Comptroller

Comptroller (pronounced kuhn-troh-ler)

A variant spelling of controller, used especially as a title of some financial executives.

Circa 1500: From the late Middle English compteroller, a spelling mistake which became a variant of countreroller (from which Modern English ultimately gained controller) due to medieval folk etymology, the notion being there was a link to the Middle French compte (account); the Middle French compteroleur is attested circa 1375.  Originally the two spellings were equivalent and pronounced identically; the sometimes-used modern pronunciation (komp-troll-ah) is based on the spelling.  Controller is thus sometimes a homophone, sometimes not and there seem to be pedants on both sides of fence upon which most sit.  Comptroller and comptrollership are nouns; the noun plural is comptrollers.

Controller came from the From Middle English countreroller, from the Anglo-Norman contreroulour and the Middle French contreroleur (the Modern French contrôleur), from the Medieval Latin contrārotulātor, from contrārotulāre (from which is descended the modern control).  The original meaning in English was “an official in charge of accounts in a king's household" from the late thirteenth century Anglo-French contrerolleour, from the Old French contrerelleor, from the Medieval Latin contrarotulator.  The broader sense of one who manages the finances of a corporation or institution" emerged from circa 1450-1500; the first syllable was confused with count from the Latin comptus (an account) from computare, hence the creation of comptroller.

Comptroller & Controller

Comptroller is an example of the haphazard way mistakes sometimes made their way into English, became entrenched and then, often with some enthusiasm, were adopted throughout the British Empire and beyond.  Although adherence is not universal, the convention of use is that if employed in government service, the job is styled as comptroller (eg Comptroller-General, Household Comptroller etc) and if in the private sector, controller (eg Financial Controller) is used.  Because of its origin, the very existence of “comptroller” attracted disapproval until well into the twentieth century but the distinction between the two words must have proved useful because it has endured; that’s how English works.  The evolution of the convention was organic but unfortunately less helpful than it might have been.  More useful would have been for comptroller to apply to people and controller to electric or mechanical devices for controlling circuits or systems but the convention was a product of its time.

A legacy of empire is that the civil services of many members of the Commonwealth and the United States contain many comptrollers.  In India, for example, the civil service appointments are essentially the same as under the Raj.  The Comptroller and Auditor General of India audits all receipts and expenditure of the Government of India and the state governments, including QUANGOs and other authorities where funding substantially is provided by government.  The Comptroller of the President's Household is a position analogous with a similar appointment at Buckingham Palace and, by statute, is always a Navy Captain.  Similar positions of comptrollers exist in the governor's household in each state and union territory.

Set in stone: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Although it has existed since emerging in 1863 from the slew of legislation passed during the US Civil War (1861-1865), the regulator of the nation’s largest financial institutions remains one of the more obscure federal bodies, something perhaps related to its name being misleading in that it plays little direct role in currency matters, both the US Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) and the Treasury (of which the independent OCC is technically a part) being far more influential.  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an interesting case study illustration a number of the phenomena noted in organizational behavior exclusive to governmental institutions which, unlike institutions which have to justify their ongoing existence on some easily understood metric (like running at a profit).

The OCC’s notional supervisory bailiwick is the “national” banks, so-called because they are chartered under the National Bank Act which also dates from 1863.  The wartime function of all this actually had little to do with the banks; the legislation and the OCC were designed to be a way the Union armies could be financed and with the outcome of the conflict still in the balance, the advantages to be gained by creating a financing mechanism which could strengthen the Northern economy, military and industry by then obvious.  At the time, the banks operated under charters issued by the states and their core business was not attracting deposits and lending but the issuing of banknotes and because the economy ran on banknotes (gold and silver coins had a function but couldn’t support modern commerce as once they had).

Neither the administration nor the Congress really had any alternative as a mechanism to finance the war which had drained the federal coffers induced borrowing to the point where the capital markets were depleted to the extent of being a threat to both the economy and military operations.  While a fiat currency would seem a textbook solution, an acceptance of the concept was still years away so the compromise was for (1) the federal government to charter the banks, (2) to taxed the state banknotes into existence and (3), require the new “national” banks to invest their reserves in US government bonds.  Instantly it created a source of finance the South couldn’t match.  In wartime, the system worked well, perhaps even more effectively than the government had envisaged but what it meant was that when the war ended, the new, powerful, National banks remained but without the demand that they act as a conduit of money to support the needs of the state.

