Belt

Belt (pronounced belt)

(1) A band of flexible material, as leather or cord, used for encircling the waist, historically to in some way secure a garment (coat or trousers) but also as a decorative or functional (tool belt, utility belt, gun belt etc) item.

(2) In any context, any encircling or transverse band, strip, or stripe.

(3) In geography, an elongated region having distinctive properties or characteristics.

(4) In machinery, an endless flexible band passing about two or more pulleys, used to transmit motion from one pulley to the other or others or to convey materials and objects.

(5) In (usually military) ballistics, a cloth strip with loops or a series of metal links with grips, for holding cartridges fed into an automatic gun.

(6) A band of leather or webbing, worn around the waist and used as a support for weapons, ammunition etc.

(7) In naval architecture, a series of armor plates forming part of the hull of a warship.

(8) In construction, a broad, flexible strip of rubber, canvas, wood, etc., moved along the surface of a fresh concrete pavement to put a finish on it after it has been floated.

(9) A road, railroad, or the like, encircling an urban center to handle peripheral traffic (as beltway also used in political discourse).

(10) In slang, a hard blow or hit (often in the forms belted or belting), either a person or an object (the latter noted especially in bat & ball sports).

(11) In slang, a shot of liquor, especially as swallowed in one gulp (often in the form “a quick belt”).

(12) In tyre technology, strip of material used in tyre construction, placed between the carcass and the tread for reinforcement (in the forms steel-belted & fabric-belted).

(13) In sport, in a color based ascendency (brown, black etc), a ranking system in various martial arts).

(14) In sport (notably boxing), a form of trophy worn by the holder of a title (WBO Heavyweight Belt, IBF Cruiserweight Belt etc).

(15) As seat belt, an apparatus used in air, sea & land vehicles to secure a passenger, pilot, driver etc in place.

(16) To gird or furnish with a belt.

(17) To surround or mark as if with a belt or band.

(18) In slang, as “belt out”, loudly (though not necessarily pleasingly) to sing or, as “belting along”, rapidly to proceed.

(19) In cricket, as “belter”, a description of a placid pitch ideal for batting and offering little assistance to bowlers.

(20) In astronomy, a collection of small bodies (such as asteroids) which orbit a star; one of certain girdles or zones on the surface of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, supposed to be of the nature of clouds.

(21) In baseball, the part of the strike zone at the height of the batter's waist.

(22) In music, a vocal tone produced by singing with chest voice above the break (or passaggio), in a range typically sung in head voice.

(23)To invest a person with a belt as part of a formal ceremony (even one where as physical belt is not involved or even a historic part).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English belt, from the Old English belt (belt; girdle; broad, flat strip or strap of material used to encircle the waist), from the Proto-Germanic baltijaz (girdle, belt) (source also of the Old High German balz, the Old Norse balti & belti and the Swedish bälte), an early Germanic borrowing from the Latin balteus (belt, girdle, sword-belt) which may be of Etruscan origin.  It was cognate with the Scots belt (belt), the Dutch belt, the German Balz (belt), the Danish bælte (belt), the Swedish bälte (belt, cincture, girdle, zone) and the Icelandic belti (belt).    Synonyms vary according to context including circle, girdle, surround (to encircle), buckle, fasten, strap (to fasten a belt); bash, clobber, smack, wallop. strap, thrash, whip (to hit with a belt); gulp, slurp, guzzle (rapidly to drink); speed, whiz, zoom (rapidly to move).  Belt is a noun & verb, belted is a verb & adjective, belting is a noun, verb & adjective and belter is a noun; the noun plural is belts.

Lindsay Lohan in trench coat, the belt tied and not buckled.

The verb emerged in the early fourteenth century in the sense of “to fasten or gird with a belt” and was derived from the noun.  The meaning "to thrash (as with a belt)" was from the 1640s while the general sense of "to hit, thrash" seems not to have been used until 1838. The colloquial meaning "to sing or speak vigorously" dates from 1949 and was first used in the US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  As a development, the noun meaning "a blow or stroke" dates from 1885.  The transferred sense of "broad stripe encircling something with its ends joined" dates from the 1660s while that of a "broad strip or tract" of any sort, without notion of encircling (as in the “wheat belt") emerged by 1808.  As a mark of rank or distinction (sometimes associated with a specific honor in the form of a belt or sash), use began in the mid-fourteenth century and in pugilism, boxing championship belts were first awarded in 1812.  The use in mechanical engineering (drive belts, pulley belts, serpentine belts etc) was first noted in 1795.  The sword-belt dates from the early fourteenth century while the Old English had sweordfætels (sword-belt).  The adjective beltless came from the fashion industry to describe a style without a belt and was from 1854, the belt-loop (through which a belt passes) noted the following year (although such things had existed for centuries).  In the sub-culture of the trench coat, the military tradition was always to use the buckle to secure the belt while true fashionistas prefer to tie, bucklers thought a bit naff.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities offered by belts.

