Montage

Montage (pronounced mon-tahzh (mawn-tazh in French))

(1) The technique of combining in a single composition, pictorial elements from various sources, as parts of different photographs or fragments of printing, either to give the illusion that the elements belonged together originally or to allow each element to retain its separate identity as a means of adding interest or meaning to the composition; the composition itself.

(2) By analogy, the creation of a thing or concept by combining a number of related elements; any combination of disparate elements that forms or is felt to form a unified whole.

(3) In photography, as photomontage, a juxtaposition or partial superimposition of several shots to form a single image.

(4) In film & television etc, a technique of editing used to present an idea or set of interconnected ideas.

1929: A borrowing from the French montage (assembly, set-up), the construct being mont(er) (to mount; to put up) + -age.  Monter was from the Vulgar Latin montāre, the present active infinitive of monto (to climb, mount, go up), from mōns & montem (mountain), from the primitive Indo-European men- (mountain).  The suffix -age was from the Middle English -age, from the Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum.  Cognates include the French -age, the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj.  It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result, (3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure.  The French suffix -age was from the Middle & Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum, (greatly) extended from words like rivage and voyage.  It was used usually to form nouns with the sense of (1) "action or result of Xing" or (more rarely), "action related to X" or (2) "state of being (a or an) X".  A less common use was the formation of collective nouns.  Historically, there were many applications (family relationships, locations et al) but use has long tended to be restricted to the sense of "action of Xing".  Many older terms now have little to no connection with their most common modern uses, something particularly notable of those descended from actual Latin words (fromage, voyage et al).

A montage of Lindsay Lohan as Andy Warhol (1928–1987) might have rendered.

Montage, although now most associated with photography, painting and other static installations, was originally a term in cinematography, first attested in 1929.  The use was extended in 1931 (as photomontage) to the use of photographs or photographic negatives to make art or illustrations.  The technique can, in many fields, be used to add a veneer of intellectual gloss to what is really an elaborated form of plagiarism.  More helpfully, photomontages have been a vital aspect of the techniques of producing large scale imagery and the first were literally assembled on large tables by technicians armed with scissors, magnifying glasses and adhesive tape, the most prolific of the early adopters being the military who used the small images taken during photo-reconnaissance (PR) missions.  As camera technology improved, definition increased and more detail was captured but this was counted somewhat by increased anti-surveillance measures which forced the PR missions to operate at higher altitude.  Interestingly, the Allied military in World War II (1939-1945) found women much more efficient in both analysing PR and assembling montages.

A montage of Lindsay Lohan as Andy Warhol (1928–1987) might have rendered.

The techniques honed in wartime proved valuable in peacetime for creating large-scale maps and renderings from sometimes even thousands of small fragments.  This was the way big areas on the surface of the earth were able to be visualized as if a single photograph and in the 1950s work began on the task of mapping the ocean floor, something of interest not only oceanographers & nautical geographers but also to navies, commercial shipping companies and miners, the oil & gas industry long aware that vast untapped resources lay under the waves.  The concept of mapping the seabed is simple in that all that is required is to have the images in the form of a grid which could then be assembled in a single montage (the world’s biggest).  However, while the scale in terms of the surface area proved manageable, obtaining the data at depths in which pressures are immense and darkness total proved as challenging as predicted and although the maps are in a sense complete, the deepest parts of the oceans remain to some extent mysterious.  The available montages (which scientists call bathymetric data sets) include the GEBCO (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans which is an international project), Seabed 2030 (a collaborative project between GEBCO and the Japanese Nippon Foundation which plans to have a comprehensive map of the entire ocean floor by 2030), the EMODnet (European Marine Observation and Data Network which publishes highly detailed bathymetric maps for European waters) and the US NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which offers maps of US waters and contributes to global programmes, their material available through the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

A montage of Lindsay Lohan as Andy Warhol (1928–1987) might have rendered.