So the big banks proceeded to do what big banks do, the result being over the decades one bank scandal panic and crisis after another until in 1913, the Federal Reserve was created which obviated any the need private banknotes, the national currency (in the form of Federal Reserve notes), then still backed by physical gold the medium of exchange for all purposes.  The big banks adapted well to the new environment and so did the OCC which evolved into what can be understood only as the big bank’s lobbyist, an administrative layer between them and regulation, a tendency furthered by the emergence of what’s known as “regulatory arbitrage”.  Because the US system for chartering banks is a patchwork (states authorize some banks, along with the OCC, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has an authority physically to examine the records of all banks) the banks can actually choose their regulator and some have left the state-based systems and “joined” the OCC orbit where the regulatory environment is much more benign.  This regulatory arbitrage is self-reinforcing because as institutions shift their status, they also move their fees, thereby further strengthening the OCC, the implication being the banks are valued clients rather than institutions to regulate.

Currencies need to be regulated which was a relatively simple (if technically complex) business when the objects were physical paper (or plastic) and metal but the emergence of cryptocurrencies without a national identity has required a different approach. 

The OCC last had a full-time, permanent comptroller in mid-2020.  President Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) has made several attempts to have the Senate confirm an appointment but without success.  The Republicans appear to believe only white mane are qualified for such a role and even some Democrat senators have found the political positions of some of the White House’s offering just too radical an given that white men seem now to be anathema to the factions which control the Democratic Party, there seem little prospect the OCC will soon gain a new comptroller.  One suggestion has been to solve many problems by abolishing the OCC and transferring its functions to the FDIC and while that might result in a better regulated environment, as the troubles with the First Republic bank illustrate, its supervisory regime is hardly perfect and despite all that’s been revealed since 2008, the big banks still enjoy an implicit guarantee from the federal government that they’ll be bailed out in the event of another financial crisis. They are still too big to fail, regardless of which authority acts as their nominal supervisor.

Besiege

Besiege (pronounced bih-seej)

(1) In military parlance, to lay siege to (to surround a fortified area, especially a city) with military forces to bring about its surrender.

(2) To crowd around; crowd in upon; surround:

(3) To assail or ply, as with requests or demands.

1250-1300: From the Middle English besegen & bisegen, the construct being be- + siege.  The be- prefix is from the Middle English be- & bi- from the Old English be- from the Proto-Germanic bi- (be-) (near, by), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hepi (at, near); source of the Modern English by.  Siege is from the Middle English sege from Old French sege, siege & seige (from which Modern French gained siège) from the Vulgar Latin sēdicum from the Latin sēdicŭlum & sēdēcula (small seat), from the Latin sēdēs (seat).  An alternative spelling during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was syege but it didn’t survive the evolution into Modern English.  Although not wholly synonymous, related words include encircle, beleaguer, beset, blockade, trap, harass, hound, plague, pester, invest, attack, congregate, environ, assail, encompass, confine, nag, importune, harry, trouble & harry.  Besiege, besieged & besieging are verbs, besiegement & besieger are nouns and besiegingly is an adverb.  

Historic meanings

Siege is one of the words in English which, purely by organic evolution, now has essentially one meaning (in both a military & figurative sense) but which, from time to time, enjoyed many meanings, all now obsolete.  They included:

(1) A seat, especially as used by someone of importance or authority.
(2) An ecclesiastical office’s geographical limits.
(3) The place where one has their home, residence or domain.
(4) A toilet seat.
(5) The anus; the rectum.
(6) Excrements, stool, fecal matter.
(7) Rank; grade; station; estimation.
(8) The floor of a glass-furnace.
(9) A workman's bench.
(10) A place with a toilet seat: outhouse; the loo, lavatory.

Besieged by demons: St Catherine of Siena besieged by demons, tempera and gold on panel by an anonymous artist from Lesser Poland, circa 1500.  On display in the National Museum, Warsaw since 1947.

Besieged by fan mail: Lindsay Lohan and the "Free Lindsay" campaign, Los Angeles, 2012.

Equipoise

Equipoise (pronounced ee-kwuh-poiz or ek-wuh-poiz)

(1) An equal distribution of weight; even balance; equilibrium; The relation of two weights or forces which balance each other; equilibrium; equiponderance.

