In
the marine insurance division of Admiralty law, a contract, of the nature of a
mortgage, by which the owner of a ship borrows money to make a voyage, pledging
the title of the ship as security.
1615-1625:
From Middle English as as an addition to Admiralty law, modelled on the Dutch bodemerij, equivalent to bodem (bottom; hull of a ship) + -erij (–ry).Bottom is from the Middle English botme & bottom (ground, soil,
foundation, lowest or deepest part of anything), from the Old English botm & bodan (bottom, foundation; ground, abyss), from the Proto-Germanic buthm, butmaz & budmaz, from the primitive Indo-European bhudhno (bottom).It was
cognate with Old Frisian boden
(soil), the Old Norse botn, the Dutch
bodem, the Old High German &
German Boden (ground, earth, soil),
the Icelandic botn and the Danish
bund and was related also to the Irish bonn
(sole (of foot)), the Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn or pythmen) (bottom of a cup or jar), the Sanskrit बुध्न (budhna) (bottom), the Avestan buna,
the Persian بن (bon) (bottom) and the Latin fundus (bottom, piece of land, farm),
from which, via French, English gained “fund”.
The
suffix -age is from the Middle English -age,
from the Old French -age, from the
Latin -āticum.Cognates include the French -age, the Italian
-aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj.It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense
of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result,
(3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a
charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure.
The
sense “posterior of a person (the sitting part)” is from 1794; the “verb to
reach the bottom of” from 1808 and the expression “bottom dollar (the last
dollar one has) is from 1857.The meaning
"fundamental character or essence" is from the 1570s and the
variation “to get to the bottom of some matter” is from 1773; “bottoms up” as
the call to finish one's drink is from 1875 while to do or feel something from
“the bottom of (one's) heart” is from 1540s.The bottom-feeder, originally a technical term in the classification of
fishes, dates from 1866, the figurative sense ("one of the lowest status
or rank" or an "opportunist who seeks quick profit usually at the
expense of others or from their misfortune") noted from 1919.
On
the bottom.
Bottomage (sometimes referred to as bottomry), is a financing
arrangement in maritime law whereby the owner or master of a ship borrows money
“upon the bottom (or keel) of it” with an agreement to forfeit the ship itself
to the creditor if the loan and interest is not paid at the time nominated,
after the ship's safe return.The
contracts tended to be executed when a ship in a foreign port needed emergency
repairs and it wasn’t possible to arrange funds in other ways.Now rare because developments in maritime law
discounted the bottomage bond's priority as against other liens and
improvements in communications made international money transfers more
efficient.Hardly used since the
nineteenth century and now of only historic interest.
It
was an unusual, hybrid form of financing and one almost wholly peculiar to the
pre-modern sea-trade.It wasn’t a
conventional loan because the lender accepted part of the risk, ships sinking
not infrequently.Nor was it insurance
because there was nothing which explicitly secured the risk to the merchant's
goods.Bottomage can be thought of as a type of futures contract in that the insurer has purchased an option on the
venture's final profit.The risk being
greater, a bottomage bond giving no remedy to the lender against the owners of
the ship or cargo personally, rates were always much higher than the historic
trading average of around 12%.
Doctors' Commons (1808), the High Court of Admiralty
in session, Designed and etched by Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) & Auguste
Charles Pugin (1768–1832 London), aquatint by John Bluck (1791–1832), Lambeth
Palace Library collection, London.
The Admiralty Court in England dates from the
mid- fourteenth century and its creation appears linked to the victory of Edward
III’s (1312–1377; King of England 1327-1377) fleet in the battle of Sluys in
1340, one of the opening engagements of the Hundred Years' War (1737-1453).A specialist tribunal which appears to have
been charged with keeping peace at sea and dealing with piracy, as the High
Court of Admiralty it developed its own distinct procedures and practices and
was attended by a specialist group of solicitors (called proctors), its advocates
educated in civil rather than common law; those trained only in common law not permitted to appear.
Bottamage re-imagined, Lindsay Lohan at the beach.
The
advocates of the Admiralty Court were all Doctors of Law and were variously
described as belonging to the College of Advocates, the College of Civilians or
the Society of Doctors' Commons and specialized in ecclesiastical and civil law.They were admitted to practice by the Dean of
Arches who served the Archbishop of Canterbury and, practicing from Doctors’
Commons, cluster of buildings on Knightrider Street between St Paul’s cathedral
and the north bank of the Thames they were most concerned with Admiralty and Church
law although the advocates also verified and stored documents such as wills and
marriage and divorce certificates. The
Doctors’ Commons was unusual in that while it resembled a modern Inn of Court
in that it housed a library, a dining hall and rooms from which lawyers
practiced, it also contained a court-room where the Admiralty Judge sat.The arrangement persisted until the reforms
of the Victorian Judicature Acts (1873-1875), the College of Advocates abolished
in 1865 and the High Court of Admiralty transferred to became part of the
unified High Court in 1875 although the tradition of a specialist Admiralty
Judge and a specialist Admiralty Bar continues to this day.
