Only

Only (pronounced ohn-lee)

Adverb

(1) Without others or anything further; alone; solely; exclusively.

(2) No more than; merely; just.

(3) As recently as.

(4) In the final outcome or decision.

Adjective

(5) Being the single one or the relatively few of the kind.

(6) Having no sibling or (less common) no sibling of the same sex (also a noun in this context).

(7) Mere (obsolete).

(8) Single in superiority or distinction; unique; the best.

Conjunction

(9) But (introducing a single restriction, restraining circumstance, or the like).

(10) Except (frowned upon by some).

Pre 900: From the Middle English oonly, onli, onlych, onelich & anely, from the Old English ānlich, ānlīc & ǣnlich (like; similar; equal; unique, solitary, literally "one-like”), from the Proto-Germanic ainalīkaz (one + -ly).  It was cognate with the Old Frisian einlik, the obsolete Dutch eenlijk, the German ähnlich (similar), the Old Norse álíkr, the Old High German einlih, the Danish einlig and the Swedish enlig (unified).  Synonyms include solitary & lone in one context and peerless & exclusive in the other.  Only is a noun, adjective, adverb & conjunction, onliness, onlyer & onlier are nouns and onliest & onlest are adjectives ; the noun plural is either onlys or onlies (both rarely used).

Only’s use as an adverb (alone, no other or others than; in but one manner; for but one purpose) and a conjunction (but, except) developed in Middle English.  In English, the familiar distinction of only and alone (now usually in reference to emotional states) is unusual; in many languages the same word serves for both although Modern German has the distinction in allein/einzig.  The mid fifteenth century phrase "only-begotten" is biblical, translating Latin unigenitus and Greek monogenes; the Old English word was ancenned. The term "only child" has been in use since at least the early eighteenth century.  The derived forms were once in more frequent use than now.  Someone who only adheres to the particular thing mentioned, excluding any alternatives. Onlyism (definitely non-standard) used to be quite a thing in Christianity in matters where there were different versions of documents and among Church of England congregations (often in the same parish) some were once adamant that only a certain edition of the Book of Common Prayer was acceptable and the others represented revisionism, heresy or, worse of all, smelled of popery.  Thus there were 1549-onlyiers, 1559-onlyiers, 1562-onlyiers etc.  The same factionalism of course continues to exist in many religions (and in secular movements and institutions too) but onlier has faded from use.  The adjectives onliest & onlest (a superlative form of only used almost exclusively in the US) are now rare and onlest is used mostly in African American Vernacular English (AAVE).  

The construct of the Old English ānlīc being ān (one) + -līc (-ly), only is thus understood in Modern English as on(e) + -ly.  One was from the Middle English oon, on, oan & an, from the Old English ān (one), from the Proto-West Germanic ain, from the Proto-Germanic ainaz (one), from the primitive Indo-European óynos (single, one).  It was cognate with the Scots ae, ane, wan & yin (one); the North Frisian ån (one), the Saterland Frisian aan (one), the West Frisian ien (one), the Dutch een & één (one), the German Low German een; the German ein & eins (one), the Swedish en (one), the Norwegian Nynorsk ein (one), the Icelandic einn (one), the Latin ūnus (one) & Old Latin oinos and the Russian оди́н (odín); doublet of Uno.

The –ly prefix was from the Middle English -ly, -li, -lik & -lich, from the Old English -līċ, from the Proto-West Germanic -līk, from the Proto-Germanic -līkaz (having the body or form of), from līką (body) (from whence Modern German gained lich); in form, it was probably influenced by the Old Norse -ligr (-ly) and was cognate with the Dutch -lijk, the German -lich and the Swedish -lig.  It was used (1) to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "behaving like, having a likeness or having a nature typical of what is denoted by the noun" and (2) to form adjectives from nouns specifying time intervals, the adjectives having the sense of "occurring at such intervals".

The different phonological development of only and one was part of the evolution of English.  One was originally pronounced in the way which endures in only, atone and alone, a use which to this day persists in various dialectal forms (good 'un, young 'un, big 'un et al), the long standard pronunciation "wun" emerging around the fourteenth century in southwest and west England.  William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536), who grew up in Gloucester, used the spelling “won” in his translations of the Bible which were first published between 1525-1526 and the form slowly spread until it was more or less universal by the mid-eighteenth century.  The later use as indefinite pronoun was influenced by the unrelated French on and Latin homo.

