Muppet

Muppet (pronounced mup-it)

(1) A usually derogatory slang term for somebody conspicuously stupid (never capitalised).  Can be used affectionately and references intelligence; distinct from cultural references such as bogan, chav, redneck etc although they can (indeed sometimes should) be used in conjunction.

(2) Any puppet character so named in various TV programmes (always capitalised).

1955: The Muppets were created by puppeteer Jim Henson (1936-1990) who variously would claim the word was (1) a construct of m(arionette) + (p)uppet and (2) it had no specific etymology and was coined because he liked the sound.  The US trademark dates from 1972 with usage claimed from 1971 (and in print from 1970) and the eponymous US network TV programme was broadcast between 1976-1981.  Well-scripted and meta-referential, Muppets aren’t stereotypically stupid; the slang term apparently applied to dopy people because Muppets look stupid.  Use of the slang appears restricted to parts of the English-speaking world though not North America, having currency only in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

They are everywhere

Muppet & muppet: Kermit the frog with crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

The clusters are self-replicating; as one muppet departs, one or more appears and often, muppets reach critical-mass.  Think about it, at one time there must have been only a few muppets; now look how many there are.  Muppets are everywhere, seeming sometimes to populate whole streets or even suburbs.  In workplaces also they tend to cluster and there are corporations in which entire departments appear staffed by muppets.  Although low in productivity, muppet departments are harmonious workplaces and one muppet, witnessing some act of egregious stupidity by another, will playfully chide them, usually with the phrase “you muppet!”  That’s also often heard in shopping centre car-parks when muppets have locked their keys in the car or can’t remember where it’s parked.

Lindsay Lohan (left) with Telly the Muppet (right), The Letter Z Decides to Quit the Alphabet, Sesame Street (1995).

Boycott

Boycott (pronounced boi-kot)

(1) To combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion; the refusal to purchase the products of an individual, corporation, or nation as a way to apply social and political pressure for change.

(2) To abstain from buying or using.

1880: (in the sense described): Named after Charles Boycott, an estate manager in Ireland, against whom nonviolent coercive tactics were used in 1880.  The surname, recorded as Boycott and Boykett, is both English and Irish, although the origins are the same.  It appears originally to have been locational from Boycott, either in Berkshire or Shropshire, derived from “Boia's cot” (Boia a pre-seventh century Old English term of personal endearment for a boy or young man).  Boycott is a proper noun, boycott is a noun & verb, boycotting is a noun & verb, boycotter, boycottism & boycottage are nouns, boycotted is a verb; the noun plural is boycotts.

Origin

Captain Charles Boycott (1832–97) was an English land agent for an absentee landlord in County Mayo, Ireland.  In 1880, after a year of bad harvests, the landlord offered his tenants what he considered a generous 10% reduction in their rents.  The tenants however thought this parsimonious and demanded a 25% reduction which was rejected and Captain Boycott was dispatched to evict the revolting tenants.  About the same time, the period which came to be known as the Irish “land war”, Irish nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), a member of the Irish Land League, had proposed dealing with landlords and land agents through a peaceful form of social ostracism rather than resorting to violence, suggesting the local community should simply ignore the land agents and conduct no business with them.

Former England cricket captain Geoffrey Boycott (b 1940), Headingley, Leeds, 1977, playing a rare defensive shot.

As news of Boycott’s evictions spread, he found himself isolated within the local community and, despite the immediate economic consequences, his workers stopped working in his fields, stables and house, local businessmen no longer traded with him and the postman refused to deliver his mail.  Because of these actions, Boycott faced financial peril because nobody would harvest the crops, forcing him to bring in fifty workers and an escort of almost a thousand armed police and soldiers to guard them, the cost of these measures exceeding the value of the harvest.  Following the harvest, the boycott on Boycott was sustained and the new use of the word spread quickly, the New York Tribune applying the term in 1880, The Spectator the following year.  It has entered other languages, being used sometimes in French, German, Spanish, Italian and even Japanese (ボイコット (Boikotto)).

The boycott can be an effective tactic which can be applied in diplomacy, commerce or politics, the boycotting of elections a widely used tactic.   

Historically and by convention, a boycott is an action by an individual or a community whereas such programmes pursued by states tend to be known as embargos or sanctions.  An interesting hybrid, designed to encourage individuals, institutions and states, is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led pressure group, formed in 2005, with a stated objective to force Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.

