Sponge

Sponge (pronounced spuhnj)

(1) Any aquatic, chiefly marine animal of the phylum Porifera (also called poriferan), having a porous structure and usually a horny, siliceous or calcareous internal skeleton or framework, occurring in large, sessile (permanently attached to a substrate and not able independently to move) colonies.

(2) The light, yielding, porous, fibrous skeleton or framework of certain animals or colonies of this group, especially of the genera Spongia and Hippospongia, from which the living matter has been removed, characterized by readily absorbing water and becoming soft when wet while retaining toughness: used in bathing, in wiping or cleaning surfaces, etc.

(3) Any of various other similar substances (made typically from porous rubber or cellulose and similar in absorbency to this skeleton), used for washing or cleaning and suited especially to wiping flat, non-porous surfaces; bat sponge, car-wash sponge etc).

(4) Used loosely, any soft substance with a sponge-like appearance or structure.

(5) Use loosely, any object able rapidly absorb something.

(6) As “sponge theory” (1) a term used in climate science which tracks the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting carbon dioxide, (2) a term used in urban planning to re-design the built environment to "absorb" water in heavy rainfall events rather than encouraging "runoff" that tends to produce flooding and (3) one of the competing ideas in the configuration of the US nuclear arsenal that supports the retention of the triad (ICBMs, SLMBs and those delivered by strategic bombers).

(7) Figuratively, a person who absorbs something efficiently (usually in the context of information, education or facts).

(8) Figuratively, a person who persistently borrows from or lives at the expense of others; a parasite (usually described as “a sponger” or one who “sponges off” and synonymous with a “leech”).

(9) In disparaging slang, a habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated (one more mildly affected said to be “spongy” (a synonym of “tipsy”)).

(10) In metallurgy, a porous mass of metallic particles, as of platinum, obtained by the reduction of an oxide or purified compound at a temperature below the melting point; iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition; iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.

(11) In clinical medicine, a sterile surgical dressing of absorbent material, usually cotton gauze, for wiping or absorbing pus, blood, or other fluids during a surgical operation.

(12) In hospitals and other care institutions, as "sponge bath", a method of hygiene whereby a patient is cleaned with a sponge (usually with soap & water) while in a chair or bed.

(13) In cooking (baking), dough raised with yeast before it is kneaded and formed into loaves and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.

(14) In cooking, a light, sweet pudding of a porous texture, made with gelatin, eggs, fruit juice or other flavoring ingredients; popular as a cake, often multi-layered with whipped cream (or similar) between.

(15) In birth control, a contraceptive made with a disposable piece of polyurethane foam permeated with a spermicide for insertion into the vagina.

(16) As “makeup sponge” or “beauty sponge”, a device for applying certain substances to the skin (most often blusher and similar products to the face).

(17) In ballistics, a mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge, consisting of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.

(18) In farriery, the extremity (or point) of a horseshoe, corresponding to the heel.

(19) In the slang of the nuclear industry, a worker routinely exposed to radiation.

(20) To wipe or rub with or (as with a wet sponge), to moisten or clean.

(21) To remove with a Usually moistened) sponge (usually followed by off, away, etc.).

(22) To wipe out or efface with or as with a sponge (often followed by out).

(23) To take up or absorb with or as with a sponge (often followed by up).

(24) Habitually to borrow, use, or obtain by imposing on another's good nature.

(25) In ceramics, to decorate (a ceramic object) by dabbing at it with a sponge soaked with color or any use of a sponge to render a certain texture on the surface.

(26) To take in or soak up liquid by absorption.

(27) To gather sponges (from the beach or ocean).

(28) In marine biology (in behavioral zoology, of dolphins), the description of the use of a piece of wild sponge as a tool when foraging for food.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun sponge, spunge & spounge, from the Old English noun sponge & spunge (absorbent and porous part of certain aquatic organisms), from the Latin spongia & spongea (a sponge (also (the “sea animal from which a sponge comes”), from the Ancient Greek σπογγιά (spongiá), related to σπόγγος (spóngos) (sponge).  At least one etymologist called it “an old Wandewort” while another speculated it was probably a loanword from a non-Indo-European language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form close to “sphong-”.  From the Latin came the Old Saxon spunsia, the Middle Dutch spongie, the Old French esponge, the Spanish esponja and the Italian spugna.  In English, the word has been used of the sea animals since the 1530s and of just about any sponge-like substance since the turn of the seventeenth century and the figurative use in reference to one adept at absorbing facts or learning emerged about the same time.  The sense of “one who persistently and parasitically lives on others" has been in use since at least 1838.  The sponge-cake (light, fluffy & sweet) has been documented since 1808 but similar creations had long been known.  Sponge is a noun & verb, sponged & sponging are verbs, Spongeless, spongy, sponginess, spongable, spongiform & spongelike are adjectives and spongingly is an adverb; the noun plural is sponges.