The difference between collage and montage is that while a collage weaves together things of difference to create a unified whole, a montage uses complete things of some similarity to create something visually coherent although, with some modern artists, coherence can prove elusive, however cohesive a whole the glue might produce.  At the definitional margins however, the distinctions can be significant in the production but be undetectable in the result.  To create what appeared to be the montage of the seabed, what was done was technically a collage, the assembled components including photographs, renderings from ship-based sonar measurements and satellite altimetry as well as some enhancement in software.  However big might have been the ambition to create a unified montage of the ocean floor, cosmologists & astronomers thought bigger still and as space-based cameras and wandering craft became available, montages were assemble of objects such as the moon and the lovely rings of Saturn.  Aiming to produce the grandest montage of all is the European Space Agency which (ESA), using observations from their Euclid space mission (launched in July 2023) will explore dark matter and dark energy; over time billions of galaxies will be viewed.  What makes Euclid different from the Hubble Telescope and JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) is it can survey large parts of the sky at once, the agency describing the difference as between looking through a window compared with a keyhole.  In time, all the known objects in the universe might be photographed which will permit quite a montage but what really interests the cosmologists is the dark matter (which may actually be dark energy or a combination of the two) so it’s a quest for the known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

Precious

Precious (pronounced presh-uhs)

(1) Of high price or great value; very valuable or costly.

(2) Highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial, or moral quality.

(3) Affectedly or excessively delicate, refined, or nice; fastidious in speech and manners.

(4) Anything though extreme (now rare and usually used only in clichéd forms).

(5) As precious and semi-precious, descriptors used in the gem-stone trade.

1250–1300: From the Middle English preciose (valuable, of great worth or price, costly) from the eleventh century Old French precios (precious, costly, honourable, of great worth), from the Latin pretiōsus (costly, valuable), the construct being pretium (price, value, worth) + ōsus or ous.  The Latin suffix -ōsus or ous (full, full of) was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  It was picked up in Middle English as -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux.  The Modern French is précieux.

The meaning "over-refined" dates from the late fourteenth century and Dr Johnson noted it also had a secondary inverted sense of "worthless" whereas today, that’s a pure antonym.  As applied to a "beloved or dear person or object", meaning in that sense was first noted in 1706.  Related forms include preciously (adverb) & preciousness (noun).  The formal division of the gemstone market into precious and semi-precious dates from 1858, adopting the division introduced in the metals trade in 1776, precious metals then defined as gold, silver and sometimes platinum, the parameters being those rare enough to be used as a standard of value yet sufficiently abundant enough to permit use for coinage (the category of the semi-precious metal was introduced in 1818).  The idea of a person or object being precious in the sense of "beloved or highly valued” emerged early in the eighteenth century and was based on the earlier adjectival use.  The now rare noun preciosity (value, great worth, preciousness, quality of being precious) from the Old French preciosite and directly from the Medieval Latin pretiocitas (costliness, a costly thing), from pretiosus was from circa 1400.

The equally rare noun precieuse (pedantic woman, woman aiming at refined delicacy of language and taste) was in 1727 borrowed by English from French and was from the French précieuse, noun use of the feminine of précieux.  In English, it was best known as a stereotypical character in Molière's (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, circa 1622-1763) 1659 comedy of manners Les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Young Ladies).

Precious & semi-precious gemstones

Although the notion of a hierarchy pre-dates modern civilization, gemstones were first classified into the categories of precious and semi-precious in the mid-nineteenth century.  Originally an internal system of classification used by the gemstone trade, the distinction became popular and use widespread.

Precious was applied to four types of gems: diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds.  As early as the 1880s, some traders, doubtlessly seeking commercial advantage, applied the label to other stones including opal, jade and pearls but most of the industry regards this as mere puffery and use has never become persistent or generally accepted.  Nor have buyers been persuaded; diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds account for well over ninety percent of the US$ dollar value of gemstone turnover; although not as widely applied, the four are known also as the cardinal stones.

Semi-precious is used for all varieties of gemstones not categorized as precious and any gemstone suitable for being used in personal adornment can be included. Semi-precious stones include gems fashioned from agate, amber, amethyst, aquamarine, aventurine, chalcedony, chrysocolla, chrysoprase, citrine, garnet, hematite, jade, jasper, jet, kunzite, lapis lazuli, malachite, moonstone, obsidian, onyx, peridot, rhodonite, sunstone, tiger's eye, tanzanite, topaz, turquoise, tourmaline and many other materials.

What can be misleading or confusing is the classification is inherently hierarchical and suggests correlation with cost.  An opal has been sold at US$5500 per carat and both jade cabochons and red beryls have traded US$10,000 a carat, all prices higher than that at which most precious stones sell.  Nor should precious imply scarcity, many semi-precious stones more rare than the precious four; red beryl, ammolite, benitoite, gem silica, demantoid garnet and tsavorite garnet are all found in fewer locations and produced in smaller quantities than any of the precious stones.

