Sling

Sling (pronounced sling)

(1) A (sometimes improvised) device for hurling stones or other missiles, constructed typically by the use of a short strap with a long string at each end, operated by placing the missile in the strap, and, holding the ends of the strings in one hand, whirling the instrument around in a circle and releasing one of the strings to discharge the missile; often called a slingshot (or sling-shot).

(2) A bandage used to suspend or support an injured part of the body, most commonly in an arrangement suspended from the neck to support an injured arm or hand.

(3) A strap, band, or the like, forming a loop by which something is suspended or carried, as a strap attached to a rifle and passed over the shoulder.

(4) As sling-back, a design used for woman’s shoes which uses an exposed, usually thin strap which wraps around the ankle.

(5) A rope, chain, net, etc, used for hoisting freight or other items or for holding them while being hoisted.

(6) An act or instance of slinging.

(7) In nautical use, a chain or halyard for supporting a hoisting yard (an in the plural (as slings), the area of a hoisting yard to which such chains are attached; the middle of a hoisting yard.

(8) To throw, cast, or hurl; fling, as from the hand.

(9) To place in or secure with a sling to raise or lower; to raise, lower, etc by such means; to hang by a sling or place so as to swing loosely.

(10) To suspend.

(11) An iced alcoholic drink, typically containing gin, water, sugar, and lemon or lime juice.

(12) In mountaineering, a loop of rope or tape used for support in belays, abseils, etc.

(13) A young or infant spider, such as one raised in captivity or those in labs used in scientific or industrial research (a shortening of s(pider)ling.

1175–1225: From the Middle English noun slynge (hand-held implement for throwing stones) & verb slyngen (past tense slong, past participle slungen & slongen) (to knock down" using a sling (and by the mid-thirteenth century “to throw, hurl, fling, especially if using a sling), probably from the Old Norse slyngja & slyngva (to hurl, to fling), from the Proto-Germanic slingwaną (to worm, twist) which was cognate with the Middle Low German slinge (a sling), the Old High German slingan and the Old English slingan (to wind, twist) and etymologists speculate that while the Middle English noun may be derived from the verb, the sense of “strap, hoist” may be of distinct (an uncertain) origin.  The Old English slingan (to wind, twist) came from the same source and comparable European forms include the German schlingen (to swing, wind, twist), the Old Frisian slinge, the Middle Dutch slinge and the Danish and Norwegian slynge, from the primitive Indo-European slenk (to turn, twist) which may be compared with the Welsh llyngyr (worms, maggots), the Lithuanian sliñkti (to crawl like a snake) and the Latvian slìkt (to sink).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) approved the past tense slung but not slang.  Sling is a noun & verb, slinger is a noun, slinging & slung are verbs and slinged is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is slings.

The notion of the verb was doubtlessly that of the missile being twisted and twirled before it is released and the stone or piece of metal hurled was by the late fourteenth century known as a sling-stone, the older English word for which was lithere, from the Old English liþere (related to leather), the connection being the strips of tanned animal hide used in slings.  Etymologists note the likely influence of Low German cognates in the sense development in English, the use to describe a “loop for lifting or carrying heavy objects” documented since the early fourteenth century and the “leather shoulder strap for a musket or other long-arm” was in use by at least 1711.  As pieces of fabric used to support injured arms, there evidence of use dating back thousands of years but such things seem formally to have been called slings only after the 1720s, the earlier medical word in Middle English for a “sling or supporting loop used in treating dislocations”, although there was also the early fifteenth century stremb & suspensorie, from the Medieval Latin stremba.  The slingshot (also sling-shot or hand-catapult) dates from 1849 and although it seems likely to have previously been in oral use, it’s not documented as a verb until 1969.  The slung-shot, first recorded in 1848, was a rock wrapped in a sling, used as a weapon by the criminal class and those living in rough neighborhoods.

Separamadu Lasith Malinga (b 1983), a Sri Lankan cricketer and right-arm fast bowler who was known as "Slinga Malinga" because of his unusual delivery, often referred to as a "sling action".

As a battlefield weapon, the sling is ancient and has endured (often in improvised form) to this day because it’s simple, reliable and can readily be fashioned from whatever falls to hand.  As projectiles, rocks can be lethal if delivered with force and in many environments (include urban), ammunition is effectively limitless.  In Antiquity, the armies of Greece, Rome & Carthage all had units of slingers attached to their infantry formations and used continued into the sixteenth century when the first grenades were developed.  There’s a political aspect too, the Palestinian resistance fighters gaining notably more international sympathy when they restricted their weapons to stones and slings rather than guns and bombs.  The sweetened, flavored liquor drink known as the sling was a creation of US English, dating from 1792, the origin mysterious although it may have been from the notion of “throwing back” a drink or linked with the German schlingen (to swallow).  In the nineteenth century, it was used also as a verb in the sense “to drink slings”.  The noun gun-slinger, although now associated with the Hollywood version of the nineteenth century American west, is documented only since 1916 and sling hash was US slang for a waiter or waitress, especially one employed at a lunch counter or cheap restaurant. In Australian slang a sling was a (1) a part of one’s wages paid in physical cash, thereby avoiding taxation and (2) that part of a business’s turnover not entered in the transactional record, again as a form of tax evasion.  It picked up- on the earlier use of sling to mean “to sell, peddle, or distribute something (often drugs, sex etc) illicitly, e.g. drugs, sex, etc.).  A rare variation was undersling (to sell with an implication of illegality) and that presumably was for emphasis, being a blend of “under the table” and “sling”.

