Cannon

Cannon (pronounced kan-uhn)

(1) In ordnance, heavy artillery: a mounted gun for firing heavy projectiles; a gun, howitzer, or mortar,

(2) In machinery, a heavy tube or drum, especially one that can rotate freely on the shaft by which it is supported (also known as a quill).

(3) In armor, a cylindrical or semi-cylindrical piece of plate armor for the upper arm or forearm; a vambrace or rerebrace (the avant-bras in French and sometimes known as lower cannons in the Middle Ages).

(4) In saddlery, as cannon bit or canon bit, the part of a bit in the horse's mouth.

(5) In the design of bells, the metal loop at the top of a bell, from which it is hung.

(6) In zoology, as the cannon bone or the part of the leg in which the cannon bone is located.

(7) In billiards, a British term for a carom (a shot in which the cue ball is caused to contact one object ball after another); the points scored by this; a rebound or bouncing back, as of a ball off a wall.

(8) In underworld slang, a pickpocket (archaic).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English canon, from the earlier Anglo-Latin and Anglo-French canon, from the Italian cannone (large-tube barrel), the construct being cann(a) (tube) + -one (the augmentative suffix).  The Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna) (reed) was from the Akkadian qanû (reed), from the Sumerian gi.na; a doublet of canyon.  The original meaning was an "artillery piece, mounted gun for throwing projectiles by force of gunpowder" the spelling canon in a variety of languages all from the Italian cannone, augmentative of the Latin canna but the use of the double -n- spelling didn’t emerge until circa 1800.  Cannon is a noun and the plural is cannons but, in military use, when speaking of cannons collectively (especially when assembled in a battery), cannon is often used.

The artillery piece revolutionised warfare, the famous walls which for centuries had protected Constantinople were breached soon after cannon were first deployed and the city fell.  The weapon also influenced language.  Cannon fodder, first noted in 1847, describes the infantry or cavalry deployed against cannon-fire and exists in German as kanonenfutter, echoing William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) “food for gun powder” speech in Henry IV, Part 1 (circa 1596), Act 4 Scene 2) where Falstaff dismisses concern for his soldiers by saying they’re “good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better”.  Cannon-shot (distance a cannon will throw a ball) is from the 1570s and was an important measure in admiralty and (embryonic) international law, the old three-mile (and the later twelve-mile) maritime limits of national borders reflect the range of shore-based cannons at various times.  It was used also from the 1590s to describe the iron-ball fired from a weapon but this by the 1660s came to be replaced by cannon-ball.  A cannonade (a continued discharge of artillery) is from the 1650s as a noun and as a verb (attack with artillery), a decade later.  The contemporary French was cannonade and the Italian cannonata, the related forms being cannonaded and cannonading.  Cannonade was exclusively a army term which was later replace by barrage; the Admiralty always preferred broadside.

The figurative “loose cannon” seems to have be popularised from its appearance in Victor Hugo's (1802–1885) late Ninety Three (1874) to describe someone “wildly irresponsible, unpredictable or freed from usual restraint", based on the literal sense of dread sailors on old warships felt when a cannon already primed to fire became detached from its mounts and began rolling about the deck.  When a loose cannon discharges, bloody carnage can ensue. 

Naval Cannons

USS Iowa firing nine-gun broadside in an August 1984 test-firing during the sea-trials conducted after being recommissioned as part of the military build-up ordered during Ronald Reagan's (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) first term.

The US Navy’s four Iowa-class battleships, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin & New Jersey (the commissioned Illinois and Kentucky were never launched because of the changing nature of naval warfare) were the last battleships used in US fleets, all other dreadnoughts & super-dreadnoughts decommissioned by 1947 and when finally retired, they had for three decades been the last battleships afloat.  Noted for their longevity, their service variously lasting (including periods in reserve) from 1943 until 1992, they’re among the best-remembered battleships but they were neither the biggest (and certainly not the widest, the beam at around 108 feet (33 m) dictated by the need to pass through the Panama Canal) nor the most heavily gunned.  The Iowas were built with nine 16 inch (406 mm) naval cannons in three 3-gun turrets and could fire both high explosive and armour-piercing shells around 23 nautical miles (27.6 miles; 44.5 km).  A novel later innovation was an adaptation of the W19 nuclear artillery shell was adapted to suit the 16-inch bore.  With a yield of 15 to 20 kilotons of TNT (roughly the same as the A-bomb used against Nagasaki), they remain the world's largest nuclear artillery although, because of the Pentagon’s policy of refusing to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weaponry aboard its ships, it’s unknown if any of the shells were ever carried while the ships were in active service.  Like the US Marine Corps (USMC), the navy was never much enthused at the prospect of nuclear weapons being carried by the surface fleet, regarding the weapons as ideally suited to submarines.  The entire US nuclear artillery inventory was later decommissioned and (officially) dismantled.

