Carpet

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Poop

Poop (pronounced poop)

(1) In naval architecture, as “poop deck”, a structure at the stern of a vessel.

(2) In nautical jargon, (1) as of a wave, to break over the stern of a ship or (2) to take to take seas over the stern (especially repeatedly).

(3) As “pooped”, a slang term expressing exhaustion or fatigue; has been used as a noun in this context as “an old poop”.

(4) As “pooped out”, a slang term applied usually to machinery which has failed.

(5) As “poop sheet”, military slang for information updates circulated on paper; later adopted as “get the real poop” (get the true facts on something).

(6) As a noun, excrement; as a verb, the act of defecation, both described by most dictionaries as informal and often childish; also recorded as a child’s expression of disappointment; was also used as a euphemism for flatulence, apparently as a more polite replacement for the earlier fart. 

(7) As “party pooper”, a stupid, fussy, or boring person.

(8) As onomatopoeia, to make a short blast on a horn.

Circa 1350: Origin uncertain but possibly from the Middle English powpen, popen & poupen (to make a gulping sound while drinking, blow on a horn, toot) and perhaps influenced by the Dutch poepen (to defecate) and the Low German pupen (to fart; to break wind”); the English adoption of the latter sense dating from 1735–1745.  The sense of information began as the US Army slang “poop sheet” to refer to anything on paper, distributed by the authorities, one of many ways soldiers had to disparage military intelligence, this one comparing official documents to toilet paper, presumably used.  The sense of “information collated on paper” continued in US journalism circles as “get the poop” in the post-war years but was later displaced by other slang as technology changed.  “Party pooper” was first recorded in 1910–1915 which some suggest is derived from nincompoop but not all etymologists are convinced.  The sense from which the poop desk of ships evolved happened independently, although in parallel with, the various onomatopoeic meanings.  Dating from 1375-1425, it was from the Middle English poupe & pope, from the Old French pope, poupe & pouppe, from the Italian poppa, from the Vulgar Latin puppa, from the Classical Latin puppis, all meaning “stern of a ship”.  All alternative spellings are long obsolete.  Poop & pooping are nouns & verbs and pooped is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is poops. 

A costal carpet python pooping.

In humans and other animals, although the general principle remains (if not exactly accurately) “What goes in, must come out”, there are a number of variables involved in the parameters of poop production, most obviously diet.  This coastal carpet python was seen on the Sunshine Coast in the state of Queensland, Australia and experts in such things commented there was nothing unusual in the behavior.  As they explained: “Carpet pythons will usually eat one big meal, such as a possum”, the meal lasting “...a while as slowly it's digested..." whereas “...smaller snakes, like tiger snakes, eat smaller prey like frogs.  So they will relieve themselves more regularly and with smaller stools.”  Ophiologists (those dedicated to the study of snakes) note also that there's not of necessity any direct correlation between the size of a snake and the volume of their poop, factors such as diet, climate and age all influencing the outcome and observational studies in zoos have concluded that some snakes seem simply to prefer to poop more often than others.  Now we know.

Poop porn: A scorpion taking a poop. 

The Poop Deck

Schematic of a sailing ship hull.

In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck which forms the roof of a cabin or other enclosure built in the aft (rear) of a ship’s superstructure.  On larger vessels, the cabin was usually called either the “poop cabin” or “navigation cabin”. The significance of the poop desk is that it was from here the ship was sailed; it was for centuries the highest point of a ship’s main structure and so offered the best visibility.  The captain or officer of the watch would from the poop desk instruct the helmsman how to steer with the rudder and relay instructions to those trimming the sails, to change both speed and direction.  The helmsman turned the rudder using a big wheel mounted on the quarter deck, adjacent to and within earshot of the captain on the poop deck.  The placement of poop and quarter decks was dictated by the need for the wheel to be directly above the rudder’s controls because there was no electronic or hydraulic assistance; movements of the wheel purely mechanical, acting on the rudder through a system of ropes and pulleys so distances between the two had to be kept as short as possible.