Such apparent anomalies are not unusual in classification systems, especially the older sets.  In geology the elements described as rare earths aren’t especially rare and in arboreal taxonomy, the soft, light balsa is a hardwood.  So, although not entirely arbitrary and meaningless, the classification of gemstones is best considered jargon of the trade although the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) has in their code of ethics a clause that members should avoid the use of the term ”semi-precious” in describing gemstones.  The view of the association is that a term like semi-precious tends to devalue the objects and they’d prefer to have just about all gems thought of as “precious” (and therefore expensive).

Nor does the notion of the four precious gems have long history.  One stone regarded as precious since antiquity was amethyst but it fell from favor when large deposits were found in South America; the introduction of semi-precious into the lexicon corresponding with the new discoveries.  Of all stones, diamond is the most mythologized, mostly of modern origin.  Historically, colored stones such as ruby and sapphire were more highly valued than diamond, because diamond was not particularly rare.   That changed in the twentieth century when, counter-intuitively, large finds in South Africa created an abundant supply of gem-quality diamonds.  Until the South African boom, worldwide production of diamond amounted only to a few kilograms per year.  After huge South African mines opened in 1870, output began to be measured by the ton, causing such a glut the De Beers cartel was formed to control supply.  Quality diamonds are not at all scarce but De Beers’ control kept prices high and their near monopoly endured until 2005; even today they control over a third of world trade.  They also generated demand.  Until De Beers lavished spending on advertising, the diamond engagement ring was almost unknown; now, it’s an almost essential part of the marriage ritual.  The diamond's special position as a precious stone is due largely to monopoly economics and social engineering.

Ruby was from the Middle English ruby, rubie, rubi & rube, from the Old French rubi, from the Latin rubinus lapis (red stone) & rubeus (red) (feminine rubea, neuter rubeum) from rubeō (I am red, reddish).  The Latin rubeus was the source also of the Italian rubino and in related to ruber, from the primitive Indo-European root reudh- (red, ruddy).  It came to be applied as a name for a pure or somewhat crimson-red color from the 1570s.  There’s no etymological explanation for the Modern French rubis (ruby) beyond a assumption the plural was mistaken for the singular and caught on.

A pink to blood-red colored stone, the ruby, like the sapphire, is a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide).  The ruby’s deep red hue and vibrant glow is because of the presence of the element chromium but, more romantically, it carries the color of love and desire, a quality perhaps reflected in the prices the stone attracts at auction, the ruby tending to command the highest per-carat value of all colored gems.  A particular attraction of the pure ruby are the thin inclusions called needles which, when intersecting in groups, create a phenomenon called “silk” which softens the color causing the light to scatter in intricate patterns across the facets.  Ruby is the birthstone for July and the gem of the fifteenth and fortieth wedding anniversaries.

Emerald was from the early twelfth century Middle English emeraude, from the earlier Old French esmeraude, from the Medieval Latin esmaralda & esmaraldus, from the Classical Latin smaragdus, from the Ancient Greek σμάραγδος (smaragdos) (green gem or malachite), from the Semitic baraq (shine).  It was influenced by the Hebrew bareqeth (emerald) and the Arabic barq (lightning).  The Sanskrit maragdam (emerald) was from the same source, as was Persian zumurrud, from which Turkish gained zümrüd, source of Russian izumrud (emerald).  Historians caution that many mediæval references to the precious stones are not reliable except as a (sometimes vague) reference to color and this is said to apply especially to the emerald.  Ireland, came to be known as the Emerald Isle from 1795, the linkage because, with a high rainfall and a temperate climate, it’s a very green island.  The emerald was the favourite stone of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

A cyclosilicate and a variety of the mineral beryl and colored green by tiny quantities of chromium and sometimes vanadium, emeralds are not an especially tough stone so their resistance to breakage is classified by cutters as poor.  For this reason, jewellers often mount emeralds differently, using the shape or thickness of the supporting metal to afford the stone greater protection.  The particular quality of the structure of the emerald is the often-seen intricate inclusion called the “jardin” (French for “garden”) which appear in multiples and demand a special technique from those cutting the stone; gem cutters thus developed the “emerald cut” which lends the cut stone its distinctive rectangular or square shape.  Those who cut gem stones are formerly styled lapidaries but the more evocative “cutters” seem both preferred and better.  Emerald is the birthstone for May and the gem of the twentieth and thirty-fifth wedding anniversaries.

