Beaufort

Beaufort (pronounced boh-fert) (U) or boh-fort (non-U))

(1) A standardized measure of wind speed.

(2) An Anglo-French Family name (of late, re-purposed as a forename).

(3) A World War II era torpedo bomber built by the Bristol company.

1805: The Beaufort wind force scale was devised by Anglo-Irish Royal Navy hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort (1774–1857).  The pronunciation boh-fert is the accepted correct use for the scale, family name and most other purposes but in the US, where it’s used as a locality name, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the common form is sometimes byoo-fert.  The family name Beaufort exists in both French and English (and was of Norman and French Huguenot origin), a habitational name from (Le) Beaufort, the name of several places in various parts of France notably in Nord Somme and Pas-de-Calais, the construct being the Old French beau (beautiful) + fort (literally “strong” but used also of forts & fortified castles).  In France, hereditary surnames were adopted according to fairly consistent rules and during the late medieval period, names that derived from localities became increasingly widespread.  In the late twentieth century, Beaufort came to be used when naming a child, one attraction being the possibility of nicknames like Bee, Beau & Fort.

Variations in the coats of arms of the Dukes of Beaufort.

One of the concepts which permits the modern, trans-nationally connected world economy to function as efficiently as it does is standardization.  Modern implementations include things like shipping containers which, with standardized features such as size, mounting & lifting points and methods of construction mean goods can be transported internationally with the assurance all ships, as well as road & rail transport can handle the thing in the same manner.  Additionally, it makes more efficient the construction for facilities like sea-ports and rail-heads because they’re essentially the same, anywhere in the world.  That’s an example of change which could implemented because it could be phased in over decades as ships were replaced & railway rolling-stock upgraded while existing port infrastructure could be modified although, as the container ships increased in size, the trend increasingly was for fewer and larger ports.  Road transport was less affected, the prime-movers unchanged and a substantial part of the trailer fleet easily modified and trucks never increased in size to the extent engineering made possible because local authorities imposed restrictions in deference to roads which were built to withstand only certain weight-loadings.

Some things however are difficult to standardize, however desirable a change might be.  The fact that there’s so much diversity in whether road vehicles drive on the left or right of the road is due to many factors, some of which date from antiquity, reflected even today in the need for many manufacturers to maintain separate production lines to accommodate the need to built vehicles with steering wheels on either side.  That of course sounds silly it’s how historical inertia operates, local practices becoming set traditions hundreds or even thousands of years ago.  Other traditions came more recently.  Long before they brought cars and trucks, the European colonial powers also often built the first major networks of roads and they imposed the rules with which they were familiar, the British keeping their horses to the left, the French to the right.  Italian colonialists in Libya and Ethiopia would have had a choice because it wasn’t until after World War II (1939-1945) that Italy finally standardized, ending the era of localities setting their own rules.  Some countries have made the swap (mostly from left to right) but it’s difficult (apparently a decade-long increase in the accident rate is factored in by the planners) and in some cases it proved impossible.  When India conducted a post-Raj trial they found the drivers of cars & trucks adapted well but the beasts which pulled the carts then a significant proportion of traffic volumes just couldn’t be persuaded to change.

Domestic electricity is another patchwork.  Most of the planet is supplied with 220-240 volt feeds (there was once the odd outlier with 250v and while their light globes burned brighter, they didn’t last as long) while other run at 110-120v.  Electricity networks of course started locally and just spread so the reason for the differences are understandable and the costs & disruption which would be caused by converting one to another means it’ll probably never happen anywhere although there is a move, undertaken in many (220-240) jurisdictions to standardize on 230v.  What is a bit of a nuisance though is the proliferation of connection types in the 220-240v world, forcing travellers either to travel with the relevant adaptor or rely on being able to buy one when they arrive.  For those who go many places, there are some thoughtfully designed, multi-prong adaptors, the most intriguing of which use slides so the correct metal can be chosen to extend.  Again, because the installed base of wall-plugs decades ago reached the point where a change-over would be prohibitively expensive, it something the world is stuck with.

Standardized wind: The Beaufort wind force scale.

The Beaufort wind force scale was devised because the British Admiralty was accumulating much data about prevailing weather conditions at spots around the planet where the Royal Navy sailed and it was noticed there was some variation in way different observers would describe the wind conditions.  In the age of sail, wind strength frequency and direction was critical to commerce and warfare and indeed survival so the navy needed to information to be as accurate an consistent as possible but in the pre-electronic age the data came from human observation, even mechanical devices not usually in use.  What Captain Beaufort noticed was that a sailor brought up in a blustery place like the Scottish highlands was apt to understate the strength of winds while those from calmer places were more impressed by even a moderate breeze.  Accordingly, he developed a scale which was refined until formally adopted by the Admiralty after he’d been appointed Hydrographer of the Navy.  The initial draft reflected the functional purpose, the lowest rating describing the sort of gentle zephyr which was just enough to enable a captain to manoeuvre while the highest was of the gale-force winds which would shred the sails.  As sails gave way to steam, the scale was further refined by referencing the effect of wind upon the sea rather than sails and it was adopted also by those working in shore-based meteorological stations.  In recent years, categories up to 17 have been added to describe the phenomena described variously as hurricanes, typhoons & cyclones.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in a breeze estimated at 4-5 on the Beaufort wind force scale (left).  There is product which substantially can withstand winds of such force but they do produce an unnatural look.  Lindsay Lohan (right) illustrates the "wind-blown" look which is popular in fashion photography although it's not always done with wind machines (big fans), strategically-placed tape and cardboard often used to get the effect.  This one would be around 6 on the scale. 

