Copper

Copper (pronounced kop-er)

(1) A malleable, ductile, metallic element having a characteristic reddish-brown color, occurring as the free metal, copper glance, and copper pyrites: used as an electrical and thermal conductor and in such alloys as brass and bronze.

(2) As a color, a metallic, reddish brown.

(3) A slang term for a coin (usually of a smaller denomination) composed of copper, bronze etc.

(4) A slang term for a hedge (archaic).

(5) A slang term for a police or other law-enforcement officer, now usually as the shortened “cop”.

(6) In lepidopterology, any of several butterflies of the family Lycaenidae, as Lycaena hypophleas (American copper), having copper-colored wings spotted and edged with black.

(7) In slang and informal use, a tool or any of the various specialized items made from copper, where the use of copper is either traditional or vital to the function of the item.

(8) In historic UK & Commonwealth use, a large kettle (now usually made of cast iron), used for cooking or to boil the laundry (archaic and functionally extinct); a once popular term for any container made of copper.

(9) To cover, coat, or sheathe with copper.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English coper & copper, from the Old English coper & copor, from the Late Latin cuprum (copper), from the Latin aes Cyprium (literally “Cyprian brass” (ie metal from the island of Cyprus)), from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).  It was cognate with the Dutch koper (copper), the Old Norse koparr (copper), the German Kupfer (copper) and the Icelandic kopar (copper).  The alternative spelling coper (a hangover from the Middle English) is obsolete.  Copper & are nouns, verbs & adjectives, copperas is a noun, coppered & coppering are verbs & adjectives and coppery, cupric, cupreous & cuprous are adjectives; the noun plural is coppers.

In the Ancient Greek there was khalkos (ore, copper, bronze), a direct borrowing of the primitive Indo-European word meaning "ore, copper, bronze" and familiar in the Sanskrit ayah and the Latin aes.  In Classical Latin aes originally was used of copper but as technology evolved, this was extended to bronze (its alloy with tin) and because bronze was used much more than pure copper, the word's primary sense shifted to the alloy and a new word evolved for "copper," from the Latin form of the name of the island of Cyprus, where the copper mines were located.  Cyprus being the birthplace of Aphrodite (Venus), this led (in the way mythology adapted to the times) to the association of by alchemists of Aphrodite with copper.  Aes passed into the proto-Germanic where originally no linguistic distinction existed between copper from its alloys while in English it became “ore”.  In Latin vernacular, aes was used also to mean “cash, coin, debt, wages” in many figurative expressions. The chemical symbol Cu is from cuprum, from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).

The use to describe coins made of (or appearing to be made of) copper dates from the 1580s while to refer to vessels (jars, tubs, pots etc) made from the metal it came into use in the 1660s, the adjective cupreous (consisting of or containing copper (from the Late Latin cupreus (of copper), from cuprum (an, alternative form of cyprum (copper)) emerging in parallel.   The adjectival use in the sense of “made from or resembling copper” emerged in the 1570, a development from the verb, in use since the 1520s.  The alloy copper-nickel was first used to mint coins in 1728.  The trade of coppersmithing, practiced by the coppersmith (artisan who works in copper), was a creation of the early fourteenth century and was, as was practice at the time, soon used as a surname.  The noun copperplate (also copper-plate) described a "plate of polished copper, engraved and etched" dates from the 1660s and was later used figuratively to describe designs (wallpaper, woodcuts, carvings, carpet etc) with some resemblance to the styled metal.  Perhaps surprisingly, the adjectival sense in the sense of an allusion to the reddish-brown color isn’t documented until the turn of the nineteenth century (“cupric” used thus in 1799 and "copper-colored" after 1804) although it may earlier have been part of one or more oral traditions.

Symbol: Cu.
Atomic number: 29.
Atomic weight: 63.546.
Valency: 1 or 2.
Relative density: 8.96.
Specific gravity: 8.92 at 20°C.
Melting point: 1084.87±+0.2°C.
Boiling point: 2563°C

In an example of the way English must seem strange to speakers of more apparently logically languages, the use of “cop” as a slang term for “police or other law-enforcement officer” is a shortening of “copper” but that is etymologically unrelated to the metal, the use of “copper” to describe policemen (at a time all were men” derived from the English “cop”.  The construct was cop (to take, capture, seize) +‎ -er (the agent suffix).  Cop is of uncertain origin but the most likely link is with the Middle English coppen & copen, from the Old English copian (to plunder; pillage; steal) although some etymologists have also suggested the Middle French caper (to capture), from the Latin capiō (to seize, grasp) or the Dutch kapen (to seize, hijack), from the Old Frisian kāpia (to buy), source of the Saterland Frisian koopje and the North Frisian koope.  A perhaps related form was the Middle English copen (to buy), from the Middle Dutch copen.