Sapphire is from the mid-thirteenth century Middle English saphir, from the early thirteenth century Old French saphir, from the Latin sapphir, sappir & sapphīrus (blue), from the Ancient Greek σάπφειρος (sáppheiros) (precious stone, blue gem), from a Semitic language.  The Hebrew סַפִּיר‎ (sappī́r) was perhaps from a non-Semitic source such as the Sanskrit शनिप्रिय (śanipriya) (dark-colored stone, perhaps a sapphire or emerald, literally “dear to Saturn”, the construct being Saturn + priyah (precious).  Some historians have speculated the Ancient Greek sappheiros, although meaning “blue stone" apparently referred to the "lapis lazuli", the modern sapphire being instead signified by the Greek hyakinthos; not all concur.  The Latin sapphirus was the source also of the Spanish zafir and the Italian zaffiro.  Among Renaissance lapidaries, the sapphire was said to cure anger and stupidity and, as sapphiric & sapphirine, assumed the role of adjective since the fifteenth century.

The sapphire is another variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide with trace quantities of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium.  A notably hard stone, the sapphire is third in hardness behind the diamond and moissanite and has some useful optical qualities which is why it’s used also in non-ornamental applications, such as infrared devices, wristwatch crystals and ultra- thin electronic wafers, used as the insulating substrates of specific-purpose solid-state electronics such as integrated circuits and blue LEDs, the latter of such importance the discovery of the processes which permitted its creation gained the responsible scientists the 2014 Nobel Prize for physics.

Although most associated with hues of blue, pure sapphires are actually white, but in the presence of titanium and iron traces they acquire their velvety blue shade and there’s long been a speculation there’s some link between the name and the planet Saturn.  Apart from the classic blue, there are the rarer “fancy sapphires” which exist in just about every color from green to pink (even a highly prized black and there are “parti sapphires” which display two or more colors) except for red; what would technically otherwise be a red sapphire is actually a ruby.  Known as the gemstones of wisdom, truth and justice, sapphire is the birthstone for September and the gem of the fifth and forty-fifth wedding anniversaries.  A sapphire jubilee happens after sixty-five years.

Diamond was from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English diamaunt & dyamaunt, from the Old French diamant, from the Late Latin diamantem (nominative diamas), from the Vulgar Latin adiamantem, from the Classical Latin adamantem (nominative adamans) (the hardest metal, later "diamond"), from the Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas) (genitive adamantos) (diamond).  Adamantos was used also as the name of the hypothetical hardest material, noun use of an adjective meaning "unbreakable, inflexible”).  It was cognate with the Spanish imán (magnet) & diamante, the French aimant (magnet) & diamant, the Italian diamante, and the Portuguese ímã (magnet) and diamante.

Lindsay Lohan's engagement ring.

From the early fifteenth century, in English also picked up another meaning which appeared also in Classical Latin: "a person of great worth".  In mathematics, later in the same century, diamond had come to describe a "geometric figure of four equal straight lines forming two acute and two obtuse angles.  It was used for one of the four suits in playing cards from the 1590s, having been an adjective to describe clusters of diamonds since the 1550s.  In baseball, the use to refer to the square space enclosed within the four bases dates from 1875.

Created when carbon is subject to immense pressure, diamond possess the highest shine of all transparent gemstones and is both the hardest known natural material on earth and the one with the highest thermal conductivity.  Able to be scratched only by another diamond, the cutting of the stones is also done with another diamond.  To determine their quality, diamonds like all precious stones are graded using the 4C system of connoisseurship: carat weight, color, clarity and cut. Diamond is the birthstone for April and the gem of the tenth and sixtieth wedding anniversaries.

Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (1944).

A diamond cluster was an addition late in World War II to the Knight’s Cross, the highest decoration awarded to Germany’s military and paramilitary forces during the Third Reich.  The Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten) was gazetted in July 1941.  A final and higher grade, the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Goldenem Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten) was created in December 1944, intended (somewhat optimistically given that all professional soldiers expected that month's  Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine and better known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive or the "Battle of the Bulge") to fail (as it did)) to be awarded after Germany's final victory the to the dozen most illustrious soldiers.  Only six were struck, one of which was actually awarded.