Hostage

Hostage (pronounced hos-tij)

(1) A person given as a pledge or security for the performance of the conditions of a treaty or similar agreement, such as to ensure the status of a vassal.

(2) A person seized in order to compel another party to act (or refrain from acting) in a certain way, because of the threat of harm to the hostage.

(3) A security or pledge (obsolete).

(4) The condition of a hostage.

(5) To give someone as a hostage (rare).

1225–1275: From the Middle English hostage & ostage, from the eleventh century Old French hostage & ostage (kindness, hospitality; residence, dwelling; rent, tribute; compensation; guarantee, pledge, bail; person given as security or hostage (and ôtage (hostage) persists in Modern French)) of uncertain origin although most etymologists favor the Vulgar Latin obsidāticum (state of being a hostage; condition of being held captive), from the Latin obsid- (stem of obses (hostage)), the construct being ob- (before) + sid- (the base of sedere (to sit)) + -āticum (the suffix used (1) to form nouns indicating pertinence to the root verb or noun & (2) to form nouns indicating a state of being resulting from an action).  There is a (less supported) alternative etymology which traces hostage back to a construct from the Old French hoste (host) + -age (the sense development from “taking someone in and offering them lodging” to “taking someone in and holding them captive”.  The initial “h” was added to the Latin obses (hostage) under some influence which may have been the Old French hoste or the Latin hostis.  The word displaced the Old English ġīsl.  In idiomatic use, the phrase “hostage” to fortune historically had different meanings on either side of the Atlantic.  In the UK it meant “an action, promise, or remark that is considered unwise because it could be difficult to later to fulfill one’s obligations (even if merely implied)”.  In North America, it conveys the idea of “a person (or institution) whose fate is seen as dependent on chance or luck”.  Hostage & hostageship are nouns and hostaged & hostaging are nouns; the noun plural is hostages.

Swapped for one of Moscow’s hostages: Viktor Bout in Thailand.

The hostage negotiator is now a recognized specialist category in law enforcement and there are also many in the private sector, engaged usually on an ad hoc basis as needed.  The taking of hostages, although use of the word spiked only in the 1970s as the hijacking of civilian airliners became a popular means of pursuing political agendas, is ago old and during certain periods was institutionalized as an accepted part of how conflicts were executed.  Nothing new then but of late, some regimes have become more blatant in the way “hostage diplomacy” is done, making only the most perfunctory gestures towards adding a veneer of legal legitimacy to what is essentially the tactic of gangsters.  Some cases have attracted some public attention such as the exchange by Moscow of one of their American hostages for Viktor Bout (b 1967) a Russian arms trader apparently of Ukrainian origin and one of the great characters who flourished in the chaos which prevailed after the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Whether it was grenade launchers, government officials subject to UN sanctions or frozen chickens, all through Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Viktor Bout’s air-freight operation gained the reputation of delivering the goods as described, on time and at the price quoted, international sanctions and embargos no obstacle.  Unfortunately, he strayed too closely to the claws of Western law enforcement agencies and ended up being extradited to the US where he was convicted of this and that and sentenced to a 25 year term, ten of which he served before he was exchanged in a swap.

Held us hostage” is now a commonly used phrase applied to the tactics or antics of trade unions, film stars, Meghan Markle, minority political parties and anyone else who proves difficult.

US diplomat and historian George Kennan (1904-2005) is best remembered for the “Long Telegram” he sent from Moscow in 1946, warning the State Department of the possible implications of Soviet policy and advocating the US adopt its own policies to contain Soviet expansion.  He also published widely on other aspects of US foreign policy including an assessment of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), early in the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and while he held the Chinese in high regard (he thought them “…probably the most intelligent, man for man, of the world’s peoples”), he thought “…no good could come of any closer relationship between the US and China” and he was little more enthusiastic about the rival Kuomintang government established by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Formosa (Taiwan), regarded to this day by Beijing as a renegade province.  To support his views, he made four points which, some seven decades on, sound remarkably modern and probably familiar to diplomats in many chancelleries and embassies:

(1) The Chinese were, as a people, intensely xenophobic and arrogant.  Their attitude towards the foreigner and his world, based as it was on the concept of China as the “Middle Kingdom” and the view of the foreigner as a barbarian, was essentially offensive to other peoples and did not provide a basis for satisfactory international relations, other than ones of the most distant sort.