New York's Statute of Liberty with the copper skin colored as it would have appeared in France, prior to being shipped to the US for erection in  in 1886 (left) and as it appeared decades later, the metal showing the effects of oxidization (right).  

The expression “to cop” was thus used in the sense of “to steal” but also (as a transitive verb) “to (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing”, hence the expressed notions of “cop the blame”, “cop an injury” etc.  It was the association with crime and violence which in the nineteenth century saw "copper" (one who cops (apprehends) the criminal) adopted in the UK (first documented in 1846) to describe what were then the still relatively novel (in the sense of a structured, publicly-funded force) policemen and as “cop”, the world spread world-wide.  Cop also had a mono-syllabic appeal to many sub-cultures who took up the sense of “to obtain; acquire; purchase”; it was used (1) by drug users to express acquisition of narcotics, (2) among anoraks (train-spotters, plane-spotters, bird-watchers etc) to mark the observation and recording of something unique or at least rare and (3) by those living off immoral earnings (pimps), to speak of the recruitment of a prostitute to the lineup.  There was also the alleged slang form “fair cop”, said to be used by criminals (to cops) when admitting guilt although whether this was as common in real life as it was in the imaginations of crime writers isn’t known although “bent copper” (a corrupt police officer) still enjoys some currency.

JTC Roofing in the UK provided a chart using the Statute of Liberty to illustrate the natural process by which copper gradually changes in color from the original reddish-brown to green, a chemical reaction between the metal and the oxygen in the atmosphere, something known as oxidation.  In an aesthetic sense, the transition to green is part of copper’s charming patina but it’s also functional, providing a protective coating which protects surface deterioration and in this it differs from a ferrous metal like iron which, under oxidation, becomes rusted, the rust eating into the material.  The result can be seen in the light bluish-green copper facades which adorn many copper rooftops and structures and the pallette evolves over years before the familiar green tint achieves a final hue, something influenced also by atmospheric and climatic conditions.

The patination of copper induced by oxidation can be emulated in hair colors: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates. 

Helpfully, World of Chemicals has explained the chemistry.  When in 1886 the Statute of Liberty was assembled and erected after being shipped from France, it was a quite dull brown, reflecting the process of oxidation which had already taken from the metal the shininess which the coppersmiths and engineers would have seen when first working on the pates in Paris and it would take another 30-odd years of weathering before the now familiar color settled.  This patination is fine if a structure for decades remains untouched but in some uses in architecture (especially roofs which are vulnerable to damage), it’s sometimes necessary to replace copper panels which can result in an unsightly patchwork of colors.  For this reason, the industry has developed processes of pre-patination which can render copper panels with specific degrees of patination to match a sample of the damaged item, thus providing a close color-match.

Because of its location and the era in which it has stood, the particular path to verdigris (from the French vert-de-gris (literally “green of Greece”)) assumed by the Statute of Liberty was influenced by the unique environmental conditions.  Although the process is linguistically encapsulated as “oxidation”, it's not a simple single reaction between copper and oxygen because the generated green oxide continues to react to make copper carbonates, copper sulphide, and copper sulphate.  Initially, the copper reacts with oxygen from the air in a redox reaction, the metal donating electrons to oxygen, which oxidises the copper and reduces the oxygen, the copper oxide continuing to react with oxygen to form copper oxide.  However, for many of the decades in which the statute stood, the atmosphere contained much sulphur from the burning of coal and this induced another reaction which produced copper sulphide (black) which reacts with atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydroxide ions from water vapour, forming three compounds all of which exist in shades of blue or green.  The speed at which the patina develops and evolution of the colour depends on factors like temperature, humidity and air pollution, not just the presence of oxygen and carbon dioxide and, in another time, in another place, things would have unfolded differently.

Statue of Liberty (1962), silkscreen print by Andy Warhol. 

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) produced a few depictions of the Statute of Liberty, mostly variations of the familiar theme made famous by his prints of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) but one with a touch of something original was a silkscreen rendering in 1962 of multiple tiled images in 3D.  At auction by Christies (New York) in 2012, it sold for US$43.8 million, part of a collection of contemporary art that realized an encouraging US$412.3 million, regarded at the time as a sign the market was recovering from the shock of the global financial crisis (GFC); the US Federal Reserve (The Fed) must have been pleased to see all that quantitative easing being spent wisely.  Even so, it didn’t set a record for a Warhol, Eight Elvises sold in a private sale 2008 for a reputed US$100 million although the auction house did throw in a pair of 3D glasses with the catalogue so there was that.  In 2013, another Warhol from 1963 set a pop-art record which stands today, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) selling at auction for US$105.4 million.