Yamato, 1944.

The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Yamato-class battleships, Yamato and Musashi, in service between 1942-1945, were bigger and heavier than the Iowas and also used bigger cannons, each having nine 18.1 inch (460 mm) guns in three triple turrets with a shell-range of 26 miles (42 km).  The big guns had been considered for the Iowas during the design process but were sacrificed as part of the speed/range/armour/firepower compromise which naval architects have to apply to every warship.  Interestingly, for a variety of reasons, even the Iowa's never-built successors (the Montana-class), maintained the 16-inch armament, designed around twelve cannons arrayed in four 3-gun turrets.

German conceptual H-45 battleship.

Before reality bit hard, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) left physics to the engineers and wasn't too bothered by economics.  After being disappointed the proposals the successors to the Bismarck-class ships would have their main armament increased only from eight 15-inch (380 mm) to eight 16 inch cannons, he ordered OKM (Oberkommando der Marine; the Naval High Command) to design bigger ships.  That directive emerged as the ambitious Plan Z which would have demanded so much steel, essentially nothing else in the Reich could have been built.  Although not one vessel in Plan Z ever left the slipway (the facilities even to lay down the keels non-existent), such a fleet would have been impressive, the largest (the H-44) fitted with eight 20-inch (508 mm) cannons.  Even more to the Führer’s liking was the concept of the H-45, equipped with eight 31.5 inch (800 mm) Gustav siege guns.  However, although he never lost faith in the key to success on the battlefield being bigger and bigger tanks, the experience of surface warfare at sea convinced Hitler the days of the big ships were over and he would even try to persuade the navy to retire all their capital ships and devote more resources to the submarines which, as late as 1945, he hoped might still prolong the war.  Had he imposed such priorities in 1937-1938 so the German Navy could have entered World War II (1939-1945) with the ability permanently to have 100 submarines engaged in high-seas raiding rather than barely a dozen, the early course of the war might radically have been different.

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.  Balaclava is a noun and balaclavaed is an adjective; the noun plural is balaclavas.  What came to be called the “full-face” crash helmet was briefly advertised during the late 1960s as the “balaclava helmet” (also now used occasionally of what most call a “balaclava”) but the use never caught on.  In engineering, the non-standard verb balaclavaing is used as slang term meaning “the encasing of something with a cover, leaving only a small aperture to permit access for some purpose”.

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!

Usually, balaclavas are 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.

Camila Cabello (b 1997) in Vetements balaclava in black, Paris Fashion Week, September 2024.

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.

Ballistic

Ballistic (pronounced buh-lis-tik)

(1) A projected object having its subsequent travel determined or describable by the laws of exterior ballistics, most used in denoting or relating to the flight of projectiles after the initial thrust has been exhausted, moving under their own momentum and subject to the external forces of gravity and the fluid dynamics of air resistance

(2) Of or relating to ballistics.

(3) In slang and idiomatic use, (as “go ballistic”, “went ballistic” etc), to become overwrought or irrational; to become enraged or frenziedly violent.  For those who need to be precise is describing such instances, the comparative is “more ballistic” and the superlative “most ballistic”.

(4) Of a measurement or measuring instrument, depending on a brief impulse or current that causes a movement related to the quantity to be measured

(5) Of materials, those able to resist damage (within defined parameters) by projectile weapons (ballistic nylon; ballistic steel etc), the best-know use of which is the “ballistics vest”.

(6) As “ballistics gel(atin)”, as substance which emulates the characteristics and behavior under stress of human or animal flesh (used for testing the effect of certain impacts, typically shells fired from firearms).