Lindsay Lohan in open-toed slingbacks, New York City, April 2006.

Slingback shoes are so-named for the distinctive ankle strap which crosses around the back and sides of the ankle and heel.  In this it’s a style distinct from a conventional arrangement in which a strap completely encircles the ankle.  Produced in a variety of heel heights and in open & closed-toe styles, most slingbacks are made with a low vamp little different from those with enclosed heels.  In a sense, the slingback shoe is related to the many types of sandal but is almost always more formal.  To accommodate different ankle sizes, slingback straps are almost always of adjustable length, typically with a buckle and such is the design that it’s rarely necessary for the wearer to re-buckle after the first fitting.  In that sense, slingbacks are effectively slip-ons.

Two Singapore Slings.

The Singapore sling cocktail said to have been invented in 1915, by a bartender at Raffles Hotel’s (named after Sir Stamford Raffles (1781–1826), a colonial official who under the Raj was a notable figure in the early development of Singapore) Long Bar.  Selling sometimes a thousand a day during the peak season, the current price of a Singapore sling (including taxes) is SGD$46 (US$34) so the Long Bar’s cash flow is usually positive.  The unusual story of its origin is also a tale of one of the Far East’s early contributions to women’s rights because although the European men in the Long Bar coped with the heat & humidity with gin & tonics or whisky & sodas, they didn’t approve of women drinking alcohol in public places so they were served iced teas or fruit juices.  However, although it’s not recorded where it was a product of feminist agitation or local initiative, a bartender created a drink visually indistinguishable from the fruit juices usually served but which was actually a cocktail infused with gin, cherry liqueur & grenadine, the latter chosen for the pinkish-red hue it produced, something said to lend it some “feminine appeal”.  Thus was born the Singapore Sling which, more than a century later remains a symbol of the city-state although there have been many variations over the years including the addition of ingredients such as lime, pineapple juice, Cointreau or Benedictine liqueur.

The Singapore Sling Chicane in its original form (left) and before & after (2012-2013, right).

Conducted on a street circuit the Singapore Grand Prix was added to the Formula One (F1) calendar in 2008 and is notable as the first ever night time Grand Prix, a wise move in the equatorial zone.  Although regarded as one of the more challenging of the street circuits, the city-state had previously staged motor-racing events and they were conducted on an a narrow and treacherous course called the Thomson Road Grand Prix circuit, created overnight from public roads which offered almost no run-off areas and featured monsoon drains, bus stops, and lampposts, all dangerously close to the racing line which itself was marked by the oil trails left by the cars, trucks and buses which usually percolated around.  More than one driver called the circuit the “most dangerous in the world”.  The racing however was good, the original Grand Prix on the course run in 1961 under Formula Libre rules (much more interesting than the current, dull Formula One cars) and the events between 1966-1973 were usually Formula Two (F2) events but by 1973 Singapore had developed to such an extent the organization was just too disruptive and the safety concerns about Thomson Road were not merely theoretical because there had been injuries and deaths.  However, in 2008 the Marina Bay Street Circuit was designed and despite being regarded as “difficult”, it conformed to all modern safety requirements.  Notably, it contained 23 corners, more than any other on the calendar and by far the most famous was turn 10 which attracted such interest it was divided by analysts into 3 smaller turns (10a, 10b, & 10c).  The corner was called the Singapore Sling Chicane.

Lindsay Lohan, 2009 Singapore Grand Prix.

It was well-named because between turns 9 & 10, F1 cars were travelling at around 170 mph (273 km/h) and the Singapore Sling was defined with raised kerbing which, it hit at speed would literally launch a car into the air if the driver varied by less than an inch (25 mm) from the ideal line.  One driver called them “little tortoises that would wreck the car if you get something wrong” and after many complaints from various drivers the height of the kerbing was reduced.  However, that only reduced the danger they posed and crashes continued so in 2010 Turn 10 was modified but there were still airborne adventures and broken cars still littered the chicane at every event.  Physicists even ran the number through one of the super-computers used usually to model the climate or simulate thermo-nuclear weapons and determined that if a F1 machine hit “a tortoise” at racing speed, it was guaranteed to hit the wall.  Accordingly, in 2013 Turn 10 became just a left-handed turn instead of the left / right / left format of the notorious Singapore Sling Chicane.  That in itself was unusual because the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation which is international sport’s dopiest regulatory body) has for decades adored chicanes to the point of fetishism, such is their desire to make racing as slow and processional as possible.  In recent seasons however, F1 has become so predictably processional, there have been calls to bring back the Singapore Sling Chicane and given nobody has come up with a better suggestion to make the competition interesting, it may be worth considering.  Of course, they could change the rules relating to the cars and the adoption of large capacity hydrogen-burning internal combustion engines would be a good start. 

Adhesive

Adhesive (pronounced ad-hee-siv or ad-hee-ziv)

(1) Something coated with glue, paste, mastic, or other sticky substance (which may be intended for either temporary or permanent purposes); a substance that causes something to adhere, as glue or rubber cement.

(2) Figuratively, tenacious or clinging.