The
symbol of the Admiralty Court is the Admiralty Oar, traditionally displayed in
court when a trial is in progress.
After the passage of the Judicature Acts, Admiralty
jurisdiction moved to the newly created division of Divorce, Probate and Admiralty,
referred to within the profession as the 3W (wives, wills & wrecks) and
this lasted until the 1970 Administration of Justice Act which shifted divorce
to the Family Division and probate to Chancery.The Admiralty Court became part of the Queen’s Bench Division and claims
are now dealt with by one of its two judges: the Admiralty Judge and the
Admiralty Registrar, the arrest and release of ships handled by the Admiralty
Marshal.
(2) The
officials or the department of state having charge of naval affairs.
(3) In
law, the branch dealing with maritime law; a court dealing with maritime
questions (when jurisdiction was under the division of Divorce, Probate & Admiralty, the
court was colloquially known by lawyers as “wives, wills & wrecks”).
(4) In
(historic) architecture, a frequent descriptor (Admiralty House, Admiralty Arch
etc).
1300–1350:
A compound word Admiral + -ty, from the Middle English amiralty, from the French amirauté,
from the older form amiralté (office
of admiral), from the Late Latin admīrālitās.The best known sense, “naval branch of the
English executive" dates from the early-fifteenth century, root of the
word being admiral.Admiral emerged
circa 1200 as amiral & admirail (Saracen commander or
chieftain) from the Old French amiral
& amirail (Saracen military
commander; any military commander) ultimately from medieval Arabic amīr (military commander) probably via
the Medieval Latin use of the word for "Muslim military leader".The suffix –ty is from the Middle English -te,
borrowed from the Old French -te,
from the Latin -tātem, accusative
masculine singular of –tās; an
alternative form of –ity, it was used
to form abstract nouns from adjectives.The first English admiral to appear in the records appears to have been
Admiral of the Fleet of the Cinque Ports, Gerard Allard of Winchelsea, a royal appointment
in 1300.
The
Arabic amīr was later Englished as
emir.In another example of Medieval
error, because in Arabic use, amīr is
constantly followed by -al- in all
such titles, amīr-al- was assumed by
Christian writers to be a substantive word and variously Latinized.The process thus was a shortening of the
Arabic أَمِيراَلبَحْر (ʾamīr al-baḥr) (commander of the fleet; literally “sea
commander”) and the additional -d- is
probably from the influence of the otherwise unconnected Latin admirable (admīrābilis).
Admiralty
Arch, London.
An island rather than a continental power and later an empire, for
England, the navy assumed an importance in foreign policy standing armies never
did and the Royal Navy’s high command, the Admiralty, was for centuries
entangled in both military and political matters.The Admiralty no longer exists, absorbed in
1964, like the high commands of the other services, into the newly created
Ministry of Defense.
Over
the centuries, the structure of the Admiralty evolved as technology changed,
threats and alliances came and went, budgets waxed and waned, political
vicissitudes always hovering.As a
bureaucracy, the Admiralty has been staffed by a bewildering array of offices
and titles including board members, presidents, sea lords, secretaries, civil
lords, controllers, comptrollers, accountants-general, directors-general,
storekeepers-general, surveyors, deputy chiefs, vice chiefs & assistant
chiefs but in its final incarnation, under a First Lord of the Admiralty (a
minister for the navy who sat in parliament and was thus political head of the
navy) there were five admirals, known as the sea lords (of which there were eight
lords during World War II; things were busy then).The sea lords each enjoyed a sphere of
responsibility for naval operations:
The First Sea Lord (later First Sea
Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff), directed naval strategy in wartime and was
responsible for planning, operations and intelligence, for the distribution of
the Fleet and for its fighting efficiency.He was the military head of the Navy.
The Second Sea Lord(later Second
Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel), was responsible for manning &
mobilisation and all personnel questions relating to the Royal Navy and Royal
Marines.
The Third Sea Lord (later the
Controller of the Navy) was responsible primarily for ship design and
construction and most material matters.
The Fourth Sea Lord (later Chief of
Naval Supplies) was responsible for logistics, victualling and medical
departments.
The Fifth Sea Lord (later the Chief
of Naval Air Services) was responsible for all naval aviation.
(1) A
narrow walkway, especially one high above the surrounding area, used to provide
access or allow workers to stand or move, as over the stage in a theater,
outside the roadway of a bridge, along the top of a railroad car etc; any
similar elevated walkway.
