Mothball

Mothball (pronounced moth-ball or mawth-bawl (US))

(1) A small ball of naphthalene or sometimes of camphor for placing in closets or other storage areas to repel moths from clothing, blankets, etc.

(2) To put into storage or reserve; inactivate.

(3) Inactive; unused; stored away.

(4) A form of drug abuse where users inhale or ingest mothballs.  Users may hallucinate, feel a distorted sense of time and space, or experience rapidly changing emotions.  Side-effects include nausea, vomiting, slurred speech, headache, coordination loss, wheezing, and rashes.

1891: A compound word, (used also as also moth-ball & moth ball) used to describe the naphthalene ball stored among fabrics to keep off moths, the construct being moth + ball.  Moth (nocturnal lepidopterous insect) was from the Middle English motthe, from the Old English moþþe & moððe (mohðe in dialectical Northumbrian) and was a common Germanic word.  Related were the Old Norse motti, the Middle Dutch motte, the Dutch mot, & the German Motte (moth).  It may have been related to the Old English maða (maggot) or from the root of midge.  Until the sixteenth century, the word was used mostly to refer to the larva and usually in reference to devouring woollen fabrics, hence the translation (King James Version 1611) of Matthew 6:20 as “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”  Words for the adult moth in the Middle English included the mid-fourteenth century flindre which was cognate with the Dutch vlinder (butterfly).  As a literal description, the phrase "moth-eaten” was attested from the late fourteenth century, the figurative sense noted a few years later.  The related forms in the Romance languages are borrowings from the Germanic.  Ball was from the Middle English bal, ball & balle, from the Old English beall, beal & bealla (“round object, compact spherical body" and also "the spherical or similar object used in a game" dating from circa 1200) or the Old Norse bǫllr (a ball), evidenced by the diminutive bealluc (testicle), all from the Proto-Germanic balluz & ballô (ball), from the primitive Indo-European bholn- (bubble), from bhel (to blow, inflate, swell).  It was cognate with the Old Saxon ball, the Flemish bal, the Dutch bal, the Old High German bal & ballo, the German Ball (ball) & Ballen (bale). 

When used as a simple noun, mothballs are usually referred in the plural, that’s how they’re purchased and used.  A mothball is a small ball of chemical pesticide (typically naphthalene) and deodorant placed in or around clothing and other articles susceptible to damage from mold or moth larvae in order to protect them from this damage, the process being process is “mothballing” or to “mothball”.  In the pre-synthetic fibre era they were more widely used and the advent of modern chemical sprays has seen use diminish further.

Their cheapness and toxicity has seen them used also to repel snakes, squirrels, bats and other rodents, despite many jurisdictions making the use unlawful and a number of studies documenting the health risks to humans and other wildlife.  They’re also often suggests as a way for gardeners to eradicate snails but evidence of efficacy is only anecdotal although it does appear the use may cause at least illness in domestic pets.  As a verb, "mothball" is used metaphorically to mean "to stop work on an idea, plan, or job, but leaving things in such a state that work can later resume.

Mothballing

Mothballed WWII US Navy destroyers, 1947.

When the military, typically after longer conflicts, have too much capital equipment (tanks, ships, aircraft etc) but are, for a variety of reasons, unwilling to re-allocate, sell or consign the surplus to scrap, the storage process is called mothballing.  With airframes or land-vehicles, this involves hermetically sealing the structure and storing them in remote places with low humidity and rainfall (such as the Arizona desert).  For an admiralty, surface and underwater vessels are more of a challenge given they’re usually moored in salt-water.

The Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, interned at Scapa Flow, 28 November 1918.

Mothballed ships made in the pre-atomic age (pre 1945) are also used to provide low-background steel for use in nuclear medicine experimental physics which demands shielding material which is extremely weakly radioactive (emitting less than present-day background radiation).  Steel manufactured after the first atmospheric nuclear explosions reflect the higher ambient level of radioactivity that fallout has caused.  Some of the capital ships of the Imperial German Navy’s High Seas fleet, scuttled in 1919, were an important source of such steel although, with atmospheric nuclear testing no longer undertaken, background radiation has decreased to near natural levels, so the need for low-background steel in medical machines now not usually needed.  However, for the equipment used in experimental physics where the most extreme sensitivity is required, the pre-1945 steel is still used.