(3) Sticking fast; sticky; apt or tending to adhere; clinging.

(4) In physics, of or relating to the molecular force that exists in the area of contact between unlike bodies and that acts to unite them.

(5) The quality or degree of stickiness in the physical sense; relating to adhesion.

(6) In philately, a postage stamp with a gummed back, as distinguished from one embossed or printed on an envelope or card.

1660s: The adjective meaning “sticky, cleaving or clinging” was from the French adhésif, from the Latin adhaesivus, from adhaereō (supine adhaesum). The French construct was formed from the Latin adhaes-, past-participle stem of adhaerere (stick to), the source also of adherent.  The noun was derived from the adjective and emerged in 1881, original as a descriptor of postage stamps (as a clipping of the original (1840) adhesive stamp, the word later adopted in philately as a technical distinction between the classic stick-on stamps and other types.  Around the turn of the twentieth century, it was used in the general sense of "a substance that causes to adhere", as a point of differentiation from simple glue.  The spelling adhæsive is obsolete.

Because of the use in engineering, science, industry & commerce, adhesive is a popular modifier, the forms including adhesive capsulitis, adhesive tape, hot melt adhesive, self-adhesive, adhesive bra, adhesive bandage, adhesive binding, adhesive plaster & adhesive tape.  Words related to adhesive (in the physical or figurative sense depending on context) sense include gummy, sticky, adherent, holding, hugging, pasty, adhering, agglutinant, attaching, clinging, clingy, gelatinous, glutinous, gooey, gummed, mucilaginous, resinous, tenacious, viscid & viscous.  Adhesive is a noun & adjective, adhesion is a noun, adhesively is an adverb and adhesiveness is a noun; the noun plural is adhesives.

Very Abstract

Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 is an abstract piece created with multi-colored adhesive tape.  First exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1945 and hung since 1980 in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection, recently it was revealed for the past 77 years it has been hanging upside down.  The work is unsigned, sometimes an indication the artist deemed it unfinished but Mondrian left no notes.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference. 

The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition.  During research for the show, a photograph of Mondrian’s studio taken shortly after his death showed the work oriented in the opposite direction and this is being treated as proof of the artist’s intension although experts say the placement of the adhesive tape on the unsigned painting also suggests the piece was hung upside down.  How the error occurred is unclear but when first displayed at MOMA, it may have been as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  However, 1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread,” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”

1941 New York City 1, in the Paris Museum of Modern Art.

The curator made the point that as hung, the interlacing lattice of red, yellow, black and blue adhesive tapes thicken towards the bottom, suggesting a sparser skyline but that “…the thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky” and another of Mondrian’s creations in a similar vein (the oil on canvas New York City I (1942)) hangs in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris with the thickening of lines at the top.  Whether Mondrian intended 1941 New York City 1 to be part of his oeuvre or it was just a mock-up in adhesive tape for the oil-on canvas composition to follow isn’t known, artists having many reasons for leaving works unsigned.

Conventional "backless" bras.

The term "backless bra" can be misleading in that most of them aren't actually built without a back-strap; rather the strap is engineered in a variety of ways to sit well below the shoulder-blades, usually somewhere around the lower back.  Often that's enough to suit the outfit with which it's being paired but sometimes there's a need to expose the whole back and here an adhesive bra can be the solution.  Adhesive bras (single-use and re-usable and sometimes called "stick-on bras" or "stickies") are specialized devices which have a large part of the surface-area facing the skin coated with a medical-grade adhesive.  Made usually from silicone or polyurethane and available in a variety of designs (in one and two-piece configurations), almost all are strapless or backless and the variations in design exist to accommodate the different clothes under which the bra will be worn.  One chooses one’s adhesive bra cognizant of the dress or top to be worn, the idea being that once dressed, only skin should be visible.  In cases where no commercial available adhesive bra is quite right, a variety of medical-grade tapes (sold as tit-tape, skin-tape, boob-tape et al) are available including double-sided versions which can hold the fabric of clothes in place.  There have the advantage of being able to rendered in whatever shape is required but can be difficult to apply single-handedly although boyfriends and girlfriends should be anxious to assist.  Experts suggest avoiding the cheapest on the market because some of there are not medical grade and there's the risk of minor skin damage and consequent infection.

For those (regardless of size) who don’t require lift and need only to minimize lateral movement, the two-piece units (which can use a central coupling depending on the outfit) are ideal because they are available in versions with a smaller surface area, some of which use a higher percentage of the adhesive material to adhere to skin below the bust-line which can be helpful.  These are essentially a modern variation of the pasties (adhesive patches worn over the nipples by exotic dancers) from the late 1950s with some structural engineering added to enhance support.

Most two-piece adhesive bras are a pair of stand-alone units but some offer the option of centre-adjustments.  The methods vary, some using Velcro, the familiar hook & eye combination or buckles but the most popular type use shoe-lace style ties.  The scope of adjustment offered is not only lateral (forcing the flesh towards the centre) but also vertical (forcing the flesh upwards), both movements enhancing cleavage and this permits the same bra to be used for more than one style of outfit.

Although mostly associated with backless and strapless styles, adhesive bras are also available which accommodate plunging necklines.  The two-piece units allow designers to display a cut to the waist but more modest renditions, optimized for cleavage, use a kind of cantilever, usually called the “plunge”.