(2) By
extension, a narrow ramp extending from the stage into the audience in a
theatre, nightclub etc, associated especially with those used by models during fashion
shows (although the gender-neutral “runway” is now sometimes used in preference
to “catwalk”).
(3) In
nautical architecture, an elevated enclosed passage providing access fore and
aft from the bridge of a merchant vessel.
(4) By
extension, as "the catwalk", industry slang for the business of
making clothes for fashion shows.
1874:
The construct was cat + walk.The use of
catwalk to describe a long, narrow footway was a reference initially to those
especially of such narrowness of passage that one had to cross as a cat walks. It applied originally to ships and then theatrical
back-stages, the first known use with a fashion show runway dating from
1942.In architecture on land and at
sea, the catwalk soon lost its exclusive association only with the narrow and
came instead to be defined by function, used to describe any walkway between
two points.The noun plural is catwalks.For both nautical and architectural purposes,
the English catwalk was borrowed by many languages including Norwegian
(Bokmål & Nynorsk) and Dutch and it’s used almost universally in fashion
shows.Some languages such as the Ottoman
Turkish قات use
the spelling kat and some formed the
plural as catz.
Cat (any
member of the suborder (sometimes superfamily) Feliformia or Feloidea):
feliform (cat-like) carnivoran & feloid or any member of the subfamily
Felinae, genera Puma, Acinonyx, Lynx, Leopardus, and Felis or any member of the
subfamily Pantherinae, genera Panthera, Uncia and Neofelise and (in historic
use, any member of the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae, genera Smilodon,
Homotherium, Miomachairodus etc, most famously the Smilodontini,
Machairodontini (Homotherini), Metailurini, "sabre-toothed cat" (often
incorrectly referred to as the sabre-toothed tiger) but now most associated
with the domesticated species (Felis catus) of felines, commonly and apparently
since the eight century kept as a house pet)) was from the Middle English cat & catte, from the Old English catt
(male cat) & catte (female cat),
from the Proto-West Germanic kattu,
from the Proto-Germanic kattuz, from
the Latin cattus.
Cat has
most productively been applied in English to describe a wide variety of objects
and states of the human condition including (1) a spiteful or angry woman (from
the early thirteenth century but now almost wholly supplanted by “bitch” (often
with some clichéd or imaginative modifier)), (2) An aficionado or player of jazz,
(3) certain male persons (a use associated mostly with hippies or sub-set of
African-American culture), (4) historic (early fifteenth century) slang for a prostitute,
(5) in admiralty use, strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to the cathead of a
ship, (6) in admiralty use, a truncated form of cat-o'-nine-tails (a multi-lash
(not all were actually nine-tailed)) whip used by the Royal Navy et al to
enforce on-board discipline), (7) in admiralty use, a sturdy merchant sailing
vessel (long archaic although the use endures to describe the rather smaller "catboat",
(8) as “cat & dog (cat being the trap), a archaic alternative name for the
game "trap and ball", (9) the pointed piece of wood that is struck in
the game of tipcat, (1) In the African-American vernacular, vulgar slang or
the vagina, a vulva; the female external genitalia, (11) a double tripod (for
holding a plate etc) with six feet, of which three rest on the ground, in whatever
position it is placed, (12) a wheeled shelter, used in the Middle Ages as a
siege weapon to allow assailants to approach enemy defenses, (13) in admiralty slang,
to vomit, (14) in admiralty slang to o hoist (the anchor) by its ring so that
it hangs at the cathead, (15) in computing, a program and command in the Unix operating
system that reads one or more files and directs their content to the standard
output (16) in the slang of computing, to dump large amounts of data on an
unprepared target usually with no intention of browsing it carefully (which may
have been a sardonic allusion of “to catalogue or a shortened form of
catastrophic although both origins are unverified, a street name of the drug
methcathinone, (17) in ballistics
and for related accelerative uses, a shortened form of catapult, (18) for
purposes of digital and other exercises in classification, a shortening of category,
(19) an abbreviation of many words starting with “cat”) (catalytic converter, caterpillar
(including as “CAT” by the manufacturer Caterpillar, maker of a variety of
earth-moving and related machines)) catfish, etc, (20) any (non
military-combat) caterpillar drive vehicle (a ground vehicle which uses
caterpillar tracks), especially tractors, trucks, minibuses, and snow groomers.