Many languages adopted belt including those of the Raj, the Hindi being बेल्ट (belṭ), the Bengali বেল্ট (belṭ) & the Urdu بیلٹ‎ (belṭ); Afrikaans picked up belt from the Dutch and other variations were the Assamese বেল্ট (belto), the Irish beilt (Welsh & Scots picked up belt), the Japanese: ベルト (beruto) and the Oriya ବେଲ୍ଟ୍ (belṭ).  If used as a proper noun (a surname or place-name), it appears always with an initial capital.  In astronomy, there’s no initial capital when used as a general descriptor but one is used when referring to a specific region (eg as an ellipsis of Main Asteroid Belt).  The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R and known originally as One Belt One Road (OBOR)) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a trans-national infrastructure project (the strategy of which depends on who is providing the interpretation) dating from 2013 and integral to the PRC’s foreign policy.  As physical infrastructure, it’s analogous with the old Silk Road, the ancient trade route which linked China with the West, carrying goods and (more dangerously) ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China.

Lindsay Lohan beltless  (or un-belted).

In idiomatic use, “below the belt” means “not in accord with the principles of fairness, decency, or good sportsmanship” and was drawn from the rules of boxing where restrictions were maintained on blows to the genitals.  To have something “under one's belt” is to have something in one’s literal or figurative (a qualification or achievement) possession.  To tighten one’s belt is “to be more frugal; to undergo hardship patiently” and is often used as an injunction by politicians (directed at others).  Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) invented “tighten the belten” for the faux German used in his film The Great Dictator (1940).  The use to describe specific regions can be literal (wheat belt, corn belt etc), meteorological (sun-belt, snow-belt) or more figurative (mortgage belt, Bible belt etc), the latter probably more accurately described as “zones” but the meaning is well-understood and some have emerged recently (such as rust belt which refers to once vibrant industrial areas now in economic decline).  A beltway is a road system which encircles (not necessarily in a circular design) a city and is intended to reduce congestion in the inner region; the phrase “beyond the beltway” is US political slang to differentiate the interests and priorities of those “within the beltway” of Washington DC (ie the political class (executive government, the congress, the upper reaches of the civil service etc)) and the general population.  The US term references Interstate 495 around Washington DC (the Capital Beltway, opened in 1964), the figurative use (the culture of the political class) dating from 1978, exclusively in the negative.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates more possibilities offered by belts.

Seat belts, although began in any volume to be fitted only in the 1960s although they’d been used in ships (both by fishermen and in the navy) and in the early day of aviation without ever becoming standardized fittings although, in a sense, as a safety restraint they were known even in Antiquity.  In Greek mythology, the Sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly feminine charms to lure sailors to their death; attracted by their enchanting music and voices, seafarers would sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the tales from antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs.  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be ship-wrecked , he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf and to be certain, Odysseus ordered them to tie him to the mast, thereby inventing the seat-belt.  Sailing past, when he heard their enticing voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and died.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates still more possibilities offered by belts.

Knocking back a bracer: Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a quick belt of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.

In the late 1940s, the rising death toll attracted interest but few cars were at the time fitted with seat-belts and research was difficult with such small sample sizes although it was indicated there was some positive although instances were also noted of injuries being caused by the belts’ then primitive and unregulated design and it was these findings which encouraged the first “inertial reel” (retractable) designs.  A couple of US manufacturers during the 1950s dabbled with the concept, either installing seat belts as standard or offering them as an extra-cost option but the take-up rate was low and some buyers ever returned the cars to dealers to have them removed.

The familiar modern three-point (lap & sash) belt evolved in the late 1950s with much input from US designers but it was Swedish manufacturers which first made them a standard fitting, Scandinavia being often dark and icy, drivers sharing the roads with large elk.  The modern seatbelt design (conceptually unchanged to this day) is credited to Swedish mechanical engineer Nils Bohlin (1920–2002) who was employed by Volvo which made them a standard fitting in 1959, following the example of Saab which had added them the previous year.  During the 1960s, US states gradually imposed a requirement they be fitted until, in 1969, federal law mandated the rule for all cars sold in the country.  The laws requiring them actually to be worn proved more difficult to implement but other countries quickly made both the fitment and wearing of seat-belts compulsory, initially only for those seated in the front seat(s) but before long it extended to all seats.

Instruction sheet for Child Bed (1961 Chevrolet Corvair), Chevrolet Division of General Motors (GM) part-number 985359.