Pterodactyl

Pterodactyl (pronounced ter-uh-dak-til)

Any of a number of genera of flying reptiles of the extinct genus pterodactylus from the late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, having membranous wings supported on an elongated fourth digit and a highly reduced tail and teeth with a bird-like beak.  The general term, now less used, is pterosaurs (pterosauria in the plural) (flying reptiles).

1826: From the early nineteenth century French ptérodactyle from the Modern Latin genus name pterodactylus, the construct being the Greek pteron (wing) + the Latinised form daktylos (finger).  Pteron’s root was the primitive Indo-European pet- (to rush, to fly).  The pteranodon, an extinct flying reptile of the Cretaceous period, has a name based on pterodactyl with the stem of Greek anodous (toothless), the construct being an- (not, without) + odon (genitive odontos) (tooth) from the primitive Indo-European root dent- (tooth).  Thought remarkable because of the size, the wings never less than twenty-five feet (7.6m), they differed greatly from the Pterodactyls of the old world, especially in the absence of teeth and were accordingly placed by in a new order, Pteranodontia, from the typical genus Pteranodon when Yale Professor of Paleontology and President of the National Academy of Sciences, Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–1899), published Principal Characters of American Pterodactyls (1876).

Depiction of Pterodactyl.

Dactyl is interesting, entering Middle English in the late 1300s from the Latin dactylus, derived from the Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos or daktylos), used most often in the sense of “a finger-breadth” but meaning also "a fruit of the date tree” or “a date" and in literal translation "a finger" (and even "toe" though some etymologists insist this is a mistake); a word of unknown origin.  It lives on in the discipline of prosody, the study of poetic meter; the patterns of sounds and rhythms in verse where a dactyl describes the metrical foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short in quantitative meter, or one stressed followed by two unstressed in accentual meter.  Put simply, in English versification it means an accented syllable followed by two unaccented, the word adopted in this sense because a dactyl refers to the three joints of the finger, this corresponding to three syllables.  Globally, this aspect of prosody is practiced professionally by the handful of academics who care about such things and is something like poetry’s version of structuralism.

Task for Mr & Mrs Dactyl: Choosing name for daughter.

Concur

Concur (pronounced kuhn-kur)

(1) To accord in opinion; to agree.

(2) To cooperate; work together; combine; be associated.

(3) To coincide; occur at the same time.

(4) To run or come together; converge (obsolete).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English concur (collide, clash in hostility), from the Latin concurrere (to run together, assemble hurriedly; clash, fight), in transferred use “to happen at the same time", the construct being con (the Latin prefix variation of cum (with; together)) + currere (to run).  The early meaning in English was "collide, clash in hostility," the sense of "to happen at the same time" didn’t emerge until the 1590s; that of "to agree in opinion" a decade earlier.  Ultimate root was the Proto-Italic korzō, derived from the primitive Indo-European ḱers (to run).  Related forms are the adverb concurringly and the adjectives concurring and concurrent.  Despite the rarity, the verbs preconcur, preconcurred & preconcurring, and the adjectives unconcurred & unconcurring are said to exist, at least to the extent no dictionary appears yet to have declared them obsolete or archaic.  The adjective concurrent is noted from the late fourteenth century though concurring is said (surprisingly) not to have been in use until the 1630s.  The first concurring opinion was recorded in 1720.  The sense "to coincide, happen at the same time" is from 1590s; that of "to agree in opinion" dates in English from the 1580s

In praise of the Privy Council

Concurrent is probably the most common adjectival form in general use.  Noted since the late 1300s, in the sense of “acting in conjunction, contributing to the same effect or event", it was from the Old French concurrent or directly from Latin concurrentem (nominative concurrens), present participle of concurrere.  The meaning "combined, joint" is from 1530s and in law, concurrent jurisdiction (that possessed equally by two courts and if exercised by one not usually assumed by the other) is recorded from 1767.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Concur is one of many synonyms for “agree” and the one most favoured by judges on appellant courts to indicate they agree with (or at least acquiesce to) a judgment written by another.  That’s good because it means there’s less to have to read.  However, some judges prefer to pen their own judgments, helpful perhaps if they wish to explore some aspect of the case not elsewhere mentioned but otherwise a duplication of effort unless their prose serves to render readable what can be turgid stuff.  Then there are the dissenting judgments, of interest to academic lawyers and historians and sometimes a source of hope to those entertaining thoughts of an appeal.  That notwithstanding, those wishing just to know the state of law with certainty might long for a system in which appellate courts of appeal issued only the majority judgment with the dissenters encouraged to submit essays or letters to the editors of legal journals.

