Dot (pronounced dot)
(1) A small, roundish mark made with or as if with a pen.
(2) A minute or small spot on a surface; speck.
(3) Anything relatively small or speck-like.
(4) A small specimen, section, amount, or portion; a
small portion or specimen (the use meaning “a lump or clod” long obsolete).
(5) In grammar, a punctuation mark used to indicate the
end of a sentence or an abbreviated part of a word; a full stop; a period.
(6) In the Latin script, a point used as a diacritical
mark above or below various letters, as in Ȧ, Ạ, Ḅ, Ḃ, Ċ.
(7) In computing, a differentiation point internet
addresses etc and in file names a separation device (although historically a
marker between the filename and file type when only one dot per name was
permitted in early files systems, the best known of which was the 8.3 used by the
various iterations of CP/M & DOS (command.com, image.tif, config.sys etc).
(8) In music, a point placed after a note or rest, to
indicate that the duration of the note or rest is to be increased one half. A
double dot further increases the duration by one half the value of the single
dot; a point placed under or over a note to indicate that it is to be played
staccato.
(9) In telegraphy. a signal of shorter duration than a
dash, used in groups along with groups of dashes (-) and spaces to represent
letters, as in Morse code.
(10) In printing, an individual element in a halftone
reproduction.
(11) In printing, the mark that appears above the main
stem of the letters i, j.
(12) In the sport of cricket, as “dot ball” a delivery
not scored from.
(13) In the slang of ballistics as “dotty” (1) buckshot, the
projectile from a or shotgun or (2) the weapon itself.
(14) A female given name, a clipping of form of Dorothea or
Dorothy.
(15) A contraction in many jurisdictions for Department
of Transportation (or Transport).
(16) In mathematics and logic, a symbol (·) indicating
multiplication or logical conjunction; an indicator of dot product of vectors:
X · Y
(17) In mathematics, the decimal point (.),used for
separating the fractional part of a decimal number from the whole part.
(18) In computing and printing, as dot matrix, a
reference to the method of assembling shapes by the use of dots (of various
shapes) in a given space. In casual (and
commercial) use it was use of impact printers which used a hammer with a dot-shape
to strike a ribbon which impacted the paper (or other surface) to produce
representations of shapes which could include text. Technically, laser printers use a dot-matrix in
shape formation but the use to describe impact printers caught on and became
generic. The term “dots per inch” (DPI) is
a measure of image intensity and a literal measure of the number of dots is an
area. Historically, impact printers were
sold on the basis of the number of pins (hammers; typically 9, 18 or 24) in the print head which was
indicative of the quality of print although some software could enhance the
effect.
(19) In civil law, a woman's dowry.
(20) In video gaming, the abbreviation for “damage over
time”, an attack that results in light or moderate damage when it is dealt, but
that wounds or weakens the receiving character, who continues to lose health in
small increments for a specified period of time, or until healed by a spell or
some potion picked up.
(21) To mark with or as if with a dot or dots; to make a
dot-like shape.
(22) To stud or diversify with or as if with dots (often
in the form “…dotting the landscape…” etc).
(23) To form or cover with dots (such as “the dotted line”).
(24) In colloquial use, to punch someone.
(25) In cooking, to sprinkle with dabs of butter, chocolate
etc.
Pre 1000: It may have been related to the Old English dott (head of a boil) although there’s
no evidence of such use in Middle English.
Dottle & dit were both derivative of Old English dyttan (to stop up (and again, probably
from dott)) and were cognate with Old
High German tutta (nipple), the Norwegian
dott and the Dutch dott (lump). Unfortunately there seems no link between dit and the modern slang zit (pimple), a
creation of US English unknown until the 1960s.