Attitudes to motor vehicle safety were different in 1959 when Chevrolet first started making the Corvair (1959-1969).  At the time, apart from improving the quality of roads (which actually meant higher speeds) the government had done little about either safety or pollution but both the rising highway death toll and the worsening air quality in cities was attracting attention and things would soon be different, decades of legislation soon to unfold.  The Corvair however was a product of a substantially unregulated age and in that spirit Chevrolet thoughtfully offered the “child bed” as an accessory so one’s baby could sleep (unsecured) on the parcel shelf beneath the rear window, the additional benefits of the placement said to be that being rear-engined, the warmth and soothing vibration from the engine gently would lull the infant to sleep.  It was another world.

An early Chevrolet Corvair with swing axles, swinging.

The Corvair was doomed by decisions made even before production began.  It was anyway the twilight of the rear-engined era and although swing axles in Europe proved surprisingly persistent (usually because the design provided a relatively cheap way to implement an independent rear suspension) few installed them on a car as heavy and powerful as the Corvair.  Mercedes-Benz, which was an adherent (despite their experience with the superior De Dion layout) was still producing a handful of 600s (the W100 Grosser) with swing axles as late as 1981 but the Germans tamed the behavior with special anti-squat & anti-dive geometry as well as a compensating centre spring.  Chevrolet did not and with a weight distribution which was even more exaggerated rearward by its relatively heavy and long engine, the Corvair’s handling could be unpredictable, something which the engineers wanted to alleviate by fitting a handful of parts (the cost under US$40) but this the accountants vetoed.  The ensuing crashes, death toll and law suits attracted the interest of consumer lawyer Ralph Nader (b 1934) who wrote Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), a critique on the industry generally although in the public mind it’s always been most associated with the failings of the Corvair which the author made the subject of the opening chapter.

The Corvair before and after.  GM applied a fix in 1963 which rectified the worst of the characteristics and a full re-design was undertaken and released in 1965.  For the Corvair's reputation it was too late.

Actually, the problems as described applied only to the Corvairs built between 1959-1963 but the damage was done, neither its reputation or sales figures ever recovered and it was only the corporation’s desire to save face which saw the much improved car restyled for 1966, production lingering on until 1969 although it may be Nader’s book actually prolonged things, competition in the compact sector notably more intense that in 1960s.  It was unfortunate because the restyled Corvair was one of the better-looking machines of the era, only the truncated length of the bodywork forward of the cowl detracting from the elegance.

The lovely, Italianesque lines of the second generation Corvair (1966-1969).

Curiously, after its demise came a coda.  In 1970, responding to pressure from Nader, the Nixon administration commissioned a study comparing the 1963 Corvair with five “similar” vehicles and a report was in 1972 issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which concluded, inter alia, the Corvair’s handling and propensity to roll was comparable with that of “other light domestic cars.”  Nader dismissed the study as “a shoddy, internally contradictory whitewash” and accused the NHTSA of using “biased testing procedures and model selection.”  He noted they assessed on the 1963 Corvair which Chevrolet significantly had modified to correct the deficiencies found in those built earlier.  The Nixon administration ignored him, presumably taking the view that “what was good for General Motors was good for the country”.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates yet more possibilities offered by belts.

Chaste

Chaste (pronounced cheyst)

(1) Refraining from sexual intercourse, either by choice or to conform to some imposed system of morality or religion; to be virtuous.

(2) Not engaging in sexual relations; the state of voluntary celibacy.

(3) A virgin.

(4) In conduct, literature etc, free from obscenity; decent.

(5) By extension, anything define as pure (white snow, certain grades of stainless steel, architecture simple in style and not needlessly embellished or excessively ornamented etc).

(6) An unmarried female (obsolete).

1175–1225: From the Middle English chaste (virtuous, pure from unlawful sexual intercourse (as defined by the Church)), from the Old French chaste (morally pure), from the Latin castus (clean, pure, morally pure), the verbal adjective from the same root as careō (I lack), possibly from the primitive Indo-European ḱes- (to cut).  The most common modern use (one who refrains from sexual intercourse) is the transferred sense of "sexually pure" which had emerged by the fifteenth century (although chaste as a noun meaning (a virgin person) had been in use from the early fourteenth century).  The meaning was by the 1620s extended to conduct or language “free from obscenity”, and in general to artistic or literary styles which were “simple and unadorned” by the 1750s.  “Chaste architecture” (that with pure lines and without needless embellishments) became an (admiring) term describing the built environment in the early nineteenth century but should not be confused with the later schools of functionalism and brutalism.  The adjective unchaste first appeared in the late fourteenth century.  Depending on context, the synonyms can include continent, clean, decorous, proper, unsullied, celibate, virginal and virtuous or unaffected, unadorned & neat.  The antonyms can include immoral, promiscuous, coarse, rococo or ornate.  The verbs chasten, chastening & chastened do have an archaic sense related sexual purity but are most often used as forms of chastise (to punish, scold, censure or castigate).  Chaste, chaster & chastest are adjectives, chasten, chastening & chastened are verbs chastely is an adverb and chastity, chasteness & chastenedness are nouns; the most common (though rare) noun plural is chastities.  Chasity is also a (rare) proper noun when used as a female given name.  When Chastity Bono (b 1969; the only child of 1960s pop-music husband & wife duo Sonny (b 1935) & Cher (b 1946) Bono) transitioned to become a trans-man, he chose the name Chaz.