(7) As “ballistic podiatry”, industry slang for “the act of shooting oneself in the foot”, used also by military doctors to describe soldiers with such self-inflicted injuries.  The more general term for gunshot wounds is “ballistic trauma”

(8) In ethno-phonetics, as “ballistic syllable”, a phonemic distinction in certain Central American dialects, characterized by a quick, forceful release and a rapid crescendo to a peak of intensity early in the nucleus, followed by a rapid, un-controlled decrescendo with fade of voicing.

(9) As “ballistic parachute”, a parachute used in light aircraft and helicopters, ejected from its casing by a small explosion.

1765–1775: The construct was the Latin ballist(a) (a siege engine (ancient military machine) for throwing stones to break down fortifications), from the Ancient Greek βαλλίστρα (ballístra), from βάλλω (bállō) (I throw). +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The modern use (of the big military rockets or missiles (those guided while under propulsion, but which fall freely to their point of impact (hopefully the intended target)) dates from 1949 although the technology pre-dated the label.  The term “ballistic missile” seems first to have appeared in 1954 and remains familiar in the “intercontinental ballistic missile” (ICBM).  The figurative use (“go ballistic”, “went ballistic”) to convey “an extreme reaction; to become irrationally angry” is said to have been in use only since 1981 which is surprising.  To “go thermo-nuclear” or “take the nuclear option” are companion phrases but the nuances do differ.  The noun ballistics (art of throwing large missiles; science of the motion of projectiles) seems first to have appeared in 1753 and was from the Latin ballist(a), from the Ancient Greek ballistes, from ballein (to throw, to throw so as to hit that at which the object is aimed (though used loosely also in the sense “to put, place, lay”)), from the primitive Indo-European root gwele- (to throw, reach).  In the technical jargon of the military and aerospace industries, the derived forms included (hyphenated and not) aeroballistic, antiballistic, astroballistic, ballistic coefficient, quasiballistic, semiballistic, subballistic, superballistic & thermoballistic.  In science and medicine, the forms include bioballistic, cardioballistic, electroballistic and neuroballistic.  Ballistic & ballistical are adjectives, ballisticity, ballistician & ballistics are nouns and ballistically is an adverb; the wonderful noun plural is ballisticies.

The basilisk was a class of large bore, heavy bronze cannons used during the late Middle Ages and in their time were a truly revolutionary weapon, able quickly to penetrate fortifications which in some cases had for centuries enabled attacks to be resisted.  Although there were tales of basilisks with a bores between 18-24 inches (460-610 mm), these were almost certainly a product of the ever-fertile medieval imagination and there’s no evidence any were built with a bore exceeding 5 inches (125 mm).  As a high-velocity weapon however, that was large enough for it to be highly effective, the 160 lb (72 kg) shot carrying a deadly amount of energy and able to kill personnel or destroy structures.  Because of the explosive energy needed to project the shot, the barrels of the larger basilicks could weigh as much as 4000 lb (1,800 kg); typically they were some 10 feet (3 m) in length but the more extraordinary, built as long-range devices, could be as long as 25 feet (7.6 m).  Despite the similarity in form, the name basilisk was unrelated to “ballistics” and came from the basilisk of mythology, a fire-breathing, venomous serpent able to kill and destroy, its glace alone deadly.  It was thus a two part allusion (1) the idea of “spitting fire” and (2) the thought the mere sight of an enemy’s big canons would be enough to scare an opponent into retreat.