(2) He noted it seemed clear the Chinese, despite the highly civilized nature of their normal outward behavior, were capable of great ruthlessness when they considered themselves to be crossed.  How he thought in this Peking much differed from Washington & London he didn’t explore but he nevertheless found admirable many of their best qualities including industriousness, honesty in commerce, practical astuteness and political acumen.  Where he found the national character lacking was in their lack of two attributes of the Western Christian mentality: the capacity of pity and the sense of sin though intriguingly he conceded the possession of these both qualities induced weakness rather than strength in the Western character.  Presumably, he added, the Chinese were all the more formidable for their lack but this was a reason to afford them a healthy but wary respect, not to idealize them or seek intimacy in our relationship with them.

(3) His third observation was that of the pragmatic diplomat.  While the Chinese were often ready to make practical arrangements of an unwritten nature and usually ones that could at will be reversed if that suited their purposes, they were never prepared to yield on matters of principle.  Occasionally, they would consent, were sufficient pressure applied, to allow others to do certain things provided they were able to insist that there was no actual right to act in such a way.  In other words, at least in theory, China was always in the right, others in the wrong.  Kennan thought this an expression of national arrogance that augured badly for really good relations with any outside power.

(4) Finally, there was the matter of hostage taking although it’s clear from his writing that he was somewhat in awe of the skill and success in the subtlety of their gangsterism.  Over decades he noted, the Chinese had corrupted a large proportion of the Americans who had anything to do with them and the longer these visitors resided there, the greater the risk.  He was anxious to point out this corruption wasn't always, or even usually, financial, deciding it was something far more insidious, the Chinese infinitely adept at turning foreign visitors and residents (even diplomats) into hostages.  Then, with their superb combination of delicacy and ruthlessness, they would extract the maximum in the way of blackmail or ransom for giving them the privilege either of leaving the country or remaining, whichever it might be they most desired.  It all sounds remarkably modern.

Calorie

Calorie (pronounced kal-uh-ree)

(1) In thermodynamics (called also the gram calorie or small calorie), an amount of heat equal to 4.1840 or 4.1868 joules (depending on definitional table used); the standard abbreviation is cal.

(2) In physiology, a unit equal to the kilocalorie, used to express the heat output of an organism and the fuel or energy value of food.

(3) A quantity of food capable of producing such an amount of energy.

1819: From the French calorie, from the Latin calor (genitive caloris) (heat), from the primitive Indo-European kle-os- (a suffixed form of the root kele- (warm)), the construct being calor- + -ie (the noun suffix).  The suffix -ie was a variant spelling of -ee, -ey & -y and was used to form diminutive or affectionate forms of nouns or names.  It came to be used also (sometimes in a derogatory sense) to form colloquial nouns signifying the person associated with the suffixed noun or verb (eg bike: bikie, surf: surfie, hood: hoodie etc).  The now obsolete spelling was calory.  The phrase calorie-counting (or calorie-watching), describing a more “scientific” approach to weight-regulation, dates from 1908.  Calorie is a noun, caloric is a noun & adjective and calorific is an adjective; the noun plural is calories.

Rendered obsolete by experimental progress in the mid-nineteenth century, caloric theory held that the phenomenon of heat could be described as a self-repellent fluid (caloric) that flowed from hotter to colder substances or objects.  In fluid dynamics, caloric was also held to be a weightless gas able to pass in and out of pores in solids and liquids.  It was replaced by the mechanical theory of heat but didn’t completely disappear even from scientific literature until early in the twentieth century.  It’s that history which explains the duality of the meaning of the word “calorie”.  The kilogram calorie (known also as the food calorie, large calorie or dietary calorie) was originally defined as the quantity of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1000 grams (one kilogram) of water by 1^o Celsius (or one kelvin).  The gram calorie (known also as the small calorie) was the quantity of heat raise the temperature of one gram of water by the same 1^o; the relationship between the small & large calorie thus mirrors that of the gram & kilogram: 1:1000.  Both definitions of calorie are from the 1800s: the small in the early years, the large late in the century (recorded by 1866 in French & 1870 in German.