Etching of a sitting of a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (1846).

That only one judgment was issued was the most appealing procedural aspect of the Privy Council, until 1968 and 1986 respectively, the highest court of appeal for Australian state and Commonwealth jurisdictions.  Properly styled The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), the Privy Council remains the ultimate court of appeal for some British Overseas Territories and Commonwealth countries.  Although the Privy Council’s decisions are mostly not binding on the UK’s domestic courts, the rulings are held to be extremely persuasive as other respected tribunals (US Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Canada et al) are regarded.  One quirk of the Australian Constitution is that, the 1986 Australia Acts notwithstanding, the High Court can issue a certificate referring certain cases to the council but none has been granted for a century and the court has long made clear there’ll be no more.  As a bit of a relic of English constitutional history and the established church, in the United Kingdom, the Privy Council retains appellant jurisdiction some domestic matters:

(1) Appeals from the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York in non-doctrinal faculty causes.

(2) Appeals from the High Court of Chivalry.

(3) Appeals from the Court of Admiralty of the Cinque Ports and Admiralty prize courts.

(4) Appeals from the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

(5) Disputes under the House of Commons Disqualification Act, a role essentially similar to that the High Court of Australia (HCA) discharges as the Commonwealth’s Court of Disputed Returns.

Historically, the Privy Council dealt with cases thus referred without any known demand for multiple judgments or dissenting opinions; a fine example of judicial clarity and efficiency and one which judges in other courts never to admire, much less emulate.  Despite its exalted place in the legal hierarchy, the council has been a surprisingly flexible and informal court.  In 1949, it found, on technical grounds, the Commonwealth of Australia’s appeal in the bank nationalization case (Commonwealth of Australia v Bank of NSW [1949] UKPC 37, [1950] AC 235; [1949] UKPCHCA 1, (1949) 79 CLR 497 (26 October 1949)) couldn’t proceed but, because so many people had travelled over ten-thousand miles (17,000 km) to London (no small thing in 1949), it anyway heard the case and issued what would have been the substantive judgment.  If ever it’d been prepared to set the example of providing advisory opinions, the Privy Council would have been the best appellant court ever.  Unfortunately, In recent years, dissenting opinions have started to be issued.

Sitting of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 18 June 1946.

M.R Jayaker, Lord Du Parcq, Lord Goddard (Lord Chief Justice), Lord Simonds, Lord Macmillan, Lord Simon, The Lord Chancellor (Lord Jowitt), Lord Thankerton, Lord Porter, Lord Uthwatt, Sir Madhavan Nair, and Sir John Beaumont.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia (pronounced on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh)

(1) The formation of words or names by imitation of natural sounds; the naming of something by a reproduction of the sound made by it or a sound associated with its referent.

(2) A word so formed.

(3) The use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical, dramatic, or poetic effect.

1570s: From the Late Latin onomatopoeia, from the Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoeia) (the making of a name or word in imitation of a sound associated with the thing being named), from ὀνοματοποιέω (onomatopoiéō), from ὄνομα (ónoma) (genitive onomatos) (word, name) from the primitive Indo-European root no-men- (name) + a derivative of ποιέω (poiéō & poiein) (to make, to do, to produce; compose”), related to the Modern English poet.  Two of the adjectival forms, onomatopoeial (1670s) & onomatopoeous (1660s) are considered obsolete except in linguistic scholarship; only onomatopoetic (1825-1835) has survived in general use.

The adjective onomatopoeic (pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of onomatopoeia) was variously from the French onomatopoéique or else a construct of the noun onomatopoeia + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically.  In English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Examples

Words Related to Water: Often begin with sp- or dr. Words that indicate a small amount of liquid often end in -le (sprinkle/drizzle): Splash, squirt, drip, drizzle.

Words Related to the Voice: Sounds that come from the back of the throat tend to start with a gr- sound whereas sounds that come out of the mouth through the lips, tongue and teeth begin with mu-: Giggle, growl, grunt, gurgle, mumble, murmur, chatter.