As soon as it appeared in Europe, it was understood the nature of battlefields would change and the end of the era of the castle was nigh.  It was the deployment of the big cannons which led to the conquest of Constantinople (capital of the Byzantine Empire now Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye) in 1453 after a 53 day siege; the city’s great walls which for centuries had protected it from assault were worn down by the cannon fire to the point where the defenders couldn’t repair the damage at the same rate as the destruction.  In an example of the way economics is a critical component of war, the Austrian cannon makers had offered the cannons to the Byzantines but the empire was in the throes of one of the fiscal crises which determined to outcomes of so many conflicts and had no money with which to make the purchase.  The practical Austrians then sold their basilisks to the attacking Ottoman army and the rest is history.  Despite such successes, the biggest of the basilisks became rare after the mid sixteenth century as military tactics evolved to counter their threat by becoming more mobile and the traditional siege of static targets became less decisive and smaller, more easily transported cannon, lighter and cheaper to produce, came to dominate artillery formations.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol, Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Building, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent, England.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol was a basilisk built in 1544 in Utrecht (in the modern-day Netherlands), the name derived from it being a presented to Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) as a for his daughter (the future Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603) although the first known reference to it being called “Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol” dates from 1767. Some 24 feet (7.3 m) in length and with a 4.75 inch (121 mm) bore, it was said to be able to launch a 10 lb (4.5 kg) ball almost 2000 yards (1.8 km) although as a typical scare tactic, the English made it known to the French and Spanish that its shots were heavier and able to reach seven miles (12 km).  Just to makes sure the point was understood, it was installed to guard the approaches to the cliffs of Dover.  Modern understandings of the physics of ballistics and the use of computer simulations have since suggested there may have been some exaggeration in even the claim of a 2000 yard range and it was likely little more than half that.  Such use of propaganda remains part of the military arsenal to this day.

It was fake news:  Responding to viral reports, the authoritative E!-News in April 2013 confirmed Lindsay Lohan did not "go ballistic" and attack her ex-assistant at a New York City club.  For some reason, far and wide, the fake news had been believed.

Despite the costs involved and the difficulties in maintaining and transporting big cannons, some militaries couldn’t resist them and predictably, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), who thought just about everything (buildings, tanks, trains, monuments, cars, battleships etc) should be bigger, oversaw some of the most massive artillery pieces ever built, often referred to by historians as “super heavy guns”.  The term is no exaggeration and the most striking example were the Schwerer Gustav and Dora.  With a bore of 31.5 inches (800 mm), the Schwerer Gustav and Dora apparatus weighed 1350 tons (1225 tonnes) and could fire a projectile as heavy as 7.1 tons (6.4 tonnes) some 29 miles (47 km).  Two were built, configured as “railway guns” and thus of most utility in highly developed areas where rail tracks lay conveniently close to the targets.  The original design brief from the army ordinance office required long-range device able to destroy heavily fortified targets and for that purpose, they could be effective.  However, each demands as crew of several thousand soldiers, technicians & mechanics with an extensive logistical support system in place to support their operation which could be fewer than one firing per day.  The Schwerer Gustav’s most successful deployment came during the siege of Sevastopol (1942).  Other big-bore weapons followed but success prove patchy, especially as allied control of the skies made the huge, hard to hid machines vulnerable to attack and even mounting them inside rock formations couldn’t resist the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) new, ground-penetrating bombs.

Schwerer Gustav being readied for a test firing, Rügenwalde, Germany, 19 March 1943, Hitler standing second from the right with Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) to his right.  Hitler referred to huge gun as “meine stählerne faust” (my steel fist) but it never fulfilled his high expectations and like many of the gigantic machines which so fascinated the Führer (who treated complaints about their ruinous cost as “tiresome”) it was a misallocation of scarce resources.

It was the development of modern ballistic rockets during World War II (1939-1945) which put an end to big guns (although the Iraqi army did make a quixotic attempt to resurrect the concept, something which involved having a British company “bust” UN (United Nations) sanctions by claiming their gun barrel components were “oil pipes”), the German’s A4 (V-2) rocket the world’s first true long-range ballistic missile. The V-2 represented a massive leap forward in both technology and military application and briefly it would touch “the edge of space” before beginning its ballistic trajectory, reaching altitudes of over 100 km (62 miles) before descending toward its target.  Everything in the field since has to some degree been an evolution of the V-2, the three previous landmarks being (1) the Chinese “Fire Arrows” of the early thirteenth century which were the most refined of the early gunpowder-filled rockets which followed a simple ballistic path, (2) the eighteenth century Indian Mysorean Rockets with the considerable advance of metal casings, the great range a shock to soldiers of the British Raj who had become accustomed to enjoying a technology advantage and (3) the British Congreve Rockets of the early nineteenth century, essentially a refinement of Mysorean enhanced by improved metallurgy and aerodynamics and made more effective still when combined with the well organized logistics of the British military.