Trinitite

Trinitite (pronounced trin-a-tight)

(1) The glassy residue left on the desert floor after the Trinity nuclear bomb test of 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA.

(2) By extension, any melt glasses left by nuclear bombs (known also as Alamogordo, atomsite glass or nuclear melt glass).

1945: Compound word trinity +‎ -ite.  Trinity is from the Middle English trinitie & trinite from the Anglo-Norman trinitie or trinite (or ternite, trenite, trinetei, trinitiet & trinitet) from the Latin trīnitātem, accusative singular of trīnitās (the number three; a triad; the Trinity), from trīni (from trīnus (triple) from trēs, from the Proto-Italic trēs, from the primitive Indo-European tréyes (three)) + the suffix -itās from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts from the primitive Indo-European –tehts, the suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being.  The suffix –ite is from the Ancient Greek -ίτης (-ítēs) and was adopted in Latin as part of Greek loanwords, both as –ītēs but also often as -īta.  It was used in Biblical tribal names (Thus either Levītēs or Levīta; plural in –ītae) and in the Medieval Latin of religious groups, such as Marcionītae, Ebiōnītae, Monophysītae.  It’s an adjective-forming suffix, especially of nominalised adjectives identifying groups of people as "those belonging to".

It was the physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967), head of the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons, who choose the name of the test site for the first atom bomb: Trinity.  He’s remembered for a snatch of verse he said the sight of the first atomic explosion made him recall, words from the Bhagavad Gita: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Oppenheimer also had a fondness for the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (1572–1631), the Church of England cleric and said he remembered also:

As West and East

In all flat Maps—and I am one—are one

So death doth touch the Resurrection

 

While those lines do not a Trinity make, others do such as Batter my heart, three person’d God and the Holy Trinity permeates much of his Donne's work.

Variations since Trinity include kharitonchik (melt glasses from the Soviet nuclear bomb Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan), impactite (metamorphic minerals caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), impact glass (melt glasses caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), fulgurite (melt glasses caused by lightning strikes) and fusion crust (metamorphic minerals on the surface of meteorites caused by atmospheric entry heating).  Trinitite has also been referred to as atomsite or Alamogordo glass (after the nearby city).

Physicist Norris Bradbury (1909–1997; director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1945-1970), group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the partially assembled "Gadget" (code-name for the first plutonium A-bomb) atop the test tower, New Mexico, 16 July 1945).

The Trinity test of the plutonium A-bomb in New Mexico in July 1945 was a genuine test.  The uranium A-bomb which had also been built and which ultimately was dropped on Hiroshima in August was a device in which the scientists had such faith that it was deemed no test was necessary, something that sounds astonishing now but among all the physicists and engineers attached to the Manhattan Project (the A-bomb development team), there were no dissenting voices.  As a uranium bomb, the Hiroshima device was (at least for decades) a genuine one-off, all subsequent nuclear weapons being plutonium-based devices (and that may still be true; the details of the DPRK’s (North Korea) bombs remaining murky).  A uranium bomb turned out to be (relatively) easy to design and build and the trigger mechanism was simple but production of uranium to the specification required was a slow and exacting process given the machinery at the time available.  By contrast, a supply of weapons-grade plutonium was possible with the existing facilities but it was a formidable engineering challenge to create the trigger mechanism while ensuring the device remained within the size and weight parameters of a gravity bomb dropped from an aircraft which would have to fly thousands of miles to reach the target.  The Hiroshima bomb could be made to explode simply by firing a uranium bullet into the uranium core but if that approach was used with plutonium, all that would happen would be the melting of the core.  The solution was to surround the core with sufficient high-explosive to create the pressure required to trigger the chain reaction.  It was this process that the Trinity was staged to test.

Green Trinitite.