Until relatively recently, in science (mostly physics, chemistry and other fields in which fluid dynamics matter), the gram calorie was used as a unit of measurement (and in the vernacular was “the calorie”, the kilocalorie referenced when necessary) but it was never formally made part of the metric system (SI) and has for almost all purposes been rendered obsolete by the standard SI unit of energy: the joule.  For decades there were inconstancies in the way different bodies expressed the “conversion rate” between calories and joules but in both thermochemistry and nutrition, one small calorie is now held to equal to exactly 4.184 joules, one kilocalorie thus 4184 J (4.184 kJ as expressed by nerds).  Only in the industrial production of food is there still some attachment to the old (4.1840) value, reflected in product packaging although European Union (EU) legislation now insists on the use of “kilocalorie” on labels for consumer products.  In nutrition and food production, the term calorie (usually expressed with the standard abbreviation “cal”) refers almost always to the kilocalorie and is a (more-or-less) standardized expression of the energy value of foods (usually in terms of the (1) the whole packet or quantity in which it’s supplied, (2) a nominal “standard serving” or (3) a standardized metric (eg per 100 grams).  Although sometimes misunderstood, the unit is measure of the energy released by food as it is digested by the human body.

Lindsay Lohan during her early century, peak calorie-counting period.

Although it’s something of a blunt-force measure which doesn’t of necessity correlate with an ideal nutritional intake, the World Health Organization (WHO) and many national and sub-national bodies have issued guidelines for daily calorie intake based on age, sex, activity level, and other factors.  The WHO cautions their recommendations are merely part of the calculations which should be made when constructing healthy diets and calorie counts should be thought a framework for a nutritional model.  The WHO suggests that as a general principle, an average sedentary adult woman requires 1,800-2,200 while the equivalent man will need 2,200-2,700 although these approximations need to be read in conjunction with an assessment of an individual’s metabolism, body composition, and physical activity level.

Credo

Credo (pronounced kree-doh or krey-doh)

(1) The Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed (often initial capital letter).

(2) A musical setting of the creed, usually of the Nicene Creed (often initial capital letter).

(3) Any creed or formula of belief; doctrine, tenet, philosophy.

(4) Any formal or authorized statement of beliefs, principles, or opinions

1150–1200: From the Middle English credo (the Creed in the Church service), from the Latin crēdō (the first person singular present indicative of credere (to believe" (literally "I believe")), the first word of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds in Latin (Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae).  The Latin crēdō was from the Proto-Italic krezdō, from the primitive Indo-European compound kerd-dhe (literally "to place one's heart" (ie to trust, believe)), a compound phrase of oblique case form of ḱḗr (heart), also the root of the Latin cor- & deh- (to put, place, set) and the Latin faciō).  It was cognate with the Welsh credu (I believe), the Sanskrit श्रद्दधाति (śrad-dhā) (to trust, believe; faith, confidence, devotion) and the Old Irish creitid (believes (verb)).  In English the form was soon nativized as creed while the general sense of a "formula or statement of belief" emerged in the late sixteenth century.  One of the more quoted phrases from the epic poem The Aeneid (29-19 BC) by the Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) was experto crede ("take it from one who knows"), the construct the dative singular of expertus + the imperative singular of credere (to believe).  Credo is a noun; the noun plural is credos.

Intended as a basic, succinct statement of the faith, the Apostles’ Creed was structured according to the fundamental belief in the Trinity and the function particular to each of the three Persons:  The Father & creation; the Son & redemption; and the Holy Spirit & sanctification.  It was relatively short and simple, able to be memorized and recited even by the illiterate, an important tradition in times of persecution when it was part of the disciplina arcana (discipline of the secret) to be remembered and passed on orally as a protection against attack.

The Nicene Creed was produced by the Council of Nicea I (325) which was convoked to combat the heresy of Arius (who denied the divinity of Christ).  The Council wished firmly to confirm Christ was consubstantial (one in being) with God, sharing the same divine nature; begotten, not made or created; and that Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through her, Jesus Christ, true God, became also true man. 

Later, at the Council of Constantinople (381), the Church again not only affirmed its condemnation of Arianism but also of the Pneumatomachi (killers of the Spirit) who not only denied the divinity of Jesus but also the divinity of the Holy Spirit.  Thus the creed was expanded to clearly define the divinity of the Holy Spirit, adapting the text written in 374 by Saint Epiphanius of Salamis (circa 310-403).  This creed, officially entitled the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol, was introduced into the Mass circa 500.