Gundeck

Gundeck (pronounced guhn-dek)

(1) Historically, on warships of the sail era, any deck (other than the weather deck) having cannons in permanent place from end to end.

(2) As gundecking, navy slang for falsifying records (now used also in merchant and other commercial shipping) and a synonym of “pencil whip” (to falsify records to convey the impression tasks have been completed).

1670–1680: The construct was gun + deck. Gun (in this context) was from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English gunne & gonne (an engine of war that throws rocks, arrows or other missiles from a tube by the force of explosive powder or other substance), from the “Lady Gunilda”, a very big crossbow with a powerful shot, the second element of the term from the Old Norse.  Originally restricted to the largest of projectile-launchers, “gun” was later applied to all firearms, pistols beginning to be described thus from circa 1745 although the military resisted the spread, preferring to restrict “gun” to mounted cannons, especially the big, long-barrelled (almost always big-bore) devices used with high velocity and long trajectory shells.  Hence the phrase “great guns” (used by both the army & navy) which were distinguished from small arms (muskets, pistols, rifles) and most western militaries still insist pistols are “side arms” rather than guns.  The idiomatic uses seem all to be modern: The use to describe a “thief or rascal: dates from 1858, the phrase “jumping the gun” was US English from 1812 which referenced a sporting competitor anticipating the starter’s pistol and “guns” to mean “a woman’s breasts” is said to be from as recently as 2006, the coining presumably because it was felt there weren’t a sufficient number of slang terms to use in anatomical tribute.  The origin of “son of a gun” is contested.  One theory suggests it dates from the eighteenth century when women sometimes accompanied sailors on long voyages, giving (as seems inevitable) birth on board, the most convenient place being the space between the cannons on the gundeck.  Such a child would therefore be called a “son of a gun” although this doesn’t account for the girls, the explanation for that perhaps as simple as “daughter of a gun” not so effortlessly rolling of the tongue.  There is no documentary evidence to support this and most etymologists appear to suggest the phrase was merely a euphemism for the vulgar “son of a bitch”.  Best of all however was the US Civil War (1861-1865) era story which in which “son of a gun” was used to explain a young lady’s otherwise inexplicable pregnancy by claiming a fired musket ball had passed through a man’s testicle before lodging in her ovaries.  There has never been any medical support for the theory but it’s not impossible the explanation was accepted (if not actually believed), south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The construct of the name Gunnhildr (of which there are many variations) was the Old Norse gunnr (battle, war), from the primitive Indo-European gwhen- (to strike, kill) + hildr (battle), which technically creates a pleonasm but the duplication may be related to the wish to emphasise the size of the weapon.  The linguistic technique is noted in other languages such as that of the Darkinjung people (the original inhabitants of a part of costal New South Wales (NSW), Australia) in which the word for “water, pond etc” was woy and their name for a large body of water was woy woy (which endures as the name of the town Woy Woy, situated next to a deep tidal channel).  In a military context, the woman's name meant “battle maid”, some of the variations (Hilda, Gunilda, Gunhild, Gunhilda, Gunnhildr etc) familiar from Wagnerian interpretations.  Another Middle English adaptation of the women’s name Gunilda was gonnilde (cannon) and it appears also in a military stocktake (written in Anglo-Latin), a munitions inventory of Windsor Castle dating from 1330: “... una magna balista de cornu quae Domina Gunilda ...”  In the usual military manner, ancillary pieces picked up names associated with their primary device, hence the early fourteenth century gonnilde gnoste (spark or flame used to fire a cannon).  Something which might provide some insight into the (male) military mind is the frequency with which women’s names were used of the most extraordinarily powerful artillery pieces (Mons Meg, Big Bertha, Brown Bess etc).  The other influence on the development of the word may have been the Old French engon, a dialectal variant of engin (engine), the word engine’s original meaning better understood as something like “machine” or “constructed device”.