Words Related to Collisions: Collisions can occur between any two or more objects. Sounds that begin with cl- usually indicate collisions between metal or glass objects, and words that end in -ng are sounds that resonate. Words that begin with th- usually describe dull sounds like soft but heavy things hitting wood or earth: Bam, bang, clang, clank, clap, clatter, click, clink, ding, jingle, screech, slap, thud, thump.

Words Related to Air: Air doesn’t make a sound unless it blows through something so these words describe the sounds of air blowing through things or of things rushing through the air: Flutter, fist, fwoosh, gasp, swish, swoosh, whiff, whoosh, whizz, whip, whisper.

Animal Sounds: Literally imitative of the sounds made by animals: Arf, baa, bark, bray, buzz, cheep, chirp, chortle, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo, cuckoo, hiss, meow, moo, neigh, oink, purr, quack, ribbit, tweet, warble.

Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren (b 1948), from The Hermit of Mink Hollow (1977).  It’s sometimes suggested the critics were “divided” on the merits of the song but the split appears to have been about 99:1 against.  Generally though, The Hermit of Mink Hollow seems to have been well-received.

Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren, © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Onomatopoeia every time I see ya

My senses tell me hubba

And I just can't disagree

I get a feeling in my heart that I can't describe

It's sort of lub, dub, lub, dub

A sound in my head that I can't describe

It's sort of zoom, zip, hiccup, drip

Ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack

Onomatopoeia in proximity ya

Rearrange my brain in a strange cacophony

I get a feeling somewhere that I can't describe

It's sort of uh, uh, uh, uh

A sound in my head that I can't describe

It's sort of whack, whir, wheeze, whine

Sputter, splat, squirt, scrape

Clink, clank, clunk, clatter

Crash, bang, beep, buzz

Ring, rip, roar, retch

Twang, toot, tinkle, thud

Pop, plop, plunk, pow

Snort, snuk, sniff, smack

Screech, splash, squish, squeek

Jingle, rattle, squeel, boing

Honk, hoot, hack, belch

Alloy

Alloy (pronounced al-oi (noun) or uh-loi (verb))

(1) A substance composed of two or more metals, or of a metal or metals with a nonmetal, intimately mixed, as by fusion or electrodeposition.

(2) A less costly metal mixed with a more valuable one.

(3) A standard; quality; fineness.

(4) Admixture, as of good with evil.

(5) To mix (metals or metal with nonmetal) so as to form an alloy.

(6) To reduce in value by an admixture of a less costly metal.

(7) To debase, impair, or reduce by admixture; adulterate.

(8) A slang term for aluminum, applied often to wheels made of the metal.

1590–1600: From the Middle French aloi (a mixture), from aloier (to combine) from the Old French alei, noun derivative of aleier (to combine) from the Latin alligāre (to bind up), the construct being al- (from the Latin adjective suffix -ālis) + ligāre (to bind) (from which English ultimately gained ligament).  It replaced the earlier Middle English allay from the Anglo-French allai.  An alloy is metallic substance made by mixing and fusing two or more metals, or a metal and a nonmetal, to obtain desirable qualities such as hardness, lightness, and strength. Brass, bronze, and steel are all alloys.  Alloys often have physical properties markedly different from those of the pure metals.

Tube Alloys

Tube Alloys was the code name of the UK’s World War II atomic weapon programme.  Work at Cambridge University during the 1930s had witnessed nuclear fission which underpinned the theory a nuclear chain reaction could be started, thereby making possible an atomic bomb.  While the science remained mysterious to most, the term “atomic bomb” had been known since 1913 when HG Wells used it to describe a continuously-exploding bomb in his novel The World Set Free.  The code name was chosen because it was vague enough to be associated with just about any engineering project.

Trinity A-Bomb test, 1945, the world's first detonation of a nuclear weapon.  Trinity was a plutonium device, the uranium bomb used against Hiroshima not tested because the scientists and engineers were certain of its success.    

Because the development of an atomic bomb demanded vast resources, Tube Alloys was later absorbed into the parallel US research; the trans-Atlantic effort picking up its code name from the project’s first headquarters in Manhattan, NYC.  It was originally to be called Development of Substitute Materials but it was thought that might attract unwanted interest so Manhattan Engineer District was instead adopted.  A bit of a mouthful, before long, it was known to all involved as the Manhattan Project.

