Battery

Battery (pronounced bat-rhee or bat-uh-ree)

(1) A combination of two or more cell electrically connected to work together to store electric energy (also called galvanic battery or voltaic battery); another name for accumulator

(2) Any large group or series of related things; a group or series of similar articles, machines, parts etc.

(3) In army jargon, two or more pieces of artillery used for combined action or a tactical unit of artillery, usually consisting of up to six guns together with the artillerymen and equipment required for their operation.

(4) A parapet or fortification equipped with artillery (mostly historic).

(5) In baseball, the pitcher and catcher considered as a unit (obsolete).

(6) In Admiralty use, a group of guns, missile launchers, searchlights, or torpedo tubes on a warship having the same caliber or used for the same purpose; the whole armament of a warship.

(7) In psychology, a series of tests yielding a single total score, used for measuring aptitude, intelligence, personality etc.

(8) The act of beating or battering; an instrument used in battering.

(9) In law, an unlawful attack upon another person by beating or wounding, or by touching in an offensive manner; In common law countries, the meaning varies in civil and criminal law.

(10) In orchestral music, the instruments comprising the percussion section of an orchestra (also known as the batterie).

(11) Any imposing group of persons or things acting or directed in unison.

(12) In agribusiness, a large group of cages for intensive rearing of poultry.

(13) In chess, two pieces of the same colour placed so that one can unmask an attack by the other by moving.

(14) An apparatus for preparing or serving meals (archaic).

1525-1535: From the Middle French batterie, from twelfth century Old French baterie (beating, thrashing, assault) from the Latin battuere and battuō (beat) & batre (to beat).  The ultimate source was the Gaulish.  The sense in law (the unlawful beating of another) was adapted by the military, the meaning in French shifting from bombardment (heavy blows upon city walls or fortresses) to "unit of artillery", a sense recorded in English army records in the 1550s.  It was first extended to the "electrical cell in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), his thoughts undocumented but presumably analogous with artillery: force being stored in a manner able to be discharged upon demand.  In Middle English, bateri meant only "forged metal ware". In US baseball jargon, in 1867, battery was a term for the pitcher (again drawing on the imagery of artillery) and later for both pitcher and catcher considered as a unit, again presumably drawing a military connection; the term is long obsolete.  As applied to cooking, the meaning emerged because batter needed to be beaten.  Battery is a noun and batteried an adjective; the noun plural is batteries.

In Law

Although the terms assault and battery have for centuries been used in criminal law, their origins are as two of the most ancient common law torts, classified now as one of the trespass to the person torts, all of which are known as intentional torts.  Both assault and battery are actionable per se (without proof of damage) although, if the wrongful act does result in injury, damages can be recovered for that injury as well.  In malicious prosecution proceedings however, it’s necessary to assert and prove damage.

An assault is any direct and intentional threat made by a person that places the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of an imminent contact with the plaintiff’s person, either by the defendant or by some person or thing within the defendant’s control.  The effect on the victim’s mind created by the threat is the crux, not whether the defendant actually had the intention or means to follow it up.  The intent required for the tort of assault is the desire to arouse an apprehension of physical contact, not necessarily an intention to inflict actual harm.  Although words are often a feature in threats which constitute an assault, actions alone may suffice if they place the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of receiving an imminent (though not of necessity an immediate) battery.

A battery is a voluntary and positive act, done with the intention of causing contact with another that directly causes that contact.  The requisite intention for battery is simply that the defendant must have intended the consequence of the contact with the plaintiff; the defendant need not know the contact is unlawful and they need not intend to cause harm or damage as a result of the contact.  Not every contact is a battery.  Those in crowded trains are implied to have consented to most contacts, as has a rugby player who may have consented in writing although, even then, limitations exist and beyond tort, the criminal law can intervene if the degree of the contact exceeds that to which could reasonably thought to have been consented, a distinction influenced on technical grounds by those engaged in professional sport being in a workplace.  Where such things are contested, as a general principle, it will be the responsibility of the defendant to raise a defense of consent and prove it.

The early development of rockets in military aviation

Battery of wing-strut mounted Le Prieur rockets on Nieuport 11 (1917).

Although it became well-known only late in World War II (1939-1945), the ground-attack rocket had a surprisingly long history in military aviation, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC; 1912-1918, predecessor of the Royal Air Force (RAF; 1918-)) using wing-strut mounted Le Prieur solid-fuel rockets previously used by the French army on the battlefield.  Severely limited as an infantry tactical weapon because of inaccuracy and an effective range of barely 100 m (330 feet) (although 150 m (330 feet) was quoted based on experimental firings in ideal, controlled conditions), when used in the air, the latter drawback could somewhat be mitigated if a pilot could maneuver into a position at a helpful height and angle above the target.  Altitude though brought its own problems, the rocket’s trajectory affected by winds and the inaccuracy meant it was something which could only ever be effective against large, slow moving targets like observation balloons.  Against these, the RFC enjoyed some success, but the rockets were never popular with pilots because, depending on the capacity of the airframe, batteries of between six and twelve were used and, although all were triggered simultaneously, actual ignition could vary between rockets by one or two seconds, during which, the airplane had to maintain travelling in the direction of the target.