AMARG, March 2015.

The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309th AMARG or, in military slang, “the Boneyard”) is a United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft and missile storage and maintenance facility in Tucson, Arizona, part of the Davis–Monthan Air Force Base.  For decades, AMARG, the largest facility of its type on the planet, has stored thousand of airframes in various states of repair, it’ location advantageous because of a low-humidity climate which minimises rust and corrosion and ground that is geologically stable and sufficiently hard so even the heaviest aircraft don’t sink into the soil.

Mothballed Boeing B-52s at AMARG, 1991.

In the 1990s, under the terms of the START I treaty, (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; a 1991 bilateral treaty between the US & USSR and successor to SALT I & II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 1972 & 1979)), 365 of the USAF’s mothballed B-52 Stratofortress bombers stored at the Arizona boneyard were literally chopped into pieces, initially with a 13,000 (4850 kg) pound guillotine supported on a mobile crane.  The big blade was effective but brutish and the team soon switched to Husqvarna diamond-tipped fire-rescue  saws, the added precision less destructive on the surrounding equipment which afforded AMARC the opportunity to cannibalise the airframes for salvageable parts.

Wreckage of disabled B-52s of the US Air Force's (USAF) former Strategic Air Command (SAC) left in situ to permit satellite observation for purpose of verification by Russian Federation (successor-state to the USSR), 1994.

After the destruction was done, the wreckage was left in place for two months.  Under the START I terms which defined the verification process, both sides had sixty days to verify the other side’s conformity with the agreement using satellite over-flys.  Like most agreements between strategic adversaries, SALT & START operated under the principle of "trust but verify", the second element of that included because nobody believed in the first.  

Broadside (9 x 16” guns) from the USS Iowa.

The US Navy's four Iowa-class battleships were mothballed and re-commissioned several times between 1948 and 1991.  Launched between 1942-1944, their last period of active service was 1981-1991 as part of the Reagan Administration’s 600-ship navy policy.  Such was the cultural significance of the big battleships, although they were stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, instead of (as usual) being scrapped, all were donated for use as museum ships, the last in 2004.  They were big ships but not as wide as some of the Super Dreadnoughts (the beam of the Iowas about the same as the last battleship ever launched, the Royal Navy's HMS Vanguard (1946-1960)), the dimension dictated by the need to pass through the Panama Canal.

Myriad

Myriad (pronounced mir-ee-uhd)

(1) Originally, ten thousand (10,000) (archaic).

(2) A very great, innumerable or indefinitely great number of something; having innumerable phases, aspects, variations, etc.

1545-1555: From the French myriade, from the Late Latin mȳriadem (accusative of mȳrias (genitive myriadis)), from the Ancient Greek μυριάς (muriás) and myrias (genitive myriados) (the number 10,000), from μυρίος (muríos (plural myrioi)) (numberless, innumerable, countless, infinite; boundless).  In Ancient Greek, myriad was “the biggest number able to be expressed in one word”.  The ultimate origin is unknown but there may be a link with the primitive Indo-European meue-, the source also of the Hittite muri- (cluster of grapes), the Latin muto (penis) and the Middle Irish moth (penis).  The cardinal (ten thousand) is myriad, the ordinal (ten-thousandth) is myriadth, the multiplier (tenthousandfold) is myriadfold and the collective is myriad.  Myriad is a noun and adjective, myriadisation is a noun, myriadth is an adjective, myriadfold is an adjective & adverb and myriadly is an adverb; the noun plural is myriads.

In a hangover from the medieval habit, in the sixteenth century myriad initially was used in accordance with the Greek and Etymology meaning (ten thousand (10,000)) but as early as the late 1500s was used to refer to “a countless number or multitude of whatever was being discussed” and thus assumed the meaning “lots of; really big number of”.  From at last the mid-eighteenth century, when modifying a plural noun, it predominantly meant great in number; innumerable, multitudinous” and that’s long been the default meaning and references the exact numeric origin (10,000) exist only to list the earlier sense as archaic or as a footnote explaining the use in some historic text.  The most pure of the style guides (the editors used to fighting losing battles) still note than when used as an adjective the word myriad requires neither an article before nor a preposition after.  The result of that strictness is that a phrase like “a myriad of stars” where “myriad” acts as part of a nominal (or noun) group is said to be tautological but so much has the pattern of use evolved that most probably would find the alternative, though elegant, somehow lacking. 