A stylized representation of a carrack or gallon of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries.

On modern, motorized ships, the navigational functions once directed from the poop deck have been moved to the bridge, usually located towards the bow (front) although in many cargo vessels (bulk carriers, tankers, container ships etc) the infrastructure is constructed close to the stern (back) to because this optimizes the architecture for load-carrying (loading & unloading as well as capacity).  Poop desks still exist on some naval and commercial vessels and not merely as terms of naval architecture because the space has been re-purposed.  On larger pleasure craft (such as the big yachts billionaires like), poop decks variously are allocated as viewing areas (sometimes with a diving platform), entertainment spaces or a helicopter pad.  On such vessels, many Instagram shots are now taken on poop decks.

The USN's (US Navy) USS Gerald R. Ford.

Laid down in 2009 and commissioned in 2017, she was the lead ship in the Gerald R. Ford class and although a second is scheduled to be launched in 2027, whether the planned series of ten will ever be completed is uncertain because the advances in autonomous underwater and aerial warfare have been such that a school of thought now exists among the navalists that the big ships may become so vulnerable (the factor which doomed the battleship, the last launched in 1946) the programme will need to be re-assessed.  Visually, the most obvious innovation on the Gerald R. Ford was locating the island closer to aft.

One exception to bridge placement is the modern aircraft carrier.  Although in the concept of naval aviation was explored even before World War I (1914-1918), it was in the 1920s dedicated vessels began to be launched and these set the template (a flat, flush flight-deck with the bridge and other superstructure to one side and centralized) which is used still although decks are often no longer always wholly flat.  On carriers, that control superstructure is called the “island” and while some early designs by British and Japanese naval architects featured unconventional arrangements (including port-side or multiple islands), what emerged as a convention was the long-standardized starboard (right-hand side) configuration, something dictated by it best reconciling the competing demands of deck operations, aerodynamics and “human factors”.  Because carrier-based aviators have been trained to almost always fly a left-hand circuit when recovering, they approach the ship from the port (left-hand side) side and land along an angled deck offset to port.

Lindsay Lohan on the poop deck of a yacht cruising of the coast of Sardinia, July 2016.

By placing the island to starboard side, it’s kept from a aviator’s line of sight during the most critical phase (the final approach) and the reduces visual clutter which can lead to a perception of obstacles on the landing side.  The need to optimize visibility should not be underestimated because landings sometimes have to be undertaken on pitching, rolling decks so efficient geometry matters.  Movement at sea and prevailing winds can also create turbulent air behind an island (the so-called “air-wake”) and locating it on the starboard side minimises the intrusion of the worst of the disturbed airflow away from the port-side angled landing area; even more than deck movement, stable air is most critical for safe recoveries.  The most significant aspect of the “human factor” is that a standardized layout permits standardised procedures for deck operations (taxiing, aircraft spotting, crew placement during take-offs & landings etc) so people moving from one carrier to another will know the locations of obstructions, control points, “safe lanes” and such.

Chartreuse

Chartreuse (pronounced shahr-trooz or shahr-troos or shar-trœz (French))

(1) As a color range, varying from a clear yellowish-green to a strong greenish-yellow.

(2) Of the color chartreuse used, inter-alia, to describe the color now used for tennis balls when people can’t agree whether they’re a shade of yellow or green (officially they are "optic yellow").

(3) A aromatic liqueur produced in a number of varieties (mainly one green, one yellow), distilled by the Carthusian monks at Grenoble, France (and formerly at Tarragona, Spain) (initial capital).

(4) A kind of enamelled pottery.

(5) In cooking, a dish of French origin in which vegetables (and sometimes meat) are wrapped tightly in a decorative layer of salad or vegetable leaves and cooked in a mould (historically dome-shaped many are now used).  The original recipe used by the monastic order of Carthusians was exclusively vegetarian.