Ground-based test-firing of Le Prieur rocket (1917).

A one-two second delay sounds not critical but, even at the relative closing speed (typically not more than 80 mph (130 km/h)), because firing had to be at close range, it was enough significantly to increase the risk of collision.  That the RFC’s pilots managed to bring down some fifty balloons without loss may suggest some caution was exercised.  Strangely, despite the big airships being tempting targets, there’s no record of rockets downing a Zeppelin although even when using more conventional munitions, the defenses enjoyed only what was at the time thought limited success.  Of the dozens of Zeppelins the Germans lost, only a handful were destroyed by aircraft, more were the victims of ground-fire or, overwhelmingly, accidents.  It was only after the war the British fully understood the difficulties of mounting fighter defenses against bomber attack; of the biggest bombers used in the war by the Germans, not one would be lost and the experience allowed “the bomber will always get through” doctrine to shape the policies of many European nations during the inter-war years.

Modern (cosmetic) replica of Le Prieur rocket battery.

The sometimes stuttering rate of fire was a product of the construction.  The rocket was made by filling a cardboard tube with 200 g (6 ½ oz) of black powder, topped with a conical, 75 mm (3 inch) steel-tipped, wooden head.  Cardboard being porous, the black powder was prone to moisture infiltration and this happened at different rates, hence the delay sometime encountered in firing.  Directional assistance was limited to a 1.5 m (5 foot) wooden stick taped to the cardboard; they were essentially a big firework of the kind still made today.  Their limitations made them impractical for air-to-air combat although there is a record of a German fighter succeeding in forcing a RFC aircraft to crash-land after inflicting damage in a rocket attack but the rarity of the event does suggest it might have been a lucky shot.  Despite that one-off-victory, no effort seems to have been made to improve the technology and as soon as tracer rounds and incendiary-tipped bullets became available, they were replaced, the RFC’s last rocket-equipped sortie flown early in 1918.

Lindsay Lohan portable battery charger.

Feuerlile AA Missile.

During the inter-war years, no air force seems much to have explored aircraft-mounted rockets although advances in the propulsion systems did see them developed as ground-based anti-aircraft batteries.  The early British devices were simple but a useful augmentation to the anti-aircraft guns which were only ever marginally effective in high-altitude attacks.  The German efforts, typically, were technically intriguing but never reached the point of being decisive weapons, all the projects falling victim to the usual bureaucratic inertia and squabbles between competing interests.  Although, both the Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling (Butterfly) and the two Feuerlilie (Fire lily) rockets needed development beyond what was within the economic and industrial capacity of the Nazi state, the Wasserfall (waterfall) could by 1944 have been deployed had the resources been made available although military analysts doubt it would have been effective without the proximity fuses that Germany lacked.  Lacking the Wagnerian flavor he preferred, it's doubtful Hitler's approval was sought for the code-names.

Battery of RP-3 rockets.

Allied interest in the rocket was revived early in the war when its potential as a ground attack weapon was realised.  Early attempts to create the so-called “tank-buster” fighters by equipping the Hawker Hurricane (IV) with a pair of 40 mm canons had been partially successful but more firepower was needed to disable the heavier tanks and there were limits to the weight and calibre of canon a fighter could support.  The solution lay in the adoption of batteries of the RP-3 (Rocket Projectile 3 inch (75 mm)) which proved a versatile weapon.  Equipped with a 60-pound (27 kg) warhead, it was used against moving and static targets on both land and sea, proving effective even against submarines.

Single-rack mount (four rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1943).

As the war dragged on, the ground-attack aircraft with rocket batteries became an increasingly important tactical weapon, able to deliver a destructive load with a speed and accuracy otherwise unattainable and at minimal cost in manpower and machinery.  The effectiveness of the rocket batteries also played a role in saving an aircraft on the verge of being abandoned,  turning it into one of the more important fighters of the later stages of the conflict.  The Hawker Typhoon (1941-1945) had been intended as the Hurricane’s replacement but the performance at altitude was disappointing and production seemed unlikely.  However, it was rushed into service because, whatever it’s failings, at low altitude it was the fastest thing the RAF possessed and, in 1941, changes in the nature of the Luftwaffe’s attack meant that was where the need lay.  It didn’t go well for the Typhoon, the exposure to combat revealing basic problems with the wing design and weaknesses in the fuselage which sometimes resulted in catastrophic structural failure.  The whole project was going to be scrapped.

Double-rack mount (six rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1945).

Hawker however persisted and rectified the faults to the point where it was a useful part of the fleet, though it would never be the high-altitude interceptor originally intended.  By 1943 however, the nature of the Allied war effort was shifting to attack and the robust wing of the Typhoon was adapted to carry batteries of the RP-3 rockets and it proved a devastating combination.  One early drawback however was the misleading intelligence gained early in the Typhoon’s second career in ground-attack, subsequent reconnaissance revealing the pilots' reports of destruction being exaggerated sometime by a factor of hundreds.  It was perhaps understandable given the lack of visibility inherent in such operations and, after the war, it was realised the rocket attacks had a military effectiveness well beyond the actual damage caused.