Although remembered for the scale which bears his name, Beaufort also made a great contribution to the Admiralty’s charts, quite a task given that the only way to determine depth was laboriously to take soundings which were then mapped onto charts compiled from observations of the shoreline and astronomical observations determining longitude and latitude.  Sir Francis retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral after also developing the Beaufort Cipher for coded communication which he used for some of his private correspondence and he had a sister name Frances which must have sometimes been confusing but after his death when his letters were decoded, the scandalous nature of his relationship with his sister Henrietta (1778-1865) was revealed.  In 1819, Henrietta published Dialogues on Botany for the Use of Young Persons, an introductory text for young readers interested in plant biology.

Bristol Beaufort of RAF 217 Squadron out of Malta, 1942.

The Bristol Beaufort was a twin-engined, four-seat torpedo and general reconnaissance bomber which entered service late in 1939, allocated initially to Royal Air Force (RAF) Costal Command to replace the Blackburn Botha which had proved unsatisfactory although the original specification had suggested it would be used as a torpedo bomber in the Far East.  Developed from the smaller, lighter and less powerful Blenheim the Beaufort was a solid rather than an outstanding performer and but it served as the RAF’s primary torpedo bomber until 1943 and was also deployed as a ground bomber to plug the UK’s technology gap until newer, more capable designs entered production.  More successful was the use in the Pacific theatre, some 700 Beauforts produced in Australian factories which proved adaptable in sea and land operations, some even converted as high-speed, light transport freighters.  The Beaufort’s greatest legacy however was when its wings, tail and rear fuselage were combined with more powerful engines and a revised forward section to produce the two seat Beaufighter, one of the war’s outstanding heavy strike-fighters.  Heavily armed with various combinations of cannons, machine guns and later rockets, it was one of the most effective anti-shipping weapons; offering reliability, high speed and the relative quiet of its sleeve valve radial engines, it proved lethal against U-boats (the German submarines).  Robust and easy to maintain even in adverse environments, in a variety of roles, examples remained in RAF service until 1960.

Ides

Ides (pronounced ahydz)

(1) In the ancient Roman calendar, the fifteenth day of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of other months.  Now most associated with 15 March.

(2) A Greek plural suffix appearing in scientific names.

1300–1350: Middle English from the Old French, derived from the Classical Latin īdūs (feminine plural), the borrowing from French replacing earlier Middle English forms.  In ancient Greek, the plural of is, suffix of source or origin.  Meaning in Latin was always “middle day of a Roman month” but the origin is uncertain; some etymologists suggesting an Etruscan root although even back-formations are scant and the only evidence is īdūs was cognate with the Oscan eiduis, Oscan having many words derived from Etruscan.

The Latin practice was to treat most recurring calendrical days as plurals although both Middle English and Old French also used the singular form ide.  English use of the Roman calendrical term always employs the Romans' inclusive dating, including the ides itself when counting. Thus, the "third day before the ides of March" (a.d. iii Id. Mart.) is 13 March; two days before 15 March not three.  English usage also often follows the Latin contraction of the phrasing, which omits the words ante diem so 13 March may appear as the "third ides of March" or the "third of the ides of March". Thus, the "second ides" (pridie idus) is the fourteenth day of the old long months and the twelfth day of the other months; the "third ides" (tertia idus) is the day before that; the "fourth ides" is the day before that; and so on until the "eighth ides", which is preceded by the nones in every month.  That seems clear enough.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March is a day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March.  Several religious observances were held on the day and, like the ides of other months, was the traditional Romans deadline for settling debts.  In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar, one of the great events of antiquity and a turning point in Roman history.

The Death of Caesar (1867) by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904).

Caesar was stabbed to death at a sitting of the Senate and it’s thought some there were some five-dozen conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius.  In the writings of Plutarch, a soothsayer had foretold that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. While going to the Theatre of Pompey where the Senate sat, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "The Ides of March are come", implying the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, Caesar; but not gone."  In the western canon, it’s best remembered from William Shakespeare's (1564–1616)'s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599), when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March." 

Caesar's death came at a time of crisis in Rome and unleashed the civil war from which his adopted heir Octavian (later known as Augustus) would gain power.  On the fourth anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia, Octavian executed 300 senators and knights who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius, brother of Mark Antony.  The executions were the most dramatic of the things done by Octavian to avenge Caesar's death and Roman historians characterised the slaughter as a religious sacrifice, noting it happened on the Ides of March at the new altar built as a memorial to Julius.

Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)) in Mean Girls (2004) makes the case for the murder of Caesar.