Adhesive bras use rather than defy the laws of physics and there are limits to the volumes which can be accommodated.  As a general principle, as the movable mass (and in this case there’s not always a direct correlation between weight and volume) increases the surface area of the adhesive material which adheres to skin above the effective centre of gravity (essentially the pivot point) should increase.  That means larger sizes can be handled for backless dresses and even plunges are possible but it won’t be possible always to display the skin on the upper poles and designs required to secure a greater mass can be less comfortable because they often include some variation of an underwire to guarantee structural integrity.

Lindsay Lohan adhesive stickers.

Awful

Awful (pronounced aw-fuhl)

(1) Extremely bad; unpleasant; ugly.

(2) Inspiring fear; dreadful; terrible.

(3) Solemnly impressive; inspiring awe; full of awe; reverential (obsolete).

(4) Extremely dangerous, risky, injurious, etc.

(5) Very; extremely.

1250-1300: From the Middle English agheful, awfull, auful aueful & aȝefull (worthy of respect or fear, striking with awe; causing dread), the construct of all based on the idea of awe +‎ -ful (aghe the earlier form of awe), the same model as the Old English eġeful & eġefull (terrifying; awful).  Etymologists treat the emergence in the early nineteenth century (1809) of the meaning “very bad” as a weakening of the original sense but it can be regarded as a fork and thus a parallel path in the same way as the sense of "excessively; very great" which is documented since 1818.  Interestingly, there’s evidence from the late sixteenth century that was spasmodic use of awful that was more a variation of the original, meaning “profoundly reverential, full of awe” (awe in this case a thing more of reverence than fear and trepidation).  The spellings awfull, aweful & awefull are all obsolete although some dictionaries list awfull as archaic, a fine distinction of relevance only to lexicographers.  Awful is an adjective & (in colloquial US use, mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line) an adverb, awfully is an adverb, awfuller & awfullest are adjectives, awfulize is a verb and awfulization & awfulness are nouns; in slang the non-standard noun plural “awfuls” is used in the same sense as the disparaging “ghastlies”.

The adverb awfully (which would later assume a life of its own) around the turn of the fourteenth century meant "so as to inspire reverence" by the end of the 1300s had come also to mean "dreadfully, so as to strike one with awe (in the sense of “fear & dread”) and this was by the 1830s picked up as a simple intensifier meaning "very, exceedingly", Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noting with his usual weary disapproval that awfully’s “downward path” was such that it was now nothing but a synonym of “very”.  That seems harsh given “awfully” would seem able to convey a nuance and even Henry Fowler conceded that in Ancient Greek the equivalent word αἰνόςως (ainósōs) was used to mean both (1) “horribly, dreadfully, terribly” & (2) “very, extremely, exceptionally” but despite his reverence for all things Hellenic, he didn’t relent.

Awfully good: Lindsay Lohan at the premiere of Mr & Mrs Smith, Los Angeles, June, 2005.  A kind of elaborated bandage dress with some nice detailing, the dress Lindsay Lohan wore in 2005 attracted much favourable comment, as did the designer's sense of restraint, necklaces and other embellishments eschewed, a sprinkle of freckles presumably thought adornment enough.  A dress like this encapsulates the simple rule: When in doubt, stick to the classics.

The adjective god-awful (also as godawful) had an even more muddled evolution, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 1878 listing the meaning “impressive” before, a decade later, revising this to “impressively (ie “very”) terrible”, which seems better to reflect the sense in which it seems always to have been applied since being coined as a colloquialism of US English.  In use it’s thought to have been mostly part of oral speech and except in dictionary entries appeared rarely in print prior to the 1920s so the origin is obscure, etymologists pondering that either “God” was used as a simple intensifier or in the sense of the frequent God's awful vengeance, judgment etc, a phrase common in religious literature.

As adjectives, the usual forms of the comparative & superlative are respectively more awful & most awful but dictionaries continue to acknowledge awfuller & awfullest as correct English although most users would probably flag both as “wrong” and their clumsy sound means they’re avoided even by those aware of their status.  The verbs awfulize, awfulizes, awfulizing & awfulized are technical terms in psychotherapy which describe patients reacting dramatically or catastrophically to distressing events, usually in the sense of a disproportionate reaction; the noun form is awfulization.  Perhaps surprisingly, social media users seem not to have picked up “awfulization”; it would seem a handy descriptor of much content.

A sentence like “it was a godawful book and awfully long but awfully well-written” actually makes sense and few would be confused because the various meanings are conveyed by context.  So, despite the tangled history, awful and its derivatives usually present few problems, even the colloquial “something awful” (“awfully; dreadfully; terribly” except in North America (mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line & among classes so influenced) where it means “very, extremely”) usually able to be decoded: “I was hungry something awful” and “there’s something awful about crooked Hillary Clinton” both unambiguous even if the former sounds strange to those accustomed to “educated speech”, a term much criticized but well-understood.

Awful: Lindsay Lohan at the afterparty for Roberto Cavalli's fashion show, Milan Fashion Week, March 2010.  Although they tend to group-think, fashion critics are not monolithic but none had a good word to say about this outfit, the consensus being: Awful.  A few grudgingly granted a pass to the glittering Roberto Cavalli harem pants but the fur gilet was condemned as if Ms Lohan had with her bare hands skinned a live mink, eating the liver; these days, even faux fur seems grounds for cancellation.  Some, presumably those who picked up a photo from the agencies, called it a stole and at certain angles it resembled one but it really was as gilet.  As a footnote, many did admire the Fendi platform pumps so there was that though nobody seemed to think they redeemed things.