Balaclava

Balaclava (pronounced bal-uh-klah-vuh)

(1) A close-fitting, knitted cap that covers the head, neck, and tops of the shoulders, worn especially by mountain climbers, soldiers, skiers and others who operate in cold climates.

(2) A fire-resistant had covering in the style of the traditional balaclava but made of treated material.

1880-1885; named after Balaklava, a village near Sebastopol, Russia, site of a battle on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War (1853-1856).  However, the term describing the headwear does not appear before 1881 and seems to have come into widespread use only during the Boer War, some half a century after the battle.  The name Balaklava often is thought to be of Turkish origin, but is perhaps folk-etymologized from the Greek original, Palakion.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Charge of the Light Brigade was a classic, knee-to-knee cavalry charge by the British Army against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War.  The battle, of which the charge is remembered as the great set-piece event, was a component of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855), maintained in an attempt to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's main naval base on the Black Sea.  Sevastopol was (and remains) the largest city in the Crimean Peninsula which today is recognized internationally as part of Ukraine (except by Moscow which in 2014 annexed the peninsula). The strategic purpose of the charge was to prevent the Russian army removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions but, because of failures in communications, the Light Brigade was instead sent on a frontal assault against a different artillery battery, one well-prepared and enjoying a textbook field of defensive fire.  Despite coming under heavy fire, the charge did reach the battery and scattered some of the gunners but the brigade was badly mauled and compelled almost immediately to retreat.  Causalities were heavy, some 300 of the 650-odd strong formation including 118 killed.  It prompted the famous comment from the French Marshal Pierre Bosquet (1810-1861): C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.  C'est de la folie (It is magnificent, but it is not war.  It is madness.)

In many courses in organizational management, the events which led to the charge being ordered are used as a case-study in the breakdown of communications systems and how such processes should be designed to include failsafes.  Long regarded as a military failure, in recent decades, there’s been a body of literature by military historians suggesting the charge was a key incident in helping Britain to secure ultimate victory in the Crimea.  It's not a universally accepted view but it's certainly true many battles in the world wars of the twentieth century achieved less at greater cost.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward, 
All in the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 
“Forward, the Light Brigade! 
Charge for the guns!” he said: 
Into the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 
 
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” 
Was there a man dismay’d?   
Not tho’ the soldier knew 
Some one had blunder’d: 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die:    
Into the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 
 
Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them   
Volley’d and thunder’d; 
Storm’d at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell   
Rode the six hundred. 
 
Flash’d all their sabres bare, 
Flash’d as they turn’d in air 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while  
All the world wonder’d: 
Plunged in the battery-smoke 
Right thro’ the line they broke; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke    
Shatter’d and sunder’d. 
Then they rode back, but not 
Not the six hundred. 
 
Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them,     
Cannon behind them 
Volley’d and thunder’d; 
Storm’d at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well   
Came thro’ the jaws of Death, 
Back from the mouth of Hell, 
All that was left of them, 
Left of six hundred. 
 
When can their glory fade?    
O the wild charge they made! 
All the world wonder’d. 
Honor the charge they made! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 
Noble six hundred!

Balaclavas are usually worn for warmth.

Balaclavas (some lightweight versions of which are usually called ski masks) are a type of (often knitted) cloth headgear which expose only part of the face, usually the eyes, mouth and sometimes the nostrils, thus protecting most of the skin’s surface area.  The more elaborate versions are adjustable and some can be rolled to become a hat or worn around the neck.  Although associated with use during the Crimean War, such garments had long existed and it was only contemporary publicity which led to the name being linked.  The war in Crimea coincided with the advent of convenient, portable cameras and large volumes of photographs produced, making it the first large-scale conflict thus documented.  The military at the time didn't appreciate the implications of journalists and photographers being able freely to report from battle zones and not for some time was it realized just how much intelligence the Russians were able to obtain simply be reading the London newspapers.  It was in some of these early images that the headwear first attracted attention although it wasn’t until the 1880s that "balaclava" (and “balaclava helmet”) came into use and it became a common term only early in the twentieth century, the popularity thought to have been encouraged by the widely published photographs of the polar expeditions to which were a feature of late Victorian explorations.

For warmth, British troops wore knitted woolen versions of the headwear, which, early in the war were all handmade, knitted either on the spot (a kind of on-board cottage industry emerging on Royal Navy ships anchored nearby, knitting a commonly held skill of sailors) or sent from home in response to sketches sent in letters.  Later, knitwear companies would enter the market but the need existed only because poor planning and an under-estimation of the duration of the conflict meant most cold weather supplies never reached the troops.  The Crimean War was a shock to the British Army which, organizationally, was little changed from the Battle of Waterloo (1815), two generations earlier and the findings of subsequent boards of inquiry resulted in worthwhile, if still inadequate, reforms.  It was a not uncommon aspect of many colonial wars and exactly the same situation which confronted the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces, 1935-1945) in late 1941 when the harsh Russian winter arrived with the German advance still in open country, far from its objectives.  Balaclava are most associated with protecting the face from the cold but relatively thin, lightweight versions versions made with fibres chemically treated to be fire-resistant are used in motor-racing (FIA 8856-2018 standard) and other fields where exposure to flame is an occupational hazard.  They’re used also by both sides of the crime business to conceal identity; by criminals in an attempt to avoid detection and by those in law enforcement to protect themselves and their families from retribution.