Of alloys and aluminium

One of the consequences of the ultimate success of the Tube Alloys project was the form the British Land Rover (1948-2016) took.  The Manhattan project was top secret and until well into 1945 it wasn’t certain either if the A-bomb was going to work or if it could be produced in volume as a deliverable weapon.  Accordingly, military procurement plans continued on the assumption the war in the Far East would continue perhaps until the end of 1946 meaning there were big orders in the pipeline for war-planes, notably medium and heavy bombers, both requiring much aluminium.  The sudden end of the war in August 1945 thus resulted in the cancellation of most of these orders but because of the lead-times in industrial production, huge stocks of sheet aluminium were in warehouses and elsewhere in the supply chain.  After the war, the UK was not exactly bankrupt but the economy was poor shape and there was much need to encourage exports, the official mantra at the time “export or die” and it was no idle treat; manufacturing concerns companies not orienting their production towards exports would quickly find they were unable to secure raw materials and had to either build for export or go out of business.

Series 1 Land Rover.  Note the panels fashioned with sheets of aluminium which needed only to be cut or folded.

So steel was in chronically short supply because of the need to re-build so much of the infrastructure which had been damaged or destroyed, mostly by the Luftwaffe’s gravity bombs and the later use of the V1 flying bombs and the big V2 rockets but aluminium was plentiful.  Sheet aluminium was also light, not susceptible to rust and importantly, could be folded into simple shapes, obviating the need for complex and tooling to be built, an expensive and time consuming process.  These qualities appealed to Rover’s engineers who, while working on their modernist range of post-war passenger vehicles and turbine engines, conjured up of the country’s most enduring exports, the Land-Rover which in its original form would remain in production until outlawed in 2016 by humorous European Union (EU) bureaucrats; it also in 1970 begat the Range Rover which didn’t exactly create the niche of the civilized four wheel drive (4WD) but certainly defined it.  Using a simple to build chassis and existing engines, the original Land Rover was developed at remarkably low cost, something helped by most of the external panels being fashioned from flat sheet aluminium, most requiring nothing more than cutting and folding.

In recent years, although more expensive than steel, aluminium remains an attractive metal for manufacturers, attracted by its light weight and ease of construction.  Before the advent of fibreglass and later more exotic composites, it was the material of choice for many high-performance cars, some special low-volume runs of “alloy bodies” even featuring in the production schedules of models constructed usually from steel.  Sometimes too there was a mix, components like doors, hoods (bonnets) & trunk (boot) lids used to lighten vehicles made substantially from steel, offering a significant weight-reduction without the large cost of re-tooling for the entire platform.  It was done not only to guarantee high-performance but also to do something about low-performance.  After the second oil shock (1979), Mercedes-Benz rushed into production the 300 SD (1978-1980), a diesel version of the S Class (W116 1972-1980) sedan in response to demand for diesel vehicles in North America.  However, even after bolting a turbo-charger to the (OM617) five cylinder 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) engine, such was the lack of power compared to the familiar petrol V8s that performance was hardly stellar.  Aerodynamic improvements would have to wait for the replacement platform (W126 1979-1991) and the only practical solution was weight reduction so the hood and truck lid were replace with pressings using aluminium.  That helped but not by much and the acceleration offered by the 300 SD was never described as anything but leisurely although the offset was the famously durable OM617 would run for decades.  Priorities had however changed and the 300 SD became a best-seller in the US and was a major factor in helping the company meet the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, mandated in 1975, a reasonable achievement given the infamous thirst of the V8s.  In later years, lightweight parts also proved attractive to owners of the 450 SEL 6.9 which used the 6.9 litre (417 cubic inch) (M100), the diet regime making the Teutonic hot rod faster still.

Mercedes-Benz R230 construction (left) and Lindsay Lohan’s unfortunate SL 65.

Even in the age of carbon fibre and more modern alloys, aluminium remains widely used because it’s light, strong and it’s properties are well understood in manufacturing.  The Mercedes-Benz R230 (SL, 2001-2011) used aluminium for components such as doors (the inner skins the even lighter magnesium), trunk lid and front fenders (wings) and alloys such as high-strength steel for the platform.  Lindsay Lohan’s unfortunate low-speed event in a 2006 SL 65 afforded users an unusual view of the R230's construction via a gash torn in the aluminium door.