(6) A female given name (the use of English origin).

1865–1870: From the French, named after La Grande Chartreuse, the Carthusian monastery near Grenoble, where the liqueur is distilled (the massif de la Chartreuse (Carthusianus in the Medieval Latin) a mountain group in the French Prealps).  Charterhouse, one of the great English public schools (upon which the framework of the British establishment continues to be built) was founded in London in 1611, the name a folk etymology alteration of chartreux which was chosen because the school’s location was the site of a Carthusian monastery.  Chartreuse is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is chartreuses.

Chartreuse Yellow.  A footnote in The Dairies of Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) (1976), edited by Michael Davie (1924-2005), records the lisping Sir Francis Laking (third and last baronet, 1904-1930): “drank himself to death on yellow chartreuse, aged 28.”  He should have been noted as dying at 27.

The Order of Carthusians was founded in 1084 and, in separate institutions, includes both monks and nuns, the name derived from the massif de la Chartreuse, a mountain group the French Prealps; the order’s first buildings were erected close to Chartreux, a village in Dauphiné, near Grenoble.  The Ordo Cartusiensis (the Order of Carthusians and styled usually as “the Carthusians” (“the Certosini” the collective)) is a Latin enclosed religious order of the Roman Catholic Church.  A “Latin Religious Order” describes a religious institution which follows the Latin Rite (sometimes referred to as “Roman Rite” or “Roman Ritual”), the liturgical tradition used predominantly used in the Western Church and notable distinct from the practices of the Eastern Catholic Churches (the Orthodox).  The Carthusians retain the Carthusian Rite, a unique liturgy.  An “Enclosed Religious Order” is a community of men or women (never the twain shall meet) who have taken religious vows (typically perfect poverty, chastity & obedience (ultimately to the pope)) and live a contemplative or monastic life.  As the term “enclosed” implies, the members live in secluded from the outside world, usually in a monastery or convent although it’s now rare to find institutions where the seclusion from society is absolute.  A “Latin enclosed religious order” is thus a combination of these criteria, a Roman Catholic religious order adhering to the Latin Rite and following a contemplative or monastic lifestyle within an enclosed setting.  There are between orders variations in how the vows are discharged but the essence is that members dedicate themselves to prayer, contemplation, and a life of asceticism, this thought a contribution to the spiritual life of the Church and it can have practical manifestations such as publications on matters which historically have not exclusively been thematically religious.

Chartreuse VEP Green.  The VEP (Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé (exceptionally prolonged aging) releases are available in both yellow & green and are aged in oak casks.

Sometimes, the output is less in abstractions and more in stuff which benefits many including liqueurs, the Benedictines making Benedictine and the Carthusians, Chartreuse.  In one form or another, the Certosini monks have been distilling the liqueur since 1737 (although some experts insist, on arcane technical grounds, that it should be considered an “alcoholic cordial”).  Both Green Chartreuse and Yellow Chartreuse are made using a recipe of herbs, plants, and botanicals, the mix said to be “secret” and only ever revealed to two living monks at any time (a protocol later adopted by both the Coca-Cola Company and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)).  The green Chartreuse is more intense, spicy and herbal and has a higher alcohol content than the yellow but both have a role, yellow more suited to a flambé while green is better to drink straight or in cocktails.  That said, because yellow is milder and sweeter, there are those who prefer it for all purposes, the honeyed sweetness the essence of the appeal.  There are also special mixes of (related often to aging) and in the past, others were available including a White Chartreuse.

Chartreuse ("optic yellow" according to the IFT (International Tennis Federation)) tennis balls were introduced because they worked better than white on color television but the players also expressed support for the change because they were easier to see when on or over a court's white lines: Highly qualified model Jordan Carver (persona of Ina-Maria Schnitzer (b 1986)) demonstrates the excellent color contrast by bouncing (ie the optic yellow tennis balls).