Gilet was from the French gilet (vest, waistcoat), from the regional Italian gileccu (Calabria), gilecco (Genoa), gelecco (Naples) & ggileccu (Sicily), (though the standard Italian gilè was borrowed directly from the French), from the Turkish yelek (jelick; vest, waistcoat, from the Proto-Turkic yẹl (the noun of “wind”) with the final syllable modified to match other styles of garments such as corselet and mantelet.  Historically a gilet was (1) a man’s waistcoat & (2) a woman’s bodice a la the waistcoat or a decorative panel either attached to the bodice or worn separately.  In modern use, a gilet is a sleeveless jacket which can be closed to the neck and is often padded to provide warmth.  Some puffer jackets and garments described as bodywarmers can be classed as gilets.

Stole was from the Old English stole, from the Latin stola, from the Ancient Greek στολή (stolḗ) (stole, garment, equipment).  The original stoles were ecclesiastical vestments and were decorated bands worn on the back of the neck, each end hanging over the chest (reaching sometimes to the ground) and could, inter alia, be an indication of clerical rank, geographical location or membership of an order.  In English and European universities, stoles were also adopted as academic dress, often added to an undergraduate’s gown for a degree conferring ceremony.  In fashion, the stole was a garment in the style of a scarf or muffler and was there always for visual effect and sometimes warmth.  Fur stoles were especially popular until wearing it became socially proscribed and (trigger warning) there were fox stoles which included the beast's entire pelt including the head and the much admired brush (tail).

Celsius

Celsius (pronounced sel-see-uhs or sel-shee-us)

(1) As a measure of temperature, pertaining to or noting the Celsius scale of temperature scale in which 0° represents the point (at sea level (ie under normal atmospheric pressure)) where pure water freezes and 100° the point at which it turns to steam.  The Symbol is “C” and the term Centigrade is for most general purposes interchangeable.

(2) In thermodynamics, of or relating to a temperature scale having the same units as the Celsius scale but in which the zero point has been shifted so that the triple point of water has the exact value 0.01°; Celsius temperatures are computed from Kelvin values by subtracting 273.15 from the latter.  The symbol is “CC”.

1742: Named after Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744) who in 1742 proposed the centigrade scale and invented the centigrade thermometer.  The surname Celsius is Latinized from the estate's name, celsus (mound).  The synonyms are centigrade and the rare centesimal.  The term Celsius came into use in 1797 to describe the thermometer and in 1812 in reference to the scale of temperatures.  The companion adjective centigrade (consisting of 100 degrees, divided into 100 equal parts) was a construct of the Latin centi- (from centum (one hundred)) + grade (degree), the second element from Latin gradus (step) & gradi (to walk, go, step), from the primitive Indo-European root ghredh- (to walk, go).  The centigrade thermometer divides the interval between the freezing and boiling points of water into 100 degrees.

It wasn’t until 1948 (at the ninth meeting of the General Conference on Weights and Measures and the Comité International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM)) that the word Celsius (in honor of Anders Celsius) was adopted (by international agreement) as the standard measure of 100^o increment temperatures; prior to that, the unit was known as centigrade and the two terms were for decades in common, interchangeable use.  Most of the world’s population has long used Celsius, the US the only large country still expressing temperature in the old Fahrenheit scale although, even then, Celsius is in wide use in the scientific community and among others dealing with international institutions.  The other widely used scale is kelvin (symbol is “K”), which had a particular applicability in cosmology, physics and other disciplines, 0 K (-273.15 °C) being absolute zero (the lowest possible temperature (thus far something only theoretically described and measured only as “tending to”) at which the motion of particles at a point in time and space cease to move so stopping the generation of heat, the product of energy.  Between 1948 and 2019, through a series of international agreements, the temperature scales were refined and made more precise and the degree Celsius is now precisely equal to the kelvin.

Curiously, the original Celsius was the reverse of the modern practice: Then, the boiling point was 0° C and the freezing point 100° C.  For scientists that was manageable but for most people would have seemed counter-intuitive so in 1743, the scale inversion proposed by French physicist Jean-Pierre Christin (1683–1755) was accepted.  Monsieur Christian was also influential in the development of the mercury thermometer.  For most people, temperature is a well-understood and unconventional measure although, now that climate change is “baked in” and a rise in average global temperature well over 2° C inevitable, a matter in which there is heightened interest.  Temperatures in parts of England exceeding 40° C, something once thought impossible, have focused the minds of many.

Some have however long been aware of the implications.  Mountaineers have long understood how hard it is to get a good cup of tea while climbing because, the higher one climbs, the lower the air pressure and thus the boiling point of water.  Atop Mount Everest (29031.7 feet, 8,848.86 m) water boils at 68° C which is not hot enough to extract the best flavor from the leaves.  The culinary implications go beyond that.  At sea level where water boils at 100° C, the hard-boiled egg is a mundane item but it’s unknown up Mount Everest because the white cooks at 85°C and the yoke at 65°C; up there, the whole of an egg will never cook.  A climber especially fond of hard-boiled eggs could take to the peak a pressure cooker and that would work, the boiling point rising to around 107.5 °C.

Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Byrd (b 1994) emerging from one of Zimmer's cryotherapy cold chambers which run at a temperature as low as -110°C, June 2015.

Although cryotherapy was intended originally as a treatment to hasten an athlete's recovery from injury, cryo-chambers are available for anyone although most presumably don't undertake the treatment wearing a strappy bandage monokini by Moeva London.  That said, the choice was a reminder lime & grey is an underused combination.

Plastic

Plastic (pronounced plas-tik)

(1) Any of a group of synthetic (and usually hydrocarbon-based) polymer materials which may be shaped when soft and subsequently hardened.

(2) In slang, a credit card, or credit cards collectively (an allusion to the material typically used in their manufacture); money, payment, or credit represented by the use of a credit card or cards.

(3) Something (or a number of things), made from or resembling plastic (sometimes merely descriptive, sometimes as a slur suggesting inferiority in quality).

(4) Capable of being molded or of receiving form; having the power of molding or shaping formless or yielding material.

(5) In psychology, the quality of being easily influenced; impressionable.

(6) In biology of or relating to any formative process; able to change, develop, or grow; capable of adapting to varying conditions; characterized by environmental adaptability.

(7) Figuratively and in slang, something superficially attractive yet unoriginal or artificial; insincerity or fakeness in an individual or group.

(8) A widely used combining form (plastic surgery, plastic bullet, plastic explosive, chloroplastic, protoplastic etc).

(9) A sculptor or molder; any solid but malleable substance (both obsolete).

In physiology, producing tissue (obsolete).

1625–1635: From the Latin plasticus (that which may be molded or relating to that which has been molded), from the Ancient Greek πλαστικός (plastikós) (fit for molding, capable of being molded into various forms; pertaining to molding), from πλάσσω (plássō) (to mold, to form).  In Hellenic use, in relation to the arts, there was plastos (molded, formed) the verbal adjective from plassein (to mold) and from the Greek plastikós was derived both plaster and plasma.  Words vaguely or exactly synonymous (depending on context) include elastic, molded, synthetic, bending, giving, yielding, cast, chemical, ersatz, phony, pseudo, substitute, ductile, fictile, formable, moldable, pliable, pliant, resilient, shapeable, flexible & amenable.  Plastic is a noun, verb & adjective, plastically & plasticly are adverbs and plasticity is a noun; the noun plural is plastics and the seventeenth century spelling plastick is long obsolete.

1968 Chevrolet Corvette L88 (left) & 1962 Trabant 601 Universal (station wagon) (right).

Materials with plastic properties were attractive for car producers for different reasons.  It made low-volume production runs viable because the tooling costs were a fraction of the cost of those using steel or aluminum and in some cases the light weight and ease of modification was an attraction.  In the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany), the long-running Trabant's bodywork was made with Duroplast, a composite thermosetting plastic (and a descendant of Bakelite).  A resin plastic reinforced with fibers (the GDR used waste from both cotton & wool processing), it was structurally similar to fibreglass and it's a persistent urban myth that Trabants were made from reinforced cardboard.

The notion of being "capable of change or of receiving a new direction" emerged in 1791 and this idea was picked up in 1839 when the term plastic surgery was first used to describe a procedure undertaken to "remedy a deficiency of structure" is recorded by 1839 (in plastic surgery).  The most familiar use referring to the hydrocarbon-based polymers dates from 1909 when the expression "made of plastic" gained currency which remained literal until 1963 when the US counterculture adopted it as slang meaning "false, superficial", applying it both the political and consumer culture.  The noun plastic (solid substance that can be molded) however appears first to have been used in 1905 and was applied originally to dental molds.  Our plastic age can be said to have begun in 1909 when a US patent was issued for Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride (marketed as Bakelite), a resin created by the reaction between phenol & formaldehyde.  Chemists had for years been experimenting with various compounds, much of the research funded by the petroleum industry which was seeking some profitable use for its by-products but Bakelite was the first plastic material which had characteristics which made it suitable for manufacture at scale and adaptability to a wide range of uses.  Thus the first commercially available plastic made from synthetic components which retained its formed shape if heated, it was developed by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland (1863-1944) while working in the US.

The “plastics” at lunch with plastic packaging on plastic trays, Mean Girls (2004).

Plastic explosive (explosive material with a putty-like consistency) became familiar to the military only in the Second World War and more generally in the 1950s but the first use of the term dates from 1894.  Earlier uses include describing the creative or formative processes in art generally as plastic, an echo of the use which sometime prevailed in Hellenic culture but this faded after a few decades during the seventeenth century although the noun plasticity (capability of being molded or formed; property of giving form or shape to matter) endured after first being noted in 1768.  A nineteenth century adoption was in the biological sciences in the sense of “organisms capable of adapting to varying conditions; characterized by environmental adaptability and in the same era, in engineering it came to mean “of or pertaining to the inelastic, non-brittle, deformation of a material”.