Cupola

Cupola (pronounced kyoo-puh-luh)

(1) In architecture, a light structure on a dome or roof, serving as a belfry, lantern, or belvedere (some functional, some merely ornamental).

(2) Any of various dome-like structures (especially in architecture or one covering a circular or polygonal area).

(3) In naval architecture, a protective dome for guns on a warship

(4) In armored vehicles, a raised structure with a narrow aperture for viewing, sometimes fitted with a gun or flame-thrower.

(5) In geology, an upward-projecting mass of plutonic rock extending from a larger batholith.

(6) In metallurgy, a vertical, air-blown coke-fired cylindrical furnace in which iron is re-melted for use in casting.

(7) In geometry, a solid formed by joining two polygons, one (the base) with twice as many edges as the other, by an alternating band of isosceles triangles and rectangles.

(8) In anatomy, a small cap over a structure, shaped like a dome or inverted cup.

(9) In railway carriage design, a small viewing window in the top of the caboose (guard’s van) for looking over the train, or the part of the caboose where one looks through this window (obsolete).

1540–1550: From the Italian cupola, from the Late Latin cūpula (a small cask; a little tub), from the Classical Latin cuppella, from cuppa & cūpa (tub), from the Ancient Greek κύπελλον (kúpellon) (small cup), the construct being cūp(a) + -ula, from the primitive Indo-European -dlom (the instrumental suffix) and used as a noun suffix denoting an instrument.  The origin in Latin was based on the resemblance to an upturned cup, hence the use to describe the rounded top of just about any structure where no specific descriptor existed.  Cupola is a noun and cupolated & cupolar are adjectives; the noun plural is cupolas or cupolae.

Cupola on the dome of St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome.

In architectural history, the cupola is considered a descendent of the oculus, which may seem strange given the evidence suggests domes came first but a cupola is something which can be added to a dome and the earliest may have been “bolted on” when the open nature of an oculus proved troublesome.  Fitted with one or more windows, they would still permit the entry of light but keep out the wind and rain.  From this functional origin, they became popular as features to crown turrets, roofs, and larger dome.  Confusingly, architects at one point decided a cupola was also the inner vault of a dome so historic plans and descriptions need to be read with care.  Although classically dome-like in shape, most modern cupolas are more angular.

Onion domes on the Kremlin, Red Square, Moscow, Russia.

Cupolas were a favorite in early Islamic architecture and began their proliferation the mid-late eighth century, presumably because they were a perfect decorative addition to a mosque’s minarets but such was the appeal they would appear also in the core of the building or at its corners.  Before long, they were a regular part of commercial and residential buildings, valued not only as decoration but as a light source and for the ease with which they could sit atop vertical ducts used for ventilation.  It was the Islamic influence which was responsible for the best known motif of Russian architecture, the onion dome which was well suited to the northern climate because, constructed with severe lines, effortlessly they resisted the gathering of snow.  The Moors brought the design to Spain and whatever religious conflicts may for centuries have disfigured the Middle East & Europe, Architectural taste proved ecumenical and onion domes can still be seen atop Christian churches in Austria and southern Germany.

US Marine Corps M17 flame-thrower in use, the M1919A4 Browning .30 caliber medium machine gun to the right is hard-mounted in the tank commander's cupola, South Vietnam, 1968.

In military use, a cupola is basically a helmet fixed in place and that may be on a building, a ship or an armored vehicle, the function being to protect the head while offering a field of view.  Sometimes, especially in tanks or armored cars, guns or flame-throwers were integrated into cupolas and in naval gunnery, there was the special use to describe the dome-like structures protecting a (usually single) gun mounting, something which distinguished them from the larger, flatter constructions which fulfilled the same purpose for multi-gun batteries.

Cupola on the International Space Station (ISS), outside & in.  Cupolas are used on space craft because they are a way of maximizing the window space for a certain amount of the hull’s surface area.

McMansion with turrets and cupola.

Although the moment seems to have passed, one recent trend in domestic architecture which really disturbed the arbiters of style was the proliferation in parts of the US of McMansions, huge houses of sometimes dubious build quality often in a confusion of architectural styles and adorned with balconies, turrets, columns and cupolas, the more the better.

Afforce

Afforce (pronounced af-fors)

(1) To strengthen or reinforce by the addition of other or of specially skilled members, deliberative bodies such as juries or tribunals.

(2) To force; compel; violate (obsolete).

(3) Reflexively, to exert one's self; endeavour; attempt (obsolete).

1400s: From the Middle English (in the sense “to force”), from the Old French aforcer, from the Latin exfortiāre, from fortis (strong), from the Proto-Italic forktis, from the primitive Indo-European baergh (to rise, high, hill).  The a- prefix as used here is rare and is in English no longer productive.  It was related to the Latin ad- (to; at) and was used to show or emphasize a state, condition, or manner and was common in Old & Middle English, some of the constructs still used poetically (apace, afire, aboil, a-bling) and some where the specific, technical meaning has endured (asunder, astern).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noted the descent of many of these form to the archaic, suggesting it was part of the organic evolution of the language, these “…prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic or even archaic and wholly otiose.”  The double-ff is a written tribute to the spoken, afforce formed with an oral prefix; the noun counterpart of this was æf-.  Afforce, afforcing & afforced are verbs, afforcement is a noun; the noun plural is afforcements.