Not all that appears on the catwalk catches on.  Knitted balaclavas were a thing in some collections at fashion shows in 2018 but, not unexpectedly, a high-street trend didn’t follow.

PopSugar's distribution of Lindsay Lohan's "Masked Shoot" for Marc Ecko's (b 1972) Fall 2010 campaign, undertaken during blonde phase and including balaclavas, August 2010.

Troop

Troop (pronounced troop)

(1) An assemblage of persons or things; company; band.

(2) A great number or multitude.

(3) In historic military use, (usually) an armored cavalry, cavalry or artillery battery consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group.

(4) As troops, a body of soldiers, police etc.

(5) A unit of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts usually having a maximum of 32 members under the guidance of an adult leader.

(6) A herd, flock or swarm of some living creatures.

(7) A band or troupe of actors (archaic).

(8) To gather in a company; flock together.

(9) To come, go, or pass in great numbers; throng; to walk, as if in a march; go; to walk, march, or pass in rank or order:

(10) To associate or consort (usually followed by with).

(11) In British military use, to carry (the flag or colors) in a ceremonial way before troops (used also by the military in some countries where military traditions have been influenced by the British).

(12) To assemble or form into a troop or troops.

(13) An alternative spelling of troupe (archaic).

(14) In British military slang, formerly to report a soldier for a breach of discipline (archaic).

(15) An alternative word for consort (archaic).

(16) The collective noun for a group of baboons.

(17) In music, a particular roll of the drum; a quick march.

(18) In mycology, mushrooms that are in a close group but not close enough to be called a cluster.

1545: From the French troupe, from the Old French trope (band of people, company, troop, crowd), of uncertain origin but perhaps from the Frankish throp (assembly, gathering of people), from the Proto-Germanic þurpą (village, land, estate), from the primitive Indo-European treb- (dwelling, settlement) or a back-formation of troupeau, diminutive of the Medieval Latin troppus (flock) and Middle French troupe, from which Modern French gained troupeau (herd)), the construct being trop- (from the Germanic form thorp) + -el, from the Latin –ellus, the diminutive suffix.  There may have been some connection with the Old English ðorp or the Old Norse thorp (village) and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the French form was from the Latin troppus (flock) of unknown origin but may also have been picked-up from the (speculative) Germanic source.  Doublet of troupe, and possibly also of thorp and dorp; it was cognate with the German Dorf (village).

It came to be applied to groups of animals in the 1580s, the military adoption for a “subdivision of a cavalry force" dating from the same time, the general use of ‘troop” to describe any “armed forces” attested from the 1590s.  Troops were part of the structure in the Boy Scouts from the organization's beginnings in 1908, the Girl Scouts emulating this upon formation four years later.  In modern use, the spelling troupe has assumed the exclusive use of describing a company of actors, singers, acrobats or other entertainers and performers.

The noun troop is a linguistic curiosity.  It’s used as a collective noun (a troop of girl-scouts) and in the noun plural (the troops) but not as a noun singular (one doesn’t refer to individual troops as “a troop”) but there is the noun singular “trooper”.

Military and Para-military use

The troop as a military sub-unit continues to exist in some armed and police forces but tends now not in general to be part of military structures.  It was originally a tactical group, a small formation of cavalry, part of a squadron deployed on a battlefield for a specific action and it’s in that sense that use persists, a troop sometimes an alternative term for an infantry section or platoon.  There are historic exceptions in the US Cavalry and the British Army where a troop can be an infantry company or artillery battery.

The Australian Army uses the term, a troop a platoon sized element and the general term for army personnel (and literally the private soldier) is trooper.  Technically, it’s only the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR; special forces) of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps which uses troop to refer to its platoon size formations but it remains common slang.  As a general principle, where used in the military, a troop tends to be platoon-sized except in the US Cavalry, where it’s equivalent to a company (ie three to four platoons) and, when combined, these form a regiment, the change in nomenclature dating from 1883.

Para-military use: A troop of girl scouts (or guides) selling biscuits (or cookies).

In civilian use, many US police forces use troop and trooper because they modelled their command structures along military lines, the same reason the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts adopted the form although, in these less robust times, it’s become common, especially with the latter, to replace troop with company, the now less-fashionable military connection being less overt.

One exception was the Salvation Army which never used troop, either as an organizational unit or in the collective to describe its members although, it was common to refer to them as "Christian soldiers".  They did use military ranks and some of the structural terms (such as corps and division) were adopted but never troop.

Float

Float (pronounced floht)

(1) To rest, move or remain on the surface of a liquid (to be buoyant; to be supported by a liquid of greater density, such that part (of the object or substance) remains above the surface) or in the air.