The still rare noun myriadisation (crowdfunding) was a creature of social media, the idea being attracting funding in small increments from many (maybe 10,000 or more) and the concept was one of the (many) reasons Barack Obama's (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) campaign in 2008 to secure the Democratic Party nomination for that year's US presidential election was better funded than that of crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).  One topical variant was permyriad, the construct being per- + myriad.  The per- prefix was borrowed from Latin per-, from the Proto-Italic peri- and related to per (through).  As a word-forming element, it's now rare except in science where (1) its used to form nouns & adjectives denoting the maximum proportion of one element in a compound and (2) it was added to the name of an element in a polyatomic ion to denote the number of atoms of that element (usually four).  Historically, in verbs it (3) denoting the sense "through", (4) denoting the sense "thoroughly", (5) denoting the sense "to destruction" and (6) in adjectives and adverbs it denoted the sense of "extremely".  Permyriad means “One out of every ten thousand” (ie one percent of one percent), a concept which was discussed in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC 2008-2011) when the idea spread of “the one percent” as the section of the population which held a disproportionate and socially destructive of the world’s wealth and property.  The point was made that the extent of the distortion was better illustrated were the math done with the “one percent of the one percent” so the definition of permyriad was in the news although the word never staged much of a revival.

Myriad is often a word of choice when writers are searching for a fancy way to say “lots” and it’s over used.  It no longer is used to convey “10,000” or even a number close to that but it should evoke thoughts of a big number.  Synonyms for myriad in its modern sense include countless, endless, infinite & innumerable and (even in Los Angeles) rehab options may not be quite that plentiful.  A better fancy would have been plethora, the synonyms for which include excess, abundance, glut, surfeit, superfluity & slew.  It’s true plethora & myriad are often used interchangeably but they really are subtly different.  Plethora (the plural plethorae or plethoras) was from the Late Latin plēthōra, from the Ancient Greek πληθώρη (plēthṓrē) (fullness, satiety), the construct being πλήθω (plḗthō) (to be full) +‎ -η (-ē) (the nominal suffix).  It means “an excessive amount or number; an abundance”.  In use, plethora is usually followed by “of” except for the technical use in clinical medicine where it describes “an excess of blood in the skin, especially in the face and especially chronically”.

It’s probably not true that during Antiquity the Athenians never spoke of matters where values higher than 10,000 were discussed but they appear never to have created a single word descriptor of anything bigger.  The structural functionalists among linguistic anthropologists would find that unremarkable because in the society of the age, the need was so rare.  Doubtless, there would have been Greeks who speculated on the number grains of sand on the sea-shore or the stars in the night sky and their astronomers even attempted to estimate the distances to stars but these wouldn’t have been things often heard in everyday conversation and such calculations were expressed in equations.  The need for words came later and advances in the sciences including cosmology, particle physics and virology meant millions, billions, trillions and later multipliers became genuinely useful.  The standardization however didn’t happen until well into the twentieth century.  Until then, in British English a billion was a million millions (1,000,000,000,000), something then really of use only to cosmologists whereas in US use it was calculated as a thousand millions (1,000.000,000) and thus a word with some utility in public finance (although in Weimar Germany’s (1918-1933) period of hyper-inflation (1923) the UK’s definition could have been used of the Papiermarks).

50 trillion (50 Billionen, 5×10¹³) mark note, Weimar Germany, 1923.

Since then of course, because a billion dollars isn’t what it was, we now routinely hear of trillions (often in the form of public debt) while billionaires are the new eligible bachelors and divorcees.  For those dealing with things like atoms, neutrinos and such, there is a point (probably anything beyond a billion) where writing out all those zeros becomes either tedious or impractical so the words are useful.  For mathematicians, the numbers are expressed using exponents: In the expression xⁿ, x is the base and n the exponent; n is the power to which x is raised, thus the common expression "to the power of" so 10²=100 and 10³=1000.  Of course, numbers being infinite, even this convention can in theory become unmanageable, hence the attraction of something like 10^googol to represent a googolplex, a googol being 10¹⁰⁰.  If the need arises (say the discovery that the universe is much bigger than thought or Elon Musk gets really rich) words may make values easier for humans to follow than numerals.