Afforce thus emerged just as a way of emphasizing the notion of force or indicating the act transpiring.  Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1343-1400) in The Man of Law's Tale (1387), the fifth of the Canterbury Tales uses afforce in that sense:  “Than whan thys wycked Thelous by harde manasses and hys grete strengh the had wyll to afforce her, than she restreynyd hys gret foly by thys reason, ffor cause that her Chylde Moryce the whyche was of the age of.”

That strict arbiter of English use, Sir Ernest Gowers (1880-1966), noted approvingly in his second edition (1965) of Henry Fowler's (1858–1933) Modern English Usage (1926) that the OED as early as 1888 ruled afforce was for all purposes obsolete save "to reinforce or strengthen a deliberative body by the addition of new members, as a jury by skilled assessors or persons acquainted with the facts".  Sir Ernest seemed also pleased the OED had sought to drive a stake through afforce's linguistic heart by not including an entry in the concise (COD) edition of the OED, adding that he regarded any revival as but a flashy "pride of knowledge", a most "un-amiable characteristic", the display of which "sedulously should be avoided".  Sir Ernest had spoken, Henry Fowler would have concurred and in any sense afforce remains vanishingly rare.

Manchester Assize Courts 1934.  Damaged by Luftwaffe raids in 1940-1941, it was demolished in 1957.  Perhaps surprisingly, given some of the ghastly stuff built in post-war years, the replacement Crown Court building has some nice touches and not unpleasing lines.

It was the operation of jury trials in English law which saw the meaning beginning to shift although the legal use did encapsulate both senses.  At common law, the practice to “afforce the assize” was a method for a court to secure a verdict where the jury disagreed.  This was achieved by adding other jurors to the panel until twelve could be found who were unanimous in their opinion, thus the senses (1) afforcement being forcing a jury to verdict and (2) afforcement being the addition of members to the jury.  The word has endured (if rarely used) in this technical sense and not become merely a synonym of augment, somewhat unusual in English where words tend to be co-opted for just about use which seems to fit and it may be that when courts ceased to afforce, juries, the word became stranded in its special, historic sense, a process probably assisted by the practice of adding the a- prefix faded.

Vested with both civil and criminal jurisdiction, the Courts of Assize sat between 1293-1972 in the counties of England and Wales.  The afforcement of the assize was an ancient practice in trials by jury and involved adding other jurors to the panel in cases where the jurors differed among themselves and couldn’t agree in one (sententiam) finding.  In those instances, at the discretion of the judges, either the jury could be afforced or the existing body could be compelled to unanimity by directing the sheriff to lock them up without food or drink until they did agree.  The latter does sound an extreme measure; even when medieval conclaves of cardinals proved unable to organise the numbers to elect a new pope, when their eminences were locked-up, they were at least given bread and water.

However it was done, afforcement or starvation, the objective was to get to the point where there were twelve who could agree on a verdict.  However, as legal theorists at the time observed, this really created a second trial and eventually afforcement was abandoned, both justice and its administration thought better served by an insistence on unanimity (probably an inheritance from canon law and a common thing on the continent where the unanimity of a consultative or deliberative body was deemed indispensable).  Also refined was the practice of confining jurors without meat and drink; now they’re fed and watered and, if after long enough some prove still recalcitrant, the jury is discharged and a new trial may be ordered.  Some jurisdictions have found this too inefficient and have introduced majority verdicts so only ten or eleven of the twelve need to be convinced a defendant is guilty as sin which, as any prosecutor will tell you, they all are. 

Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948; Chief Justice of the US 1930-1941) taking FDR's oath of office at the start of his second term, 20 January 1937.

There have too been attempts to afforce the bench.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945; US President 1933-1945), not best pleased at repeatedly having parts of his New Deal legislation declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court, in 1937 created the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill which sought to add sympathetic judges to the bench, his argument being the constitution not mandating than there must be nine judges on the bench, it was a matter for congress to determine the number.  He was apparently serious but may also have had in mind the threat in 1911 by the UK’s Liberal Party government to appoint to the House of Lords as many peers as would be necessary to ensure the upper house could no longer block their legislation.  That worked, the peers backing down and allowing the government’s reforms to pass into law, the feeling always that they were less appalled by creeping socialism than the thought of the House of Lords being flooded with “jumped-up grocers”.  It may also have worked in the US, the "court-packing plan" ultimately not required.  Some months after FDR’s landslide victory in the 1936 presidential election, Justice Owen Roberts (1875–1955; US Supreme Court judge 1930-1945) switched his vote, creating a pro-New Deal majority, an act remembered in judicial history as the "the switch in time that saved nine".

The US Supreme Court in session, 1932.  The photo is by Erich Salomon (1886-1944) and is one of two known images of the court in session.  Dr Salomon died in Auschwitz.