(2) By metaphor, to move lightly and gracefully.

(3) By metaphor, information or items circulating.

(4) Figuratively, to vacillate (often followed by between).

(5) As applied to currencies, to be allowed freely to fluctuate in the foreign-exchange market instead of being exchanged at a fixed or managed rate.

(6) In the administration of interest rates, periodically to change according to money-market conditions.

(7) In the equities markets, the offering of previously privately held stock on public boards; an offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange.

(8) In the bond markets, an offering.

(9) In theatre, to lay down (a flat), usually by bracing the bottom edge of the frame with the foot and allowing the rest to fall slowly to the floor.

(10) An inflated bag to sustain a person in water; life preserver.

(11) In plumbing, in certain types of tanks, cisterns etc, a device, as a hollow ball, that through its buoyancy automatically regulates the level, supply, or outlet of a liquid.

(12) In nautical jargon, a floating platform attached to a wharf, bank, or the like, and used as a landing; any kind of buoyancy device.

(13) In aeronautics, a hollow, boat-like structure under the wing or fuselage of a seaplane or flying boat, keeping it afloat in water (aircraft so equipped sometimes called “float planes”).

(14) In angling, a piece of cork or other material for supporting a baited line in the water and indicating by its movements when a fish bites.

(15) In zoology, an inflated organ that supports an animal in the water; the gas-filled sac, bag or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.

(16) A vehicle bearing a display, usually an elaborate tableau, in a parade or procession.

(17) In banking, uncollected checks and commercial paper in process of transfer from bank to bank; funds committed to be paid but not yet charged against the account.

(18) In metal-working, a single-cut file (a kind of rasp) of moderate smoothness.

(19) In interior decorating, a flat tool for spreading and smoothing plaster or stucco.

(20) In stonemasonry, a tool for polishing marble.

(21) In weaving and knitting, a length of yarn that extends over several rows or stitches without being interworked.

(22) In commerce, a sum of physical cash used to provide change for the till at the start of a day's business.

(23) In geology and mining, loose fragments of rock, ore, etc that have been moved from one place to another by the action of wind, water etc.

(24) To cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density.

(25) To move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating (as in “floating downstream” et al).

(26) In aviation, to remain airborne, without touching down, for an excessive length of time during landing, due to excessive airspeed during the landing flare.

(27) To promote an idea for discussion or consideration.

(28) As expression indicating the viability of an idea (as in “it’ll never float”, conveying the same sense as “it’ll never fly”).

(29) In computer (graphics, word processing etc), to cause an element within a document to “float” above or beside others; on web pages, a visual style in which styled elements float above or beside others.

(30) In UK use, a small (often electric) vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term “milk float” (and historically, the now obsolete “coal float”).

(31) In trade, to allow a price to be determined by the markets as opposed to by rule.

(32) In insurance, premiums taken in but not yet paid out.

(33) In computer programming, as floating-point number, a way of representing real numbers (ie numbers with fractions or decimal points) in a binary format

(34) A soft beverage with a scoop of ice-cream floating in it.

(35) In poker, a manoeuvre in which a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.

(36) In knitting, one of the loose ends of yarn on an unfinished work.

(37) In transport, a car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer combination; a lowboy trailer.

(38) In bartending, the technique of layering of liquid or ingredients on the top of a drink.

(39) In electrical engineering, as “float voltage”, an external electric potential required to keep a battery fully charged

(40) In zoology, the collective noun for crocodiles (the alternative being “bask”).

(41) In automotive engineering, as “floating axle”, a type of rear axle used mostly in heavy-duty vehicles where the axle shafts are not directly attached to the differential housing or the vehicle chassis but instead supported by bearings housed in the wheel hubs.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English floten, from the Old English flotian (to float), from the Proto-Germanic flutōną (to float), from the primitive Indo-European plewd- & plew- (to float, swim, fly).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian flotje (to float), the West Frisian flotsje (to float), the Dutch vlotten (to float), the German flötzen & flößen (to float), the Swedish flotta (to float), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Middle Low German vloten & vlotten (to float, swim), the Middle Dutch vloten, the Old Norse flota, the Icelandic fljóta, the Old English flēotan (to float, swim), the Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ) and the Latin plaustrum (wagon, cart).  It was akin to the Old English flēotan & Old Saxon flotōn (root of fleet).  The meaning “to drift about, passively to hover" emerged circa 1300 while the transitive sense of “to lift up, to cause to float (of water etc)” didn’t come into use for another 300-odd years and the notion of “set (something) afloat” was actually originally figurative (originally of financial matters) and noted since 1778.  Float was long apparently restricted to stuff in the water and didn’t come into use to refer to things in the air until the 1630s, this extending to “hover dimly before the eyes” by at least 1775.   In medicine, the term “floating rib” was first used in 1802, so called because the anterior ends are not connected to the rest.  The Proto-Germanic form was flutojanan, from the primitive Indo-European pleu (to flow) which endures in modern use as pluvial.