Walk
was from the Middle English walken (to
move, roll, turn, revolve, toss), from the Old English wealcan (to move round, revolve, roll, turn, toss) & ġewealcan (to go, traverse) and the Middle
English walkien (to roll, stamp,
walk, wallow), from the Old English wealcian
(to curl, roll up), all from the Proto-Germanic walkaną & walkōną (to
twist, turn, roll about, full), from the primitive Indo-European walg- (to twist, turn, move).It was cognate with the Scots walk (to walk), the Saterland Frisian walkje (to full; drum; flex; mill), the West
Frisian swalkje (to wander, roam), the
Dutch walken (to full, work hair or
felt), the Dutch zwalken (to wander about),
the German walken (to lex, full,
mill, drum), the Danish valke & waulk), the Latin valgus (bandy-legged, bow-legged) and the Sanskrit वल्गति (valgati) (amble, bound, leap, dance).It was related to vagrant and whelk and a doublet
of waulk.
Walk
has contributed to many idiomatic forms including (1) in colloquial legal
jargon, “to walk” (to win (or avoid) a criminal court case, particularly when
actually guilty, (2) as a colloquial, euphemistic, “for an object to go missing
or be stolen, (3) in cricket (of the batsman), to walk off the field, as if
given out, after the fielding side appeals and before the umpire has ruled;
done as a matter of sportsmanship when the batsman believes he is out or when
the dismissal is so blatantly obvious that the umpire’s decision is inevitable,
(4) in baseball, to allow a batter to reach first base by pitching four balls
(ie non-strikes), (5) to move something by shifting between two positions, as
if it were walking, (6) (also as “to full”, to beat cloth to give it the
consistency of felt, (6) in the slang of computer programming, to debug a
routine by “walking the heap”, (7) in aviation, to operate the left and right
throttles of an aircraft in alternation, (8) in employment, to leave, to resign,
(9) in the now outlawed “sports” of dog & cock-fighting, to put, keep, or
train (a puppy or bird) in a walk, or training area, (10) in the hospitality
trade, to move a guest to another hotel if their confirmed reservation is not
available at the time they arrive to check-in (also as to bump), (11) in the hospitality
trade, as “walk-in”, a customer who “walks-in from the street” to book a room
or table without a prior reservation, (12) in graph theory, a sequence of
alternating vertices and edges, where each edge's endpoints are the preceding
and following vertices in the sequence, (13) In coffee, coconut, and other
plantations, the space between the rows of plants (from the Caribbean and most
associated with Belize, Guyana &
Jamaica, (14) in orchids, an area planted with fruit-bearing trees, (15) in colloquial
use, as “a walk in the park” or “a cakewalk”, something very easily
accomplished (same as “a milk-run”) and (16) in the (now rare) slang of the UK
finance industry, a cheque drawn on a bank that was not a member of the LCCS (London Cheque
(check in the US) Clearance System), the sort-code of which was allocated on a
one-off basis; they had to be "walked" (ie hand-delivered by
messengers).
On the
catwalk: Lindsay Lohan in a Heart Truth
Red Dress during Olympus Fashion Week, Fall, 2006, The Tent, New York City.
How to walk
like catwalk model
Traci
Halvorson of Halvorson Model Management (HMM) in San Jose, California, has
written a useful guide for those wishing to learn the technique of walking like
a catwalk (increasingly now called the gender-neutral “runway”) model.Although walking on a wide, stable flat
surface, in a straight line with few other instructions except “don’t fall
over”, doesn’t sound difficult, the art is actually a tightly defined set of
parameters which not all can master.Some models who excel at static shots and are well-known from their
photographic work can’t be used on a catwalk because their gait, while
within the normal human range, simply isn’t a “catwalk walk”.It’s thus a construct, of clothes, shoes, style and even expression and catwalk models need to be adaptable, able to
achieve essentially the same thing whether in 6-inch (150 mm) high stilettos
or slippery-soled ballet flats; it’s harder than it sounds and as all models
admit, nothing improves one’s technique like practice.
(1) The
facial expression.It sounds a strange
place to start but it’s not because if the facial expression is unchanging it
means it’s easier to focus on everything else, the rational being that humans
use their range of facial expression to convey emotion and attitude but this
all has to be neutralized to permit the photographers (paradoxically the
audience is less relevant) to capture what are defined “catwalk” shots.Set the chin to point slightly down though
don’t hang the head; the angle should be almost imperceptible and it
recommended to imagine an invisible string attached to the top of the head
holding the chin in its set position.
(2) Do
not smile.Catwalk models do not smile
because it draws attention away from the product although this does not mean
looking miserable or unhappy; instead look “serious” and this usually is done by
perfecting what is described as a “neutral” expression, one which would defy an
observer being able to tell whether the wearer is happy or sad.To achieve this, the single most important
aspect is to keep the mouth closed in a natural position, something like what
is recommended for a passport photograph and ask others to judge the look but
as a note of caution, there will be failures because some girls just look sort
of happy no matter what.In most of
life, this will be of advantage so a career other than the catwalk will beckon.