The idea of “packing the court” has been revived before but in 2021, congressional Democrats introduced a bill for an act which would expand the Supreme Court bench from nine to thirteen, essentially for the same reasons which attracted FDR in 1937.  Unlike then however, the Democrat control of both houses was marginal and there was no chance of success and even had there been an unexpectedly good result in the 2022 mid-term elections, nothing would have overcome the resistance of conservative Democrats in the senate.  With the Republican-appointed judges (reactionary medievalists or black-letter law judges depending on one’s view) likely to be in place for decades, the 2021 bill is more a shot across the judicial bow and the interplay between electoral outcomes and public opinion, of which the judges are well aware, will bubble and perhaps boil in the years ahead.

Lindsay Lohan on the panel of The Masked Singer (2019).

The Masked Singer Australia is a TV singing competition, the local franchise of a format which began in South Korea as the King of Mask Singer.  The premise is that elaborately costumed masked celebrities sing a song and a panel has to guess their identity.  In 2019, the producers afforced the judging panel with the appointment of Lindsay Lohan and the experiment seems to have been a success despite Ms Lohan having little or no idea who the local celebrities were, masked or otherwise.  That may have been part of the charm of her performance and it seemed to gel with viewers, the second series in 2020, in which Ms Lohan wasn’t able to participate because of COVID-19 quarantine restrictions, seeing a sharp decline in viewer numbers, the opening episode down 37% from 1.2 million to 733k.  Overall, the season average in the five mainland capital cities dropped to 816k from 928k, a year-on-year drop of 12%.  In October 2021, Warner Brothers TV announced a third series had been commissioned for broadcast in 2022 but Lindsay Lohan didn't again afforce the panel, depriving audiences of the chance to watch her try to guess the names of people she's never heard of.  #BringBackLindsay is expected to trend.

Rat

Rat (pronounced ratt)

(1) In zoology, any of several long-tailed rodents of the family Muridae, of the genus Rattus and related genera, distinguished from the mouse by being larger.

(2) In (scientifically inaccurate) informal use, any of the numerous members of several rodent families (eg voles & mice) that resemble true rats in appearance, usually having a pointy snout, a long, bare tail, and body length greater than 5 inches (120 mm).

(3) In hairdressing, a wad of shed hair used as part of a hairstyle; a roll of material used to puff out the hair, which is turned over it.

(4) In the slang of certain groups in London, vulgar slang for the vagina.

(5) As “to rat on” or “to rat out”, to betray a person or party, especially by telling their secret to an authority or enemy; to turn someone in.

(6) One of a brace of rodent-based slang terms to differentiate between the small-block (mouse motor) and big-block (rat motor) Chevrolet V8s built mostly in the mid-late twentieth century but still available (as "crate" engines) from US manufacturers.

(7) As RAT, a small turbine that is connected to a hydraulic pump, or electrical generator, installed in an aircraft and used as a power source.

(8) Slang term for a scoundrel, especially men of dubious morality.

(9) In the criminal class and in law enforcement, slang for an informer.

(10) In politics, slang for a person who abandons or betrays his party or associates, especially in a time of trouble.

(11) Slang for a person who frequents a specified place (mall rat, gym rat etc).

(12) In hairdressing, a pad with tapered ends formerly used in women's hair styles to give the appearance of greater thickness.

(13) In the slang of blue-water sailors, a place in the sea with rapid currents and crags where a ship is prone to being broken apart in stormy weather.

(14) In zoology (in casual use), a clipping of muskrat.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English ratte, rat & rotte, from the Old English ræt & rætt, and the Latin rodere from the Proto-Germanic rattaz & rattō (related also to the West Frisian rôt, the German Ratz & Ratte and the Swedish råtta & the Dutch rat), of uncertain origin but perhaps from the primitive Indo-European rehed- (to scrape, scratch, gnaw).  Zoological anthropologists however point out it’s possible there were no populations of rats in the Northern Europe of antiquity, and the Proto-Germanic word may have referred to a different animal.  The attestation of this family of words dates from the twelfth century.  Some of the Germanic cognates show considerable consonant variation such as the Middle Low German ratte & radde and the Middle High German rate, ratte & ratze, the irregularity perhaps symptomatic of a late dispersal of the word, although some etymologists link it with the Proto-Germanic stem raþō (nom); ruttaz (gen), the variations arising from the re-modellings in the descendants.

Mall rats.  In North America and other developed markets, there is now less scope for habitués because changing consumer behavior has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the volume of transactions conducted in physical stores and some malls are being either abandoned or re-purposed (health hubs and educational facilities being a popular use).  