Etymologists have concluded the noun was effectively a merger in the Middle English of three related Old English nouns: flota (boat, fleet), flote (troop, flock) & flot (body of water, sea), all from the same source as the verb.  The early senses were the now-mostly-obsolete ones of the Old English words: the early twelfth century “state of floating"”, the mid thirteenth century “swimming”, the slightly later “a fleet of ships; a company or troop” & the early fourteenth century “stream or river”.  From circa 1300 it has entered the language of fishermen to describe the attachments used to add buoyancy to fishing lines or nets and some decades later it meant also “raft”.  The meaning “a platform on wheels used for displays in parades etc” dates from 1888 and developed either from the manner they percolated down a street on from the vague resemblance to flat-bottomed boat which had been so described since the 1550s.  The type of fountain drink, topped with a scoop of ice cream was first sold in 1915.

The noun floater (one who or that which floats) dates from 1717 as was the agent noun from the verb.  From 1847 it was used in political slang to describe an independent voter (and in those days with the implication their vote might be “for sale”), something similar to the modern “swinging voter”.  By 1859 it referred to “one who frequently changes place of residence or employment” and after 1890 was part of US law enforcement slang meaning “dead body found in the water”.  The noun flotation dates from 1765, the spelling influenced by the French flotaison.  The adverb afloat was a direct descendent from the Old English aflote.  In idiomatic use, it was the boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) who made famous the phrase “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee” and “whatever floats your boat” conveys the idea that individuals should be free to pursue that which they enjoy without being judged by others.  To “float someone’s boat” is to appeal to them in some way.  Float is a noun & verb, floater is a noun, floated is a verb, floating is a noun, verb & adjective and floaty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is floats.

Lindsay Lohan floating in the Aegean, June 2022.

In the modern age, currencies began to be floated in the early 1970s after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1944) under which most major currencies were fixed in relation to the US dollar (which was fixed to gold at a rate of US$35 per ounce).  That didn’t mean the exchange rates were static but the values were set by governments (in processes called devaluation & revaluation) rather than the spot market and those movements could be dramatic: In September 1949, the UK (Labour) government devalued Sterling 30.5% against the US dollar (US$4.03 to 2.80).  The Bretton Woods system worked well (certainly for developed nations like the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of western Europe) in the particular (and historically unusual) circumstances of the post-war years but by the late 1960s, with the US government's having effectively printed a vast supply of dollars to finance expensive programs like the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms build-up, the “Great Society” and the space programme, and social programs, surplus dollars rapidly built up in foreign central banks and increasingly these were being shipped back to the US to be exchanged for physical gold bars.  In 1971, the Nixon administration (1969-1974) responded to the problem of their dwindling gold reserves by suspending the convertibility, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and making floating exchange probably inevitable, the trend beginning when Japan floated the Yen in 1973.

A Bloomberg chart tracking the effect of shifting the US dollar from its link with gold to a fiat currency.  Due to this and other factors (notably the oil price), in the 1970s, the bills of the 1960s were paid.

Others however moved more slowly, many adopting the tactic of the Australian government which as late as 1983 was still running what was known as a “managed float”, an arrangement whereby the prime-minister, the treasurer and the head of the treasury periodically would meet and, using a “a basket of currencies”, set the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback and the other currencies (the so-called “cross-rates”).  Now, most major Western nations have floating currencies although there is sometimes some “management” of the “float” by the mechanism of central banks intervening by buying or selling.  The capacity for this approach to be significant is however not as influential as once it was because the numbers in the forex (foreign exchange) markets are huge, dwarfing the trade in commodities bonds or equities; given the volumes, movements of even fractions of a cent can mean overnight profits or losses in the millions.  Because some "floats" are not exactly "free floats" in which the market operates independently, there remains some suspicion that mechanisms such as "currency pegs" (there are a remarkable variety of pegs) and other methods of fine tuning can mean there are those in dark little corners of the forex world who can benefit from these manipulations.  Nobody seem prepared to suggest there's "insider trading" in the conventional sense of the term but there are some traders who appear to be better informed that others. 

Resin

Resin (pronounced rez-in)

(1) Any of a group of non-volatile solid or semisolid organic substances & compounds (that consist of amorphous mixtures of carboxylic acids), obtained directly from certain plants as exudations of such as copal, rosin & amber (or prepared by polymerization of simple molecules) and used typically in pharmaceuticals, plastic production, lacquers, adhesives and varnishes.

(2) A substance of this type obtained from certain pine trees (also called rosin).

(3) To treat, rub or coat with resin.

(4) A precipitate formed by the addition of water to certain tinctures.

(5) Any of various artificial substances, such as polyurethane, that possess similar properties to natural resins and used in the production of plastics; any synthetic compound with similar properties.