The Chastity Belt

Lindsay Lohan announcing (the resumption of) her chasteness, 2018.

There must be few medieval accessories which have been as well documented and displayed as the chastity belt which, according to legend, was a device men would have their wives wear during those weeks, months or even years while they were off somewhere performing military service.  The term “belt” is a little misleading because the “belt” component was there merely to ensure the vital components remained in place and couldn’t be removed or otherwise penetrated, a key-lock system included; they key of course held by the travelling husband.  The vital components were fashioned usually in metal (there are some accounts of those made using a thick leather) and were designed to make sexual intercourse anatomically impossible.

However, like much that in the centuries after the Renaissance came to be regarded as historical “fact”, the tale that the origins of the chastity belt was as an anti-temptation device during the Crusades has been discredited and there is no credible evidence the things even existed prior to the fifteenth century and that although they were certainly documented in the 1500s, they appears to have been much discussed but little used although there are references in medical texts to women fashioning such things (though perhaps not of metal) for their own protection against rape.  Intriguingly too, there are records of one being found on the skeleton of a young woman in her grave, fitted presumably to protect her virtue on her path to heaven or wherever else she was headed.  The great flourishing in chastity belt production actually happened in the nineteenth century when there was demand from museums and travelling exhibitions for such things and, because real relics were rare to the point of non-existence, fakes were needed.  Just as many of the gruesome and supposedly “Medieval” torture devices were products of the Victorian imagination, the chastity belts were equally bogus, although as curators of such things have noted, many were a tribute to the skills of the craftspeople (and women really were involved in artisan work) who not only managed to make convincing “artefacts” but rendered the patina of centuries.

The nineteenth century also saw the beginnings of psychiatry as it would now be understood and one of the orthodoxies of the age was that masturbation was harmful.  Psychiatrists (mostly) didn’t claim masturbation made people go blind but they assembled plenty of other reasons the practice was so undesirable it should be avoided and as in many things, suggestions of abstinence were doubtlessly understood to be ineffective so physical devices were often recommended.  Interestingly, many were aimed at the parents of female adolescents and latter-day feminist criticism has suggested this emphasis was because it was feared if girls learned about the pleasures of sex it might lead them to promiscuity, the implication that self-administration was likely to be a more pleasant experience than sex with most men.  In the medical literature, it wasn’t until the late 1920s that the general disapprobation of masturbation was relaxed and only in the post-war years did the idea fade from mainstream psychiatry (although the churches often continued to believe the old ways were best).  Chastity belts haven’t entirely gone away and every now and then, in the parts of the internet where bizarre and salacious stories are the best click-bait, there will be reports of them being worn (often unwillingly); many of these tales seem to come from east of Suez.  In the world of consensual depravity that is the BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism), chastity belts are a niche device; the purposes of use presumably vary.

Congress of Berlin (1881), oil on canvas by Anton von Werner (1843–1915).  Lord Salisbury is the tall, bearded figure, third from the right.

The Congress of Berlin (13 June-13 July 1878) was held to re-organize the arrangement of states in the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War of (1877–1878).  It was convened in Berlin because (1) the Russians would have been unwilling to attend elsewhere (especially London) and (2) because Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) did not want anything to be agreed which might lead to war or anything else which might disrupt his intricate system of interlocking treaties and alliances which maintained a general peace in Europe.  The language of diplomacy was then still French so Bismarck insisted on all discussions being conducted in French (even though) the French representatives were there as little more than observers.  The UK's prime-minister, Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880) didn’t speak French so the transaction of the substantive matters fell to the foreign secretary, Lord Salisbury (1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902 ("prime-minister since God knows when" in Churchill's words)).  Under Bismarck’s strict chairmanship, the congress proceeded with a rare efficiency, concluding in a month, securing peace for a generation and gaining the crumbling Ottoman Empire a final four decades of existence.  Salisbury regarded the outcome of the conference as most satisfactory but what gave him the greatest amusement was when, at the final ceremony, the Sultan of Turkey presented Lady Salisbury with “The Order of Chastity, Third Class” which the marchioness accepted gracefully.  Lord Salisbury was later told by the protocol staff that only the wives of crowned monarchs received The Order of Chastity, First Class while other royal ladies received the Second Class and the wives of diplomats the Third Class.