The use of chartreuse as a color name dates from 1884 and was drawn from the apple-green hue of the finest of the liqueurs.  Because the best known versions of the drink have been both a yellow and green hue, the color chartreuse is understood as a spectrum and often described as a “greenish yellow” or “yellowish green”, the color a helpful compromise in disputes about how modern tennis balls should be described.  It’s actually a relatively recent argument because until the 1970s tennis balls were almost always white (although when playing on many surfaces they quickly discolored) but the (inexplicable to some) popularity of the sport on television changed that because when in the 1960s & 1970s the industry transitioned to broadcasting in color, it was soon apparent colored balls were more visible than white (or whatever they became).  At scale, the switch began in the early 1970s although the All England Club (really not approving of anything which has happened since 1914) held out, Wimbledon not adopting optic yellow balls until 1986.

ColorHex’s spectrum chart of colors close to #ccff00.

According to the ITF, the shade is “optic yellow” although the online color decoder ColorHexa redirects “optic yellow” requests to #ccff00 which is described as “fluorescent yellow” or “electric lime” and its spectrum chart displays a spread from yellow to green in accord with the range usually understood as “chartreuse”.  For anyone wanting to describe chartreuse (or any yellowish-green color) with a word which has the virtues of (1) being hard to pronounce, (2) harder to spell and (3) likely to baffle most of one’s interlocutors, there’s “smaragdine” (pronounced smuh-rag-din), from the Latin smaragdinus, from smaragdus (emerald), from the Ancient Greek σμάραγδινος (smáragdinos), from σμάραγδος (smáragdos).

The chartreuse trend on the red carpet (left to right): Sofia Resing (b 1991), Cannes Film Festival 2021; Ella Purnell (b 1996), Critics Choice Awards 2022; Niecy Nash-Betts (b 1970), Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards 2023 and Jessica Chastain (b 1977), Emmy Awards 2024.

Although in recent years it’s been the “nude” (or “naked”, depending on what the writer wishes to imply) dress which has caught the eye and focused the mind, since the COVID-19 pandemic, critics have noted chartreuse, a long neglected (almost ignored) color has been trending on red carpets of which there are now many.  It’s unlikely this has anything to do with COVID-19 at the biological level but the bright, vibrant hue may initially have been part of the general reaction to the gloom of lockdowns and the look just caught on.  It won’t last but while it’s here, it should be enjoyed.

Lindsay Lohan leaving the Whisky Mist nightclub, London, June 2014, security staff in hi-viz chartreuse (left), chartreuse mixed & matched in hi-viz gear (centre) and country & western (C&W) singer-songwriter Priscilla Block (b 1995) on the red carpet, Country Music Association (CMA) awards ceremony 2023 (right).

On specialized garments chartreuse has of course become familiar as the symbol of the onrush of occupational health & safety (OHS) regulations although on safety jackets and such it tends to be called “Hi-Viz (high-visibility) Yellow” which, along with “Hi-Viz Orange” was one of the first shades used.  The yellow was found so effective its use spread to applications such as emergency vehicles, mainly because it was found to work in darkness so much better than the traditional reds and oranges.  Others quickly followed and some institutions have formal rules about who wears which color, the distinction tied variously to role, location, place in the hierarchy etc.  The rules seem most enforced in the allocation of the colors used for safety helmets.  C&W singer-songwriter Priscilla Block added a post-modern touch by eschewing a gown in any shade, appearing on the red carpet wearing actual hi-viz gear over a chartreuse outfit, the ensemble complemented by a traffic cone in hi-viz orange.  When interviewed, she indicated the novel choice was something she thought in keeping with the demographic of her audience who were quite likely to work in jobs requiring hi-viz gear.

Actually, although the stylists and fashionistas probably imagined they had spotted a new red carpet trend, the appearance of all that chartreuse swishing around would have been greeted with a yawn by the real trend-setters, the electricians, cablers and construction staff who have for decades been rocking the look.