(2) An alternative name for a counterpoise in certain contexts, now rarely seen outside of literary and poetic use.

(3) In medical research, as clinical equipoise, or the principle of equipoise, a term to describe certain aspects of the ethical basis for clinical trials.

(4) In commercial pharmacy, the trademark for Hydroxyzine, an antihistamine and Boldenone Undecylenate, an anabolic steroid, once prescribed for human use, now restricted to veterinary applications, mostly equine.

(5) Of or pertaining to equilibrioception, the state of being balanced or in equilibrium.

1625–1635: An English coining which borrowed from both Latin and French, following the mid sixteenth century phrase "equal poise", the construct being equi + poise.  The prefix equi (which existed also as equ if preceding a vowel), was a word-forming element meaning "equal” from the Latin aequi, a combining form of aequus (equal, even).  Poise was from the Anglo-Norman poise (measure of weight), from the Anglo-Norman pois, from the Middle French pois (weight).

Clinical Equipoise

The term clinical equipoise, (also known within the medical research community as the principle of equipoise), was used first in 1987 by Benjamin Freedman (1951-1997), professor of medicine in the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University, Montreal.  It provides a construct for the ethical framework of medical research involving the assignment of patients to different treatment streams in clinical trials.  An ethical dilemma exists in clinical trials if a researcher has cause to believe the treatment in one stream of a trial is significantly out-performing others.  Although it’s something of a deliberate scientific fiction, trials should be designed on the basis of a null hypothesis; that there should exist no evidence beyond the indicative that the intervention being trialed will result in better results than existing treatments or no treatment at all.  As a trial proceeds, findings may provide sufficient evidence to convince the investigator of the intervention’s efficacy and once a certain threshold of evidence is reached, uncertainty no longer exists, thereby creating an ethical imperative for the investigator to provide the superior intervention to all participants.  Being a thing applied to clinical work, it’s therefore not an abstract theory but, given the size, duration and complexity of many trials, it can be difficult to define exactly, or even vaguely, when the threshold has been reached.

Equipoise is one of the brand-names used for boldenone undecylenate (also as boldenone undecenoate.  It is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) medication intended for use in in veterinary medicine (predominately equine) but in the 1970s it began to be used by humans, usually to enhance physical characteristics.  It remains available for veterinary use where it highly regarded but in most markets it's a controlled drug and use by humans is via the illicit market.  

Dispone

Dispone (pronounced dis-pohn)

(1) In common law, to convey legal authority to another.

(2) To arrange or set in order; to dispose (obsolete).

(3) In Scots law, legally to assign, make over, grant; to convey land, until 1868 an essential word in any valid conveyance of land in Scotland. 

Circa 1400: A borrowing from French, from the Latin disponĕre (to arrange), second-person singular future passive indicative of dispōnō, the construct being dis- (a prefix from the Middle English dis-, borrowed from Latin dis-, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and used in Latin and beyond as an intensifier of words with negative valence) +‎ pōnō (place, put); pōnō from the Proto-Italic poznō.  In Latin the construct was thus dis- (apart, away) + ponere (to place, put) and the word was used in Roman administrative law to mean "to arrange, distribute, or dispose of".  Over time, disponere evolved in various Romance languages, including Old French and Middle English.

Memories of the First Earl of Eldon, Bedford Square, London.

Dispone was a technical word in Scottish property law which, historically, implied the transfer of feudal property by a particular deed while not being equivalent to the term alienate.  Technical it certainly was and whatever the legal theory, the distinction seems to have had no practical purpose and Lord Eldon (1751-1838; Lord Chancellor 1801-1806 & 1807-1827), eventually clarified things by noting “with respect to the word dispone, if I collect the opinions of a majority of the judges rightly, I am of opinion that the word dispone would have the same effect as the word alienate.”  From that point on, the disponer or maker of the deed “sells and dispones,” or, where the deed was gratuitous, “gives, grants, and dispones,” the subject of the deed to the receiver, who technically was called the disponee.  As verbs the difference between convey and dispone is that convey is to transport; to carry; to take from one place to another while dispone is to convey legal authority to another.  A pone was conceptually similar but did not involve real property.  A pone was a common law writ, from the Anglo-Norman pone and its source, the Late Latin pone, from the Latin pōne, imperative form of pōnere (to place).  It had two forms, (1) a writ used by the superior courts to remove cases from inferior courts and (2) a writ to enforce appearance in court by attaching goods or requiring securities.