(3) On
the catwalk, keep the eyes focused straight ahead.This not only makes walking easier but also
self-imposes a discipline which will help maintain the static facial expression.Because the eyes are focused straight-ahead,
it will stop the head moving and the look will be the desired one of alertness
and purposefulness.Some models recommend
imagining a object moving in front of them and focus on that and in the
situations where there’s a procession on the catwalk, it’s possible usually to
fixate on some unmoving point on the model ahead.
(5) Don’t
fall over.It’s an obvious point but it
does happen and usually, shoes are responsible, either because the nature of
the construction has so altered the model’s centre of gravity or there's contact between footwear and some flowing piece of fabric, either one’s own or one in the
wake of the model ahead.There is no
better training to avoid “catwalk stacks” than to practice in a wide variety of
shoe types.
(5) If
possible, arrange a replica catwalk on which to practice, it need only to be a
few paces long and arranged so the walk is towards a full-length mirror.For side views, film using a carefully
positioned camera and compare the result with footage of actual catwalk models
at work.If possible, work in pairs or a
group because you’ll hone each other’s techniques but remember this is serious
business and criticism will need to be frank; feelings may need to be hurt on the
walk to the catwalk.
(6) Stand
up straight, imagining the invisible string holding the head in place being also attached to the spine.Keep the shoulders
back but not unnaturally so, posture needs to be good but not stiff or exaggerated
and a good posture can to some extent compensate for a lack of height.Again, this needs to be practiced in front of
a mirror and practice will improve the technique, the object being to stand
straight while looking relaxed and comfortable.
(7) Perfecting
the actual catwalk walk will take some time because, although it looks entirely
natural when done by models, it’s not actually the “natural” way most people
walk.To train, begin purely
mechanistically, placing one foot in front of the other and walking with (comfortably)
long strides, the best trick being to mark a line on the floor with chalk and imagine
walking on a rope, keeping one foot in front of the other, allowing the hips
slightly to move from side to side; the classic model look.With sufficient practice, what designers call
the model’s “strut” will evolve and in conjunction with the other techniques, there’ll
be a projection of assuredness and confidence.
(8) However,
the hips need symmetrically and slightly to move, not swing.Catwalk models are hired as platforms for
clothes within a narrow dimensional range and this includes not only the cut of
the fabric but also the extent it is required to move as the body moves and
motion must not be exaggerated.When
practicing this, again it’s preferable to work in pairs or groups.
How it's done. Catwalk models need to look good coming or going.
(9) Limit
the movement of the arms when walking.Let
the arms hang at the sides with the hands relaxed, the swing of the limbs
sufficient only to ensure the look is not unnaturally stylized and certainly
nothing like that of most people on the street.Many report when first practicing that there’s a tendency for the hands
to clench into fists and that’s because of the discipline being imposed on
other body parts but from the start, ensure the hands are relaxed, loosely cupped and with a small (natural) gap (something like ¼ inch (5-6 mm) between the fingers.Allow the arms slightly to bend and they’ll sway (just a little) with
the body.
(10) Practice
specifically for the occasion.Just as even
the best tennis players have to practice on grass if they’ve just come off playing on clay or hard-courts, at least an hour before an actual
catwalk session should be spent practicing in the same style of shoes as will
be worn for the session(s).This applies
even if wearing something less challenging like flats because the change in
weight distribution and the resultant centre of gravity is profound if the last
few days have been spent in 6 inch (150 mm) heels.
(11)
Practice with different types of music because the catwalk walk really is an
exercise in rhythm and if one can find a piece which really suits and makes the
walk easier to perfect, if it’s possible to imagine that while on the catwalk, that’s
good although sometimes there’s music at the shows and not all can focus on
what’s in the head while excluding what’s coming through the speakers.
Traci Halvorson's instructions were of course aimed at neophytes wishing to learn the basic technique but among established models there are variations and the odd stake of the individualistic, the most eye-catching of which is the "fierce strut", a usually fast-paced and aggressive march down the catwalk while still using the classic one-foot-in-front-of-the-other motif which so defines the industry. It's thus not quite Nazi-style goose-stepping or even the hybrid step used most enthusiastically by the female soldiers in the DPRK (North Korean) military but it's clearly strutting with intent.
(1) A unit of length equal to six feet (1.8288 m): used chiefly in nautical measurements and Admiralty papers.
(2) To measure the depth of by means of a sounding line; sound.
(3) In mining, a unit of volume usually equal to six cubic feet, used in measuring ore bodies (largely obsolete).
(4) In forestry, a unit of volume equal to six cubic feet, used for measuring timber (largely obsolete).
(5) To penetrate to the truth of; comprehend; understand.