The success of Bakelite triggered a rush of development which produced the early versions of the numerous substances that can be shaped and molded when subjected to heat or pressure.  Plastics gain their plasticity because they consist of long-chain molecules known as polymers which flex but don’t break their bonds when subjected to all but extreme stresses.  They’re almost always artificial resins (but can be made from some natural substances such as shellac) and the best known are Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene.  Useful as it is, plastic (with a life measured in some cases in centuries) has emerged as a significant environmental threat, both as visible waste (and thus a threat in many way to wildlife) and as micro-plastic, microscopic-sized fragments which exist in the environment including the human food chain.

Bella Hadid, Coperni show, Paris Fashion Week, October 2022.

Although many in the industry prefer to talk about natural fibres like silk or linen, it’s plastics like nylon or polyester which make possible both the shape and behavior of many modern garments and their mass-production.  One possibility offered by plastics was illustrated at the 2022 Paris Fashion Week in October when as the concluding set-piece of the Coperni show, Bella Hadid (b 1996) appeared on the catwalk wearing only G-string knickers.  There she paused while for about a quarter hour, two men sprayed her body with what appeared to be white paint.  Once done, a woman emerged to cut a thigh-high asymmetric slit and adjusted things slightly to render an off-the-shoulder look.  Essentially a free-form exercise in 3D printing, the spray-on dress was left deliberately unfinished so as not to detract from the performance; had such a creation been built behind closed doors, either on a human or mannequin, re-usable and adjustable formwork would likely have been used to catch overspray and allow things like hems, straps and splits more precisely to be rendered.  On the night though, the fraying at the edges was just part of the look and Ms Hadid looked wonderful, a thinspiration to the whole pro-ana community.  The term “sprayed on” had long been used to describe skin-tight clothing but the Coperni show lent it a literalism new to most.

On the catwalk, spray-painting a model had been done before, two robots used in Alexander McQueen’s spring 1999 show to adorn Shalom Harlow (b 1973) after the fashion of those used in car assembly plants but that was literally just paint onto a conventional fabric whereas Ms Hadid’s dress appeared over bare (though presumably some sort of lotion was used to suit the properties of the plastic) skin.  The spray-on material is called Fabrican, created by Dr Manel Torres who first demonstrated its properties in 2006.  It’s a liquid fibre, bound by polymers, bio polymers and greener solvents which evaporate on contact with a surface (like Ms Hadid’s skin and including water).  As a fabric, it’s said to have a similar texture to suede and can be manipulated like any other but the feel can be altered depending on the fibers (natural or synthetic) used in the mix and the shape of the nozzle used on the spray device.

Although an eye-catching example of the technology, Fabrican’s place in fashion business is likely to be as an adjunct device rather than one used to create whole garments.  It would be invaluable for Q&D (quick and dirty) solutions such as effecting repairs or adding something but it’s been demonstrated as long ago as 2010 at London Fashion Week without demand emerging though it may yet find a niche.  What more likely beckons is a role in medicine (perhaps especially for military medics in the field) as a sterilized (perhaps even an anti-bacterial) bandage-in-a-can.  Indeed, the style of dress created in Paris is known as the “bandage” dress.

Bella Hadid, Coperni’s 2023 show, Paris, 2022

Shalom Harlow, Alexander McQueen’s spring show, London, 1999.

Rainbow

Rainbow (pronounced reyn-boh)

(1) An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air.  Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red being inside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray inside a droplet.  The colors of the rainbow are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  

(2) A similar bow of colors, especially one appearing in the spray of a waterfall or fountain.

(3) Any brightly multi-colored arrangement or display.

(4) A wide variety or range; gamut.

(5) A visionary goal, sometimes illusory (as in “chasing rainbows”).

(6) In diversity politics, as a modifier, of or relating to a political grouping together by several minorities, especially representatives from multiple identity groups, as those identifying variously by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

(7) The flag of the LGBTQQIAAOP movement.

(8) In zoology, a descriptor used in some species (rainbow lorikeet, rainbow trout etc).

(9) In baseball jargon, a curveball, particularly a slow one.

(10) In the slang of poker (Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em), a flop that contains three different suits.

(11) In the UK Girl Guide Association (as the Rainbow Guides), the faction containing the youngest group of girls (aged 5-7 years).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English reinbowe & reinboȝe, from the Old English reġnboga & rēnboga (rainbow), from the Proto-Germanic regnabugô (rainbow; literally rain +‎ bow (arch).  It was cognate with the Old Norse regnbogi, the West Frisian reinbôge, the Dutch regenboog, the German Regenbogen, the Danish regnbue, the Swedish regnbåge and the Icelandic regnbogi, all of which translated as “rainbow).

The Rainbow Flag

The rainbow flag is more commonly known as the gay pride or LGBTQQIAAOP (usually truncated to LGBTQI+) pride flag although it has been co-opted for other purposes.  It was designed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) using eight colors but has long been displayed with six stripes, red at the top as it appears in a natural rainbow.  The original colors were assigned thus:

Hot pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Art
Indigo: Harmony
Violet: Spirit

However, for technical reasons, hot pink proved difficult to produce in volume and was deleted, the first commercial release having seven stripes but within a year it was again modified.  When hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the centre stripe was obscured by the post and changing to an even number of stripes was the easiest fix.  Thus emerged the final version: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

On its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003, Gilbert Baker advocated the original design be restored but there’ was little support, the six-stripe standard clearly having reached critical mass although there have been one-off variations such as the addition of a black stripe symbolizing those community members lost to AIDS.  Aged sixty-five, Baker died in New York City on 31 March 2017.