Dot

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.

Intel i487SX & i486SX.

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.

Mini

Mini (pronounce min-ee)

(1) A skirt or dress with a hemline well above the knee, popular since the 1960s.

(2) A small car, build by Austin, Morris, associated companies and successor corporations between 1959-2000.  Later reprised by BMW in a retro-interpretation.

(3) As minicomputer, a generalized (historic) descriptor for a multi-node computer system smaller than a mainframe; the colloquial term mini was rendered meaningless by technological change (Briefly, personal computers (PC) were known as micros).

(4) A term for anything of a small, reduced, or miniature size.

Early 1900s: A shorted form of miniature, ultimately from the Latin minium (red lead; vermilion), a development influenced by the similarity to minimum and minus.  In English, miniature was borrowed from the late sixteenth century Italian miniatura (manuscript illumination), from miniare (rubricate; to illuminate), from the Latin miniō (to color red), from minium (red lead).  Although uncertain, the source of minium is thought to be Iberian; the vivid shade of vermilion was used to mark particular words in manuscripts.  Despite the almost universal consensus mini is a creation of twentieth-century, there is a suggested link in the 1890s connected with Yiddish and Hebrew.

As a prefix, mini- is a word-forming element meaning "miniature, minor", again abstracted from miniature, with the sense presumed to have been influenced by minimum.  The vogue for mini- as a prefix in English word creation dates from the early 1960s, the prime influences thought to be (1) the small British car, (2) the dresses & skirts with high-hemlines and (3) developments in the hardware of electronic components which permitted smaller versions of products to be created as low-cost consumer products although there had been earlier use, a minicam (a miniature camera) advertised as early as 1937.  The mini-skirt (skirt with a hem-line well above the knee) dates from 1965 and the first use of mini-series (television series of short duration and on a single theme) was labelled such in 1971 and since then, mini- has been prefixed to just about everything possible.  To Bridget Jones (from Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) a novel by Helen Fielding (b 1958)), a mini-break was a very short holiday; in previous use in lawn tennis it referred to a tiebreak, a point won against the server when ahead.

Jean Shrimpton and the mini-skirt

Jean Shrimpton, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, 1965.

The Victorian Racing Club (VRC) had in 1962 added Fashions on the Field to the Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival at Flemington and for three years, women showed up with the usual hats and accessories, including gloves and stockings, then de rigueur for ladies of the Melbourne establishment.  Then on the VRC’s Derby Day in 1965, English model Jean Shrimpton (b 1942) wore a white mini, its hem a daring four inches (100 mm) above the knee.  It caused stir.

The moment has since been described as the pivotal moment for the introduction of the mini to an international audience which is probably overstating things but for Melbourne it was certainly quite a moment.  Anthropologists have documented evidence of the mini in a variety of cultures over the last 4000 odd years so, except perhaps in Melbourne, circa 1965, it was nothing new but that didn’t stop the fashion industry having a squabble about who “invented” the mini.  French designer André Courrèges (1923-2016) explicitly claimed the honor, accusing his London rival to the claim, Mary Quant (b 1930) of merely “commercializing it”.  Courrèges had shown minis at shows in both 1964 and 1965 and his sketches date from 1961.  Quant’s designs are even earlier but given the anthropologists’ findings, it seems a sterile argument.

Minimalism: Lindsay Lohan and the possibilities of the mini.

The Mini

1962 Riley Elf.

The British Motor Corporation (BMC) first released their Mini in 1959, the Morris version called the Mini Minor (a link to the larger Minor, a model then in production) while the companion Austin was the Seven, a re-use of the name of a tiny car of the inter-war years.  The Mini name however caught on and the Seven was re-named Mini early in 1962 although the up-market (and, with modifications to the body, slightly more than merely badge-engineered) versions by Riley and Wolseley were never called Mini, instead adopting names either from or hinting at their more independent past: the Elf and Hornet respectively.  The Mini name was in 1969 separated from Austin and Morris, marketed as stand-alone marque until 1980 when the Austin name was again appended, an arrangement which lasted until 1988 when finally it reverted to Mini although some were badged as Rovers for export markets.  The Mini remained in production until 2000, long before then antiquated but still out-lasting the Metro, its intended successor.