Planet

Planet (pronounced plan-it)

(1) In astronomy (now also as “major planet), any of the eight large spherical bodies revolving about the sun in elliptical orbits and shining by reflected light: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, in the order of their proximity to the sun.

(2) A similar body revolving about a star other than the sun.

(3) A celestial body moving in the sky, as distinguished from (the apparently fixed) stars, applied also to the sun and moon (obsolete except in historic reference).

(4) In astrology, the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto: regarded as sources of energy or consciousness in the interpretation of horoscopes.

1250-1300: From the Middle English planete, from the late Old English planete, from the Old French planete (which endures in Modern French as planète), from the Latin planeta & planetes (found only in plural planētae), from the Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs) (wanderer), (ellipsis of πλάνητες ἀστέρες (plánētes astéres (literally “wandering stars”)), from the Ancient Greek πλανάω (planáō) (to wander about, to stray), from planasthai (to wander), of uncertain etymology.  It was cognate with the Latin pālor (to wander about, to stray), the Old Norse flana (to rush about), and the Norwegian flanta (“to wander about”); from here English ultimately gained flaunt.  The source may have been a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root pele- (flat; to spread) on the notion of "spread out" but it’s speculative, etymologists noting a similarity of meaning in the Greek plazein (to make devious, repel, dissuade from the right path, bewilder) the evidence simply doesn’t exist to permit a conclusion to be drawn.  Planets were originally so-called because, viewed by the astronomers from Antiquity, they display apparent motion, unlike the stars which seemed “fixed” in space, the word derived from the Ancient Greek phrase plánētes astéres (literally “wandering stars”), ultimately from planasthai (to wander).  Thus the earliest definitions of planets encompassed both the Moon and Sun but not the Earth.  The sense define by modern science of a “world which orbits a star" was first noted in English in the 1630s.  It wasn’t until the Copernican revolution that the Earth was recognized as a planet, and the Sun was seen to be fundamentally different.

The noun planetoid (one of the asteroids, or minor planets, revolving about the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter) is from 1803, the adjectival form planetoidal adopted in 1809.  Strangely, there’s never been an accepted definition of planetoid.  Within astronomical circles, it was initially a synonym for asteroid, "asteroid" referring to the star-like image seen through a telescope while "planetoid" described the object’s planet-like orbit.  In the literature, by the early twentieth century “planetoid” and “asteroid” were both widely used but the latter had prevailed almost wholly by the late 1970s.  This decline in use as a synonym is because it had instead become handy as a word to describe a subset of the larger members of the asteroid community, used to mean “planet-like in form or geology”.  Improvements in observational capacity in the early twenty-first century saw a surge in use as so many more planetary bodies were discovered in the Kuiper belt and beyond.  Within the astronomical community, there was a consensus most were hardly asteroids and concomitant with doubts as to the appropriate definition of "planet", planetoid was the label of choice.

The noun protoplanet (a large, diffuse cloud of matter in the orbit of a young star, regarded as the preliminary state of a planet) dates from 1949, the construct being proto- + planet.  The proto- prefix was a learned borrowing from the Ancient Greek πρωτο- (prōto-), a combination form of πρῶτος (prôtos) (first), superlative of πρό (pró) (before).  The adjective planetary (of or pertaining to a planet) was from the 1590s, probably influenced by the Late Latin planetarius (pertaining to a planet or planets) although the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes the only attested meaning as a noun was "an astrologer".  The planetary nebula, so-called because of the shape as seen through a telescope, is from 1785.  1690s The adjective interplanetary (existing between planets) was used in the sense of "travel between planets” as early as 1897 although the English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632–1704) used intermundane in the same sense, the Roman Epicureans having had intermundia (neuter plural) for "spaces between the worlds", translating from the Ancient Greek metakosmia.  Mundane was from the Middle English mondeyne, from the Old French mondain, from the Late Latin mundanus, from the Classical Latin mundus (world).  The noun planetarium (orrery, astronomical machine which by the movements of its parts represents the motions and orbits of the planets) dates from 1734 and was a creation of Modern Latin, the construct being the Late Latin planeta + Latin -arium (a place for).  The modern meaning "device for projecting the night sky onto the interior of a dome" describe the device developed by the optical engineering company Zeiss in Germany; it was first demonstrated in Munich in 1923, the word planetarium adopted in English in 1929.

#plutoisaplanet: Pluto photographed on 14 July 2015 by the New Horizons interplanetary space probe, launched by NASA in 2006.