The verb emerged late in the fourteenth century as spongen (to soak up with a sponge) or (as a transitive verb) “to cleanse or wipe with a sponge”, both uses derived from the noun and presumably influenced by the Latin spongiare.  The intransitive sense “dive for sponges, gather sponges where they grow” was first documented in 1881 by observers watching harvesting in the Aegean.  The slang use meaning “deprive someone of (something) by sponging” was in use by at least the 1630s, the later intransitive sense of “live in a parasitic manner, live at the expense of others” documented in the 1670, the more poetic phrase “live upon the sponge” (live parasitically, relying on the efforts of others) dating from the 1690s; such folk described as “spongers” since the 1670s.  However, in the 1620s, the original idea was that the victim was “the sponge” because they were “being squeezed”.  The noun sponge in the general sense of “an object from which something of value may be extracted” was in use by circa 1600; the later reference to “the sponger” reversed this older sense.  In what was either a neutral job-description or an example of military humor, the noun sponger also had a use in the army and navy, referring to the member of a cannon’s crew who wielded the pole (with a sponge attached to one end) to clean the barrel of the weapon after discharge.  It’s not clear when it came into use but it’s documented since 1828.

The companion sponge products Scrub Mommy & Sponge Daddy are available from Walmart.  Scrub Daddy is US$3.97 and Scrub Mommy is US$3.87 (a 3-pack of the latter available at US$9.87).

The anthropomorphism (eyes and smiling mouth) is both a sales gimmick and functional ergonomics, the eyes “hold two fingers to prevent slippage while scrubbing deep inside cups” while the mouth “cleans both sides of the utensils at once”.  So, the “happy look” both works subliminally to attract customers and offers real benefits when in use, thus justifying the spiel: “the versatile cleaning tool that is more than just a smile.”  Whether or not intentionally, the anthropomorphism extends to the product-description only selectively, Scrub Daddy’s references including “his ergonomic design”, “his eyes” and “his mouth” whereas Scrub Mommy gets the bland, gender-free “its ergonomic design”, “the eyes” and “the mouth”.  Someone in a university's gender-studies department should apply for a grant to explore this; clearly there is gender discrimination (generously, perhaps “unconscious bias”) going on at Walmart, Scrub Mommy's pink color also blatant gender-stereotyping.

The adjective spongiform (resembling a sponge, sponge-like; porous, full of holes) dates from 1774 and seems now restricted to medical science, the incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE) the best known use although the public understandably prefer the more evocative "mad cow disease".  The adjective spongy (soft, elastic) came into use in the 1530s in medicine & pathology, in reference to morbid tissue (not necessarily soft and applied after the 1590s to hard material (especially bone)) seen as open or porous.  In late fourteenth century Middle English, there was spongious (sponge-like in nature), again, directly from the Latin.  In idiomatic use and dating from the 1860s, to “throw in the sponge” was to concede defeat; yield or give up the context.  That came from bare-knuckle prize-fighting, the sponge (sitting usually in a bucket of water and used to wipe blood from the boxer’s face) thrown into the ring by the trainer or second, indicating to the referee the contest was conceded and the fight must immediately be stopped.  The phrase later “throw in the towel” means the same thing and is of the same origin although some older style guides insist the correct use is “throw up the sponge” and “throw in the towel”.  To the beaten and bloodied boxer, it probably was an unnoticed technical distinction.

Born of a Woman (1992) by Bishop John Shelby “Jack” Spong (1931–2021).  Spong's writings were as provocative as the titles of his books.  Unlike most “liberal” Anglicans, he didn't “nibble at the church’s doctrinal edges” but attacked the core tenants of Christianity, arguing much of what was in the Bible must be read as midrashic or interpretive symbols rather than literal historical accounts.

