Belt (pronounced belt)
(1) A band of flexible material, as leather or cord, used
for encircling the waist, historically to in some way secure a garment (coat or
trousers) but also as a decorative or functional (tool belt, utility belt, gun
belt etc) item.
(2) In any context, any encircling or transverse band,
strip, or stripe.
(3) In geography, an elongated region having distinctive
properties or characteristics.
(4) In machinery, an endless flexible band passing about
two or more pulleys, used to transmit motion from one pulley to the other or
others or to convey materials and objects.
(5) In (usually military) ballistics, a cloth strip with
loops or a series of metal links with grips, for holding cartridges fed into an
automatic gun.
(6) A band of leather or webbing, worn around the waist
and used as a support for weapons, ammunition etc.
(7) In naval architecture, a series of armor plates
forming part of the hull of a warship.
(8) In construction, a broad, flexible strip of rubber,
canvas, wood, etc., moved along the surface of a fresh concrete pavement to put
a finish on it after it has been floated.
(9) A road, railroad, or the like, encircling an urban
center to handle peripheral traffic (as beltway also used in political
discourse).
(10) In slang, a hard blow or hit (often in the forms
belted or belting), either a person or an object (the latter noted especially
in bat & ball sports).
(11) In slang, a shot of liquor, especially as swallowed
in one gulp (often in the form “a quick belt”).
(12) In tyre technology, strip of material used in tyre
construction, placed between the carcass and the tread for reinforcement (in
the forms steel-belted & fabric-belted).
(13) In sport, in a color based ascendency (brown, black
etc), a ranking system in various martial arts).
(14) In sport (notably boxing), a form of trophy worn by
the holder of a title (WBO Heavyweight Belt, IBF Cruiserweight Belt etc).
(15) As seat belt, an apparatus used in air, sea &
land vehicles to secure a passenger, pilot, driver etc in place.
(16) To gird or furnish with a belt.
(17) To surround or mark as if with a belt or band.
(18) In slang, as “belt out”, loudly (though not
necessarily pleasingly) to sing or, as “belting along”, rapidly to proceed.
(19) In cricket, as “belter”, a description of a placid
pitch ideal for batting and offering little assistance to bowlers.
(20) In astronomy, a collection of small bodies (such as
asteroids) which orbit a star; one of certain girdles or zones on the surface
of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, supposed to be of the nature of clouds.
(21) In baseball, the part of the strike zone at the
height of the batter's waist.
(22) In music, a vocal tone produced by singing with
chest voice above the break (or passaggio),
in a range typically sung in head voice.
(23)To invest a person with a belt as part of a formal
ceremony (even one where as physical belt is not involved or even a historic
part).
Pre 1000: From the Middle English belt, from the Old English belt
(belt; girdle; broad, flat strip or strap of material used to encircle the
waist), from the Proto-Germanic baltijaz
(girdle, belt) (source also of the Old High German balz, the Old Norse balti &
belti and the Swedish bälte), an early Germanic borrowing from
the Latin balteus (belt, girdle, sword-belt)
which may be of Etruscan origin. It was
cognate with the Scots belt (belt), the
Dutch belt, the German Balz (belt), the Danish bælte (belt), the Swedish bälte (belt, cincture, girdle, zone) and
the Icelandic belti (belt). Synonyms
vary according to context including circle, girdle, surround (to encircle), buckle,
fasten, strap (to fasten a belt); bash, clobber, smack, wallop. strap, thrash,
whip (to hit with a belt); gulp, slurp, guzzle (rapidly to drink); speed, whiz,
zoom (rapidly to move). Belt is a noun
& verb, belted is a verb & adjective, belting is a noun, verb &
adjective and belter is a noun; the noun plural is belts.
The verb emerged in the early fourteenth century in
the sense of “to fasten or gird with a belt” and was derived from the
noun. The meaning "to thrash (as
with a belt)" was from the 1640s while the general sense of "to hit,
thrash" seems not to have been used until 1838. The colloquial meaning
"to sing or speak vigorously" dates from 1949 and was first used in
the US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line. As
a development, the noun meaning "a blow or stroke" dates from 1885. The transferred sense of "broad stripe
encircling something with its ends joined" dates from the 1660s while that
of a "broad strip or tract" of any sort, without notion of encircling
(as in the “wheat belt") emerged by 1808. As a mark of rank or distinction (sometimes associated
with a specific honor in the form of a belt or sash), use began in the
mid-fourteenth century and in pugilism, boxing championship belts were first
awarded in 1812. The use in mechanical
engineering (drive belts, pulley belts, serpentine belts etc) was first noted
in 1795. The sword-belt dates from the
early fourteenth century while the Old English had sweordfætels (sword-belt). The
adjective beltless came from the fashion industry to describe a style without a
belt and was from 1854, the belt-loop (through which a belt passes) noted the
following year (although such things had existed for centuries). In the sub-culture of the trench coat, the military
tradition was always to use the buckle to secure the belt while true
fashionistas prefer to tie, bucklers thought a bit naff.
Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities offered by belts.
Many languages adopted belt including those of the Raj,
the Hindi being बेल्ट (belṭ), the Bengali বেল্ট (belṭ) & the Urdu بیلٹ (belṭ); Afrikaans picked up belt from the Dutch and other variations
were the Assamese বেল্ট (belto), the Irish beilt (Welsh & Scots picked up belt), the Japanese: ベルト (beruto) and the Oriya ବେଲ୍ଟ୍ (belṭ). If used as a proper noun (a surname or
place-name), it appears always with an initial capital. In astronomy, there’s no initial capital when
used as a general descriptor but one is used when referring to a specific region
(eg as an ellipsis of Main Asteroid Belt).
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R and known originally as One
Belt One Road (OBOR)) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a
trans-national infrastructure project (the strategy of which depends on who is providing
the interpretation) dating from 2013 and integral to the PRC’s foreign policy. As physical infrastructure, it’s analogous
with the old Silk Road, the ancient trade route which linked China with the West,
carrying goods and (more dangerously) ideas between the two great civilizations
of Rome and China.
Lindsay Lohan beltless (or un-belted).
In idiomatic use, “below the belt” means “not in accord
with the principles of fairness, decency, or good sportsmanship” and was drawn
from the rules of boxing where restrictions were maintained on blows to the genitals. To have something “under one's belt” is to
have something in one’s literal or figurative (a qualification or achievement)
possession. To tighten one’s belt is “to
be more frugal; to undergo hardship patiently” and is often used as an
injunction by politicians (directed at others).
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) invented “tighten the belten” for the faux German used in his film The Great
Dictator (1940). The use to describe
specific regions can be literal (wheat belt, corn belt etc), meteorological
(sun-belt, snow-belt) or more figurative (mortgage belt, Bible belt etc), the
latter probably more accurately described as “zones” but the meaning is
well-understood and some have emerged recently (such as rust belt which refers
to once vibrant industrial areas now in economic decline). A beltway is a road system which encircles (not
necessarily in a circular design) a city and is intended to reduce congestion
in the inner region; the phrase “beyond the beltway” is US political slang to
differentiate the interests and priorities of those “within the beltway” of
Washington DC (ie the political class (executive government, the congress, the
upper reaches of the civil service etc)) and the general population. The US term references Interstate 495 around
Washington DC (the Capital Beltway, opened in 1964), the figurative use (the
culture of the political class) dating from 1978, exclusively in the negative.
Lindsay Lohan demonstrates more possibilities offered by belts.
Seat belts, although began in any volume to be fitted
only in the 1960s although they’d been used in ships (both by fishermen and in
the navy) and in the early day of aviation without ever becoming standardized
fittings although, in a sense, as a safety restraint they were known even in Antiquity. In Greek mythology, the Sirens were deadly
creatures who used their lyrical and earthly feminine charms to lure sailors to
their death; attracted by their enchanting music and voices, seafarers would sail
their ships too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be
shipwrecked. Not untypically for the
tales from antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes. The Romans said they lived on some small
islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the
islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near
Paestum, or in Capreae. All were places
with rocky coasts and tall cliffs. It
was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens. Longing to hear their songs but having no
wish to be ship-wrecked , he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax,
rendering them deaf and to be certain, Odysseus ordered them to tie him to the
mast, thereby inventing the seat-belt.
Sailing past, when he heard their enticing voices, he ordered his men to
release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had
passed. Some writers claimed the Sirens
were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as
Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and died.
Lindsay Lohan demonstrates still more possibilities offered by belts.
Knocking back a bracer: Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a quick belt of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.
In the late 1940s, the rising death toll attracted
interest but few cars were at the time fitted with seat-belts and research was difficult
with such small sample sizes although it was indicated there was some positive
although instances were also noted of injuries being caused by the belts’ then
primitive and unregulated design and it was these findings which encouraged the
first “inertial reel” (retractable) designs.