Unfurling the flag: Emperor Dale on the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.  The plaque in the sand contains the words of the kingdom's  declaration of independence.

In June 2004, activists from the G & L factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP collective sailed to Australia's almost uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and proclaimed the now liberated lands independent, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (GLK) with the rainbow flag its official standard.  It was a symbolic gesture with no validity in domestic or international law, the declaration in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage.  Undeterred by such tiresome details, the GLK immediately issued stamps, the official website listing tourism, fishing and philatelic sales as its only economic activities but that swimming, reef walking, lagoon snorkeling, bird-watching, seashell-collecting, and shipwreck-exploring were all GLK sanctioned non-economic activities.

The then Senator Eric Abetz.

Fearing it’s assertion of independence seemed not to be making much impression on the former colonial oppressor, on 13 September 2004 the GLK declared war on Australia.  Neither the declarations of statehood or war attracted much attention until February 2017 when, in a Senate estimates hearing on finance and public administration, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) objected to the GLK's flag being hung in the Department of Finance’s building on the grounds that (1) government departments should take a neutral stand on political debates and (2) it was wrong to hang in government buildings the flag of an aggressive, hostile state (the GLK) which had declared war on Australia, the comparison presumably that the swastika wasn't hung in the White House or Downing Street during World War II (1939-1945).  The finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann (b 1970; senator (Liberal) for Western Australia 2007-2020, minister for finance 2013-2020, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2021) agreed, assuring Senator Abetz he would ensure “…there are no flags of hostile nations anywhere in any government building.”

Stamps of the GLK authorized for issue by the edict of Emperor Dale Parker Anderson (b 1965).

Self-described as a "gay 22×-great-grandson of King Edward II (who was also born gay)" and a direct descendant of all English kings & queens down to King Richard III, the emperor traces his family back to the fifteenth century marriage of the Earl of Huntington to Princess Catherine of England.  Despite the emperor's illustrious lineage from an age of absolutism and the divine right of kings, the GLK was established as a constitutional monarchy.  While the GLK never released details about the extent to which it could be considered a democracy with institutions such as a representative & responsible legislative assembly or an independent judiciary, the spirit seemed not to be despotic.  As a new state, the GLK might even have appeared with a system as genuinely novel as monarchical anarchy.    

Fobbed off.

While no governments granted recognition to the GLK as a sovereign state or established diplomatic relations, the chief of staff in Queensland's Department of Premier and Cabinet did in 2004 write to Emperor Dale Parker Anderson which suggested at least a tacit acknowledgment of the existence of the GLK which sat off Queensland's east coast.  There's no record of further communication between any level of Australian government and the GLK and nor does it appear the GLK made any attempt to secure even observer status in any international bodies.  Following the Australian government voting to legalize same-sex marriage, the GLK was on 17 November 2017 dissolved and the state of war officially lapsed.  There were no casualties.

Slender rainbow: Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Hervé Leger bandage dress at the Gansevoort Hotel, NYC, May 2007.

The distinctive colors of the rainbow flag and their simple, geometric deployment in stripes have made the flag a popular design.  At the human scale it can be applied to just about any article of clothing and worn as a political statement either of self-identity or an expression of inclusiveness and although the motif can exist at the level of fashion, regardless of intent, the design is now so vested with meaning that probably it's always interpreted as political.

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, bathed in a rainbow flag projection during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, June 2016.

Bold, horizontal stripes on a rectangle are perhaps uniquely suited to being deployed at scale and can thus be an aspect of representational architecture but even structures in the built environment with little relationship to the straight lines and right angles of the rectangle offer a suitable canvas.  Because the stripes can flow across and around even the most complex curves and there's no inherent hierarchy in the significance of the colors, if a treated shape emphasizes some and minimizes others, it matters not because the meaning is denoted by the whole.

The progress flag

The concept of the rainbow flag continues to evolve.  Although the text string has been appended as the factions in sexual politics achieved critical mass in acceptability, while the "T" in LGBTQQIAAOP included the trans community, their flags and banners had been separate.  One suggestion to achieve more inclusive vexillological recognition was the "progress flag" (sometimes with initial capitals) which in its latest form is defined:

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: New Ideas
Green: Prosperity
Blue: Serenity
Violet: Spirit
Black & Brown: People of Color
White, blue & pink: Trans people
Purple circle on yellow: Intersex

The intersex component was in 2021 interpolated by Valentino Vecchietti, an activist with the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights movement, building on the original progress flag designed in 2018 by US graphic artist Daniel Quasar who had added the five-striped chevron.  The element Vecchietti used was the intersex flag, first displayed in 2013 by Australian bioethicist Morgan Carpenter, the design rationale of which was the purple and yellow being positioned as a counterpoint to blue and pink, traditionally binary, gendered colors, the choice of the circle being to represent “…being unbroken, about being whole, symbolizing the right to make our own decisions about our own bodies.”  Carpenter has noted that statement is not an abstraction, non-consensual surgeries still being performed in many places.  The new design reflects recent internal LGBTQQIAAOP politics which have for some time focused on inclusivity underneath the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, the feeling being intersex people have long been not only underrepresented but also visually undepicted in the Pride imagery ubiquitous in clothing, events and publicity materials.