The Middle English dot & dotte were from the Old English dott in the de-elaborated sense of “a
dot, a point on a surface), from the Proto-West Germanic dott, from the Proto-Germanic duttaz
(wisp) and were cognate with the Saterland Frisian Dot & Dotte (a clump),
the Dutch dot (lump, knot, clod), the
Low German Dutte (a plug) and the Swedish
dott (a little heap, bunch, clump). The use in civil jurisdiction of common law where
dot was a reference to “a woman's dowry” dates from the early 1820s and was
from the French, from the Latin dōtem,
accusative of dōs (dowry) and related
to dōtāre (to endow) and dāre to (give). For technical or descript reasons dot is a
modifier or modified as required including centered dot, centred dot, middle
dot, polka dot, chroma dot, day dot, dot-com, dot-comer (or dot-commer), dot
release and dots per inch (DPI). The synonyms
can (depending on context) include dab, droplet, fleck, speck, pepper, sprinkle,
stud, atom, circle, speck, grain, iota, jot, mite, mote, particle, period, pinpoint,
point, spot and fragment. Dot & dotting
are nouns & verbs, dotter is a noun, dotlike & dotal are adjectives, dotted
is an adjective & verb and dotty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural
is dots.
Although in existence for centuries, and revived with the
modern meaning (mark) in the early sixteenth century, the word appears not to
have been in common use until the eighteenth and in music, the use to mean “point
indicating a note is to be lengthened by half” appears by at least 1806. The use in the Morse code used first on telegraphs
dates from 1838 and the phrase “on the dot” (punctual) is documented since 1909
as a in reference to the (sometimes imagined) dots on a clock’s dial face. In computing, “dot-matrix” (printing and
screen display) seems first to have been used in 1975 although the processes
referenced had by then been in use for decades.
The terms “dotted line” is documented since the 1690s. The verb dot (mark with a dot or dots) developed from the
noun and emerged in the mid eighteenth century.
The adjective dotty as early as the fourteenth century meant “someone silly”
and was from "dotty poll" (dotty head), the first element is from the
earlier verb dote. By 1812 it meant also
literally “full of dots” while the use to describe shotguns, their loads and
the pattern made on a target was from the early twentieth century. The word microdot was adopted in 1971 to
describe “tiny capsules of Lysergic acid diethylamide" (LSD or “acid”); in the
early post-war years (most sources cite 1946) it was used in the espionage community
to describe (an extremely reduced photograph able to be disguised as a period
dot on a typewritten manuscript.
Lindsay Lohan in polka-dots, enjoying a frozen hot chocolate, Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, 7 January 2019.
The polka-dot (a pattern consisting of dots of uniform
size and arrangement," especially on fabric) dates from 1844 and was from
the French polka, from the German Polka, probably from the Czech polka, (the dance, literally
"Polish woman" (Polish Polka),
feminine form of Polak (a Pole). The word might instead be a variant of the
Czech půlka (half (půl the truncated version of půlka used in special cases (eg telling
the time al la the English “half four”))) a reference to the half-steps of
Bohemian peasant dances. It may even be
influenced by or an actual merger of both.
The dance first came into vogue in 1835 in Prague, reaching London in
the spring of 1842; Johann Strauss (the younger) wrote many polkas. Polka was a verb by 1846 as (briefly) was polk; notoriously it’s sometimes
mispronounced as poke-a-dot.
In idiomatic use, to “dot one's i's and cross one's t's”
is to be meticulous in seeking precision; an attention to even the smallest
detail. To be “on the dot” is to be
exactly correct or to have arrived at exactly at the time specified. The ides of “joining the dots” or “connecting
the dots” is to make connections between various pieces of data to produce
useful information. In software, the
process is literal in that it refers to the program “learning: how accurately
to fill in the missing pieces of information between the data points generated
or captured. “The year dot” is an informal
expression which means “as long ago as can be remembered”. To “sign on the dotted line” is to add one’s
signature in the execution of a document (although there may be no actual
dotted line on which to sign).
Dots, floating points, the decimal point and the Floating Point Unit (FPU)
When handling numbers, decimal points (the dot) are of
great significance. In cosmology a tiny
difference in values beyond the dot can mean the difference between hitting one’s
target and missing by thousands of mile and in finance the placement can
dictate the difference between ending up rich or poor. Vital then although not all were much
bothered: when Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) was Chancellor of the Exchequer
(1886), he found the decimal point “tiresome”, telling the Treasury officials “those
damned dot” were not his concern and according to the mandarins he was inclined
to “round up to the nearest thousand or million as the case may be”. His son (Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK
prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) when Chancellor (1924-1929)) paid
greater attention to the dots but his term at 11 Downing Street, although
longer, remains less well-regarded.