A prolific author and bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Bishop Spong was in some circles described as a “liberal theologian” but truly was a radical and many regarded his views as heretical.  Had he been Roman Catholic, it’s likely the Inquisition, (established in 1542 as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition; in 1908 renamed Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (clipped usually to “Holy Office”); in 1965 renamed CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) as part of the “reforms” imposed by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-1965); in 2022 renamed DDF (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) in the latest restructuring of the Roman Curia under the aegis of the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium (Preach the gospel)) would have prevented his ordination and, had he slipped through their fingers, it’s more likely he’d have faced laicization (defrocking) or even excommunication than receive a bishopric (for the Anglicans, he served as Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, between 1979 and 2000).  Theologically, he was not a mere “revisionist at the margins” but one who advocated a fundamental re-structuring of Christian belief and while it may sound casually dismissive, it’s not wholly unfair to characterize his oeuvre as the framework of a “DEI (diversity, equality & inclusion) Christianity”.  The surname Sponge is rare (the variant Spong more common) and in regional English dialects was derived from topography (there being no evidence of connection with the sea-dwelling creatures).  In dialectal East English, a spong was a marsh or other bog-like place, the word believed a guttural form of the Old English sponge; as a topographic surname, it was given to someone who lived near a wetland or swamp.  In German-speaking lands and in the Ashkenazi Jewish traditions, related surnames like Schwamm meant “sponge” or “mushroom”, their origins often as metonymic occupational names for someone who gathered edible fungi or harvested sea sponges.  In the UK television series Dad’s Army (1968-1977), the “minor but recurrent” character Private Sponge was a farmer, played by Colin Bean (1926–2009).

Despite the phonetic overlap, the verb expunge (pronounced ik-spuhnj) is unrelated.  Expunge (to erase or strike out; totally to eliminate; permanently to delete) was a learned borrowing from Latin expungere, the construct being ex- + pungō (to prick; to puncture; to sting).  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  The prefix was appended variously to create the sense of “out of”, “outside”, “former” or “without”.  Pungō was from the Proto-Italic pungō (with punctus for puctus after pungō), from the primitive Indo-European pewǵ- (prick, punch).  In English, although rare (effectively extinct except in literary or poetic use), the verb punge can be used to mean “to pierce, prick or puncture.”  In the slang of lexicographers, expunge is a “delicious word” in that it’s “pleasurable to say”, a quality shared by “succulent”.  Although rarely used, the derived forms are also pleasing; they include expugnable, expunger, expunge, expungement, expunction & expungible; the nouns expunctionist & expunctionism are non-standard.

Sea sponges.

In zoology, sponges are any of the many aquatic (mostly sea-based) invertebrate animals of the phylum Porifera, characteristically having a porous skeleton, usually containing an intricate system of canals composed of fibrous material or siliceous or calcareous spicules.  Water passing through the pores is the delivery system the creatures use to gain nutrition.  Sponges are known to live at most depths of the sea, are sessile (permanently attached to a substrate; all but a handful not able independently to move (fully-grown sponges do not have moving parts, but the larvae are free-swimming)) and often form irregularly shaped colonies.  Sponges are considered now the most primitive members of the animal kingdom extant as they lack a nervous system and differentiated body tissues or organs although they have great regenerative capacities, some species able to regenerate a complete adult organism from fragments as small as a single cell.  Sponges first appeared during the early Cambrian Period over half a billion years ago and may have evolved from protozoa.

Of sponges and brushes

Dior Backstage Blender (Professional Finish Fluid Foundation Sponge).

Both makeup brushes and makeup sponges can be used to apply blush or foundation and unless there’s some strong personal preference, most women probably use both, depending on the material to be applied and the look desired.  Brushes are almost always long-bristled and soft (sometimes to the point of fluffiness) with a rounded shape affording both precision and the essential ability to blend at the edges.  Brushes are popular because they offer great control over placement & blending (users debating whether a long or short handle is most beneficial in this and it may be that both work equally well if one’s technique is honed).  Brushes can be used with most varieties of formulation including powders and creams.

Lindsay Lohan, October 2011.  The (presumably inadvertent) "eye effect" is known in the industry as the "reverse panda".