A couple of US manufacturers during the 1950s dabbled with the concept, either
installing seat belts as standard or offering them as an extra-cost option but the
take-up rate was low and some buyers ever returned the cars to dealers to have
them removed.
The familiar modern three-point (lap & sash) belt evolved
in the late 1950s with much input from US designers but it was Swedish
manufacturers which first made them a standard fitting, Scandinavia being often dark and icy, drivers sharing the roads with large elk. The modern seatbelt design (conceptually
unchanged to this day) is credited to Swedish mechanical engineer Nils Bohlin (1920–2002)
who was employed by Volvo which made them a standard fitting in 1959, following
the example of Saab which had added them the previous year. During the 1960s, US states gradually imposed
a requirement they be fitted until, in 1969, federal law mandated the rule for
all cars sold in the country. The laws
requiring them actually to be worn proved more difficult to implement but other
countries quickly made both the fitment and wearing of seat-belts compulsory,
initially only for those seated in the front seat(s) but before long it
extended to all seats.
Instruction sheet for Child Bed (1961 Chevrolet Corvair), Chevrolet Division of General Motors (GM) part-number 985359.
Attitudes to motor vehicle safety were different in 1959
when Chevrolet first started making the Corvair (1959-1969). At the time, apart from improving the quality
of roads (which actually meant higher speeds) the government had done little
about either safety or pollution but both the rising highway death toll and the
worsening air quality in cities was attracting attention and things would soon
be different, decades of legislation soon to unfold. The Corvair however was a product of a
substantially unregulated age and in that spirit Chevrolet thoughtfully
offered the “child bed” as an accessory so one’s baby could sleep (unsecured) on
the parcel shelf beneath the rear window, the additional benefits of the
placement said to be that being rear-engined, the warmth and soothing vibration
from the engine gently would lull the infant to sleep. It was another world.
The Corvair was doomed by decisions made even before production began. It was anyway the twilight of the rear-engined era and although swing axles in Europe proved surprisingly persistent (usually because the design provided a relatively cheap way to implement an independent rear suspension) few installed them on a car as heavy and powerful as the Corvair. Mercedes-Benz, which was an adherent (despite their experience with the superior De Dion layout) was still producing a handful of 600s (the W100 Grosser) with swing axles as late as 1981 but the Germans tamed the behavior with special anti-squat & anti-dive geometry as well as a compensating centre spring. Chevrolet did not and with a weight distribution which was even more exaggerated rearward by its relatively heavy and long engine, the Corvair’s handling could be unpredictable, something which the engineers wanted to alleviate by fitting a handful of parts (the cost under US$40) but this the accountants vetoed. The ensuing crashes, death toll and law suits attracted the interest of consumer lawyer Ralph Nader (b 1934) who wrote Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), a critique on the industry generally although in the public mind it’s always been most associated with the failings of the Corvair which the author made the subject of the opening chapter.
The Corvair before and after. GM applied a fix in 1963 which rectified the worst of the characteristics and a full re-design was undertaken and released in 1965. For the Corvair's reputation it was too late.
Actually, the problems as described applied only to the Corvairs built between 1959-1963 but the damage was done, neither its reputation or sales figures ever recovered and it was only the corporation’s desire to save face which saw the much improved car restyled for 1966, production lingering on until 1969 although it may be Nader’s book actually prolonged things, competition in the compact sector notably more intense that in 1960s. It was unfortunate because the restyled Corvair was one of the better-looking machines of the era, only the truncated length of the bodywork forward of the cowl detracting from the elegance.
The lovely, Italianesque lines of the second generation Corvair (1966-1969).
Curiously, after its demise came a coda. In 1970, responding to pressure from Nader, the Nixon administration commissioned a study comparing the 1963 Corvair with five “similar” vehicles and a report was in 1972 issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which concluded, inter alia, the Corvair’s handling and propensity to roll was comparable with that of “other light domestic cars.” Nader dismissed the study as “a shoddy, internally contradictory whitewash” and accused the NHTSA of using “biased testing procedures and model selection.” He noted they assessed on the 1963 Corvair which Chevrolet significantly had modified to correct the deficiencies found in those built earlier. The Nixon administration ignored him, presumably taking the view that “what was good for General Motors was good for the country”.
Lindsay Lohan demonstrates yet more possibilities offered by belts. A belt will usually include a loop next to the buckle, used to keep the end of the belt in place. This is called the "keeper".