The human distaste for these large rodents has made rat a productive additive in English.  Since the twelfth century it’s been applied (usually to a surname) to persons either held to resemble rats or share with them some characteristic or perception of quality with them. The specific sense of "one who abandons his associates for personal advantage" is from the 1620s, based on the belief that rats leave a ship about to sink or a house about to fall, and this led to the meaning "traitor” or “informant" although, perhaps surprisingly, there no reference to rat in this sense prior to 1902 where as the modern-sounding sense of associative frequency (mall-rat, gym-rat etc) was noted as early as 1864, firstly as “dock-rat”.  Dr Johnson dates “to smell a rat”, based on the behaviour of cats, to the 1540s.  Sir Boyle Roche (1736-1807), was an Irish MP famous for mangled phrases and mixed metaphors, of the best remembered of which was “I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud".  There’s the rat-terrier (1852), the rat-catcher (1590s), the rat-snake (1818), rat-poison, (1799), the rat trap (late 1400s), the rat-pack (1951) and rat-hole which in 1812, based on the holes gnawed in woodwork by rats meant “nasty, messy place”, the meaning extended in 1921 to a "bottomless hole" (especially one where money goes).  Ratfink (1963) was juvenile slang either coined or merely popularized by US custom car builder Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (1932-2001), who rendered a stylised rat on some of his creations, supposedly to lampoon Mickey Mouse.

Cricket's most infamous rat (mullygrubber), Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1981.  Brown & beige was then a fashionable color combination.

Rat has a specific meaning in the cricketing slang of the West Indies, referring to a ball which, after being delivered by the bowler, rather than bouncing off the pitch at some angle, instead runs along the ground, possibly hitting the stumps with sufficient force to dislodge the bails, dismissing the batsman, the idea being of a rat scurrying across the ground.  In Australian slang, the same delivery is called a mullygrubber which, although it sounds old-fashioned, is said to date only from the 1970s, the construct thought based on the dialectal rural term mully (dusty, powdery earth) + grub(ber) in the sense of the grubs which rush about in the dirt if disturbed in such an environment.  Such deliveries are wholly serendipitous (for the bowler) and just bad luck (for the batsman) because it's not possible for such as ball to be delivered on purpose; they happen only because of the ball striking some crack or imperfection in the pitch which radically alters it usual course to a flat trajectory.  If a batsman is dismissed as a result, it's often called a "freak ball" or "freak dismissal".  Of course if a ball is delivered underarm a rat is easy to effect but if a batsman knows one is coming, while it's hard to score from, it's very easy to defend against.  The most infamous mullygrubber was bowled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on 1 February 1981 when, with New Zealand needing to score six (by hitting the ball, on the full, over the boundary) of the final delivery of the match, the Australian bowler sent down an underarm delivery, the mullygrubber denying the batsman the opportunity to score and securing an Australian victory.  Although then permissible within the rules, it was hardly in the spirit of the game and consequently, the regulations were changed.

The Ram Air Turbine

Ram Air Turbine (RAT) diagram.

The Ram Air Turbine (RAT) is a small, propeller-driven turbine connected to a hydraulic pump, or electrical generator, installed in an aircraft to generate emergency power.  In an emergency, when electrical power is lost, the RAT drops from the fuselage or wing into the air-stream where it works as a mini wind-turbine, providing sufficient power for vital systems (flight controls, linked hydraulics and flight-critical instrumentation).

Vickers VC10.

Most modern commercial airliners are equipped with RATs, the first being installed on the Vickers VC10 in the early 1960s and the big Airbus A380 has the largest RAT propeller in current use at 64 inches (1.63 metres) but most are about half this size.  It’s expected as modern airliners begin increasingly to rely on electrical power, either propeller sizes will have to increase or additional RATs may be required, the latter sometimes the desirable choice because of the design limitations imposed by the height of landing gear.  A typical large RAT can produce from 5 to 70 kW but smaller, low airspeed models may generate as little as 400 watts.  Early free-fall nuclear weapons used rats to power radar altimeters and firing circuits; RATS being longer-lasting and more reliable than batteries

RAT in operation.

The airline manufacturers have been exploring whether on-board fuel-cell technology can be adapted to negate the need for RAT, at least in the smaller, single-aisle aircraft where the weight of such a unit might be equal to or less than the RAT equipment.  The attraction of housing a in an airliner's wing-body fairing is it would be a step towards the long-term goal of eliminating an airliner's liquid-fuelled auxiliary turbine power unit.  Additionally, if the size-weight equation could be achieved, there’s the operational advantage that a fuel-cell is easier to test than a RAT because, unlike the RAT, the fuel-cell can be tested without having to power-up most of the system.  The physics would also be attractive, the power from a fuel cell higher at lower altitudes where as the output of a RAT declines as airspeed decreases, a potentially critical matter given it’s during the relatively slow approach to a landing that power is needed to extend the trailing edge of the wing flaps.

If the weight and dimensions of the fuel cell is at least "comparable" to a RAT and the safety and durability testing is successful, at least on smaller aircrafts, fuel-cells might be an attractive option for new aircraft although, at this stage, the economics of retro-fitting are unlikely to be compelling.  Longer term research is also looking at a continuously running fuel cell producing oxygen-depleted exhaust gas for fuel-tank inerting, and water for passenger amenities, thereby meaning an aircraft could be operated on the on the ground without burning any kerosene, the fuel-cell providing power for air conditioning and electrical systems.

1944 Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet  (1944-1945).