Pre 900: From the Old English fæðm (length of the outstretched arm (a measure of about six feet), and figuratively, "power") from the Proto-Germanic fathmaz (embrace), related to the Old Norse faðmr (embrace) and the Old Saxon fathmos (the outstretched arms) and the Dutch vadem (a measure of six feet (1.8 m)). The Middle English was fathme, cognate with the German Faden (a six-foot measure) and related to the Old English fæðmian (to embrace, surround, envelop), most forms at least influenced by the primitive Indo-European pot(ə)-mo-, a suffixed form of the root pete- (to spread). Probable cognates included the Old Frisian fethem and the German faden (thread), the connection said to be the sense of "spreading out." As a unit of measure, in an early gloss it appears for the Latin passus, which was about 5 feet (1.5 m). The meaning "take soundings" is from circa 1600; its figurative sense of "get to the bottom of, understand" came some twenty years later. The verb fathom was from the Old English fæðmian (to embrace, surround, envelop), from a Proto-Germanic verb derived from the source of the noun fathom, the cognates including the Old High German fademon and the Old Norse faþma. The admiralty term fathomless (an adjective meaning literally "bottomless") is from the 1640s, later extended to figurative use (not to be comprehended). Fathom is a noun and verb, fathomer & fathometer are nouns and fathomable, fathomless & (the predictably common) unfathomable are adjectives; the noun plural is fathoms.
The One-Hundred Fathom Line
UK Admiralty chart of the hundred fathom line, circa 1911.
The one-hundred fathom line is an Admiralty term for marking sea charts to delineate where the seabed lies at depths less or greater than 100 fathoms; it can thus be thought a particular expression of the continental shelf (though defined for military rather than geographical purposes). Thus the distance from the coastlines of each land mass varies and it's related not at all to other boundaries established by the United Nation's (UN) Law of the Sea or other conventions such as territorial waters (historically 3 miles (5 km) and now 12 (20) or a state's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (200 (320)). The hundred fathom line is now of little military significance (although it remains of interest to submariners) but it was cited as recently as 1952 in negotiations between the post-war Churchill (1951-1955) and Truman administrations (1945-1953) in defining the areas of preponderant operations for the Royal Navy and US Navy.
Lindsay Lohan GIF from A Beautiful Life (music video). Although often photographed in the water, there's no evidence to suggest Ms Lohan has ever descended deeper than one fathom.
(1) To overpower
or dim the vision of by intense light.
(2) Deeply to
impress, to astonish with delight
(3) To awe,
overwhelm, overpower, stupefy.
(4) To shine or
brilliantly reflect.
(5) To excite
admiration by a display of brilliance.
(6)To be
overpowered by light.
(7) Something
that dazzles.
(8) A form of
camouflage used on early-mid twentieth century warships.
(9) The
collective noun to describe zebras.
1475-1485: A frequentative
of daze, the construct being daze+ le, from the Middle English dasen, from the Old Norse dasa (as in dasask (to become weary)) and related to the Danish dase (to doze, mope). 1475-1485: Daze was a Middle English,
back-formation from the Middle English dazed, from the Old Norse dasaðr (weary) & dasask (to become weary), from the Proto-Germanic
dasōjan-, from the adjective daza-, which may have been a variant of
the primitive Indo-European der- (to hold, support) and
related to the Armenian դադարել
(dadarel) (to settle, stop, end). The -le suffix was a frequentative form from the Middle English -elen, -len & -lien, from the Old English -lian
(the frequentative verbal suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -lōną (the frequentative verbal suffix)
and was cognate with the West Frisian -elje,
the Dutch -elen, the German -eln, the Danish -le, the Swedish -la and
the Icelandic -la. It was used as a frequentative suffix of
verbs, indicating repetition or continuousness.
The
original, fifteenth century, meaning was “be stupefied, be confused” which many
dictionaries list as obsolete but there are certainly at least echoes of that
sense in the modern use. Originally
intransitive; the transitive sense of “overpower with strong or excessive light”
dates from the 1530s while the figurative sense of “overpower or excite
admiration by brilliancy or showy display” is from the 1560s. As a noun in the sense of “brightness, splendour”,
it’s been known since the 1650s. The
verb bedazzle (to blind by excess of light) emerged in the 1590s but is now far
more common in figurative use. The late
nineteenth century coining of “razzle-dazzle” originally suggested “bewilderment
or confusion, rapid stir and bustle, riotous jollity or intoxication etc but
came soon to be used of “deception, fraud; extravagant or misleading claims”. At the turn of the twentieth century it was
used also to mean “a state of confusion” but the modern trend is to use “razzle-dazzle”
to mean anything flashy, especially unstructured, inventive performances on the
sporting field. Forms such as overdazzle,
outdazzle, outdazzling, overdazzle, overdazzled, overdazzling, redazzle & undazzled
have been coined as required. The adjective
antidazzle is commonly used in commerce (often as anti-dazzle). Dazzle is a noun & verb, endazzlement,
dazzlement & dazzler are nouns, bedazzle & (the archaic) endazzle are
verbs, adazzle is an adjective, dazzling & dazzled are verbs &
adjectives and dazzlingly is an adverb; the noun plural is dazzles.