Lindsay Lohan's daily skincare credo, the meaning enhanced in the modern way with emojis.

Enigma

Enigma (pronounced uh-nig-muh)

(1) A puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation; mysterious.

(2) A person of puzzling or contradictory character.

(3) A saying, question, picture, etc., containing a hidden meaning; riddle.

(4) A German-built enciphering machine developed for commercial use in the early 1920s and later adapted and appropriated by German and other Axis powers for military use through World War II (initial capital letter).

(5) In music, an orchestral work in fourteen parts, Variations on an Original Theme, Opus 36 (popularly known as the Enigma Variations) by Edward Elgar.

1530–1540: From the Late aenigmaticus, from aenigmat-, stem of aenigma (riddle), from the Ancient Greek verbal noun αἴνιγμα (aínigma) (dark saying; speaking in riddles), the construct being ainik- (stem of ainíssesthai (to speak in riddles), derivative of aînos (fable) + -ma, the noun suffix of result.  The sense of a "statement which conceals a hidden meaning or known thing under obscure words or forms" emerged in the 1530s although enigmate had been in use since the mid 1400s, under the influence of the Latin aenigma (riddle), the ultimate root of all being the ainos (tale, story; saying, proverb), a poetic and Ionic word, of unknown origin.  The modern sense of "anything inexplicable to an observer" is from circa 1600, the meaning also absorbing the earlier (1570s) enigmatical & enigmatically.  The derived forms are the adjectives enigmatic & enigmatical, adjective and the adverb enigmatically; enigmatic the most frequently used.  In modern English, the plural is almost always enigmas although some writing in technical publications continue to use enigmata although the once common alternative spelling ænigma is now so rare as to be probably archaic.  An enigma is something or someone puzzling, mysterious or inexplicable although use with the older meaning (a riddle) is still seen, indeed in some contexts the words are used interchangeably.  In idiomatic use in Spain, the character of an enigmatic soul is illustrated by by suggesting he’s the sort of fellow who “were one to meet him on a staircase, one wouldn’t be sure if he was going up or coming down”.  Enigma is a noun, enigmatic is an adjective and enigmatically is an adverb; the noun plural is enigmas.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations

English composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) wrote Variations on an Original Theme, Opus 36 during 1898-1899.  An orchestral work in fourteen parts, it’s referred almost always as the Enigma Variations, the enigma being the linkage to a certain piece of music is the theme.  Elgar famously wrote a dedication for the work "to my friends pictured within", each of the variations a sketch in musical form of some friend or acquaintance, including himself.  An enigma it remained, Elgar always secretive about the mysterious theme and the work has always defied the attempts of musicologists and other composers to deconstruct things to the point where a thematic agreement ensued although there have been theories and suggestions.

Lindsay Lohan in Enigma Magazine.

Mozart’s ‘Prague’ Symphony was one, the idea attractive because the slow movement fluctuates between G minor and G major, as does Enigma’s theme.  There were those who thought it might reference Auld Lang Syne as a veiled reference to a farewell to the nineteenth century, the variations completed in 1899.  The list went on, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; God Save The Queen; Martin Luther’s hymn tune Ein Feste Burg; Home, Sweet Home; Rule Britannia; the theme of the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata; various passages of scripture, Pop Goes The Weasel; a Shakespeare sonnet and, most recently added, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.  To add more mystery, the title "Enigma" didn’t appear on Elgar’s original score, added only after the papers had been delivered to the publisher and despite enquiries, the nature of the enigma he declined to discuss, saying only it was a "dark saying" which “must be left un-guessed”.  His reticence didn’t discourage further questions but his answers, if not cryptic, added little and the conclusion remained the theme was a counterpoint on some well-known melody which is never heard.

A fine recording is by the London Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult (1889-1983), (1970; Warner Classics 764 0152).

For over a century, just which tune has drawn the interest of musicians,  mathematicians & madmen for Elgar died without revealing the truth.  It’s been suggested artificial intelligence might be used to find the answer but there’s also the suspicion Elgar preferred the enigma to remain one and even if someone during his lifetime had cracked the code, he may have be disinclined to kill the mystique attached to the piece.  He had good reason to be fond of the fourteen variations.  It was the work which cemented his reputation internationally as a first rate composer and even today, some of the popularity probably lies in the impenetrability of the riddle.