Although the test was over seventy-five years ago and completely fulfilled the purpose of testing the plutonium bomb, it was in another sense an extraordinary experiment in high-energy physics and even in the twenty-first century, analysis of the data and the physical aftermath at the site continues to reveal interesting discoveries.  Geological excavations in 2005 confirmed that the explosion, as predicted, initially pushed-down the ground but that it then rebounded, forcing the material upwards into the fireball in the sky where it was vaporized before cooling and crystallizing, eventually raining down in the form of the trinitite fragments.  Most of the trinitite was green because of the iron content in the sand while a smaller volume was black because their source was the iron from which Trinity’s tower structure was constructed and, being refined and processed, the iron content was much greater than that in the sand.  Finally, among all the trinitite, there was found a tiny number of red crystals which gained their color from all the copper cables which were also vaporized.  The propensity of copper to color its immediate environment was well-known, the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto formed in 1873 with a company name from the Rio Tinto (red river or Tinto River); the highly acidic river in the Sierra Morena mountains of southwestern Spain that runs red & orange because of the high copper content in the surrounding soil.

Red Trinitite.

Beginning in that fraction of a second when the nuclear age was born was the process which produced the red crystals, the extreme pressure and temperature (the Trinity site was briefly hotter than the surface of the Sun) forging a most unusual structure within one grain of the material just 10 micrometers across (barely longer than a red blood cell).  Made from silicon, copper, calcium and iron, the rare form of matter was called a quasicrystal.  Normally, crystals are made from atoms locked in a lattice that repeats in a regular pattern but quasicrystals, while having a structure that is orderly like a normal crystal, don’t have patterns which repeat and this grants quasicrystals properties forbidden to normal crystals.  First discovered in laboratory observations during the 1980s, quasicrystals also occur naturally in meteorites, matter transformed by stars, another place of extreme heat and pressure.

The Trinity test, the world's first nuclear explosion.

Until their observation in the 1980s, physicists regarded quasicrystals as “impossible” because they would have violated the rules scientists had over centuries constructed to define crystalline materials; the quasicrystal was thus a ‘black swan” moment in physics.  Traditionally, crystals were held to possess what were known as “rotational symmetries”, places where the structure could symmetrically be split in half, along one, two, three, four and six axes.  The black swan quasicrystal broke the rules or, more precisely, proved the rules were wrong, demonstrating instead an “icosahedral symmetry” a construct which includes six independent five-fold symmetry axes; as solids with these rotational symmetries, the quasicrystal is unique.  To the US military-industrial complex, it may also prove uniquely useful because, if a sample could be obtained of a quasicrystal created during nuclear tests conducted by other nations, it could be analyzed and might yield new understandings of their programs and weapons.  It’s always been possible to examine radioactive debris and gases to build models of how the devices were built and the materials used but those signatures decay.  Not only might a quasicrystal reveal new information but, and this is obviously most useful if the analytical process uses non-destructive tests, quasicrystals are a form of matter which goes as close (theoretically) to lasting forever as any yet known.

Rubicon

Rubicon (pronounced roo-be-kon)

(1) A river, some 50 miles (80 km) in length in northern Italy, flowing eastwards into the Adriatic.

(2) A point of no return expressed as crossing the Rubicon (sometimes not capitalized; both considered correct).

(3) A penalty in piquet by which the score of a player who fails to reach 100 points in six hands is added to his opponent's total.

The Latin rubicō was derived from the adjective rubeus (red).  The river's name was from rubicundus (ruddy) and was a reference to the color of the soil on its banks.  Two-thousand odd years later, the mining company Rio Tinto similarly picked up its name from the river where copper was first mined.  Rio Tinto in Spanish translates as "colored river", the color caused by copper deposits leeching into the waters.  The figurative phrase "cross (occasionally "pass") the Rubicon" meaning "take a decisive step" or "past the point of no return" is from the 1620s, a reference to the crossing in 49 BC, in defiance of Roman law, when Julius Caesar (100-44 BC; Roman general and dictator of Rome 49-44 BC) left his province to attack Pompey.

The die it is cast

A kind of Mason-Dixon Line from Antiquity, during the Roman republic, the Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome to the south.  Governors of Roman provinces were granted an essentially absolute executive authority in their territory, the governor serving as general of the Roman army within his province.  Roman civil law specified that only elected consuls and praetors could hold such authority within Italy so any provincial governor entering Italy at the head of his troops forfeited his office was therefore no longer legally allowed to command troops.  It was more than an administrative point because exercising military authority without authority was a capital offense and this extended to the soldiers under command.  The point of the law was to prevent generals with political ambitions from marching on Rome with their own army.