This not entirely flattering application of grey-brown shade of blusher attracted comment, the consensus being it was an attempt to create the effect of hollowed cheekbones, a look wildly popular during the 1980 & 1990s and one which to which her facial structure was well-suited.  Unfortunately, the seemingly “heavy handed” approach instead suggested bruising.  Done properly, the “contoured blush look” is achieved with delicacy and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister 1868 & 1874-1880) might have called this: “laying it on with a trowel”.  It’s not known if Ms Lohan used brush or sponge but her technique may have been closer to that of the bricklayer wielding his (or her) trowel.  Makeup sponges (often called “beauty blenders” are preferred by many to brushes and are recommended by the cosmetic houses especially for when applying cream or liquid products.  They’re claimed to be easier to use than a brush and for this reason are often the choice of less experienced or occasional users; they create a natural, dewy finish, blending the product seamlessly into the skin and avoiding the more defined lines brushes can tend to produce.  When applying a powder blush, sponges produce an airbrushed, diffused effect and are much easier to use for those "doing their own" in front of a mirror, a situation in which the “edging” effect inherent in brush use can be hard to detect.  For professional makeup artists, both sponges and brushes will be used when working on others, the choice dictated by the product in use and the effect desired.

Sponge theory

The awful beauty of our weapons: Test launch of Boeing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM.

Ever since the US military (sometimes in competition with politicians) first formulated a set of coherent policies setting out the circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons was permissible, there have been constant revisions to the plans.  At its late 1960s peak, the US nuclear arsenal contained some 30,000 weapons and the target list extended to a remarkable 10,000-odd sites, almost all in the USSR (the Soviet Union, 1922-1991), the PRC (People’s Republic of China, 1949-) the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe either part of the Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) or in some way aligned with Moscow.  Even the generals admitted there was in this some degree of "structural overkill" but rationalized the system on the basis it was the only way to guarantee a success rate close to 100%.  That certainly fitted in with the US military’s long established tradition of “overwhelming” rather than merely “solving” problems but, given the projected death toll, not all would have agreed "success" was quite the right word.

US nuclear weapons target map 1956 (de-classified in 2015).

Over the decades, different strategies were from time-to-time adopted as tensions rose and fell or responded to changes in circumstances such as arms control treaties and, most obviously, the end of the Cold War (1918-1991) when the Soviet Union was dissolved.  A case-study in the synamics of the "military-industrial complex". the processes that produced these changes were always the same: (1) inter-service squabbles between the army, navy & air force, (2) the struggle between the politicians and military high command (many of the latter proving politically quite adept), (3) the influence of others within and beyond the “nuclear establishment” including (3a) the industrial concerns designing and manufacturing the things and (3b) those in think tanks & academic institutions, (4) attitudes and policies of foreign governments and (5) the (usually anti-nuclear) lobbyist and activist communities.  Many of the discussions were quite abstract (something the generals & admirals seemed to prefer to descending to specifics), probably because one of their quoted metrics in the early 1950s was that if after  a nuclear exchange there were 50 million dead Russians and only 20 million dead Americans, that meant the US could be said to have “won the war”.  Within the Pentagon's internal logic of the time, that made sense but after reductionist critics pursued this to its logical conclusion and asked if the verdict would be the same were the final result one Russian and two Americans being left alive, the military tended to restrict their discussion papers to delivery systems, targets, megatons and timings, body-counts (the term "collateral damage" not yet part of the jargon) just tiresome detail.  This meant the strategies came to be summed-up in short, punchy, indicative terms like “deterrence”, “avoidance of escalation” & “retaliation” although the depth was sufficient for even the “short” version (printed for the POTUS’s use in the event of war) was an inch (25 mm) thick.  What was described varied from a threat of use, a limited strike, various forms of containment (the so-called "limited nuclear war") and sometimes the doomsday option: global thermo-nuclear war.  However, during the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) there emerged a genuine linguistic novelty: “sponge theory”.

US Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-, left) and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (1989-, right).

The term “sponge theory” had been used in climate science to describe a mechanism used to track the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting CO₂ (carbon dioxide) (a la a sponge that absorbs water able to be expelled when squeezed) but in the matter of nuclear weapons it was something different.  At the time, the debates in the White House, the Congress and even some factions within the military were about whether what had become the traditional “triad” of nuclear weapons ((1) ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), (2) SLMB (submarine launched ballistic missiles and (3) the "gravity bombs" or "smart bombs" delivered by strategic bombers) should be maintained.  By “maintained” that of course meant periodically "refurbished or replaced".  The suggestion was that the ICBMs should be retired, the argument being they were a Cold War relic, the mere presence of which threatened peace because they encouraged a "first strike" (by either side).  However, the counter argument was that, in a sense, the US was already running a de-facto dyad because, dating from the administration of George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; POTUS 1989-1993), none of the big strategic bombers had been on “runway alert” (ie able to be scrambled for a sortie within minutes) and only a tiny few were stored in secure hangers with their bombs loaded.  Removing the ICBMs from service, went the argument, would leave the nation dangerously reliant on the SLMBs which, in the way of such things, might at any time be rendered obsolete by advances in sensor technology and the (still speculative) implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  The British of course had never used ICMBs and had removed the nuclear strike capability from their bombers, thus relying on a squadron of four submarines (one of which is on patrol somewhere 24/7/365) with SLMBs but the British system was a pure IND (independent nuclear deterrent), what the military calls a "boutique bomb".  