Tyndale, before being strangled and burned at the stake in Vilvoorde (Filford near Brussels).  Woodcut from The Book of Martyrs (1563) by John Foxe (circa 1516-1587).

The cardinals and bishops in England probably neither much noticed nor cared about Tyndale’s phonological choice but they certainly objected to his choice of words in translation (church became “congregation” and priest became “elder”) which appeared to threaten both the institution of the Church and the centrality to Christianity of the clerical hierarchy.  Tried for heresy in 1536, he was pronounced guilty and condemned to be burned at the stake although, for reasons not documented, he was, after a ceremonial defrocking, strangled until dead while tied to the stake, his corpse then burned.

Activist herbivore Tash Peterson (b circa 1995, centre) at a vegan protest, Perth, Australia.

Although a thing which pedants enjoy correcting, the placement of “only” as a modifier matters only if putting it one place or the other would hinder clarity; there’s never been an absolute grammatical rule and, as long as the meaning is clear, it’s probably better to adopt whatever is the usual conversational style.  Strictly speaking, although “We only fuck vegans” means an assertion of a life consisting of nothing else, most would understand it as a statement of one who is prepared to contemplate intimacy only with vegans.  The best compromise to adopt is probably that recommended for handling the split infinitive: Use the more exact “We fuck only vegans” in formal use such as in writing and the more natural, conversational “We only fuck vegans” otherwise.  Note that a sign held aloft at a protest, although obviously something “in writing” is not an example of formal use; it’s just part of the conversation.

No ambiguity: Lindsay Lohan in sweatshirt from the I Only Speak LiLohan range.

Care must be taken to avoid ambiguity, especially in writing because the intonations of speech and other visual clues are not there to assist in the conveying of meaning.  Were one to say “She only fucks vegans after midnight”, quite what is meant isn’t clear and the sentence is better rendered either as “she fucks only vegans after midnight" (ie carnivores need not apply) or “she fucks vegans only after midnight” (ie vegans must wait till the midnight hour).  In informal English, only is a common sentence connector but again, this should be avoided in formal writing where “only” should be placed directly before the word or words that it modifies.

Now

Now (pronounced nou)

(1) At the present time or moment (literally a point in time).

(2) Without further delay; immediately; at once; at this time or juncture in some period under consideration or in some course of proceedings described.

(3) As “just now”, a time or moment in the immediate past (historically it existed as the now obsolete “but now” (very recently; not long ago; up to the present).

(4) Under the present or existing circumstances; as matters stand.

(5) Up-to-the-minute; fashionable, encompassing the latest ideas, fads or fashions (the “now look”, the “now generation” etc).

(6) In law, as “now wife”, the wife at the time a will is written (used to prevent any inheritance from being transferred to a person of a future marriage) (archaic).

(7) In phenomenology, a particular instant in time, as perceived at that instant.

Pre 900: From the Middle English now, nou & nu from the Old English nū (at the present time, at this moment, immediately), from the Proto-West Germanic nū, from the Proto-Germanic nu, from the primitive Indo-European nū (now) and cognate with the Old Norse nu, the Dutch nu, the German nun, the Old Frisian nu and the Gothic nū.  It was the source also of the Sanskrit and Avestan nu, the Old Persian nuram, the Hittite nuwa, the Greek nu & nun, the Latin nunc, the Old Church Slavonic nyne, the Lithuanian nū and the Old Irish nu-.  The original senses may have been akin to “newly, recently” and it was related to the root of new.  Since Old English it has been often merely emphatic, without any temporal sense (as in the emphatic use of “now then”, though that phrase originally meant “at the present time”, and also (by the early thirteenth century) “at once”.  In the early Middle English it often was written as one word.  The familiar use as a noun (the present time) emerged in the late fourteenth century while the adjective meaning “up to date” is listed by etymologists as a “mid 1960s revival” on the basis the word was used as an adjective with the sense of “current” between the late fourteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The phrase “now and then” (occasionally; at one time and another) was in use by the mid 1400s, “now or never” having been in use since the early thirteenth century.  “Now” is widely used in idiomatic forms and as a conjunction & interjection.  Now is a noun, adjective & adverb, nowism, nowness & nowist are nouns; the noun plural is nows.

Right here, right now: Acid House remix of Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) How dare you? speech by Theo Rio.