Deck (in this context) was from the mid-fifteenth century Middle English dekke (covering extending from side to side over part of a ship), from a nautical use of the Middle Dutch dec & decke (roof, covering), from the Middle Dutch decken, from the Old Dutch thecken, from the Proto-West Germanic þakkjan, from the Proto-Germanic þakjaną and related to the German Decke (covering, blanket) and the Proto-Germanic thakam (source also of the noun thatch), from the primitive Indo-European root steg & teg- (to cover).  It was thus a doublet of thatch and thack.  In English, the sense was soon extended by the Admiralty from “covering” to “platform of a ship” and the apparently mysterious use from the 1590s meaning “the pack of playing cards necessary to play a game” may have been an allusion to the cards being stacked like the decks of a big ship.  In audio engineering, the tape deck was first documented in 1949, apparently a reference to the flat surface of the old reel-to-reel tape recorders.  Dating from 1844, the deck chair gained its name from their well-publicized use on ocean liners.  The phrase “on deck” was an old admiralty term (famously “all hands on deck”) meaning “ready for action or duty” and by the 1740s it had entered general (non-nautical) use, in the US by 1867 entering the lexicon of baseball in the sense of “a batter waiting a turn at the plate”  The phrase “clear the desks” is now used in many contexts (and a favourite in corporate jargon) but originally was an instruction during a sea-battle to remove from the deck of a ship the wreckage of the engagement (downs masts, sails & spars, the dead and injured etc) which might interfere with a renewal of action.  Perhaps surprisingly, it’s documented only since 1852 but was likely to have been in use at sea for generations and it may be a variation of the French débarasser le pont. (clear the bridge).

Ships of the line

HMS Victory’s 32 Pounders on the Lower Gundeck.

Over time, warships evolved from two or three masted galleons into big, multi-decked affairs, the largest of which (those which would evolve into the dreadnoughts and the successor battleships of the twentieth century) were known as “ships of the line” which would form the backbone of the Western world’s great navies between the seventeen and nineteenth centuries before they gave way to the steam-power.  The idea of the “ship of the line” and the gundeck were intertwined because naval combat evolved into a fighting formation called the “line of battle” in which the opposing fleets manoeuvred to form lines so the guns could be fired in broadside (a simultaneous discharge of all the guns arrayed on one side of a ship).  Physics dictated the advantage in battle lay with the biggest ships with the biggest guns, thus the appearance of ships of the line with two, three or even four gundecks.  Of course, as decks with heavy guns were added, the centre of gravity rose and the need to find the optimal compromise balancing speed, stability and firepower preoccupied naval architects.

Model of HMS Royal William (1719), built as a First Rate (100 gun) triple-gundecked ship of the line, it only ever saw active service as a second and third rate ship.

By the turn of the eighteenth century, the definitive shape of a ship of the line had emerged.  The galleons protruding aft superstructure had been abandoned and they could displace as much as 2000 tons and be 200 feet (60 m) in length with crews of 500-800 sailors.  The cannons were arrayed along the (typically) three gundecks, the 30-odd heaviest guns (32-48 lb) on the lower gundeck, a similar number of 20-24 pounders in the middle with 24-30 12 pounders on the upper, the allocation reflecting the naval architects’ concerns with weight distribution.  The Royal Navy, rated it ships of the line according to firepower, the categories being third rate (up to 70 guns), second rate (70-100 guns) & first rate (over 100 guns) but the admirals were also realists, Lord Nelson (1758-1805) reckoning that on shore, a 12-gun fort could hold its own against a 100 gun ship of the line, a lesson which had apparently been forgotten when in 1915 some pre-dreadnoughts were sent to bombard the fortifications on the Gallipoli Peninsular when an unsuccessful attempt was made to force the straits of the Dardanelles and take Constantinople.

Gundecking

The term “gundecking” was naval slang for the falsification of records (and a synonym of “pencil whip”).  The origin of the tem is speculative but the most plausible explanation is said to relate to midshipmen (the lowest rung of the navy’s commissioned ranks) on the gundeck performing their celestial navigation tasks which (three time a day), were used to determine a ship's position using the morning star sights, the noon sun line, and the evening star sights.  However, not all midshipmen were as diligent as their captain would have hoped and rather than completing the dreary business of computing from fresh observations, simply reckoned the position on the basis of the speed and direction earlier recorded by their more contentious shipmates.  In other words, they made an educated guess and wrote down what they thought the numbers should be.  The term gundecking is now used to indicate the falsification of documentation in order to avoid doing the work required and in commercial shipping, the word is heard in cases which come before the courts.  There are stringent regulations which restrict how ships may process their bilge water (a truly disgusting mix of oil, water and sewerage) and on cruise ships with thousands of passengers there’s a lot of it and it’s an expensive business, ships’ engineers required to maintain hourly records of the purification processes prior to discharge into the open sea.  Because it costs a fraction as much to falsify the records and simply discharge the untreated bilge, some are tempted to “gundeck” the books and just open the valves on what is known as a “magic pipe” which is a straight line from bilge to ocean.  Fines in the order or US$40 million have been imposed so the costs of gundecking can be high.