The Galileian satellites of Jupiter were initially called satellite planets but were later reclassified along with the Moon.  The first observed asteroids were also considered planets, but were reclassified when became apparent how many there were, crossing each other's orbits, in a zone where only a single planet had been expected.   Pluto was found where an outer planet had been expected, but doubts were soon raised about its status because (1) it was found to cross Neptune's orbit and (2) was much smaller than the expectation had suggested.  The debate about the status of Pluto went on for decades after its discovery in 1930.  The pro-planet faction may have become complacent, thinking that because Pluto had always been a planet, it would forever be thus but, after seventy-six years in the textbooks as a planet, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 voted to re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet on the basis that the icy orb failed to meet a set of criteria which the IAU claimed had been accepted for decades.

To be a planet, the IAU noted, the body must (1) orbit a sun, (2) be sufficiently massive to it pull itself into a sphere under its own gravity and (3), "clear its neighborhood" of debris and other celestial bodies, proving it has gravitational dominance in its corner of the solar system.  Pluto fails the third test.  Because it orbits in the Kuiper Belt (a massive ring of asteroids and planetoids that stretches beyond the orbit of Neptune), Pluto is surrounded by thousands of other celestial bodies and chunks of debris, each exerting its own gravity.  Pluto is thus not the gravitationally dominant object in its neighborhood and therefore, not a planet and but a dwarf, a sort of better class of asteroid.  The IAU’s action had been prompted by the discovery in the Kuiper Belt of a body larger than Pluto yet still not meeting the criteria for planethood.  Feeling the need to draw a line in the cosmos, the IAU dumped Pluto.

Lindsay Lohan in Planet Fitness commercial played during Super Bowl 2022.

However #plutoisaplanet is a thing and Pluto’s supporters have a website, arguing that while it’s universally accepted a planet should be spherical and orbit the Sun, the "clearing the neighborhood" rule is arbitrary, having appears only in a single paper published in 1801.  The history is certainly muddied, Galileo having described the moons of Jupiter as planets and there are plenty of other more recent precedents to suggest the definitional consensus has bounced around a bit and there are even extremists really to accept the implications of loosening the rules such as the moons of Earth, Jupiter and Saturn becoming planets.  Most however just want Pluto restored.

The most compelling argument however is probably just that the IAU are a bunch of humorless cosmic clerks, something like the Vogons ("...not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.") in Douglas Adams’ (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and that Pluto should be restored to planethood because of the romance.  Although lacking the lovely rings of Saturn, Pluto is the most charming of all because it’s so far away; desolate, lonely and cold, it's the solar system’s emo.  If for no other reason, it should be a planet in tribute to the scientists who, for decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, calculated possible positions and hunted for the elusive orb.  In an example of Donald Rumsfeld's (1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) “unknown knowns”, the proof was actually obtained as early as 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that was realized.  In an indication of just how far away Pluto lies, since the 1840s when equations based on Newtonian mechanics were first used to predict the position of the then “undiscovered” planet, it has yet to complete even one orbit of the Sun, one Plutonian year being 247.68 years long.

The name Pluto is from the Roman god of the underworld, from the Classical Latin Pluto & Pluton, from the Ancient Greek Πλούτων (Ploútōn) (god of wealth) from ploutos (wealth; riches (probably originally "overflowing" from the primitive Indo-European pleu- (to flow).  It was the alternative Greek name or epithet of Hades in his function as the god of wealth (precious metals and gems, coming from beneath the earth, form part of his realm).

Underwire

Underwire (pronounced uhn-der-wahyuhr)

(1) A (usually almost semi-circular) metal, plastic or composite “wire” sewn into the underside of each cup of a brassiere, used both as a structural member and shaping device.

(1) A brassiere (or related component in a swimsuit or some other garment) with such wires.

A portmanteau word, the construct being under + wire.  Under is from the Middle English under, from the Old English under, from the  Proto-Germanic under (source also of the Old Frisian under, the German unter, the Old High German untar, the Dutch onder, the Old Norse undir, the Gothic undar and the Danish & Norwegian under), from a blend of the primitive Indo-European n̥dhér (under) and n̥tér (inside).  It was akin to the Old High German untar (under), the Sanskrit अन्तर् (antar) (within) and the Latin infrā (below, beneath) & inter (between, among), influencing also the Sanskrit adhah (below), the Avestan athara- (lower) and the Latin infernus (lower).  The Old English under was a preposition in the sense of "beneath, among, before, in the presence of, in subjection to, under the rule of, by means of and also an adverb in the sense of "beneath, below, underneath," expressing position with reference to that which is above, usage gained from the Proto-Germanic under-.