“Now” is one of the more widely used words in English and is understood to mean “at the present time or moment (literally a point in time)”.  However, it’s often used in a way which means something else: Were one to say “I’ll do it now”, in the narrow technical sense that really means “I’ll do it in the near future”.  Even things which are treated as happening “now” really aren’t such as seeing something.  Because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to bounce from something to one’s eye so just about anything one sees in an exercise in looking back to the past.  Even when reading something on a screen or page one’s brain is processing something from a nanosecond (about one billionth of a second) earlier.  For most purposes, “now” is but a convincing (an convenient) illusion and even though, in certain, special sense, everything in the universe is happening at the same time (now) it’s not something that can ever be experienced because of the implications of relativity.  None of this causes many problems in life but among certain physicists and philosophers, there is a dispute about “now” and there are essentially three factions: (1) that “now” happened only once in the history of the known universe and cannot again exist until the universe ends, (2) that only “now” can exist and (3) that “now” cannot ever exist.

Does now exist? (2013), oil & acrylic on canvas by Fiona Rae (b 1963) on MutualArt.

The notion that “now” can have happened only once in the history of our universe (and according to the cosmological theorists variously there may be many universes (some which used to exist, some extant and some yet to be created) or our universe may now be in one of its many phases, each which will start and end with a unique “now”) is tied up with the nature of time, the mechanism upon which “now” depends not merely for definition but also for existence.  That faction deals with what is essentially an intellectual exercise whereas the other two operate where physics and linguistics intersect.  Within the faction which says "now can never exist" there is a sub-faction which holds that to say “now” cannot exist is a bit of a fudge in that it’s not that “now” never happens but only that it can only every be described as a particular form of “imaginary time”; an address in space-time in the past or future.  The purists however are absolutists and their proposition is tied up in the nature of infinity, something which renders it impossible ever exactly to define “now” because endlessly the decimal point can move so that “now” can only ever be tended towards and never attained.  If pushed, all they will concede is that “now” can be approximated for purposes of description but that’s not good enough: there is no now.

nower than now!: Lindsay Lohan on the cover of i-D magazine No.269, September, 2006.

The “only now can exist” faction find tiresome the proposition that “the moment we identify something as happening now, already it has passed”, making the point that “now” is the constant state of existence and that a mechanism like time exists only a thing of administrative convenience.  The “only now can exist” faction are most associated with the schools of presentism or phenomenology and argue only the present moment (now) is “real” and that any other fragment of time can only be described, the past existing only in memory and the future only as anticipation or imagination; “now” is the sole verifiable reality.  They are interested especially in what they call “change & becoming”, making the point the very notion of change demands a “now”: events happen and things become in the present; without a “now”, change and causality are unintelligible.  The debate between the factions hinges often on differing interpretations of time: whether fundamentally it is subjective or objective, continuous or discrete, dynamic or static.  Linguistically and practically, “now” remains central to the human experience but whether it corresponds to an independent metaphysical reality remains contested.

Unlike philosophers, cosmologists probably don’t much dwell on the nature of “now” because they have the “Andromeda paradox” which is one of the consequences of Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) theory of special relativity.  What the paradox does is illustrate the way “now” is relative and differs for observers moving at different speeds, the effect increasing as distances increase, such as when the point of reference is the Andromeda galaxy, some 2½ million light years distant from Earth.  Under special relativity, what one observer sees and perceives as “now” on Andromeda will, by another, moving at a different relative speed, will perceive as occurring in the past or future.   This can happen at any distance but, outside of computer simulations or laboratories, the effects of relative simultaneity is noticeable (even for relatively slow speeds) only at distance. 

Seated vis-a-vis (literally "face to face"), Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) and her sister Aliana (b 1993, left), enjoying a tête-à-tête (literally, "head to head"), La Conversation bakery "& café, West Hollywood, California, April 2012.  Sadly, La Conversation is now closed.

Among the implications of the Andromeda paradox is that although the sisters would have thought their discussion something in the "here and now", to a cosmologist they are looking at each other as they used to be and hearing what each said some time in the past, every slight movement affecting the extent of this.  Because, in a sense, everything in the universe is happening "at the same time", the pair could have been sitting light years apart and spoke what they spoke "at the same time" but because of the speed at which light and sound travel, it's only at a certain distance a "practical" shared "now" becomes possible.  

Sole

Sole (pronounced sohl)

(1) Being the only one; only.