Test launch of US Navy Trident-II-D5LE SLBM.

There was also the concern that land or air to submarine communications were not wholly reliable and this, added to the other arguments, won the case for the triad but just in case, the Pentagon had formulated “sponge theory”, about their catchiest phrase since “collateral damage”.  The idea of sponge theory was that were the ICBMs retired, Moscow or Beijing would have only five strategic targets in the continental US: the three bomber bases (in the flyover states of Louisiana, Missouri & North Dakota) and the two submarine ports (in Georgia on the south Atlantic coast and in Washington state in the PNW (Pacific North-West).  A successful attack on those targets could be mounted with less than a dozen (in theory half that number because of the multiple warheads) missiles which would mean the retaliatory capacity of the US could (in a worst-case scenario) be limited to the SLMBs carried by the six submarines the USN (US Navy) maintains on permanent patrol.  Given that, a POTUS might be reluctant to use them because of the knowledge Moscow (and, increasingly, Beijing) could mount a second, much more destructive attack.  However, if the 400 ICBMs remained in service, an attack on the US with any prospect of success would demand the use of close to 1000 missiles, something to which any POTUS would be compelled to respond and the US ICBMs would be in flight to their targets long before the incoming Russian or Chinese missiles hit.  The function of the US ICBM sites, acting as a sponge (soaking up the targeting, squeezing the retaliation) would deter an attack.  As it was, the 400-odd Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman ICBMs remained in service in silos also in flyover states: Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.  After over 50 years in service, the Minuteman is due for replacement in 2030 and there seems little appetite in Washington DC or in the Pentagon to discuss any change to the triad.

Chamber

Chamber (pronounced cheym-ber)

(1) A room, usually private, in a house or apartment, especially a bedroom (now archaic or poetic).

(2) A reception room or audience room in an official residence, palace, etc.

(3) The meeting hall of a legislative or other assembly.

(4) In law, a place where a judge hears matters not requiring action in open court.

(5) In England, the quarters or rooms that lawyers use to consult with their clients, especially in the Inns of Court.

(6) A legislative, judicial, or other like body.

(7) An organization of individuals or companies for a specified purpose.

(8) The place where the moneys due a government are received and kept; a treasury or chamberlain's office (obsolete).

(9) As chamberlet, a small chamber.

(10) Of or relating to, or performing chamber music.

(11) To put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.

(12) To provide with a chamber.

(13) The space between two gates of the locks of a canal, dry dock, etc

(14) An enclosure for a cartridge in the cylinder of a revolver or for a shell in the breech of a cannon.

(15) An enclosed space, compartment or cavity; the smallest chamber in a cave.

1175-1225: From the Middle English chamber (a room in a (usually private) house) from the eleventh century Old French chambre (room, chamber, apartment), derived from the Late Latin camera (a chamber, room), variant of camara (vaulted room) from the Ancient Greek kamára.  In an interesting linguistic twist, the Old French and Middle English words were also used alone and in combinations to form words for "latrine, privy" from the idea of the "bedroom utensil for containing urine".  The word in the fourteenth century was adopted for use in to anatomy in the sense of "an enclosed space in a body" and this was extended to machinery after 1769, the use in gunnery or ballistics meaning  "part of the bore in which the charge is placed" dating from the 1620s.  The familiar use to refer to the rooms where legislative bodies assemble (ie upper & lower chambers) has been in use since circa 1400.  Chamber music dates from 1789; the distinction being it described a type of music meant to be performed in private rooms instead of public halls.  Chamber-lye, disturbingly to modern ears, meant "urine used as a detergent" and dates from the 1570s and the obviously related chamber-pot (also chamberpot) (vessel for urine used in bedrooms) came into use a decade earlier.  A chambermaid was (1) a female servant who dresses a lady and waits on her in her bedchamber and (2) a woman who makes beds and cleans rooms in a private house, palace or inn, a form which emerged in the 1580s and obviously derived from bedchamber (also bed-chamber) (a room for sleep or repose) which had been in use since the mid-fourteenth century.  Bedchamber is now archaic and used only in relation to royalty (an then mostly in historic reference), expensive hotels and hopeful real-estate salespeople.  The verb chamber was in the late fourteenth century derived from the noun and was used in the sense of (1) to restrain, shut up as in a chamber and (2) to furnish with a chamber" (implied in chambered); the related form was chambering.  The adjective chambered (divided into chambers) was from the same era and was the past-participle adjective the verb.  The famous reference to nautilus shells dates from 1819.  Chamber & chambering are nouns & verbs, chamberful & chamberer are nouns, chambered is a verb & adjective, chamberless & chamberlike are adjectives; the noun plural is chambers.