Under proved as productive a prefix in Old English as had in German and Scandinavian languages, often forming words modeled on Latin ones using “sub-“ and the notion of "inferior in rank, position etc" existed in the Old English and persists in the language of the titles in the UK’s civil service to this day (eg under-secretary).  The idea of it being used as descriptor of standards (less than in age, price, value etc” emerged in the late fourteenth century whereas, as an adjective meaning “lower in position; lower in rank or degree” was known as early as the 1200s.  Mysteriously, the use in Old English as a preposition meaning "between, among," as in “under these circumstances” may be a wholly separate root (eg understand).  The phrase “under the weather (indisposed; unwell) is from 1810.  Under the table was used from 1913 in the sense of "very drunk" and it wasn’t until the 1940s (possibly influenced by the onset of rationing and the consequence emergence of black markets) it came to enjoy the sense of something "illegal" (although the long-extinct “under-board: (dishonest) is attested from circa 1600.  To keep something under the hat (secret) is from 1885 and use seems not to have been affected by the post 1945 decline in hat-wearing; to have something under (one's) nose (in plain sight) is from 1540s; to speak under (one's) breath (in a low voice) dates from 1832.

Wire is from the Middle English wir & wyr (metal drawn out into a fine thread), from the Old English wīr (wire, metal thread, wire-ornament), from the Proto-Germanic wira- & wīraz (wire), from the primitive Indo-European wehiros (a twist, thread, cord, wire), from wei & wehiy- (to turn, twist, weave, plait).  The Proto-Germanic wira- & wīraz were the source also of the Old Norse viravirka (filigree work=), the Swedish vira (to twist) and the Old High German wiara (fine gold work).  A wire as marking the finish line of a racecourse is attested from 1883; hence the figurative down to the wire.  Wire-puller in the political sense dates from 1839, an invention of American English (though used first to describe matters in the UK’s House of Commons), based on the image of pulling the wires that work a puppet; the phrase “pulling the strings” replaced “pulling the wires” late in the nineteenth century.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing the underwires.

In the technical sense familiar to a structural engineer, the bra’s underwire is a specific instance of the earlier verb (1520s) “undergird”, the construct being under + gird.  Gird (to bind with a flexible rope or cord; to encircle with, or as if with a belt) was from the Middle English girden, gerden & gürden, from the Old English gyrdan (to put a belt around, to put a girdle around), from the Proto-Germanic gurdijaną (to gird), from the primitive Indo-European gherdh.  It was cognate with the West Frisian gurdzje & girdzje, the Dutch gorden, the German gürten, the Swedish gjorda, the Icelandic gyrða and the Albanian ngërthej (to tie together by weaving, to bind).  The related forms were undergirded & undergirding.

As a familiar mass-manufactured commodity item, the bra is a relatively new innovation although many of the various functionalities afforded to the wearer are noted in illustrations and surviving garments worn since antiquity, interest in the physics of gravity long pre-dating Newtonian mechanics.  The most obvious immediate ancestor, the corset, began to be widely worn by the late 1400s, the shaping and structure of many underpinned by struts made either of metal or, more commonly, animal bone, a method of construction which, in simplified form, would later return as the underwire.  The first patent issued for a recognizably modern bra was issued in New York in 1893 for a “breast supporter” and it included all the features familiar in the mass-produced modern product: separated cups atop a metal support system, located with a combination of shoulder straps and a back-band fastened by hook and eye closures.  On the basis of the documents supplied with the patent application, the design objective was for something not only functional and practical but, unlike the often intimidating corsets then in use, also comfortable.

It was an immediate success although, lacking the capacity to manufacture at scale and unwilling to become involved in the capital raising which that would have demanded, the inventor sold her patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1500 (at a time when a new Ford car cost around US$400).  Warner Brothers Corset Company (later Warnaco Group, in 2012 acquired by Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation (PVH), which over the life of the patent is estimated to have booked profits of almost US$40 million from its bra sales, got a bargain.  English borrowed the word brassiere from the French brassière although in the original it was a chemise (a kind of undershirt) but in the US, brassiere was used from 1893 when the first bras were advertised and from there, use spread.  The three syllables were just too much to survive the onslaught of modernity and the truncated “bra” soon prevailed, being the standard form throughout the English-speaking world by the early 1930s.  Curiously, in French, a bra is a soutien-gorge which translates literally and rather un-romantically as "throat-supporter".