2015 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar led a single legion over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome; in doing this, he deliberately broke the law and made war inevitable.   Writers at the time noted Caesar paused on the northern bank and waited a while, attributing this delay to his contemplation of the enormity of what he was about to do; a general needs to think a bit before committing mutiny.  As described by Suetonius Tranquillus (circa 69–circa 128), as he crossed the Rubicon, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est (the die has been cast).  The phrase crossing the Rubicon has endured to refer to individuals or groups committing irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action.  It means the point of no return, what’s done is done and can’t be undone.

Julius Caesar and the Crossing of the Rubicon (1493-1494) by Francesco Granacci (1469-1543).

An insight into the tastes of those who actually paid for art during the Renaissance, the imagery presented in Granacci's work would have been far removed from how Caesar, a practical military man at the head of a legion, would have done a river crossing into hostile territory.  The painting does though reflect the influences from the art of Antiquity, especially in the representation of armors.  Granacci  trained in Florence, with Michelangelo (1475–1564), in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (circa 1448-1494), and the two then studied sculpture in the Medici garden at the Casino Mediceo di San Marco under the supervision of Bertoldo di Giovanni (circa 1420-1491).  One of the noted artists of the era and a long-time collaborator of Michelangelo, his best remembered work is probably the high altarpiece for the church of Sant'Apollonia, Florence (1530).

BeiBao Lindsay Lohan spare wheel cover on Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

Caesar's swift military action forced the lawful consuls and a large part of the Roman Senate to flee Rome in fear and his subsequent victory in the civil war and takeover of the state ensured punishment for the infraction would never be imposed.

Drahtfunk

Drahtfunk (pronounced draat-fuenk)

The broadcasting of audio signals through wire or cable connections rather than airwaves.  Drahtfunk translates from the German as “wired radio”, the collective noun being Drahtfunkeinrichtungen (wired radio equipment).

1937: A German compound noun, the construct being draht (wired) + funk (radio).  The German Funk can also be translated as "wireless" so Drahtfunk can be understood as "wired wireless" so that's good.   Draht was from the Middle High German drāt (wire, thread), from the Old High German drāt or thrāt, from the Proto-Germanic þrēduz, from the primitive Indo-European treh- from terh- (rub, twist).  It was related to drehen (to turn, twist), with which it was still associated in early modern German (evidence for which is the insertion of the lengthening -h-, used only before sonorants or stem-finally).  It was cognate with the Dutch draad, the Low German Draat, the English thread, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish trad and the Icelandic þráður.  The genitive is Drahtes, the plural Drähte and the diminutive, Drähtchen.  In Modern German, the sense of wire (thread of metal; conductor) remains but is obsolete for threads made from other materials.  Funk was from the Proto-Germanic funkô or fankô (spark), from the primitive Indo-European speng- or spheng- (to shine).  It was cognate with the Middle Low German funke & fanke (spark), the Middle Dutch vonke (spark), the Old High German funcho & funko (spark) and the German Funke (spark).  In the Middle English it existed as funke & fonke (spark) from the Old English funca & fanca (spark), from the same roots as the Germanic although some other meanings in English evolved independently.

Funk, stemming from funken (spark), came to mean “radio” in German, because some of the earliest wireless telegraphs used spark gap transmitters, thus creating the association with radio, and many compounds have been formed, added both at beginning (Funkspruch, Funkbearbeitung) and end (Mobilfunk, Bordfunk).  Drahtfunk is a masculine noun; in German, both the spelling of the word and the article preceding the word can change depending on whether it is in the nominative, accusative, genitive, or dative case.  Given the meaning, it exists as a masculine singular only; no plural form.  The nominative is der Drahtfunk, the accusative den Drahtfunk, the genitive des Drahtfunks and the dative dem Drahtfunk.

Radio technology under the Third Reich

Developed during the 1930s in Germany, wired radio was analogous with the technological dualism of ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), the DSL technology which, beginning in 1998, was the first convenient and widely adopted domestic internet broadband.  Like ADSL, Drahtfunk ran (at a higher frequency than telephony) over the analogue copper pairs used for fixed line telephones, the attraction for both systems being the copper wires were usually existing infrastructure, thus making it faster and cheaper to deploy the new technology.  The mechanism of the physical connection would also be familiar to anyone who used an ADSL service: a crossover with two outputs (often called the "splitter box) connected to the telephone socket, one (input/output) feed connected to the handset, the (input only) to the radio's antenna socket.  Although Drahtfunk was first implemented at scale during the Third Reich (1933-1945), it was actually developed by the postal service (responsible for telephony) during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  Had it earlier been available there's little doubt the Nazis would have sought to use the medium because they understood the power of voice, part of their campaign material in the (many) elections they contested under the republic including gramophone records containing edited highlights of Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) speeches.  Because the technology of the time permitted at most around 15 minutes per side of a disk, some editing was required.  Whether the authorities would have permitted the Nazis to broadcast in this way isn't known and the low take-up rate of phone-lines into homes would anyway have limited the value.         