The cult of the combustion chamber.

In an ICE (internal combustion engine), the combustion chamber is the (temporarily) sealed space in which a quantity of fuel and air is compressed and then ignited (ie the mix is combusted), the energy released moving a piston or rotor, that energy subsequently transferred by a series of mechanical connections so the movement (transferred energy) can be applied to some purpose.  All else being equal, the larger the chamber and the more of them, the more energy can be produced, expressed usually as power or torque.  In an ICE, these ignitions happen thousands of times a second so the transfer of energy from the fuel to a mechanical action can be considerable.  Combustion chamber design has for well over a century occupied the time of engineers and a number of “standard types” emerged including the “wedge”, “hemi” “poly” and “swirl”.  For those designing a device for a single purpose the task can be a relatively simple quest for optimal efficiency (for short-duration purposes such as drag or sprint racing when all that matters is power & torque) whereas if there are a number of parameters it’s a matter of balancing out competing specific efficiencies (in endurance racing, economy matters as well as power & torque).  In mass production units for general sale, as well as striking a balance between output and economy, engineers also have to factor in the cost & ease of manufacture as well as (for the last 60-odd years) the toxicity of emissions.

Smith & Wesson Model 648 .22 WMR Revolver.  In a revolver, the bullets are housed in chambers (typically between 5 & 10) in the revolving cylinder.

Popular in the “female market” (in the US, a sector for some years exhibiting consistent growth) and something of a “sweet spot” for small-game-hunting and plinking (recreational target shooting), the .22 Magnum cartridge is suitable for use in both handguns and long-arms; inherently an accurate cartridge, the ballistics out of a 6-inch (150 mm) barrel handgun are at least equal to those of a 22 LR out of a 24-inch (610 mm) barrel rifle.  Smith & Wesson’s 648 was produced in runs between 1989-1996 and 2003-2005 and the re-introduction in 2020 was much welcomed.  The most recent edition uses a stainless steel version of S&W’s 6-inch K-Frame barrel with an 8-chamber cylinder.

The Court of Star Chamber

The former Court of Star Chamber (1836), engraving by unknown artist, published in Edward Walford’s (1823-1897) Old & New London (Volume 3, 1881), reproducing a visual record of the historic chamber shortly before it was demolished.

Named for the star pattern on the ceiling of the room in Westminster Palace where sittings were convened, the Court of Star Chamber (known almost always as the Star Chamber), was an English law court that operated in parallel with the common-law courts although its authority was drawn directly from the king's sovereign power and privileges; it was not bound by the common law or legal precedent.  Created originally to ensure the enforcement of laws against the socially and politically well-connected (those "ordinary" courts often for whatever reason hesitant to convict "the rich"), the Star Chamber evolved from the medieval King's Council.  There had been a tradition of the king presiding over a court composed of his Privy Counsellors and in 1487, under the supervision of Henry VII (1457–1509; King of England 1485-1509 and the first Tudor king), the Court of Star Chamber was established as a judicial body separate from the council (analogous with the way by the nineteenth century the courts of final appeal referred to as (1) the House of Lords and (2) the Privy Council had become specialized bodies with a small, judicially qualified membership while retaining the existing names).  The original rationale was for the Star Chamber to (1) oversee the lower courts, (2) act as a court of appeal and (3) hear petitions seeking redress addressed to the king.  Initially, the court heard cases only on appeal, but Henry VIII's (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530; Lord High Chancellor of England 1515-1529) encouraged suitors directly to lodge writs of appeal and not await verdicts from the common-law courts (a concept that might have appeal for some modern-day litigants and lawyers).  Although most of the cases heard involved property rights, trade, government administration and public corruption, the Tudors especially were concerned with public disorder and Cardinal Wolsey referred matters involving forgery, fraud, perjury, riot, slander, and anything else he considered a breach of the peace. Following the Reformation, the Star Chamber was used (and much misused) to punish religious dissenters.