(2) Being the only one of the kind; unique; unsurpassed; matchless.

(3) Belonging or pertaining to one individual or group to the exclusion of all others; exclusive.

(4) In law, un-married (archaic).

(5) The bottom or under-surface of the foot.

(6) The corresponding under part of a shoe, boot, or the like, or this part exclusive of the heel.

(7) The bottom, under surface, or lower part of anything.

(8) In carpentry, the underside of a plane.

(9) In golf, the part of the head of the club that touches the ground.

(10) A European flatfish, Solea solea.

(11) Any other flatfish of the families Soleidae and Cynoglossidae, having a hook-like snout.

1275-1325:  From the Old French soul & sol (only, alone, just), from the Vlugar Latin sola from the Late Latin sōlus (alone, only, single, sole; forsaken; extraordinary), replacing Middle English soule.  The source was the Classical Latin solea (sandal, bottom of a shoe; a flatfish), derivative of solum (base, bottom, ground, foundation, lowest point of a thing (hence “sole of the foot”)).  The Latin root begat similar words in many European languages: the Spanish suela, the Italian soglia and the Portuguese solha although, technically, the bottom of the foot is the planta, corresponding to the palm of the hand.  The Latin sōlus is of unknown origin but may be related to the primitive Indo-European reflexive root swo- from which English later gained "so".

A fossil flatfish.

The various common European flatfishes (of the ray-finned demersal order Pleuronectiformes) became known as sole in the mid-thirteenth century, an adoption of French use which followed the Latin which named the solea after the sandal because of the resemblance in shape to a flat shoe.  In English, the meaning "bottom of a shoe or boot" is from the late fourteenth century, and the cobbler’s phrase “to heal and sole a boot (or shoe)” to describe a repair or replacement is a verb form from the 1560s.  Another linguistic innovation of boot-makers was the noun insole (an inner lining of a shoe or boot affixed inside to the bottom and following exactly the shape) which appeared in 1838; it soon became known as the inner sole or inner-sole.

The use in both Church and common law to mean "single, alone, having no husband or wife” was an appropriation of form reflecting the normal, everyday meaning of the sole (one and only, singular, unique) and was first used in that context in the late fourteenth century and, in some technical uses, appeared still as late as the early nineteenth.  The adjective solely began to appear in the late fifteenth century.  A particular adjectival adoption was the direct borrowing from Latin of solus, used in the theatre for stage directions by 1590s.  It’s a masculine (the feminine is sola) but, as part of an industry-specific jargon, solus was used for both.  In certain circles, including poets and lawyers, use of the word persisted in old Latin phrases such as solus cum sola (alone with an unchaperoned woman) and solus cum solo (all on one's own” (which translates literally as "alone with alone")).

Studies of the soles of the Lindsay Lohan’s feet in three aspects.

Sole and its antecedents proved a a productive source in English, the soleus (muscle of the calf of the leg) a creation in the 1670s in the Modern Latin used in medicine and, like the fish, inspired by the similarity to the Roman shoe.  The adjective solitary (alone, living alone) was a mid-fourteenth century formation from the Old French solitaire, from the Latin solitarius (alone, lonely, isolated) from solitas (loneliness, solitude) from solus (alone).  The meaning "single, sole, only" is from 1742 and the related forms are a solitarily & solitariness.   It was a noun as early as the late 1300s but the most inventive adaptation was probably the 1690s prison slang in which it described the punishment of solitary confinement; in 1854 the phrase became an official part of the administration of jails.

Martin Luther aged 43 (1529) by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1653).

As a Reformation coinage, solus also provided theology with the 1590s solifidian (one who believes in salvation by faith alone), a tenet of Protestant Christianity based on the translation by the dissident, one-time Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) of Romans 3:28, the construct being solus (alone) + fides (faith) from the primitive Indo-European root bheidh- (to trust, confide, persuade).  It must have been a success because solifidian was used as an adjective early in the new century; the related form is solifidianism.  Philosophy gained solipsism, the theory that self is the only object of real knowledge or the only thing that is real and that all else must be denied.

The solo as a “piece of music for one voice or instrument” dates from the 1690s and was in English a commonly used adjective as early as 1712, although the early uses had nothing to do with music, instead referring to activities undertaken alone or unassisted.  The verb is first attested 1858 in the musical sense, 1886 in a non-musical sense and was adopted in the business of pilot training to describe a pupil’s first flight without an instructor in the cockpit.  Among those who attend rock concerts, there seems to be one faction which regards the drum solo as a highlight and one for which it's a bore to be endured.