Dazzling:
Lindsay Lohan in zebra-print dress from Balmain's autumn-winter 2013 collection, GQ
Men Of The Year Awards, London, September 2014. Cohort, crossing, harem, herd and zeal have all been cited as the collective noun for zebras but most zoologists seem to prefer dazzle.
Developed
first by the Royal Navy during World War I (1914-1918) to counter the German U-Boat (submarine) threat, dazzle camouflage
for ships was a counterintuitive adaptation of techniques known to have been
used during antiquity, the fleets of both the Greeks and Romans having been
painted in shades of green and blue to blend with the surface and horizon.The modern approach however was rather than concealment,
the vessel would be exposed to the enemy.
View through periscope, with and without dazzle.
The British Admiralty adopted the scheme as an experiment.It had been suggested in 1917 by a Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) lieutenant
commander with a pre-war background in painting, his argument being that while
it wasn’t possible actually to conceal a ship, a suitable paint scheme should make
difficult the task of a submarine captain trying to estimate a vessel’s speed
and direction while viewing through a periscope for a limited time and that was no easy task in 1917. A U-Boat captain, while maintaining a distance from his target between around a quarter mile (400m) and a mile (1600m),
had to predict the speed and direction of the target’s travel while factoring
in ocean currents which could affect a torpedo’s travel, all within the short time
he could risk his periscope being visible above the surface. The dazzle concept of camouflage differed from traditional methods of concealment in that it sometimes made the target actually easier to see but tried instead to make it harder to sink. A U-Boat carried very few torpedoes and they couldn't be wasted. The captain had to hit a moving target, often in a rolling sea and to maximize the chance of success, needed the torpedo to hit the ship in her most vulnerable spots and this was done by aiming not at where the target was, but where the target would be more than half a minute later. The idea of the dazzle was not to hide the ship but to make it even harder for a U-Boat commander to estimate variables like direction and speed of travel.
After
encouraging findings in small-scale tests, the admiralty authorised trials and
artists experimented with both colours and shapes, intending usually to distort
the perception of the shape of the bow and stern, disrupting perspective and
falsely suggesting a ship’s smokestacks or superstructure pointed in a
different direction than truly it sat on the water.Many of the ideas were shamelessly borrowed
from modernist art, especially the concepts of cubism, a theft so blatant that Pablo Picasso (1881–1973),
in conversation with the American poet and novelist Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), observed
the Cubist movement deserved some credit from the Admiralty.
A Dazzled dreadnought, 1919.
The
programme spread to merchant vessels and then across the Atlantic.Soon thousands of ships were painted in lurid
colour schemes but unfortunately, the extensive archive of photographs from
this era are mostly monochrome which not only fail fully to capture the vivid
variety of the artists’ work but also don’t convey the contrasts created by the
blues, reds, greens, purples and greys light & dark which created the
optical illusions.Both navies undertook
analysis of the losses in shipping to evaluate the effectiveness of dazzle but
the results, so impressive in laboratory conditions, were inconclusive, it
being statistically impossible to account for external factors but U-Boat
captains interviewed after the war attested to the problems dazzle created for
them.
RMS Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic in dazzle, Pier 2 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1918. Painting by Arthur Lismer (1885–1969)
Despite
there being no consensus about the advantage of dazzle, allied naval
authorities continued to employ it on both some warships and merchant fleets in
World War II (1939-1945). The Imperial German Navy had shown
little interest in camouflaging ships during the Great War but did adopt a
variation of dazzle early in World War II although OKM’s ((Oberkommando der Marine, High Command of the Kriegsmarine (Navy)) designs were intended to disguise the identity
of a ship from surface and air observation rather than raise doubts about speed
or direction.It’s not documented why
this was abandoned by OKM but, after 1941, all naval assets were repainted in
regulation shades of grey.
Although never as widely used as in 1917-1918, allied
navies retained faith in the subterfuge throughout the war although this time
it was the Americans who were much more systematic and it wasn’t until late in 1942
the Admiralty released their Intermediate
Disruptive Pattern and not until 1944 was a Standard Scheme promulgated.
Wartime developments in radar were already reducing the effectiveness of
dazzle and this was accelerated by post-war advances in range-finding which
rendered dazzle wholly obsolete. For decades after 1946, no dazzle schemes were commissioned but (much toned-down) aspects of the idea have in recent years been interpolated into modern "stealth" naval architecture.
(2) In admiralty
use, at right angles to the fore-and-aft line; across.
(3) Perversely;
awry; wrongly.