Knocker

Knocker (pronounced nok-er)

(1) A person or thing that knocks.

(2) A sometimes ornamental hinged knob, bar, etc on (usually) a door, for use in knocking.

(3) In informal use, a persistent and carping critic; a faultfinder; nit-picker.

(4) In vulgar slang, a female breast (usually in the plural, for obvious reasons).

(5) In slang as “on the knocker”, canvassing or selling door-to-door (UK); promptly; on time; a correct (Australia & New Zealand).

(6) In slang, one who defaults on payment of a wager (an archaic North of England dialectical form).

(7) In slang, a person who is strikingly handsome or otherwise admirable; a stunner (an archaic variation of “a knock-out”).

(8) A dwarf, goblin, or sprite imagined to dwell in mines and to indicate the presence of ore by knocking (South Wales, archaic dialectical eighteenth & nineteenth century form).

(9) In the arcade game pinball, a mechanical device in a pinball table that produces a loud percussive noise.

(10) In entomology, a large cockroach, especially Blaberus giganteus, of semitropical America, which is able to produce a loud knocking sound.

(11) In geology, a large, boulder-shaped outcrop of bedrock in an otherwise low-lying landscape, chiefly associated with a mélange.

1375-1400: An agent noun from the Middle English knock, the construct being knock + -er.  Knock was from the Middle English knokken, from the Old English cnocian, ġecnocian & cnucian (to knock, pound on, beat), from the Proto-West Germanic knokōn, from the Proto-Germanic knukōną (to knock), a suffixed form of knu- & kneu- (to pound on, beat), from the primitive Indo-European gen- (to squeeze, pinch, kink, ball up, concentrate). The English word was cognate with the Middle High German knochen (to hit), the Old English cnuian & cnuwian (to pound, knock) and the Old Norse knoka.  It was related to the Danish knuge and the Swedish knocka (to hug).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  It added to a noun it denoted an occupation.  The sense of "door banger" is from the 1590s although the precise use in architecture of a "metal device fixed to the outside of a door for banging to give notice when someone desires admission" seems not to have been formalised until 1794.  The use to refer to breasts wasn’t noted until 1941.

Knocker-upper using bamboo knocker, circa 1900.

Mentioned in Charles Dickens’ (1812-1870) Great Expectations (1860-1861), the knocker-upper (or knock-up) was an occupation created by the demands of the industrial revolution in late eighteenth century which demanded an often newly-urbanized workforce to appear in factories on time for shifts, the punctuality important because of the need to synchronize the attendance of labour to machines.  At the time, alarm clocks were neither cheap nor generally available but the role persisted in some parts of northern England, well into the twentieth century, long after electricity and alarm clocks became ubiquitous, the knocker-uppers sometime on the payroll of mill or factory owners.  The role was sometimes combined with employment by local authorities, the knocker-upper paid while on his “waking-up” rounds manually to extinguish the street-lamps.

Bronze door knockers from earlier centuries.

Knocker-upper Mary Smith using peas-shooter, London, circa 1930.

The tool used depended on the need.  Knocker-uppers tended to use a short, hardwood stick to bang on doors and a lighter one, often made of bamboo to tap on windows, the latter in some towns long enough to reach the upper stories although there are photographs of pea-shooters being used in London, apparently a dried pea projective the only practical way to reach the third floor.  The nature of service was customised according to need.  In places where shifts were invariable, the knocker-upper tended to work from a list which only occasionally changed whereas in areas where industries ran multiple shifts and an employee’s start and finish times could change from day to day, slate boards were often attached to the wall next to the door with the desired hour nominated, these known as "knocky-up boards" or "wake-up slates".

When door knockers go rogue.

Eliminate, Exterminate & Eradicate

Eliminate (pronounced ih-lim-uh-neyt)

(1) To remove or get rid of, especially as being in some way undesirable.

(2) To omit, especially as being unimportant or irrelevant; leave out.

(3) To remove from further consideration or competition, especially by defeating in sport or other competitive contest.

(4) To eradicate or kill.

(5) In physiology, to void or expel from an organism.

