated and distributed, mapping, navigation & advertising services depending on the system.  Of late, a particularly helpful application of the service has been the tracking of the spread of diseases. 

IBM & Null

In 1981, IBM explained why, in file systems, null had to exist in every directory (now often called folders).  If null didn’t exist, IBM maintained, operating systems wouldn’t necessarily be able to determine which were empty.  Advances in operating systems over forty-odd years, mean that’s no longer a problem but with the technology available in 1981, some of it dating back decades, the issue was real.  IBM also published what turned out to be a prescient vision of what became the widely distributed file systems of the internet, spread across continents, running on disparate hardware and operating systems yet able still functionally and administratively to interact.  Modern programming languages still take advantage of the existence (or non-existence) of null.  Below is a Python script to both check if a directory is empty and also check for exceptional situations such as a directory not existing.

import os
def main():
    dirName = '/home/varun/temp';
    '''
        Check if a Directory is empty and also check exceptional situations.
    '''   
    if os.path.exists(dirName) and os.path.isdir(dirName):
        if not os.listdir(dirName):
            print("Directory is empty")
        else:   
            print("Directory is not empty")
    else:
        print("Given Directory don't exists")
    '''
        Check if a Directory is empty : Method 1
    '''   
    if len(os.listdir('/home/varun/temp') ) == 0:
        print("Directory is empty")
    else:   
        print("Directory is not empty")
    '''
        Check if a Directory is empty : Method 2
    '''   
    if not os.listdir('/home/varun/temp') :
        print("Directory is empty")
    else:   
        print("Directory is not empty")
    print ("****************")
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
Output:
Directory is empty
Directory is empty
Directory is empty

In the commercial art business, if no frame is chosen, the order is tagged "Null Frame".

In computer programming, the "null frame" is a data packet containing no useful information and existing usually for the purposes of (1) maintaining an open comms channel or (2) as a marker for an end of transmission.  Null Frames are often used in conjunction with “heartbeat” (or “keepalive”) markers which provide a visual symbol indicating a connection remains active.  However, because null frames can be of variable size, they’re of use also as markers of the addressable space available in memory or buffers.  While there are other ways of doing this, null frames provide information about resource availability while themselves consuming almost no resources.  In the commercial art business, the expression “null frame” is used to indicate the customer has specified the product be supplied unframed.

Horology

Horology (pronounced haw-rol-uh-jee)

(1) The science of time.

(2) The art and science of making timepieces or measuring time.

(3) In Orthodox Christianity, the office-book of the Greek Church for the canonical hours.

1852: The construct was the Ancient Greek hōro (combining form of hṓra (hour; part of the day; any period of time)) + -logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  Descents of the Greek hōro came into use in many languages including the Hebrew הוֹרָה‏ (hóra), the Romanian horă and the Turkish while from the Modern Greek χορό (choró) (accusative of χορός (khorós) (dance)) came Hora, a circle dance popular in the Balkans and Israel. In Late Latin, the derived form was horologium.

Between the early sixteen and nineteenth centuries the meaning was restricted to describing clocks or their dials by at least 1820 reference books were noting “term horology is at present more particularly confined to the principles upon which the art of making clocks and watches is established”.  The earlier sense in English reflected the inheritance from the Latin horologium (instrument for telling the hour (and in Medieval Latin “a clock”), from the Ancient Greek hōrologion (instrument for telling the hour (ie the sundial; water-clock et al), from hōrologos (telling the hour).  Horological was used as early as 1590s, horologiography (the art or study of watches and timepieces) by the 1630s and the first horologists (the practitioners of horologiography) appeared to have emerged (or at least first advertised themselves) in 1795.  The noun horologe (a clock or sundial) is long obsolete.  Horology, horologiography & horologist are nouns, horological is an adjective and horologically is an adverb; the noun plural is horologists.

Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.  It’s daily reset point is now midnight but, in the past, it has been set from different times including at noon and for this reason, if GMT is of substantive importance in some historic document, it’s sometimes necessary to determine which method of calculation applied at the time.  Because of Earth's uneven angular velocity in its elliptical orbit and its axial tilt, noon (12:00:00) GMT is rarely the exact moment the Sun crosses the Greenwich meridian and reaches its highest point in the sky.  The event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, a discrepancy included in the calculation of time: noon GMT is thus the annual average (ie "mean") moment of this event, which accounts for the "mean" in GMT.  In the English-speaking world, GMT is often used as a synonym for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and while this is close enough for many practical purposes, in the narrow technical sense GMT is now a time zone rather than time’s absolute reference.  For navigation, it is considered equivalent to UT1 (the modern form of mean solar time at 0° longitude); but this meaning can differ from UTC by up to 0.9 seconds so GMT should no longer be used for purposes demanding a high degree of precision.

Shepherd Gate (slave) Clock, Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

The Shepherd gate clock is installed at the gates of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and was the first clock ever to display GMT to the public.  It is a “slave clock”, hardwired to the Shepherd “master clock” which was first commissioned at the observatory in 1852.  One obviously unusual aspect of the gate clock is that it has 24 hours on its face rather than the typical 12, thus at 12 noon the hour hand is points straight down rather than up.  In digital timepieces are common and the user often has the choice of a 12 or 24 hour format by in analogue devices they’re historically rare although Ford Australia did include one as a novelty in the first series of its locally produced LTD & Landau (1973-1976).  The clock remained a one-off.

Lindsay Lohan wearing Rolex Datejust Blue Diamond.  Ms Lohan has a number of Rolexes and some watch sites have noted her preferences for the larger, chunkier men's versions.  That larger face is certainly easier to read but some also prefer the more extravagant look.

Between 1852-1893, the Shepherd master clock was the baseline of the UK’s system of time, its time was sent over telegraph wires to London and many other cities including some in Ireland and from 1866, the signal was also relayed to a clock in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, along the new transatlantic submarine cable.  One of history’s most significant clocks, it originally indicated astronomical time, in which the counting of the 24 hours of each day starts at noon though this was later changed to starts at midnight.  It continues to show GMT and is never adjusted for daylight saving time.