1350–1400: From the Middle English resyn & resyne (hardened secretions of various plants), from the Old French resine (gum, resin), from the Latin rēsīna (resin), from the Ancient Greek rhētī́nē (resin of the pine tree), both probably from a non-Indo-European language.  In chemistry, the word came to be applied to synthetic products by after 1883.  The verb resinate (impregnate with resin) dated from 1756.  The adjective resinous (of the nature of, pertaining to, or obtained from resin) is documented since the 1640s, from the Latin resinosus; the earlier adjective was resiny (having a character or quality like resin), noted since the 1570s.  The related (and now rare) noun rosin (distillate of turpentine (especially when in a solid state and employed for ordinary purposes)) dates from the late thirteenth century and was from the Old French raisine & rousine, both variants of résine; it was used as a verb after the mid-fifteenth century.  The later adjectives resiniferous & resinless appear never to have been used except in chemistry or technical literature in relevant industries, the more common forms in general use being resin-like or resinous.  Because the word resin covers a wide field of substances, it usually appears in modified form (acaroid resin, acrylic resin, epoxy resin, phenolic resin, polyresin, polyvinyl resin et al).  The present participle is resining and the past participle resined.  Resin, resinousness & resinite are nouns, resinously is an adverb and resinify is a verb; the noun plural is resins.

Resin wheels

1972 Citroën SM with Michelin RR wheels. 

Although sometimes referred to as being made from “carbon fibre”, materials engineers insist the optional wheels offered on the Citroën SM must be described as “synthetic resin reinforced with long-strand carbon fibre”.  Notable as the first composite road wheel offered for public sale, they were developed by Michelin, the tyre-maker which since 1934 had been Citroën’s parent corporation and the innovation was an appropriate accessory for the SM which, upon release in 1971, was immediately recognized as among the most intricate and intriguing cars in the world.  A descendant of the DS which in 1955 had been even more of a sensation than the SM, it took Citroën not only up-market but into a niche the SM had created, nothing quite like it previously existing, the combination of a large (in European terms), front-wheel-drive (FWD) luxury coupé with hydro-pneumatic suspension, self-centreing (Vari-Power steering), high-pressure braking and a four-cam V6 engine, unique in the world.  The engine had been developed by Maserati, one of Citroën’s recent acquisitions and the name acknowledged the Italian debt, SM standing for Systemé Maserati.  Although, given the size and weight of the SM, the V6 was of modest displacement (initially 2.7 litres (163 cubic inch) and power was limited compared to the competition (181 HP (133 kW)), such was the slipperiness of the body that in terms of top speed, it was at least a match for most.

Michelin RR wheel.

However, lacking the high-performance pedigree enjoy by some of that competition, a rallying campaign had been planned as a promotional tool.  Although obviously unsuited to circuit racing, the big, heavy SM didn’t immediately commend itself as a rally car, early tests indicated some potential but there was a need radically to reduce weight.  One obvious candidate was the steel wheels but attempts to use lightweight aluminum units proved abortive, cracking encountered when tested under rally conditions.  Michelin immediately offered to develop glass-fibre reinforced resin wheels, the company familiar with the material which had proved durable when tested under extreme loads.  Called the Michelin RR (roues resin (resin wheel)), the new wheels were created as a one-piece mold, made entirely of resin except for some embedded steel reinforcements at the stud holes to distribute the stresses.  At around 9.4 lb (4¼ kg) apiece, they were less than half the weight of a steel wheel and in testing proved as strong and reliable as Michelin had promised.  Thus satisfied, Citroën went rallying.

Citroën SM, Morocco Rally, 1971.

The improbable rally car proved a success, winning first time out in the 1971 Morocco Rally and further success followed.  Strangely, the 1970s proved an era of heavy cruisers doing well in the sport, Mercedes-Benz winning events with their 450SLC 5.0 which was both the first V8 and the first car with an automatic transmission to win a European rally.  Stranger still, Ford in Australia re-purposed one of the Falcon GTHO Phase IV race cars which had become redundant when the programme was cancelled in 1972 and the thing proved surprisingly competitive during the brief periods it was mobile, the lack of suitable tyres meaning the sidewalls repeatedly failed.  However, the SM, GTHO & SLC proved a quixotic tilt and the sport went a different direction.  On the SM however, the resin wheels had proved their durability, not one failing during the whole campaign and encouraged by customer requests, Citroën in 1972 offered the wheels as a factory option although only in Europe; apparently the thought of asking the US federal safety regulators to approve plastic wheels (as they’d already been dubbed by the motoring press) seemed so absurd to the French they never bothered to submit an application.

Reproduction RR in aluminum. 

Michelin ceased to make the RR when SM production ended in 1975 but did provide another batch for sale in the mid 1980s and this was said to be a new production run rather than unsold stock.  A cult accessory for a cult car, perfect examples now sell for around US$2000 each which does sound expensive but, given what it can cost to restore (or even maintain) a SM, it’s not a significant sum and, unlike much of the rest of the machine, the RRs are at least trouble-free.  Michelin are not said to be contemplating resuming production but another company has produced visually identical wheels made from aluminum; these only slightly heavier.  Despite the success and the fifty-year history of robustness, Citroën didn’t persist and the rest of the industry never adopted the resin wheel.  The reason was two-fold: (1) Even if economies of scale operated to lower the unit cost, the technology was always going to be more expensive than using aluminum and advances in alloys meant the metal units can provide similar strength with only a slight weight penalty and (2) the resin was always susceptible to high temperatures, something not encountered on the SM which used inboard brakes.  Most cars however don’t use inboard brakes and as Ford found when testing resin wheels during Lincoln's downsizing programme in the mid-1970s, although the weight reduction was impressive, almost the same was possible with aluminum at much lower cost and the problems caused by heat-soak from the brakes were insoluble.  So it proved until the late 1980s when, with the development of new, heat-resistant materials, reinforced resin wheels were made available on the limited-production Dodge Shelby CSX (1989).