(6) In mathematics, to remove (a quantity) from an equation by elimination.

(7) In sport, as elimination & eliminator (drag racing): category classifications. 

1560–70: From the Latin ēlīminātus (thrust out of the doors; expel), past participle of ēlīmināre, the construct being ē- (out) + līmin- (stem of līmen (threshold)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The most commonly used form in Latin appears to have been ex limine (off the threshold).  Used literally at first, the sense of "exclude" was first attested in 1714; the now obsolete sense of "expel waste from the body" emerged circa 1795 although the general sense of an "expulsion of waste matter" is from 1855.  Eliminate is a verb, if used with an object, the verbs are eliminated & eliminating, eliminability, eliminant & eliminability are nouns and eliminable, eliminative and eliminatory are adjectives.

Exterminate (pronounced ik-stur-muh-neyt)

Totally to destroy (living things, especially pests or vermin); annihilate; extirpate.

1535–1545: From the Latin exterminātus, past participle of extermināre (to drive away (from terminus boundary)), perfect passive participle of exterminō, the construct being ex- + terminō (I finish, close, end), from terminus (limit, end).  In Late Latin there was also the sense "destroy" from the phrase ex termine (beyond the boundary), ablative of termen (boundary, limit, end).  The meaning "utterly to destroy" appeared in English only by the 1640s, a sense found earlier in equivalent words in French and in the Vulgate; earlier in this sense was the mid-fifteenth century extermine.  Exterminator actually came earlier: as early as circa 1400, the Late Latin exterminator (from past participle stem of exterminare) had the sense of "an angel who expells (people from a country) and, by 1848, as a “substance for ridding a place of rats etc) and by 1938 this was applied to a person whose job it was.  Exterminate is a verb, used with an object the verbs are exterminated & exterminating, exterminable, exterminative & exterminatory are adjectives and extermination & exterminator are nouns.

Eradicate (pronounced ih-rad-i-keyt)

(1) To remove or destroy utterly; extirpate.

(2) To erase by rubbing or by means of a chemical solvent or other agent.

(3) Of plants, to pull up by the roots.

1555–1565: From the Latin ērādīcātus (usually translated as “destroy utterly”; literally “pull up by the roots”), past participle of ērādīcāre (root out, extirpate, annihilate), the construct being ē- (out) + rādīc- (stem of rādīx (root) (genitive radicis)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The assimilated form of ērādīcāre is derived from the primitive Indo-European wrād (branch, root) and from the same source, the native form of the same idea existed in mid-fifteenth century Middle English as outrōten (to root (something) out; eradicate).  A surprisingly recent creation in 1794 was ineradicable and within a few years, ineradicably.  Eradicate is a verb, eradicant is an adjective and noun, eradicated & eradicating are verbs (used with object), eradicable & eradicative are adjectives, eradicably is an adverb, eradication & eradicator are nouns.

Eliminate, exterminate and eradicate in the age of pandemics

In Modern English usage, eliminate, exterminate and eradicate are often used interchangeably despite differences in nuance.  This means also the wealth of synonyms the three enjoy are sometimes haphazardly used although some overlap does exist, the synonyms including: annihilate, expunge, abolish, erase, uproot, extinguish, efface, demolish, total, abate, liquidate, obliterate, trash, squash, purge, extirpate, scratch, slaughter, decimate, execute, massacre, abolish, erase, extirpate, destroy, oust, waive, ignore, defeat, cancel, exclude, disqualify, invalidate, drop, eject, expel, liquidate, omit, terminate, slay, discard & disregard.

In the (relatively) happy times before the emergence of SARS-Cov2's Delta variant, the New Zealand prime minister declared COVID-19 “eradicated but not eliminated” which did sound given that, regarding disease, the words have specific, technical meanings.  In the context of disease, eradication refers to the complete and permanent worldwide reduction to zero new cases through deliberate effort.  Elimination refers to the reduction to zero (or a very low defined target rate) of new cases in a defined geographical area, which can be any size, a province, country, continent or hemisphere.  As used by virologists and epidemiologists therefore, eradication is used in its normal conversational sense but elimination is applied with a specific technical meaning.  There is a quirk to this. The World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of smallpox in 1980 although small cultures remain in US and Russian research laboratories.  If these residual stocks are ever destroyed, the WHO may adopt some new term to distinguish between eradication in the wild and an absolute extermination from the planet.  Nobody seems now to believe COVID-19 will ever be eliminated, exterminated or eradicated.  It seems here to stay.