The only rocket-powered fighter ever used in combat, the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet had a small RAT in the nose to provide electrical power.  The early prototypes of the somewhat more successful (and much more influential) Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter also had a propeller in the nose for the first test flights but it wasn't a a RAT; it was attached to a piston engine which was there as an emergency backup because of the chronic unreliability of the early jet engines.  It proved a wise precaution, the jets failing on more than one occasion.

Small and big-block Chevrolet V8s compared, the small-block (mouse) to the left in each image, the big-block (rat) to the right.

Mouse and rat are informal terms used respectively to refer to the classic small (1955-2003) and big-block Chevrolet V8s (1958-2021).  The small-block was first named after a rodent although the origin is contested; either it was (1) an allusion to “mighty mouse” a popular cartoon character of the 1950s, the idea being the relatively small engine being able to out-perform many bigger units from other manufacturers or (2) an allusion to the big, heavy Chrysler Hemi V8s (the first generation 331 (5.4 litre), 354 (5.8) & 392 (6.4) cubic inch versions) being known as “the elephant”, the idea based on the widely held belief that elephants are scared of mice (which may actually be true although the reason appears not to be the long repeated myth it’s because they fear the little rodents might climb up their trunk).  Bee might have been a better choice; elephants definitely are scared of bees.  The mouse (small-block) and rat (big-block) distinction is simple to understand: the big block is externally larger although counterintuitively, the internal displacement of some mouse motors was greater than some rats.        

Ordinary

Ordinary (pronounced awr-din-rhe (U) or awr-dn-er-ee (non-U))

(1) Of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional.

(2) Plain or undistinguished.

(3) Somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre (often when describing sporting competitions or in other contexts where expectations of exceptional performance are high).

(4) Customary; usual; normal; the usual course of things; normal condition or health; a standard way of behavior or action (use now most prevalent in Ireland & Scotland).

(5) In slang (mostly US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line), common, vulgar, or disreputable.

(6) In the definition of jurisdictional limits, immediate, as contrasted with something that is delegated.

(7) In some places, of officials of the agencies of the state, belonging to the regular staff or the fully recognized class.

(8) In ecclesiastical use, an order or form for divine service, especially that used for Mass (the prescribed form of divine service, ie those parts of the Mass that do not vary from day to day and (by extension) in secular use, a book of rules or other document setting out ordinary or regular conduct.

(9) In the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, the service of the Mass exclusive of the canon.

(10) A member of the clergy appointed to prepare condemned prisoners for death, the use derived from the role of the chaplain of Newgate prison who prepared prisoners for the gallows (obsolete).

(11) In English ecclesiastical law, a bishop, archbishop, or other ecclesiastic (or their deputy or other nominee), in their capacity as an ex officio ecclesiastical authority (typically, a bishop holding an office to which certain jurisdictional powers are attached).

(12) In some US states, a judge of a court of probate.

(13) In a restaurant or inn, a complete meal in which all courses are included at one fixed price per head (as opposed to à la carte service) (both UK use, now rare).

(14) An arrangement whereby an individual hosts others to a meal in a restaurant, latter billing the guests a pre-agreed amount.

(15) A late-nineteenth century term for the penny-farthing bicycle (distinguishing them from the newer “safety bicycles”), still used (along with "hi-wheel" and variants) by hobbyists.

(16) In heraldry, any of the simplest and commonest charges (the “conventional”), such as the bend, fesse & cross, usually in geometric form with straight or broadly curved edges and commonly charged upon shields

(17) In mathematics, (of a differential equation) containing two variables only and derivatives of one of the variables with respect to the other

(18) As All Ordinaries (“all ords” in the market vernacular) index, a share index calculated using the last traded price of 500 of the largest publically listed companies on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

(19) A courier; someone delivering mail or post (used between the sixteenth & nineteenth centuries by those in the service of the Royal Mail).

1250–1300: From the Middle English noun & adjective ordinarie (regular, customary, belonging to the usual order or course, conformed to a regulated sequence or arrangement), from the Anglo-Norman ordenarie, ordenaire et al, from the Medieval Latin, noun use of the Classical Latin ordinārius (orderly, regular, of the usual order), the construct being ordin- (stem of ordō (row, rank, series, regular arrangement) (genitive ordinis) + -ārius (the adjectival suffix).  The alternative spelling ordinarie is long obsolete.  Ordinary is a noun & adjective, ordinariness is a noun, ordinarily, extraordinarily & superextraordinarily are adverb and extraordinary (also as extra-ordinary) is an adjective; the noun plural is ordinaries.