The booming popularity of the bra in the 1920s and 1930s encouraged innovation and not a few gimmicks and it was in this era that manufacturers first began to develop systems of cup sizes although there was there no standardization of dimensions and, technically, that’s still the case with remarkable variations between manufacturers; it’s an industry crying out for an ISO.  It was in 1931 a patent was issued for what was described as a bra with a pair of integrated “open-ended wire loops”, semi-circular pieces of metal enclosed in protective fabric which partially encircled each breast, sitting against the chest-wall at the bottom of the breasts.  This is the origin of the modern underwire and during the 1930s, while designers would develop more elaborate versions, the concept didn’t change and as late as 1940, the underwire bra remained something of niche product being, at this stage of development, both more expensive and often less comfortable.  Wartime necessity also imposed an evolutionary delay, the use of metal during wartime being limited to essential production and carefully rationed.  Bras by then probably had become essential but apparently not underwired bras.

Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose) on its only test flight, 2 November 1947, Long Beach, Los Angeles Harbor.  It flew for abou1 1 mile (1.6 km) and achieved a maximum speed of 135 mph (217 km/h).

Howard Hughes (1905—1976), the industrialist knew about the wartime limits on the use of metals because the War Production Board had insisted his H-4 Hercules, a huge, eight-engined flying boat designed to transport 750 troops across the Atlantic, be built using “non-strategic materials" which precluded the industry’s preferred aluminum, Hughes using birch wood almost exclusively.  The H-4, which wasn’t completed until after the end of hostilities flew, briefly, only once and was nicknamed the Spruce Goose, which obviously was arboreally inaccurate but thinking of something as funny and rhyming with “birch” wasn’t easy.  So, in 1942 Hughes knew he’d never get approval for enough metal for his big flying boat, but in 1941, before the entry of the US into the war, more than enough metal was available to create a specialized part to be used in another of his ventures: film director.

Jane Russell, promotional picture for The Outlaw (1941).

In 1941, while filming The Outlaw, Hughes wasn’t satisfied with what sympathetic lighting, camera angles and provocative posing could make of Jane Russell's (1921—2011) bust.  A skilled engineer, he quickly designed and had fabricated a kind of cantilevered underwire bra to lend the emphasis he though her figure deserved.  What Hughes did was add curved steel rods which functioned as actual structural members, sewn into the bra under each cup and connected to the shoulder straps, an arrangement which simultaneously pushed upwards the breasts and allowed the shoulder straps to be re-positioned, exposing to the camera much more skin.  In engineering terms, it was a device which achieved a fixture with no visible means of support.  Hughes was delighted with the result and completed filming though it wasn’t until much later Ms Russell revealed the cantilevered device was so uncomfortable she wore it for only a few minutes, reverting to her own bra which, to please Hughes, she modified with those trusty standbys, padding and a judicious tightening of the straps.  The result was much the same and Ms Russell waspishly added that the engineering prowess which had served Hughes well in aviation didn’t translate well to designing comfortable underwear.  The Outlaw was completed in February 1941 but, because of the focus on Ms Russell's breasts, faced opposition in obtaining the required certificate of release from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (the MPPDA which administered the Hays Code) which was demanding cuts to thirty seconds odd of offending footage.  Hughes reluctantly complied and there was a brief showing in 1943 but the film’s distributer, unwilling to be dragged into any controversy, withdrew from the project and it wasn’t until 1946 there was finally a general release on cinema screens.  Given the pent-up demand, it was a commercial success but the critics were at the time unimpressed and it only later gained a cult following, at least partly on the basis of the gay undertone in the plot-line.

Lindsay Lohan in underwire bra, 2012.

Underwires essentially fulfill part of the function of an exoskeleton in that, being designed to fit snugly against the ribcage, they provide a basic mechanism of location which means the back-strap, cups and shoulder-straps can provide the shape and support without having to compensate for excessive movement or changes in weight distribution.  The mathematics of structural engineering is really that of making push equal pull and what a well-designed (and properly fitted) underwire does is minimize the risk of movement in an unwanted direction (down) so the least energy is required to maintain the desired movement (up).  There are other ways of achieving this but such constructions typically are much bulkier and use often stiff, unaccommodating fabrics and thick straps.  The underwire is a simple technology which, in the abstract really can’t be improved upon although there are problems.  Washing machine service technicians note the frequency with which errant underwires end up in the mechanism and, being metal, damage can result.  For this reason, most bra manufacturers recommend they be placed in a sealed bag for washing.  Detachment can also happen while in use, a protruding underwire sometimes passing through the material in which its supposed to remain enclosed, giving the wearer a painful jab in a soft, fleshy spot.  Although the tips are usually plastic coated, repeated jabbing is still uncomfortable.  Being traditionally made of metal (usually stainless steel) brings it's own issues, most obviously with metal detectors but for frequent flyers, bras with plastic underwires (and hooks & clasps) are available off the shelf and plastic underwires are even sold as stand-alone part-numbers to modify existing models or for use by the small but devoted class of users who make their own.