1425-1475:
From the Late Middle English athwart
and a proclitic form of preposition; the construct was a + thwart.The a prefix is from the Old English an (on) which in Middle English meant “up,
out, away”, both derived from the Proto-Germanic uz (out), from the primitive Indo-European uds (up, out); cognate with the Old Saxon ā which endures in Modern German as the prefix er.Thwart is from the Middle
English thwert, a borrowing from Old
Norse þvert (across), originally the neuter
form of þverr (transverse, across),
from the Proto-Germanic þwerhaz,
altered or influenced by þweraną (to
turn) and þerh, from the primitive Indo-European
twork & twerk (to twist).Cognates
include the Old English þweorh
(transverse, perverse, angry, cross), the Danish tvær, the Gothic þwaírs (angry),
the West Frisian dwers (beyond,
across, to the other side of), the Dutch dwars
(cross-grained, contrary), the Low German dwars
(cross-grained, contrary) and the German quer
(crosswise; cross).The modern English queer
is related.Although still used by poets
good and bad, the word is probably obsolete for all purposes except historic
admiralty documents.
Admiralty use.
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Kubla Khan (1798)
In Xanadu did Kubla
Khan A stately
pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the
sacred river, ran Through caverns
measureless to man Down to a sunless
sea. So twice five miles
of fertile ground With walls and
towers were girdled round: And here were
gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed
many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests
ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny
spots of greenery. But oh! that deep
romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill
athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as
holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a
waning moon was haunted By woman wailing
for her demon-lover! And from this
chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in
fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain
momently was forced; Amid whose swift
half-intermitted burst Huge fragments
vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain
beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these
dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up
momently the sacred river. Five miles
meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and
dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the
caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult
to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this
tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices
prophesying war! The shadow of the
dome of pleasure Floated midway on
the waves: Where was heard the
mingled measure From the fountain
and the caves. It was a miracle of
rare device, A sunny
pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a
dulcimer In a vision once I
saw: It was an
Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer
she played, Singing of Mount
Abora. Could I revive
within me Her symphony and
song, To such a deep
delight't would win me That with music
loud and long, I would build that
dome in air, That sunny dome!
those caves of ice! And all who heard
should see them there, And all should cry,
Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes,
his floating hair! Weave a circle
round him thrice, And close your eyes
with holy dread, For he on honey-dew
hath fed, And drunk the milk
of Paradise.
(1) Of or relating to ships, navigation, sailors
& other admiralty matters.
(2) As nautical mile, a measure of distance.
1545-1555: From the Middle French nautique (pertaining to ships, sailors, or navigation) from the Latin nautic(us) (of or relating to ships or sailors), from the Ancient Greek ναυτικός (nautikós) (seafaring, naval), from nautes (sailor), from naus (ship), from the primitive Indo-European nau (boat).Nautical is the adjective, nauticality the noun
and nautically the adverb; associated words include navigational, seafaring,
maritime, marine, aquatic, naval, oceanic, pelagic, salty, ship, abyssal,
thalassic, boating, deep-sea, navigating, oceangoing, oceanographic, rowing,
sailing & seagoing.
The
nautical mile
A unit
of distance measurement used in maritime, air and space navigation, one nautical
mile was defined originally as one minute (one sixtieth of a degree) of latitude
along any line of longitude.It’s since
been re-defined several times and although the international nautical mile is set
at 1852 metres (about 1.15 miles), other definitions co-exist: a US Navy
nautical mile being 1853.2480 metres (6080.2 feet) whereas UK Admiralty charts
use an even 6080 feet.No standardized
nautical mile symbol has ever been agreed with M, NM, nmi and nm variously
used.
The
derived unit of speed is the knot, a vessel at one knot along a meridian
travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.The word knot was originally an admiralty
term to measure speed, derived from counting the number of knots unspooled from
a real of rope in a certain time.Curiously, although
kn is the ISO standard symbol for the knot, kt is also widely used, particularly
in civil aviation.
The
reason the generally accepted definition of national territorial waters was set
at three nautical miles (5.6 km) was wholly military; it was maximum range of
the big ordnance of the age, the cannon-ball.Developments in ballistics and politics soon rendered the three mile
limit irrelevant and states began to claim larger areas but, although the League of Nations Codification Conference
began discussions in 1930, nothing was resolved either then or at the
subsequent United Nations Conferences on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I 1956-1958 & UNCLOS II 1960).It took a ten-year process (UNCLOS 1973-1982)
to secure international agreement that the national territorial limit was set
at twelve nautical miles, the provision coming into force in 1994.
Lindsay Lohan's nautically themed Vanity Fair photo shoot, Marina del Rey, California, October 2010. The location was the Sovereign, a motor yacht built in 1961 for the film star Judy Garland (1922-1969).