Defendants in the dock, International Military Tribunal (IMT, the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946)). 

The meanings of eliminate, exterminate & eradicate, both in their English senses and in translation from German have been debated before.  Although not defined in law until the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), the newly (1944) created word genocide appeared in the indictments served at the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946) upon those accused under count IV, crimes against humanity.  This attracted the interest of lawyers who noted the words exterminate and eliminate appear both in the academic and legal discussions about the novel concept of genocide and in translations of many documents from the Third Reich which related to the Jews.  Defense counsel probed what was meant by these words and whether, in original or translation, their actual meaning in the context of their use was in accord with what was meant when applied to genocide.  The etymological excursion didn’t much help the defendants, most of whom were hanged.  Hermann Göring also raised an objection to a translation from the German being rendered as "final solution to the Jewish problem" rather than "total solution" which, he argued, should compel the court to draw a different inference.  In both discussions, the judges concluded what was being discussed was mass-murder and the relative degree of applicability between synonyms was not a substantive point.  Actually the word used by Göring in the first paragraph of the letter which ultimately authorized the holocaust was Gesamtloesung (complete solution) while in the final paragraph he use Endloesung (final solution).  This was the document which SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant-General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) revealed at the infamous Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942). 

Professionals in the field of pest control actually stick more closely to classic etymology in their technical distinction between the two central words: extermination and eradication.  Extermination (from the Latin, exterminare meaning “out of the boundary” and related to the deity Terminus who presided over boundaries) means to drive the pests beyond the boundaries of the building.  It doesn’t of necessity mean the pests are all dead, just that they are no longer in the building.  Eradicate (from the Latin eradicare meaning to root out) refers to the processes leading to extermination, to bring to light the breeding spots, the places where the infestation has, so to speak, taken root.

Solvent

Solvent (pronounced sol-vuhnt)

(1) Able to pay all just debts; meet all financial obligations (ie not insolvent).

(2) Something with the power of dissolving.

(3) A usually liquid substance that dissolves another to form a solution.

(4) Something that solves or explains (archaic).

1620–1630:  From the Middle English solvent, from the French, from the earlier form solver.  Latin root was solventem, accusative singular of solvēns (releasing), present participle of solvō, derived from the construct se (away) +‎ luō (to untie, set free, separate), most usually as solvere (to loosen, to free).  The meaning as applied to financial debts, originally a French form, dates from the 1650s.  As a substance able to dissolve other compounds, use emerged in the 1670s.  Unfortunately, the Czech noun solvence (solvency) was never picked up by English; its adoption would have made the odd clumsy phrase more elegent.  Solvent & insolvent are nouns & adjectives and solvency & insolvency are nouns; the noun plural is solvents.

Solvents and exfoliants.

Although the end result of use should (helpfully) be similar, technically, solvents and exfoliants differ both  in composition and application.  A solvent is a substance capable of dissolving other substances, typically for the purpose of removing them from the surface to which they've become adhered although in science and industry, they're used also for dilution or extraction and in all but some specialized products, they tend to be liquids, whether used in cleaning, manufacturing or chemical processing.  The concoctions are many but the best known solvents include water, alcohol and the acetone familiar to users of nail-polish removers.  Exfoliants are best-known as the commercially packaged substances used to remove dead skin cells on the face, the hope being an improvement in the texture of the skin and thus a more glowing, youthful appearance.  Unlike solvents which dissolve stuff, exfoliants work by the mechanical-chemical process of physically scrubbing or sloughing off the outermost layer of dead skin cells and are packaged variously as scrubs with abrasive particles, brushes, loofahs, or chemical mixes such as alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) or beta hydroxy acids (BHAs).

In praise of Orange Solv.