Although, most curiously, there's little to suggest they ever explored the possibility of television, the  Nazis were enthusiastic about radio as a medium for political indoctrination, Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945), who, while evil, was a fair judge of such things, thought the success of the régime “…would have been impossible” without radio.  However, in the early 1930s, receiver sets were expensive, even when subsidized by the state so Drahtfunk was developed in the hope sets could cheaply be mass-produced and use the existing phone lines.  However, advances in electronics made conventional radios cheaper and the take up of telephone connections was slower than expected so Drahtfunk was barely used by households, adopted mostly by the military which had run literally thousands of kilometers of telephone wires to ensure a independent means of communications between bases and to headquarters staff, the other attraction being that unlike any implementation of RF (radio frequency) transmission which pass through the air, wired messaging was inherently secret.

Pamphlet issued by the Allied Control Commission explaining the operation of Drahtfunk, Berlin, January 1946.

It was revived in 1943 when it was realized allied bomber fleets were using radio transmissions to hone in on targets, something especially significant at night when urban areas were subject to blackouts, thus depriving aircrew of visual navigation and bomb-aiming.  As a counter-measure, conventional radio signals were switched off when enemy aircraft were approaching, listeners advised to switch to the Drahtfunk by plugging their set into a splitter-box wired to the telephone cable, the process the same as an ADSL connection which plugs the two lines into a line-splitter or filter.  In the post-war years, US occupation forces continued to use the system in their Berlin occupation zone after being unable to reach agreement with the Russians to share the conventional broadcast system, all the infrastructure physically in the Soviet zone.  Thus, after it was estimated the installation of medium and long wave transmitters in the American sector would take months, beginning in December 1945, Drahtfunk services were resumed under the name DIAS (wire radio in the American sector (later renamed RIAS)).  Other German radio programming was available through the system in other parts of the country including the BFN (British Forces Network) program and it wasn't until 1963 the use in most of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) was discontinued, the service maintained in West Berlin for a further three years.  Elsewhere in Europe, wired radio was adopted because because it was simple, reliable and delivered fine reception unaffected by atmospheric conditions, Switzerland ceasing transmission only in the 1990s because of incompatibilities when ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines were introduced for telephony.  In Sweden, the system proved especially useful because of (1) the peculiarities in the behavior of radio waves at the more northern latitudes and (2) the demands in terms of physical broadcast infrastructure (towers & transmitters) required to service a narrow, elongated landmass.  Because of the high penetration of telephone lines in Sweden by the late 1940s, wired radio was able to provide a high-quality service to the sparsely populated north and it was extensively deployed until advances in technology in the 1960s rendered it unnecessary.

Monochrome

Monochrome (pronounced mon-uh-krohm)

(1) A painting or drawing in different shades of a single color (now rare).

(2) The art or technique of producing such a painting or drawing.

(3) The state or condition of being painted, decorated, etc, in shades of a single color.

(4) A “black-and-white” photograph or transparency (an image reproduced in tones of gray.

(5) By analogy, something devoid of any distinctive or stimulating characteristics; bland or colourless.

(6) In ceramics, a ceramic glaze of a single colour; an object so glazed.

1655-1665: From the Medieval Latin monochrōma (painting or drawing done in different tints of a single color) from the Ancient Greek μονόχρωμος (monókhrōmos or monokhrōmatos) (of the one colour), the construct being μόνος (mónos) (one; single; alone), from the primitive Indo-European root men- (small, isolated) + χρῶμα (khrôma) (genitive khrōmatos) (colour; complexion, skin).  In Classical Latin, the most-used form was monochromos (literally “having one color”).  The sense it’s understood in photography dates from 1940 when (presumably almost instantly), the verbal shorthand became “mono”, exactly the same pattern of use when the need arose to distinguish between color printers and those using only black consumables.  The word was used as an adjective after 1849 although monochromatic (of one color, consisting of light of one wavelength and probably based either on the French monochromatique or the Ancient Greek monokhrōmatos) had been used thus since at least 1807 (presumably it pre-dated this because the adverb monochromatically is documented since 1784.  The alternative forms are both self-explanatory: unicolour used usually single solids and monotint, rare and used mostly as a technical term in art-production where, properly, it describes a reproduction of a multi-color image using just shades of a single color.  Monochrome is a noun & adjective, monochromaticity, monochromy & monochromist are nouns, monochromic is an adjective and monochromatically is an adverb.