True carbon fibre wheels have had a little more success, although only at the top-end of the market, Koenigsegg in 2013 manufacturing carbon fibre single-piece wheels which it offered as a US$40,000 option; a number which needs to be considered in the context of the US$2 million price tag for one of their cars.  Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari and Ford have all flirted with carbon fibre wheels and some manufactures are interested in the possibilities offered by hybrid designs which use aluminum for some components and carbon fibre for others, an idea familiar from earlier steel/aluminum combinations.  Regulatory authorities are apparently still pondering things.

The SM V8

1974 prototype Citroën SM with 4.0 V8.

Ambitious as it was, circumstances combined in a curious way that might have made the SM more remarkable still.  By 1973, sales of the SM, after an encouraging start had for two years been in decline, a reputation for unreliability already tarnishing its reputation but the first oil shock dealt what appeared to be a fatal blow; from selling almost 5000 in 1971, by 1974 production numbered not even 300.  The market for fast, thirsty cars had shrunk and most of the trans-Atlantic hybrids (combining elegant European coachwork with large, powerful and cheap US V8s) which had for more than a decade done good business as alternative to the highly strung British and Italian thoroughbreds had been driven extinct.  Counter-intuitively, Citroën’s solution was to develop an even thirstier V8 SM.  It actually made some sense because, in an attempt to amortize costs, the SM’s platform had been used as the basis for the new Maserati Quattroporte but, bigger and heavier still, performance was sub-standard and the theory was a V8 version would transform both and appeal to the US market, then the hope of many struggling manufacturers.

Recreation of 1974 Citroën SM V8 prototype.

Citroën didn’t have a V8; Maserati did but it was big and heavy, a relic with origins in 1950s sports car racing and while its (never wholly tamed) raucous qualities suited the character of the sports cars and saloons Maserati offered in the 1960s, it couldn’t be used in something like the SM.  However, the SM’s V6 was a 90^o unit and thus inherently better suited to an eight-cylinder configuration.  In 1974 therefore, a four litre (244 cubic inch) V8 based on the V6 (by then 3.0 litres (181 cubic inch)) was quickly built and installed in an SM which was subjected to the usual battery of tests over a reported 20,000 km (12,000 miles) during which it was said to have performed faultlessly.  Bankruptcy (to which the SM, along with some of the company's other ventures, notably the Wankel programme, contributed) however was the death knell for both the SM and the V8, the prototype car scrapped while the unique engine was removed and stored, later used to create a replica of the 1974 test mule.

Citroën Traction Avant 22, Paris Motor Show 1934.

It was a shame because, despite being most associated with the US, it was the French engineer Léon Levavasseur (1863–1922) who in 1904 created the first V8 engine and at the 1934 Paris Motor Show, Citroën displayed their “22”, a variation of their Traction Avant model but fitted with a 3.8 litre (233 cubic inch) V8, created essentially by joining on a common crankcase two of their 1.9 litre (117 cubic inch) four-cylinder units.  When presented at the show, several models were displayed and the promotional material confirmed the 22 would be available with an extensive choice of coachwork including a saloon, an elongated limousine, a cabriolet and a coupé.  Bankruptcy however halted the project and Michelin, having just taken control, insisted the company concentrate on the best-selling, most profitable lines.  A reputed two dozen-odd 22s were built before the Michelin Man dropped his axe and although all passed into private hands, none appears to have survived the war although there have always been rumors one remains hidden somewhere in the Far-East, a survivor of the colonial presence in Indo-China.

1967 Cadillac Eldorado, which proved the big, FWD coupé could still be done.

Evidence does however suggest a V8 SM would likely have been a failure, just compounding the existing error on an even grander scale.  It’s true that Oldsmobile and Cadillac had offered big FWD coupés with great success since the mid 1960s (the Cadillac at one point fitted with a 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 rated at 400 HP (300 kW)) but they were very different machines to the SM and appealed to a different market.  Probably the first car to explore what demand might have existed for a V8 SM was the hardly successful 1986 Lancia Thema 8·32 which used the Ferrari 2.9 litre (179 cubic inch) V8 in a FWD platform.  It was about a daft an idea as it sounds.  Even had the V8 SM been all-wheel-drive (AWD) it would probably still have been a failure but it would now be remembered as a revolution ahead of its time.  As it is, the whole SM story is just another cul-de-sac, albeit one which has become a (mostly) fondly-regarded cult.

Lindsay Lohan in Tsubi Scooter Jeans, Andrea Brueckner Saddle Bag, L.A.M.B. Lambstooth Sweater, Manolo Blahnik Butterfly Sandals & Louis Vuitton Inclusion Resin Bangle, Los Angeles, April 2005.