Orange Solv is a water-soluble solvent marketed as an alternative to the petroleum, chlorinated or glycol-ether mixtures used in heavy duty cleaning and de-greasing.  Applications include grease and tar removal from engines and parts, paint removal from solvent-resistant hard surfaces and it’s widely used commercially to remove chewing gum and stains from industrial carpets.  It’s been adopted by local governments as an additive to high-pressure water systems in the removal of graffiti and one vlogger (influenced presumably by practical experience) endorsed Orange Solve as the preferred solvent to remove the CHEATER signs spray-painted onto cars by vengeful WAGs.  Orange Solve is made from D-Limonene, an extract from the peel of oranges and lemons.  Low in toxicity, it’s pleasant to use, has minimal skin impact and is biodegradable.  Produced using the waste from the citrus industry, it's classified as non-flammable and when diluted with equal parts water, pH is a mildly alkaline 9. After use, there remains a citrus fragrance wafting about which some enjoy and others find intrusive.

Dolichocephalic

Dolichocephalic (pronounced dol-i-koh-suh-fal-ik)

(1) The state of having a head much longer than it is broad, especially one with a cephalic index under 75.

(2) Any creature with such a head.

(3) A creature thought to have a disproportionately long head.

1852: The construct was dolicho + cephalic.  From New Latin dolichocephalus (long-headed) derived from the Greek dolichos (long) + kephalos (head); original form of kephalos was kephalē.  Used mostly in zoology and anthropology, forms include dolichocephaly (noun), hyperdolichocephalic  (adjective), hyperdolichocephaly (noun), subdolichocephalic (adjective), subdolichocephalism (noun), subdolichocephalous (adjective) and subdolichocephaly (noun).

Zoanthropic NFT: Lindsay Lohan's Furry canine (some suggested it was wolf-like) was rendered in dolichocephalic form.  The Lohanic fursona was first mentioned in September 2021 but not minted until October.

The cephalic index or cranial index is the ratio of the maximum width of the head of a creature multiplied by 100 divided by its maximum length.  The index is important to dog and cat breeders who seek mating pairs with an index number as close as possible to the defined ideal for a particular breed.  In general zoology, skull are classified into three types,  Those with ratios below seventy-five indicates skulls that are long and narrow, (dolichocephalic); those between seventy-five and eighty are slightly broader (mesocephalic); those with ratios above eighty are rounder (brachycephalic).

Hardwired

Hardwired (pronounced hahrd-wahyuhrd)

(1) In electronics, built into the hardware.

(2) In mainframe computing, a terminal connected to the CPU(s) by a direct cable rather than through a switching network.

(3) In the behavioral sciences, a cluster of theories pertaining to or describing intrinsic and relatively un-modifiable patterns of behavior by both humans and animals.  Published work describes genetically determined, instinctive behavior, as opposed to learned behavior.

(4) In computer programming, a kludge temporarily or quickly to fix a problem, done historically by bypassing the operating system and directly addressing the hardware (assembly language).

(5) Casual term for anything designed to perform a specific task.

1969:  A compound word: hard + wired.  Hard is from the Middle English hard from the Old English heard, from the Proto-Germanic harduz, derived ultimately from the primitive Indo-European kort-ús from kret (strong, powerful).  Cognate with the German hart, the Swedish hård, the Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), the Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu) and the Avestan xratu.  Wire is from the Middle English wir & wyr from the Old English wīr (wire, metal thread, wire-ornament) from the Proto-Germanic wīraz (wire) from the primitive Indo-European wehiros (a twist, thread, cord, wire) from wehy (to turn, twist, weave, plait).  The suffix ed is used to form past tenses of (regular) verbs and in linguistics is used for the base form of any past form.  It’s from the Middle English ede & eden from the Old English ode & odon (a weak past ending) from the Proto-Germanic ōd & ōdēdun. Cognate with the Saterland Frisian ede (first person singular past indicative ending), the Swedish ade and the Icelandic aði.  The earliest known citation is from 1969 although there are suggestions the word or its variants had been used earlier, both in electronics and forms of mechanical production.  The word migrated to zoology, genetics and human behavioral studies in 1971.  Hardwired, hard wired and hard-wired are used interchangeably and no rules or conventions of use have ever emerged.

SysCon

In the world of the pre-modern mainframes, there might be a dozen or thousands of terminals (a monitor & keyboard) attached to a system but there was always one special terminal, SysCon (system console), hardwired to the central processor.  Unlike other terminals which connected, sometimes over long distances, through repeaters and telephone lines, SysCon, used by system administrators, plugged directly into the core CPU.  When Novell released Netware in 1983, they reprised SysCon as the name of the software layer which was the main administration tool.