Lindsay Lohan on community service, armed with a pair of ratchet loppers, gardening, Brooklyn Women's Shelter, New York City, 2015.

In 2015, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles found Lindsay Lohan had been doing a bit of gundecking in recording as “community service” the hours spent working with the charity group Community Service Volunteers (CSV) during the time she was in London appearing in a West End production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the-Plow (1988).  Some of the hours claimed were absorbed lobbying the US insurance company Esurance to donate US$10,000 (£6,440) to the CSV although a statement issued by CSV confirmed Ms Lohan had volunteered on the organisation's “Positive Futures” project, which works with teenagers in Hackney, adding “She has built strong relationships with the young volunteers she has worked with on the scheme.”  The community service order dates from traffic offences in 2012 and the judge found some of her activities in London, including “meeting & greeting” fans didn’t qualify as “community service” and ordered the gundecked hours be annulled with a further 125 hours to be performed.

Sponge

Sponge (pronounced spuhnj)

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

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

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

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

(5) Use loosely, any object which rapidly absorbs something.

(6) As “sponge theory” (1) a term used in climate science which tracks the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting carbon dioxide and (2) one of the competing ideas in the configuration of the US nuclear arsenal which supports the retention of the triad (intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLMB) and those delivered by strategic bombers).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sea sponges.

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

Of sponges and brushes

Dior Backstage Blender (Professional Finish Fluid Foundation Sponge).

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

Lindsay Lohan in court, October 2011.

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

Sponge theory

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

Ever since the US military (sometimes in competition with politicians) first formulated a set of coherent policies which set out the circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used, there have been constant revisions to the plans.  At its peak, the nuclear arsenal contained some 30,000 weapons and the target list extended to a remarkable 10,000 sites, almost all in the Soviet Union (USSR), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe.  Even the generals admitted there was some degree of overkill in all this but rationalized the system on the basis it was the only way to guarantee a success rate close to 100%.  That certainly fitted in with the US military’s long established tradition of “overwhelming” rather than merely “solving” problems.

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

Over the decades, different strategies were from time-to-time adopted as tensions rose and fell or responded to changes in circumstances such as arms control treaties and, most obviously, the end of the Cold War when the USSR was dissolved.  The processes which produced these changes were always the same: (1) inter-service squabbles between the army, navy & air force, (2) the struggle between the politicians and the top brass (many of who proved politically quite adept), (3) the influence of others inside and beyond the “nuclear establishment” including the industrial concerns which designed and manufactured the things, those in think tanks & academic institutions and (4) the (usually anti-nuclear) lobby and activist community.  Many of the discussions were quite abstract, something the generals & admirals seemed to prefer, probably because one of their quoted metrics in the early 1950s was that if in a nuclear exchange there were 50 million dead Russians and only 20 million dead Americans then the US could be said to have “won the war”.  When critics pursued this to its logical conclusion and asked if that was the result even if only one Russian and two Americans were left alive, the military tended to restrict themselves to targets, megatons and abstractions, any descent to specifics like body-counts just tiresome detail.  This meant the strategies came to be summed-up in short, punchy, indicative terms like “deterrence”, “avoidance of escalation” & “retaliation” although the depth was sufficient for even the “short” version prepared for the president’s use in the event of war to be an inch (25 mm) thick.  What was describe varied from a threat of use, a limited strike, various forms of containment (the so-called "limited nuclear war") and sometimes the doomsday option: global thermo-nuclear war.  However, during the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) there emerged a genuine linguistic novelty: “sponge theory”.

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

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

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

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