1969 Austin Maxi 1500.

The allure of the Mini name obviously impressed BMC.  By 1969, BMC had, along with a few others, been absorbed into the Leyland conglomerate and the first release of the merged entity was in the same linguistic tradition: The Maxi.  A harbinger of what was to come, the Maxi encapsulated all that would go wrong within Leyland during the 1970s; a good idea, full of advanced features, poorly developed, badly built, unattractive and with an inadequate service network.  The design was so clever that to this day the space utilization has rarely been matched and had it been a Renault or a Citroën, the ungainly appearance and underpowered engine might have been forgiven because of the functionality but the poor quality control, lack of refinement and clunky aspects of some of the drivetrain meant success was only ever modest.  Like much of what Leyland did, the Maxi should have been a great success but even car thieves avoided the thing; for much of its life it was reported as the UK's least stolen vehicle.          

1979 Vanden Plas Mini (a possibly "outlaw" project by Leyland's outpost in South Africa).

Curiously, given the fondness of BMC (and subsequently Leyland) for badge-engineering, there was never an MG version of the Mini (although a couple of interpretations were privately built), the competition potential explored by a joint-venture with the Formula One constructors, Cooper, the name still used for some versions of the current BMW Mini.  Nor was there a luxury version finished by coachbuilders Vanden Plas which, with the addition of much timber veneer and leather to mundane vehicles, provided the parent corporations with highly profitable status-symbols with which to delight the middle-class although there was one "outlaw".  Between August 1978-September 1979, Leyland's South African operation (Leykor) offered a Vanden Plas Mini.  It used the 1098cm³ A-Series engine, a four-speed manual transmission and drum brakes all round.  Available only in a metallic bronze with gold basket weave side-graphics (shades of brown seemed to stalk the 1970s), standard equipment included a folding sunroof, matt-black grille with chrome surround, tinted glass, twin chrome door mirrors, a chrome exhaust tip, mud-flaps and a dipping rear view mirror.  The interior appointments weren't up to the standard of the English VDPs but there was cashmere pure wool upholstery, a walnut veneer dashboard with twin glove boxes, a leather bound steering wheel and mahogany cut-pile carpets.  Apparently, the project was shut down when London got to hear about it.   In the home market, third-party suppliers of veneer and leather such as Radford found a market among those who appreciated the Mini's compact practicality but found its stark functionalism just too austere. 

The Twini

Mini Coopers (1275 S) through the cutting, Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia, 1966.

In that year's Gallaher 500, Mini Coopers finished first to ninth.  It was the last occasion on which anything with a naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine would win the annual endurance classic, an event which has since be won on all but a handful of occasions by V8-powered cars (memorably a V12 Jaguar XJS triumphed in 1985 when Conrod Straight was still at it full length), a statistic distorted somewhat by the rule change in 1995 which stipulated only V8s were allowed to run.    

Although it seemed improbable when the Mini was released in 1959 as a small, utilitarian economy car, the performance potential proved extraordinary; in rallies and on race tracks it was a first-rate competitor for over a decade, remaining popular in many forms of competition to this day.  The joint venture with the Formula One constructor Cooper provided the basis for most of the success but by far the most intriguing possibility for more speed was the model which was never developed beyond the prototype stage: the twin-engined Twini.

Prototype twin-engined Moke while undergoing snow testing, 1962.

It wasn’t actually a novel approach.  BMC, inspired apparently by English racing driver Paul Emery (1916–1993) who in 1961 had built a twin-engined Mini, used the Mini’s underpinnings to create an all-purpose cross-country vehicle, the Moke, equipped with a second engine and coupled controls which, officially, was an “an engineering exercise” but had actually been built to interest the Ministry of Defence in the idea of a cheap, all-wheel drive utility vehicle, so light and compact it could be carried by small transport aircraft and serviced anywhere in the world.  The army did test the Moke and were impressed by its capabilities and the flexibility the design offered but ultimately rejected the concept because the lack of ground-clearance limited the terrain to which it could be deployed.  Based on the low-slung Mini, that was one thing which couldn’t easily be rectified.  Instead, using just a single engine in a front-wheel-drive (FWD) configuration, the Moke was re-purposed as a civilian model, staying in production between 1964-1989 and offered in various markets.  Such is the interest in the design that several companies have resumed production, including in electric form and it remains available today.