A desolate emo.

Desolate, the emo’s standard alliterative companion to devastated, in the mid-1300s meant “a person disconsolate, miserable, overwhelmed with grief, deprived of comfort", extended later in the century to “persons without companions, solitary, lonely".  If the word didn’t exist, emos would have invented it.  By the early fifteenth century, it became applied to the natural environment to describe places, "uninhabited, abandoned" from the Latin desolatus, past participle of desolare (leave alone, desert), the construct being de- (completely) + solare (make lonely).  It’s not clear when it came also to be used as a criticism of urban, built environments (typically industrial or suburban) but it was well-established early in the twentieth century.  Desolation (sorrow, grief, personal affliction), circa 1400 meant the "action of laying waste, destruction or expulsion of inhabitants" is from the twelfth century Old French desolacion (desolation, devastation, hopelessness, despair) and directly from the Church Latin desolationem (nominative desolatio), a noun of action from the past-participle stem of desolare (leave alone, desert).  The sense of a "condition of being ruined or wasted, destruction" is from the early 1400 and the sense of "a desolated place, a devastated or lifeless region" is from 1610s.  Also emo-themed was the adjective sullen, a 1570s alteration of the Middle English soleyn (unique, singular) from the Anglo-French solein, formed on the pattern of the Old French solain (lonely), from the Latin solus.  The emo-inspired sense shift in Middle English from "solitary" to "morose" occurred in the late fourteenth century.  Solitude is from the mid-fourteenth century, from the Old French solitude (loneliness) and directly from the Latin solitudinem (nominative solitudo) (loneliness, being alone; lonely place, desert, wilderness) from solus but didn’t become common use in English until the seventeenth century.  The solitudinarian (a recluse, unsocial person) is recorded from 1690s and it’s perhaps surprising such a modern-sounding word isn’t today more popular.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (circa 1510) by Berto di Giovanni (d 1529).

The noun soliloquy is from the 1610s, from the Late Latin soliloquium (a talking to oneself", the construct being solus + loqui (to speak) from the primitive Indo-European root tolkw- (to speak).  Earlier, it appeared in a translation of the Latin Soliloquiorum libri duo a treatise by Saint Augustine (354-430), who is said to have coined the word, on analogy of Greek monologia.  The related form is soliloquent.

Eliminate, Exterminate & Eradicate

Eliminate (pronounced ih-lim-uh-neyt)

(1) To remove or get rid of, especially as being in some way undesirable.

(2) To omit, especially as being unimportant or irrelevant; leave out.

(3) To remove from further consideration or competition, especially by defeating in sport or other competitive contest.

(4) To eradicate or kill.

(5) In physiology, to void or expel from an organism.

(6) In mathematics, to remove (a quantity) from an equation by elimination.

(7) In sport, as elimination & eliminator (drag racing): category classifications. 

1560–70: From the Latin ēlīminātus (thrust out of the doors; expel), past participle of ēlīmināre, the construct being ē- (out) + līmin- (stem of līmen (threshold)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The most commonly used form in Latin appears to have been ex limine (off the threshold).  Used literally at first, the sense of "exclude" was first attested in 1714; the now obsolete sense of "expel waste from the body" emerged circa 1795 although the general sense of an "expulsion of waste matter" is from 1855.  Eliminate is a verb, if used with an object, the verbs are eliminated & eliminating, eliminability, eliminant & eliminability are nouns and eliminable, eliminative and eliminatory are adjectives.

1964 Ford Mustang in Wimbledon White displayed at press conference in New York City, held in conjunction with the release of the Ford Mustang at the New York World’s Fair, April 1964.

The Ford Mustang in 1964 not only created the “pony car” market but also inspired the sector's name.  Successful beyond all expectations, the Mustang was within years in a more crowded pony car market but it remained atop the sales charts and more than sixty years on it remains in production, visually still recognizable as a descendent of the original.  In the 1960s, its competition came not only from General Motors (GM), Chrysler and even American Motors (AMC) but also from the corporation’s companion brand, Mercury which, in 1967, released the Cougar.  Ford had in 1938 created the Mercury brand as a marketing device to “plug the gap” between the most expensive Fords and the lower reached of the Lincoln range, the rationale being a separate nameplate untainted by having lower-priced models in its catalogue would be easier to position as up-market than a “Ford Deluxe” which could be otherwise identical to what came to be badged as a “Mercury”.  It was an approach many industries (washing powder, snack food et al) would adopt and it remains common because it can work well but with a car company the images in capital and image are considerable so while a new chocolate range can fail and barely be noticed, the consequences of a similar fate for a car brand can be significant, as Ford in the 1950s would discover with the fiasco of the Edsel and the less remembered but also unsuccessful Continental division.