Yalta

Yalta (pronounced yawl-tuh or yahl-tuh (Russian))

(1) A seaport in the Crimea, South Ukraine, on the Black Sea (In 2014, Moscow annexed Crimea).

(2) The second (code-name Argonaut) of the three wartime conferences between the heads of government of the UK, USA and USSR.

(3) A variant of chess played by three on a six-sided board.

From the Crimean Tatar Yalta (Я́лта (Russian & Ukrainian)), the name of the resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula, surrounded by the Black Sea.  Origin of the name is undocumented but most etymologists think it’s likely derived from the Ancient Greek yalos (safe shore), the (plausible) legend being it was named by Greek sailors looking for safe harbour in a storm.  Although inhabited since antiquity, it was called Jalita as late as the twelfth century, later becoming part of a network of Genoese trading colonies when it was known as Etalita or Galita.  The Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783, sparking the Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792. Prior to the annexation of the Crimea, the Crimean Greeks were moved to Mariupol in 1778; one of the villages they established nearby is also called Yalta.  Apparently unrelated are the Jewish family names Yalta & Yaltah, both said to be of Aramaic origin meaning hind or gazelle (ayala).

Yalta Chess

Yalta Conference, 1945.

Yalta chess is a three player variant of chess, inspired by the Yalta Conference (4-11 February 1945), the second of the three (Tehran; Yalta; Potsdam) summit meetings of the heads of government of the UK, US, and USSR.  The Yalta agenda included the military operations against Germany, the war in the far-east and plans for Europe's post-war reorganization.  The outcomes of the conference, which essentially defined the borders of the cold war, were controversial even at the time, critics regarding it as a demonstration of the cynical world-view of the power-realists and their system of spheres of influence.  In the seventy-five years since, a more sympathetic understanding of what was agreed, given the circumstances of the time, has emerged.

Yalta chess reflects the dynamics of the tripartite conference; three sides, allied for immediate military purposes but with very different histories, ideologies and political objectives, working sometimes in unison and forming ad-hoc table-alliances which might shift as the topics of discussion changed.  The whole proceedings of the conference are an illustration of a practical aspect of realpolitik mentioned by Lord Palmerston (1784–1865; UK Prime Minister, 1855–1858, 1859–1865) in the House of Commons on 1 March 1848: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies.  Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."  

One of many chess variants (including a variety of three-player forms, circular boards and a four-player form which was once claimed to be the original chess), Yalta chess shouldn’t be confused with three-dimensional chess, a two-player game played over three orthodox boards.  In Yalta Chess, the moves are the same as orthodox chess, except:

(1) The pawns, bishops and queens have a choice of path when they are passing the centre (the pawns just if they are capturing).

(2) The queen must be put to the left of the king.

(3) The knights always move to a square of another color.

(4) All disagreements about the rules are resolved by a majority vote of the players.  It’s not possible to abstain; at the start of the match it must be agreed between the players whether a non-vote is treated as yes or no.

(5) If a player puts the player to the right in check, the player to the left may try to help him.

(6) If a player checkmates another, he may use the checkmated player’s pieces as his own (after removing the king) but a second move is not granted.

(7) If all three players are simultaneously in check, the player forcing the first check is granted checkmate.

Carburetor

Carburetor (pronounced kahr-buh-rey-ter or kahr-byuh-yey-tor)

(1) A device for mixing vaporized fuel with air to produce a combustible or explosive mixture for use in the cylinder(s) or chambers of an internal-combustion engine.

(2) In the slang of drug users, a water pipe or bong; a device for mixing air with burning cannabis or cocaine (rare since the 1970s and then usually in the form “carb” or “carby”).