In English, the adjective was derived from the noun in the sixteenth century in the sense of “common in occurrence, not distinguished in any way” and this endured in English, the O-Level (once the lowest of the three levels of the General Certificate of Education in the UK secondary school system (dating from 1947 as a contraction of “ordinary level”) remaining available in some overseas systems).  Generally though, the various noun uses adopted between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries faded for use except in the phrase “out of the ordinary” (someone of something beyond that regularly encountered, expected or customary) although in fields as diverse as steel fabrication and financial market trading, there were such uses from the mid-twentieth century.  The adjective ornery was a dialectal contraction of ordinary (which most sources list as class-based rather than a regionalism) in US English and first documented in 1816 (the history in oral use unknown).  It was used to convey the sense of “poor quality, coarse, ugly” and by the 1860s the meaning ad evolved to the more specific “mean, cantankerous and bad-tempered (orneriness the noun).  That coining hints at the strange history of the word which, following the practice in Latin, began as something neutral meaning “normal, in the expected place, of the expected appearance etc” yet came to be used (as a comparative) also in the negative (somewhat inferior, below average, plain & unexceptional (even rather mediocre).  By contrast, the extra- in extraordinary is used not as an intensifier but to create an antonym; something extraordinary is that which is exceptionally good.  Politicians are most inclined to speak of us as “ordinary people” which presumably implies that even if only sub-consciously, they think of themselves (and others in the political class) as extraordinary and the rest of us as ordinary indeed.

Lord Dawson of Penn (1864–1945; Physician-in-ordinary to the King, 1910-1937).

So calling something ordinary can mean either it’s commonplace (nothing special or unusual) and thus entirely average or its’ below average or of poor quality.  An “ordinary day” might be one pleasingly free of problems or one which has disappointed because nothing especially good happened.  To say someone is ordinary can be a compliment if one is distinguishing them from the surrounding madmen, nutcases and psychos and is essentially the same as calling them “normal” yet it can also mean “dull” or “not that attractive” and just as the politicians know we’re ordinary and they’re not, in the social media age “celebrities” and “ordinary people” really are two separate populations; ‘twas ever thus of course but now it’s an industry.  In ecclesiastical and secular law the old technical meaning persisted.  The title of physician in ordinary to the King (or Queen) is no longer in use but it meant simply the sovereign’s personal doctor and additional doctors who might be summoned were styled either physicians extraordinary or extra physicians.  They needed to be multi-skilled, at least one documented as having euthanized a dying king to ensure the death could be announced in the respectable morning broadsheets rather than the disreputable afternoon tabloids.  Interestingly, years later, Lord Dawson would speak in the House of Lords against the idea of euthanasia being provided for in legislation, maintaining that it was something best left to the judgment of the doctor in the room which will for some confirm the wisdom of Evelyn Waugh’s (1903-1966) observation that the greatest risk to one is hospital is “being murdered by the doctors”.  Although physicians-in-ordinary are no longer described as such, in the Medical Household (attached to the Royal Household in England), the positions of Apothecaries to the King & Occultist to the King have never been disestablished.

In canon law, the term is used still to describe someone having immediate jurisdiction in a given case of ecclesiastical law (typically a bishop within a diocese).  That use dates from the fourteenth century and was picked up in the 1800s in secular judicial administration to refer to a judge vested with the right to handle cases on the basis of ex-officio authority, rather than by delegation.  In other words, that authority was the ordinary, normal authority held by a judge within their jurisdictional competence.  In the UK, the best-known use was in the title Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (the Law Lords in casual use).  These were the judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act (1876) to exercise the judicial functions of the House of Lords which was the highest appellate for most cases decided by the UK’s lower courts (apart from a handful of institutions from which cases on appeal proceeded to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council).  Because the lords of appeal in ordinary technically were appointed as barons in the peerage of England, they thus had the right to sit in the Lords and vote on legislation and this meant ultimately they might be called to decide upon cases dealing with the very laws they’d been part of creating.  In practice this was rarely controversial but it came to bother academic political scientists and other theorists who noted the importance of the doctrine of the separation of powers in a democratic system.  What made it worse (at least on paper) was the lord chancellor (1) sat in and presided over the House of Lords, (2) was ex officio, a judge in the Court of Appeal and the president of the Chancery Division (an inheritance from the days prior to the Judicature Acts (1876) when the lord chancellor headed the old Court of Chancery) and (3) was a member of cabinet.  The office therefore straddled the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government so the fingers were uniquely were in three pies.  It was something which had been discussed for decades before the New Labour government, anxious to do things which would please the various European Union (EU) critics, reformed the arrangements, taking advantage of the prevailing mood to axe from the Lords as many of the hereditary peers as could be managed.  In 2009, New Labour created the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the House of Lords ceased to be vested with judicial functions, the lords of appeal in ordinary then in office concurrently appointed as Supreme Court judges and excluded from the Lords until their retirement from the bench.

Lindsay Lohan at the Dorchester Hotel restaurant China Tang, London, June 2017.

Sibyl, Lady Colefax (1874–1950) was an English socialite and interior decorator who in the 1930s & 1940s followed the tradition of hosting “Ordinaries” at London’s Dorchester Hotel, small lunch parties with a set menu, after which she would invoice the guests for their meal.  In the restaurant trade, an “ordinary” was a lunch or dinner in which all courses were included at the one fixed price per head (as opposed to à la carte service).  Because Lady Colefax essentially “bought in bulk” and the menu was what would now be understood as a “chef’s choice”, the prices were good and her address book was the envy of London society so the company was always amusing and occasionally illustrious.  In his infamously indiscrete diaries, Henry "Chips" Channon (1897–1958) would sometimes refer to her as “Old Coalbox” but most of the entries about her were affectionate and sympathetic.