Procedurally the Star Chamber would begin a case with a petition or with information brought to the attention of the judges and depositions would be taken to discover the facts.  Accused parties could be put on oath to respond to the charges and answer detailed questions. No juries were used; members of the court decided whether to hear cases, passed verdicts and assigned punishments.  Structurally, the court was thus a hybrid with influences from the common law, Roman civil law, developments in Chancery (equity) law and the Court of Exchequer.  Interestingly, the court did not have capital jurisdiction so instead declared its choice of punishment was wholly arbitrary and not at all governed by precedent, guidelines or laws, judges able to choose (indeed even invent) the punishment(s) they felt most appropriate to the crime or criminal and on the bench there were some imaginative folk.  The sentences handed down included fines, time in the pillory (stocks), whipping, branding, mutilation or imprisonment for any length of time.  In Australia, there are critics of the NSW (New South Wales) ICAC (Independent Commission against corruption) who compare its operations with the Star Chamber; in this they’re only partially correct in that there are some procedural similarities but the comparison is not valid regarding punishments.

Tucked up: Lindsay Lohan in her bedchamber under tufted bedhead.

The Star Chamber offered an expeditious resolution to legal conflicts. It was popular with the Tudors because quickly it could enforce the law (or the will of the king when the letter of the law proved tiresome) when other courts were slow or tainted by corruption.  In royal circles it was valued because it could be relied upon to deliver "satisfactory remedies" in cases  where the common law restricted punishments able to be inflicted or failed to address specific infractions.  These days, some might call it "judicially efficient".  Under the Tudors, Star Chamber hearings were held in public, proceedings and verdicts subject to inspection, that alone inducing most judges to act with reason and try to deliver fair justice; it was in the seventeenth century, the court evolved into something secretive and corrupt, the Stuarts using the court to enforce their royal proclamations (ancestor of the "executive order" now much associated with the White House), holding sessions in secret and allowing no appeals.  Charles I (1600–1649; King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1625-1649) saw the court as a substitute for Parliament when he tried to govern without calling the legislature into session and resentment grew as the Stuarts used the court to prosecute members of the nobility who otherwise would not be subject to prosecution in common-law courts.  The Long Parliament in 1641 abolished the Star Chamber and, except in historic references, the term "star chamber" is now almost always pejorative and used to describe social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the powers wielded (in political science, the doctrine of separation of powers is held to be the most effective means to prevent abuse of power by the state; at its most simple, it means the executive can no longer in individual cases impose the sanctions of criminal law, a function belonging exclusively to the courts.  The verbal shorthand for the concept is "judicial independence".

Not often was the Court of Star Chamber a cause for mirth but William Shakespeare (1564–1616) found a way in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), Justice Shallow in Act 1, Scene 1 saying: “Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.”  The context was the carefully named Justice Shallow, an arrogant, pompous provincial magistrate from Gloucestershire, was furious because Sir John Falstaff and his followers had insulted and robbed him and his cousin.  That this petty crime was not the sort of thing to come before the Star Chamber was the joke, showing Shallow’s puffed-up sense of self-importance and legal pedantry.  The Court of Star Chamber was a classic example of an institution that “seemed a good idea at the time” that came, through a process of “mission creep” later to be "re-purposed" and misused to the extent it became something worse than the problems it was created to solve.  The early records are sketchy so the origins are obscure but the critical point was that despite the creation of several layers of courts and the evolution of the English common law, no sovereign ever surrendered their “supreme jurisdiction” and by the thirteenth century, when sessions of the King's Council became regular (and functionally distinct from parliament), this residual supreme jurisdiction continued to be exercised by the King in council.  What happened was that as the common law administered by the courts introduced (by the operation of precedent) a certain predictability, the more erratic judgments handed down by the council (a body with unlimited jurisdiction) resulted in an increasing volume of complaints but, such was the state of constitutional development (essentially the balance of power between the king and parliament), successive parliaments had little success in effecting reforms.

Sir Edward Coke (published 1792), line engraving by Thomas Trotter (circa 1750-1803), after a portrait by Cornelius Johnson (Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen, 1593-1661), published by publisher & bookseller Thomas Cadell the Elder (1742-1802), National Portrait Gallery, London.