1968 Mercury Cougar XR7 GT-E 427 in Wellington Blue.  357 Cougars were built with the GT-E 427 option, the 101 the base coupé, 256 the more expensive XR7, all fitted with the C6 three-speed automatic transmission.  The remaining 37 GT-Es (14 base coupés & 23 XR7s) used the 428, only three of which had the four-speed manual transmission.  

Built on a slightly extended Mustang platform, the 1967 Cougar followed the 1938 Mercury model in that it was essentially a “luxury Mustang” and it was a great success although analysts noted that while some of its healthy sales numbers would have been “conquests” from the competition, some would have been cannibalized from the Mustang or Ford’s Thunderbird.  In its original form, the position of the Cougar was well-defined but intra-corporation competition (which by the twenty-first century would play a part in dooming Mercury) soon emerged and a Mercury team contested the 1967 Trans-Am championship, displeasing Ford’s management which wanted the focus on its motorsport activities to be on Ford.  So, banned from the circuits, Mercury turned to the street and produced high-performance versions including the GT-E, some versions of which had the novelty of being powered by a detuned version of the Le Mans-winning 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) FE V8 although that it was available only with an automatic gearbox was an indication of the target market.  Uniquely configured with hydraulic valve lifters, it’s was the corporation’s last use of the 427 and the closest Ford came to producing a Mustang 427.

1968 Mercury Cougar Eliminator 428 in Bright Yellow.

Introduced in 1969, the Mercury Cougar Eliminator replaced the GTE and was a serious effort at image building, the “Eliminator” moniker borrowed from the popular sport of drag racing where described a process rather than a specific category.  The Eliminator “class” was a way the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) at the time organized competition brackets, the title awarded to the overall winner among several class winners within a broader category.  Then, the NHRA divided competitors into classes based on a formula which included metrics such as engine displacement, weight and modifications; it used to include the manufacturers claimed horsepower (HP) output until it became obvious that reliance on honesty flagrantly was being rorted.  Winners in heats of the various classes would compete in a runoff called the “Eliminator” to determine the top racer in that group, thus there would be titles such as “Top Eliminator”, “Street Eliminator”, “Modified Eliminator”, “Stock Eliminator” and “Super Stock Eliminator”.  It was a popular sport and it could take many runs to eliminate all except the winner.

1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator 428 in Competition Blue.

Produced only for 1969 & 1970, the Cougar Eliminator not only looked the part with front & rear spoilers and the inevitable racing stripes but included also front & rear spoilers, up-rated suspension and wider wheels.  Available only as a hardtop coupé, befitting the image, it was offered only in the “high-impact” colors (White, Competition Orange, Bright Blue Poly & Bright Yellow in 1969, Competition Yellow, Competition Blue, Pastel Blue, Competition Gold, Competition Green & Competition Orange in 1970 (with the rare Black a special order) while the range of V8 engines variously installed spanned most of the catalogue.  The standard engine was a 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) unit (the Windsor version in 1969, the Cleveland in 1970) while the 390 (6.5) and 428 (7.0) were optional, the former only for the first season.  Genuine racing engines were also (sort of) offered: the Boss 302 (4.9) enjoyed nation-wide availability but only two Eliminators were built in 1969 with the Boss 429 (7.0) and while the exotic mill remained on the option list for 1970, none left the line.  It was a niche product which enjoyed some appeal with 2,250 sold in 1967 and 2,267 in 1970 but despite the apparent implications of the “Eliminator” name, in stock form it was never a class-leader on the drag strip, however much it looked the part.  The market much preferred the up-market, luxury oriented Cougar XR-7 which in 1970 found 33,946 buyers and, the customer always being right, for 1971 Mercury withdrew the Cougar from the high-performance business, with great success, returning it to what had been envisaged in 1967, the car now functioning as a sort of more conveniently sized Thunderbird.