1866: From the verb carburate, from the Italian carburate (to mix (air) with hydrocarbons”), an inflection of carburare & the feminine plural of carburato.  As a transitive verb carburet was used mean “to react with carbon”.  Strangely, the exact origin of the word is uncertain but it was likely a portmanteau of carbon (in the sensor of a clipping of hydrocarbon) + burette (a device for dispensing accurately measured quantities of liquid).  The construct was carb (a combined form of carbon) + -uret (an archaic suffix from Modern Latin) (uretum to parallel French words using ure).  The earlier compound carburet (compound of carbon and another substance; now displaced by carbide) was from 1795 and it was used as a verb (to combine with carbon) after 1802.  The use with reference to the fuel systems used in the internal combustion engines of vehicles dates from 1896.  Carburator, carbureter and carburetter were the now obsolete earlier forms and the standard spelling in the UK, Australia & New Zealand is carburettor.  Carb & carby (carbs & carbies the plural) are the the universally used informal terms (gasifer was rare) and although most sources note the shortened forms weren’t recorded until 1942 it’s assumed by most they’d long been in oral use.  Outside of a few (declining) circles, “carb” is probably now more generally recognized as the clipping of carbohydrate.  Carburetor & carburetion are nouns; the noun plural is carburetors.

One carburetor: 1931 Supercharged Duesenberg SJ with 1 x updraft Stromberg (left; the exhaust manifold the rare 8-into-1 monel "sewer-pipe") (left), 1966 Ford GT40 (Mark II, 427) with 1 x downdraft Holly (centre; the exhaust headers were referred to as the "bundle of snakes") and 1960 Austin Seven (later re-named Mini 850) with 1 x sidedraft SU.

Except for some niches in aviation, small engines (lawnmowers, garden equipment etc) and for machines where originality is required (historic competition and restorations), carburetors are now obsolete and have been replaced by fuel-injection.  There is the odd soul who misses the challenge of tinkering with a carburetor, especially those with the rare skill to hand-tune multiple systems like the six downdraft Webers found on some pre-modern Ferraris, but modern fuel injection systems are more precise, more reliable and unaffected by the G-forces which could lead to fuel starvation.  Fuel injection also made possible the tuning of induction systems to produce lower emissions and reduced fuel consumption, the latter something which also extended engine life because all the excess petrol which used to end up contaminating the lubrication system stayed instead in the fuel tank.

Two carburetors: 1970 Triumph Stag with 2 x sidedraft Strombergs (left), 1960 Chrysler 300F with 2 x Carter downdrafts on Sonoramic cross-ram (long) manifold (centre) and 1969 Ford Boss 429 with 2 x Holly downdrafts on hi-riser manifold.

Until the 1920s, all but a handful of specialized devices were simple, gravity-fed units and that was because the engines they supplied were a far cry from the high-speed, high compression things which would follow.  In the 1920s, influenced by improvements in military aviation pioneered during World War I (1914-1918), the first recognizably “modern” carburetors began to appear, the conjunction of adjustable jet metering and vacuum controls replacing the primitive air valves and pressurized fuel supply mechanisms allowed engineers to use a more efficient “downdraft” design, replacing the “updraft” principle necessitated by the use of the gravity-feed.  Between them, the “downdraft” and “sidedraft” (a favorite of European manufacturers) would constitute the bulk of carburetor production.  The next major advance was the “duplexing” of the carburetor’s internals, doubling the number of barrels (known now variously as chokes, throats or venturi).  Although such designs could (and sometimes were) implemented to double the capacity (analogous with the dual-core CPUs (central processing units) introduced in 2005), the greatest benefit was that they worked in conjunction with what was known as the “180^o intake manifold”, essentially a bifurcation of the internals which allowed each barrel to operate independently through the segregated passages, making the delivery more efficient to the most distant cylinders, something of real significance with straight-eight engines.  Few relatively simple advances have delivered such immediate and dramatic increases in performance: When the system was in 1934 applied to the them relatively new Ford V8 (the “Flathead”), power increased by over 25%.

Three carburetors: 1967 Jaguar E-Type (XKE) 4.2 with 3 x sidedraft SUs (left), 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/C with 3 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1965 Pontiac GTO with 3 x downdraft Rochesters.

Advances however meant the demand for more fuel continued and the first solution was the most obvious: new manifolds which could accommodate two or even three carburetors depending on the configuration of the engine.  Sometimes, the multiple devices would function always in unison and sometimes a secondary unit would cut-in only on demand as engine speed rose and more fuel was needed, an idea manufacturers would perfect during the 1960s.  World War II (1939-1945) of course saw enormous advances in just about every aspect of the design of internal combustion engines (ICE) and carburetors too were improved but in a sense, the concept had plateaued and it was fuel-injection to which most attention was directed, that being something which offered real advantages in flight given it was unaffected by G-forces, atmospheric pressure or acrobatics, working as well in inverted as level flight, something no carburetor could match.