In some (big, small or complex) mathematical computations
performed on computers, the placement of the dot is vital. What are called “floating-point operations”
are accomplished using a representation of real numbers which can’t be handled
in the usual way; both real numbers, decimals & fractions can be defined or
approximated using floating-point representation, the a numerical value represented
by (1) a sign, (2) a significand and (3) an exponent. The sign indicates whether the number is
positive or negative, the significand is a representation of the fractional
part of the number and the exponent determines the number’s scale. In computing, the attraction of floating-point
representation is that a range of values can be represented with a relatively
small number of bits and although the capability of computers has massively increased,
so has the ambitions of those performing big, small or complex number
calculations so the utility remains important.
At the margins however (very big & very small), the finite precision
of traditional computers will inevitably result in “rounding errors” so there can
be some degree of uncertainty, something compounded by there being even an “uncertainty
about the uncertainty”. Floating point
calculations therefore solve many problems and create others, the core problem
being there will be instances where the problems are not apparent. Opinion seems divided on whether quantum
computing will mean the uncertainty will vanish (at least with the very big if
not the very small).
In computer hardware, few pieces have so consistently
been the source of problems as Floating point units (FPUs), the so-called “math
co-processors”. Co-processors were an
inherent part of the world of the mainframes but came to be thought of as
something exotic in personal computers (PC) because there was such a focus on
the central processing unit (CPU) (8086, 68020, i486 et al) and some
co-processors (notably graphical processing units (GPU)) have assumed a
cult-like following. The evolution of
the FPU is interesting in that as manufacturing techniques improved they were
often integrated into the CPU architecture before again when the PC era began, Intel’s
early 808x & 8018x complimented by the optional 8087 FPU, the model
replicated by the 80286 & 80287 pairing, the latter continuing for some
time as the only available FPU for almost two years after the introduction of
the 80386 (later renamed i386DX in an attempt to differential genuine “Intel
Inside” silicon from the competition which had taken advantage of the
difficulties in trade-marking numbers).
The delay was due to the increasing complexity of FPU designs and flaws
were found in the early 387s.
The management of those problems was well-managed by
Intel but with the release of the i487 in 1991 they kicked an own goal. First displayed in 1989, the i486DX had been
not only a considerable advance but included an integrated FPU (also with some
soon-corrected flaws). That was good but
to grab some of the market share from those making fast 80386DX clones, Intel
introduced the i486SX, marketed as a lower-cost chip which was said to be an
i486 with a reduced clock speed and without the FPU. For many users that made sense because anyone
doing mostly word processing or other non-number intensive tasks really had
little use for the FPU but then Intel introduced the i487SX, a FPU unit which,
in the traditional way, plugged into a socket on the system-board (as even them
motherboards were coming to be called) al la a 287 or 387. However, it transpired i487SX was functionally
almost identical to an i486DX, the only difference being that when plugged-in,
it checked to ensure the original i486SX was still on-board, the reason being
Intel wanted to ensure no market for used i486SXs (then selling new for
hundreds of dollars) emerged. To achieve
this trick, the socket for the I487 had an additional pin and it was the
presence of this which told the system board to disable the i486SX. The i487SX was not a success and Intel
suffered what was coming to be called “reputational damage”.
Dual socket system-board with installed i486SX, the vacant socket able to handle either the i486DX or the i487SX.
The i487SX affair was however a soon forgotten minor blip
in Intel’s upward path. In 1994, Intel
released the first of the Pentium CPUs all of which were sold with an
integrated FPU, establishing what would become Intel’s standard architectural
model. Like the early implementations of
the 387 & 487, there were flaws and upon becoming aware of the problem,
Intel initiated a rectification programme.
They did not however issue a recall or offer replacements to anyone who
had already purchased a flawed Pentium and, after pressure was exerted,
undertook to offer replacements only to those users who could establish their pattern
of use indicated they would actually be in some way affected. Because of the nature of the bug, that meant “relatively
few”. The angst however didn’t subside and
a comparison was made with a defect in a car which would manifest only if
speeds in excess of 125 mph (200 km/h) were sustained for prolonged periods. Although in that case only “relatively few”
might suffer the fault, nobody doubted the manufacturer would be compelled to
rectify all examples sold and such was the extent of the reputational damage
that Intel was compelled to offer what amounted to a “no questions asked”
replacement offer. The corporation’s
handing of the matter has since often been used as a case study in academic
institutions by those studying law, marketing, public relations and such.