Cutaway drawing of Cooper’s Twini.

John Cooper (1923-2000), aware of previous twin-engined racing cars,  had tested the prototype military Moke and immediately understood the potential the layout offered for the Mini (ground clearance not a matter of concern on race tracks) and within six weeks the Cooper factory had constructed a prototype.  To provide the desired characteristics, the rear engine was larger and more powerful, the combination, in a car weighing less than 1600 lb (725 kg), delivering a power-to-weight ratio similar to a contemporary Ferrari Berlinetta and to complete the drive-train, two separate gearboxes with matched ratios were fitted.  Typically Cooper, it was a well thought-out design.  The lines for the brake and clutch hydraulics and those of the main electrical feed to the battery were run along the right-hand reinforcing member below the right-hand door while on the left side were the oil and water leads, the fuel supply line to both engines fed from a central tank.  The electrical harness was ducted through the roof section and there was a central throttle link, control of the rear carburetors being taken from the accelerator, via the front engine linkage, back through the centre of the car.  It sounded intricate but the distances were short and everything worked.

Twini replica.

John Cooper immediately began testing the Twini, evaluating its potential for competition and as was done with race cars in those happy days, that testing was on public roads where it proved to be fast, surprisingly easy to handle and well-balanced.  Unfortunately, de-bugging wasn't complete and during one night session, the rear engine seized which resulting in a rollover, Cooper seriously injured and the car destroyed.  Both BMC and Cooper abandoned the project because the standard Mini-Coopers were proving highly successful and to qualify for any sanctioned competition, at least one hundred Twinis would have to have been built and neither organization could devote the necessary resources for development or production, especially because no research had been done to work out whether a market existed for such a thing, were it sold at a price which guaranteed at least it would break even.

Twini built by Downton Engineering.  Driven by Sir John Whitmore (1937– 2017) &  Paul Frère (1917–2008) in the 1963 Targa Florio, it finished 27th and 5th in class.

The concept however did intrigue others interested in entering events which accepted one-offs with no homologation rules stipulating minimum production volumes.  Downton Engineering built one and contested the 1963 Targa Florio where it proved fast but fragile, plagued by an overheating rear-engine and the bugbear of previous twin-engined racing cars: excessive tire wear.  It finished 27^th (and last) but it did finish, unlike some of the more illustrious thoroughbreds which fell by the wayside.  Interestingly, the Downton engineers choose to use a pair of the 998 cm³ (61 cubic inch) versions of the BMC A-Series engine which was a regular production iteration and thus in the under-square (long stroke) configuration typical of almost all the A-Series.  The long stroke tradition in British engines was a hangover from the time when the road-taxation system was based on the cylinder bore, a method which had simplicity and ease of administration to commend it but little else, generations of British engines distinguished by their dreary, slow-revving characteristics.  The long stroke design did however provide good torque over a wide engine-speed range and on road-course like the Targa Florio, run over a mountainous Sicilian circuit, the ample torque spread would have appealed more to drivers than ultimate top-end power.  For that reason, although examples of the oversquare 1071 cm³ (65 cubic inch) versions were available, it was newly developed and a still uncertain quantity and never considered for installation.  The 1071 was used in the Mini Cooper S only during 1963-1964 (with a companion 970 cm³ (61 cubic inch) version created for use in events with a 1000 cm³ capacity limit) and the pair are a footnote in A-Series history as the only over-square versions released for sale

Twin-engined BMW Mini (Binni?).

In the era, it’s thought around six Twinis were built (and there have been a few since) but the concept proved irresistible and twin-engined versions of the "new" Mini (built since 2000 by BMW) have been made.  It was fitting that idea was replicated because what was striking in 2000 when BMW first displayed their Mini was that its lines were actually closer to some of the original conceptual sketches from the 1950s than was the BMC Mini on its debut.  BMW, like others, of course now routinely add electric motors to fossil-fuel powered cars so in that sense twin (indeed, sometimes multi-) engined cars are now common but to use more than one piston engine remains rare.  Except for the very specialized place which is the drag-strip, the only successful examples have been off-road or commercial vehicles and as John Cooper and a host of others came to understand, while the advantages were there to be had, there were easier, more practical ways in which they could be gained.  Unfortunately, so inherent were the drawbacks that the problems proved insoluble.