As late as the nineteenth century, historians were still writing of the Star Chamber (after operating for a half-century odd) “ceasing to exist” towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) with the court’s powers reverting to the Council.  The extant records are contradictory but whatever the terminology used, it would seem a deliberative body at least “Star Chamber-like” sat concurrently with the Council and, by whatever processes, the two bodies were again separate institutions late in the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).  The murkiness seems to stem from the Act of 1540 including the phrase “in the Star Chamber or elsewhere” and this may explain why it became difficult to determine a clear distinction between the duties of the Privy Council and those of the Star Chamber; essentially, it wasn’t clear in what capacity members were sitting and there’s little to suggest they made jurisdictional distinctions.

The uncertainty is illustrated in the writings of eminent jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634 Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1613–1616) who observed the Star Chamber “is (or may be) compounded of three several councils: (1) the Lords and others of the Privy Council; (2) the judges of either bench and the barons of the Exchequer; (3) the Lords of Parliament, who are not, however, standing judges of the court.”  Sir Edward usually is regarded as authoritative but William Hudson (circa 1577-1935), an advocate who practiced before the court, in 1621 claimed all peers had the right of sitting in the court and it’s not clear when that right was extinguished but definitely the privilege did not exist late in the seventeenth century.  Hudson’s Treatise of the court of Star Chamber (1621) was a quite strident defence of the Star Chamber, a response to complaints about the body’s haphazard ways with the records of pleadings and judgements.  Critics compared the court’s inconsistent, unstructured approach with the at least semi-codified methods by then adopted by Westminster’s other courts and found a “lack of diligence”, claiming the Star Chamber was no “settled, ordinary court of justice”, nor a “court of ordinary justice ever tied to form” but effectively “a committee for such great causes as it pleased the king”.  Hudson did not deny the administrative neglect but observed it was something new, the court in former times a model of record-keeping.  By the time Parliament abolished the Star Chamber, one of the distinctions MPs drew between it and what they deemed the “ordinary, legitimate courts of common law” was precisely that the former had no proper record whereas the latter did.

The Court of Star Chamber, Westminster (undated), lithograph by unknown artist, The National and Domestic History of England (circa 1890) by William Hickman Smith Aubrey (1858-1916).

That grumble really was a product of how “records” was defined.  The court produced an abundance of material, just not in the predictable, structured form used by other courts, a form that would come to be accepted as the proceedings of a “court of record” (ancestor of the modern law report).  If judged by volume alone, the Star Chamber certainly was productive, its documents including lengthy bills in the form of petitions through to rejoinders, demurrers, interrogatories, and depositions.  In a modern phrase, that was "a lot of data but not much information", lawyers finding it difficult to “mine” all this stuff for findings or facts, let alone incontrovertible determinations.  As an outgrowth of the authority of the sovereign, the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was as vague as its constitution, Hudson making the point it was “impossible to define” without offending the supporters of “the prerogative” by a limitation of its powers, or the advocates by attributing to it “an excessive latitude”.  Given that, it’s hardly surprising the jurisdiction remained effectively close to unlimited and the vista was extraordinary, encompassing from time-to-time riots, murder, forgery, felony, perjury, fraud, libel and slander, duels and acts tending to treason, as well as of some civil matters, such as disputes about land between great men and corporations, disputes between English and foreign merchants, and testamentary cases.  It can be understood only as analogous to a delegation of the powers of an absolute monarch dispensing justice from his throne and that was of course the body's medieval root.  As Hudson put it: “All offences may be here examined and punished if the King will.”  Not constrained by the limitations and guideposts of the common law, Hudson’s critique was summed-up by a later reviewer as: “Its procedure was not according to the Common Law; it dispensed with the encumbrance of a jury; it could proceed on rumour alone; it could apply torture; it could inflict any penalty but death.”

The paradox of such an institution was that it was thus “admirably calculated to be the support of order against anarchy, or of despotism against individual and national liberty.”  So it proved, operating in the former light under the Stuarts and in the latter under the Tudors, shifting from “a tribunal constantly resorted to as a resource against the ignorance or prejudices of a country jury” where, in such investigations “it showed itself intelligent and impartial.”  Under the Stuarts, the Star Chamber became “the great engine of the royal tyranny” with “hateful and excessive punishments inflicted on those brought it judges”.  Amusingly, despite that perception, even as late as 1629 the Barons of the Exchequer felt moved to observe the Star Chamber was “one of the most high and honourable courts of justice.”  Although in 1641 abolished by an act of parliament, twenty years later the "gap in the judicial market" was considered by a committee of the House of Lords, their lordships reporting “that it was fit for the good of the nation that there be a court of like nature to the Star Chamber.”  The mood had however shifted and the matter wasn’t pursued.