Monochromic images of Lindsay Lohan smoking.

The classic mono laser printer of the late twentieth century: Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III (1990) in the HP Museum.

In the narrow technical sense, a monochromic image is composed of one colour or values of one colour (technically also called a monotint).  In modern use, a linguistic paradox exists because an image consisting of just one colour (eg red, yellow, blue etc) is not usually described as monochrome yet most images rendered in multiple gradations of gray-scale (just about any image described as black & white) almost always are.  For most purposes, in casual use, monochrome versus colour is a binary describing both the devices used in the production process and the output.  There’s also a scientific quirk.  Monochromatic light is electromagnetic radiation of a single frequency but, no source of this exists because that would demand a wave of infinite duration which the laws of physics don’t permit.

In fashion, the monochromatic is a place on the continuum of tonality, the effect at its most dramatic when tied to a model’s skin-tone, hair and eye-color.  In truth, what matters most is sometimes less how she appears in the flesh than how well the effect translates to photographs, something complicated by certain combinations suffering under natural light and suited only to artificial environments.  For that reason, when the most uncompromising monochrome ensembles are seen, there’s always the suspicion filters and post-production have played a part.

Lindsay Lohan at the Christian Siriano Fall 2023 show, New York Fashion Week, February 2023.

Slurring effortlessly into the auburn hair, the satin two-piece used shades of copper, burnt orange and peach, the spectrum not disturbed by anything intrusive, a shimmering peach-infused copper eye shadow with flared lashes blended by chocolate eye pencil, a luminescent focus achieved with satin glossed lips while apricot blush and bronzer was applied with an austerity which many should emulate; all part of the monochromatic moment.

Cash

Cash (pronounced kash)

(1) Money in the form of coins or banknotes, historically that issued by a government or a bank or other financial institution operating with the approval of a government.

(2) Money or an equivalent paid at the time of making a purchase.

(3) Immediate payment, in full or part, for goods or services, even if not paid in physical cash (ie as distinct from the various forms of time (delayed) payment).

(4) To give or obtain cash for a check, money order, bill of exchange etc.

(5) In some games of cards, (1) to win (a trick) by leading an assured winner or (2) to lead (an assured winner) in order to win a trick.

(6) Any of several low-denomination coins of China, Vietnam, India, and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), especially the Chinese copper coin.

1590–1600: From the Portuguese caixa, from the Tamil காசு (kācu) (a copper coin), from the Sanskrit karṣa (a weight (of precious metal such as silver or gold)).  There was also the sixteenth century Old Italian cassa (money box) from the Latin capsa (case).  Variation of cash appear in many languages including the Japanese: キャッシュ (kyasshu), the Serbo-Croatian (kȅš & ке̏ш) the Romanian cash and the Swedish cash.

Cashable is an adjective, cashability & cashableness are nouns.  The noun plural is cash (except for the proper noun; the surname’s plural being Cashes).  The homophone of cash is cache, often mispronounced as kaache although cache’s adoption as a technical term in computing has led some to suggest kaache should be the use in the industry with kash for all other purposes and there’s much support for the view which does make sense, even if, given the specificity of the context, confusion is unlikely.  The verb cashier (and the related cashiering & cashiered) is (1) the simple past tense and past participle of cashier and (2) the apparently curious term for the dismissal of a military officer, cashiered in this context from the Dutch casseren & kasseren, from the Old French casser (to break (up)).  During a ceremonial cashiering, the break of his link with the military was sometimes symbolized dramatically by literally breaking the officer’s sword (which had in advance been partly sawn through).   

The surname appears to be an American variant of Case, the records indicating it was first adopted by in the US by German immigrants named Kirch and Kirsch, an example of the Anglicization of names once a common of those migrating to the English-speaking world.  In rare cases it has been used a male given name, often as a second name reflecting the mother’s maiden name.  A cashier (person in charge of money), dates from the 1590s, from the French caissier (treasurer), from caisse (money box), the immediate source of the English word perhaps the Middle Dutch kassier.

Lindsay Lohan themed cash.  Unfortunately, these Lohanic notes are not issued by the US Federal Reserve and thus neither legal tender nor readily convertible (at least at face-value) to other currencies.  However, Lindsay Lohan is dabbling in the embroynic world of the NFT (non fungible token) which may evolve to have some influence on the development of how cash is stored and exchanged (if not valued).   