Four carburetors: 1973 Jaguar XJ12 (S1) with 4 x sidedraft Zenith-Strombergs (left; the Jaguar V12 was unusual in that the carburetors sat outside the Vee), 1976 Aston Martin V8 with 4 x downdraft Webers (centre; Aston Martin-Lagonda originally fitted the V8 with fuel injection but it proved troublesome) and 1965 Ford GT40 (X1 Roadster 1, 289) with 4 x downdraft Webers (right, again with the "bundle of snakes" exhaust headers).

After the war, like the chip manufacturers with their multi-core CPUs in the early 2000s, the carburetor makers developed four-barrel devices.  In Europe, the preference for multiple single or two barrel (though they tended to call them “chokes”) induction but in the US, by the early-1950s just beginning the power race which would rage for almost two decades, for the Americans the four-barrel was ideal for their increasingly large V8s although sometimes even the largest available wasn’t enough and the most powerful engines demanded with two four-barrels and three two-barrels.  It was in the 1950s too that fuel-injection reached road cars, appearing first in a marvelously intricate mechanical guise on the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198) Gullwing.  Others understood the advantages and developed their own fuel-injection systems, both mechanical and electronic but while both worked well, the early electronics were too fragile to be used in such a harsh environment and these attempts were quickly abandoned and not revisited until the revolution in integrated circuits (IC) later in the century.  Mechanical fuel-injection, while it worked well, was expensive and never suitable for the mass-market and even Mercedes-Benz reserved it for their more expensive models, most of the range relying on one or two carburetors.  In the US, Chevrolet persisted with mechanical fuel injection but availability dwindled until only the Corvette offered the option and in 1965 when it was made available with big-block engines which offered more power at half the cost, demand collapsed and the system was discontinued, the big engines fed either by three two barrels or one very large four barrel.

Five carburetors:  Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Cadillac V8 (left) with its unusual (and possibly unique) five-carburetor induction system; the layout (one in each corner, one in the centre) is a "quincunx", from the Latin quīncunx.  Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950 (right).  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed.  

Le Monstre was a much-modified 1950 Cadillac which ran at that year's Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic. one half of a two car team the other being a close to stock 1950 Cadillac coupe.  The idea behind the five carburettors was that by the use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre in-line five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was terminated and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost many laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful, reliable US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis began in 1973.

Six carburetors: 1979 Honda CBX with six sidedraft Keihins (left), 1965 Lamborghini P400 Miura (prototype chassis) with 6 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1970 Ferrari 365GTB/4 (Daytona) with 6 x downdraft Webers (right).

It was the development of these big four barrels which in the US reduced the place of the multiple systems to a niche reserved for some specialist machines and even the engineers admitted that for what most people did, most of the time, the multiple setups offered no advantage.  The research did however indicate they were still a selling point and because people were still prepared to pay, they stayed on the option list.  There were a handful of engines which actually needed the additional equipment to deliver maximum power but they were rare, racing derived units and constituted not even 1% of Detroit’s annual production.  Paradoxically, the main advantage of the multiple setups was economy, a six-barrel (ie 3 x two-barrel) engine running only on its central carburetor unless the throttle was pushed open.  As it was, the last of Detroit’s three-carb setups was sold in 1971, the configuration unable easily to be engineered to meet the increasingly onerous exhaust emission rules.

Eight carburetors: 1955 Moto Guzzi 500cm³ Ottocilindri V8 Grand Prix motorcycle with 8 x Dell'Ortos.  One carburetor per cylinder was long common practice in motorcycle design and the 1959 Daimler V8, designed along the lines of a motorcycle power-plant, was intended originally to be air-cooled and run 8 carburetors; the production versions were water-cooled and used 2 x sidedraft SUs.  The very though of keeping eight carburetors in sync would alarm most but in 1967, the Cooper-Maserati Formula One team, seeking that elusive quality of increased power and sustained reliability did ponder bolting a dozen Webers to what was by then their antiquated (pre-historic in F1 terms) 3.0 litre V12.  The idea never left the engineers' sketch pad.  

Lindsay Lohan admiring Herbie’s carburetors (Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)).