In idiomatic use, cashing-in one’s chips means literally to take one’s winnings and leave the casino but is also used to mean “to die” whereas cashing-up is a technical term from business referring to the end-of-day audit & balancing procedures.  A moneybags (ie bags full of cash) is someone (usually conspicuously) rich.  A cash-cow is a product or service which dependably provides the owner or operator a lucrative profit.  A cash-crop (agricultural product grown to sell for profit) is attested from 1831 and was distinct from one with some other primary purpose (such as for self-sustenance or stock-feed).  A cash-back is a trick in advertising and a form of discount.  The phrase cold, hard cash is another way of emphasizing the primacy of money.  A cash-book (which historically were physical ledgers but most are now electronic) was a transactional register.  To cash was “to convert (a cheque (the US check) or other bill of exchange) to cash", known since 1811 as a variation of the noun and the now-extinct encash from 1865 was also used as a piece of specialized jargon meaning exactly the same thing; it was replaced as required by cashed & cashing.  The cash-box (also called money-box), dating from the 1590s, was (and remains) a box for the safe-keeping physical cash and was from the sixteenth century French caisse (money box), from the Provençal caissa or the Italian cassa, from the Anglo-Norman & Old French casse (money box), from the Latin capsa (box, case) ultimately from capiō (I take, I seize, I receive), from the primitive Indo-European kehp- (to grasp) (which also led to the Spanish caja (box); the original sense was literally the wooden or metal box by the eighteenth century, the secondary sense of the money began to run is parallel before, for most purposes, becoming the sole meaning.  To cash in is to profit from something, applying it one's advantage.  A cash-register, dating from 1875, was historically a mechanical device used to record transactions and issue receipts, such machines now mostly electronic and increasingly linked to centralized (even international) databases; in Jewish humorous use, a cash-register was “a Jewish piano”.  Cash-flow (which surprisingly seems to date only from 1954) refers to a specific characteristic of business and means the periodic accumulation of disposable revenue to permit the operations always to meet its obligations and continue trading; it’s not directly related to long-term profitability in that something with a good cash-flow can continue indefinitely while only breaking even while a profitable concern with a poorly managed cash-flow can flounder.  In commerce, use is common such as cash-and-carry, cash account, cash-only, discount for cash etc although transaction handling costs have affected the last: where once it was common for businesses to offer a discount to customers paying with physical cash (sometimes because it offered the possibility of a hidden (ie un-taxed) transaction, it’s now not uncommon for a fee to be imposed, reflecting the difference in processing costs for weightless (electronic) payments compared with the physical (notes & coins).  In criminal slang, "cash" is said to be a euphemism for “to do away with, to kill” the word "disband" also carrying this meaning and both “cash” and “disband” are reputed to be used on the dark web as code by those offering contract killing although such things are hard to verify and may be an internet myth. Cash on delivery (COD) dates from 1859 and was an invention of American commerce designed to encourage sales from businesses previously unknown to the individual consumer.  Cashless (often as cashless-society or cashless transaction) refers usually to the elimination of physical money (ie notes and coins), something sought by many bureaucrats for various reasons although of concern to civil libertarians.

According to anthropologists, the word cash (money and all that) is really derived from the word kash, a beer brewed in Ancient Egypt which was used to pay workers (including the builders of the Great Pyramids).  Stone cutters, slaves, architects, and even public officials were often paid (at least in part) with beer, two containers of kash often set as the minimum wage for an Egyptian laborer’s day of work.  At the time, there was quite a brewing industry, the Egyptians known to be distributing at least six varieties of beer by 3,000 BC and there is evidence it played a part in the social conventions of the age: in some circumstances if a man offered a lady a sip of his beer, they could be held to be betrothed so dating could be minefield for those who’d drunk too much.

The traditions associated with kash spread.  In Mesopotamia, tavern owners found guilty of overcharging patrons for beer could be sentenced to death by drowning in the Tigris or Euphrates rivers (depending on where the establishment was located) although most punishments were apparently commuted to fines.  The Ancient Babylonians, serious about beer making, to regulate quality decreed that any commercial beer maker who sold unfit beer was to be drowned in that very impure libation although no records exist which confirm how many were actually suck in their own dodgy brew.  The most attractive Babylonian tale (although not one all historians accept) is that more happily, a bride’s father would supply all the “honey" kash (a form of kash to which honey and sweet herbs were added) the groom could drink for one month after the wedding.  Because the calendar was lunar based, this month was referred to as the “honey moon”.