Exterminate (pronounced ik-stur-muh-neyt)

Totally to destroy (living things, especially pests or vermin); annihilate; extirpate.

1535–1545: From the Latin exterminātus, past participle of extermināre (to drive away (from terminus boundary)), perfect passive participle of exterminō, the construct being ex- + terminō (I finish, close, end), from terminus (limit, end).  In Late Latin there was also the sense "destroy" from the phrase ex termine (beyond the boundary), ablative of termen (boundary, limit, end).  The meaning "utterly to destroy" appeared in English only by the 1640s, a sense found earlier in equivalent words in French and in the Vulgate; earlier in this sense was the mid-fifteenth century extermine.  Exterminator actually came earlier: as early as circa 1400, the Late Latin exterminator (from past participle stem of exterminare) had the sense of "an angel who expells (people from a country) and, by 1848, as a “substance for ridding a place of rats etc) and by 1938 this was applied to a person whose job it was.  Exterminate is a verb, used with an object the verbs are exterminated & exterminating, exterminable, exterminative & exterminatory are adjectives and extermination & exterminator are nouns.

Defendants in the dock, International Military Tribunal (IMT, the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946)). 

The meanings of eliminate, exterminate & eradicate, both in their English senses and in translation from German have been debated before.  Although not defined in law until the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), the newly (1944) created word genocide appeared in the indictments served at the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946) upon those accused under count IV, crimes against humanity.  This attracted the interest of lawyers who noted the words exterminate and eliminate appear both in the academic and legal discussions about the novel concept of genocide and in translations of many documents from the Third Reich which related to the Jews.  Defense counsel probed what was meant by these words and whether, in original or translation, their actual meaning in the context of their use was in accord with what was meant when applied to genocide.  The etymological excursion didn’t much help the defendants, most of whom were hanged.  Hermann Göring also raised an objection to a translation from the German being rendered as "final solution to the Jewish problem" rather than "total solution" which, he argued, should compel the court to draw a different inference.  In both discussions, the judges concluded what was being discussed was mass-murder and the relative degree of applicability between synonyms was not a substantive point.  Actually the word used by Göring in the first paragraph of the letter which ultimately authorized the holocaust was Gesamtloesung (complete solution) while in the final paragraph he use Endloesung (final solution).  This was the document which SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant-General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) revealed at the infamous Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942).

In the context of Nazi policies, the difference between "exterminate" and "eliminate" was something of which the party hierarchy were well-aware, presumably because the extermination of certain groups (Jews, those with mental illness, Gypsies et al) was often discussed and in his Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg (Total War – Shortest War) speech to a carefully selected audience at Berlin's Sportpalas on 18 February 1943, Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945), in full-flight during one of his most masterful rants, briefly used the term doubtlessly often heard behind closed doors.  It was while telling the crowd how the regime would deal with the Jews that he began to use the word Ausrotten (extermination) or Ausschaltung (elimination) before correcting himself and instead saying Ausschaltung (exclusion).  The slip of the tongue represented perhaps what had in the upper reaches of the party been the accepted (if usually unspoken) orthodoxy since the speech made what came to be remembered as his most chilling prophesy: "If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."

Eradicate (pronounced ih-rad-i-keyt)

(1) To remove or destroy utterly; extirpate.

(2) To erase by rubbing or by means of a chemical solvent or other agent.

(3) Of plants, to pull up by the roots.

1555–1565: From the Latin ērādīcātus (usually translated as “destroy utterly”; literally “pull up by the roots”), past participle of ērādīcāre (root out, extirpate, annihilate), the construct being ē- (out) + rādīc- (stem of rādīx (root) (genitive radicis)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The assimilated form of ērādīcāre is derived from the primitive Indo-European wrād (branch, root) and from the same source, the native form of the same idea existed in mid-fifteenth century Middle English as outrōten (to root (something) out; eradicate).  A surprisingly recent creation in 1794 was ineradicable and within a few years, ineradicably.  Eradicate is a verb, eradicant is an adjective and noun, eradicated & eradicating are verbs (used with object), eradicable & eradicative are adjectives, eradicably is an adverb, eradication & eradicator are nouns.

Eliminate, exterminate and eradicate in the age of pandemics

In Modern English usage, eliminate, exterminate and eradicate are often used interchangeably despite differences in nuance.  This means also the wealth of synonyms the three enjoy are sometimes haphazardly used although some overlap does exist, the synonyms including: annihilate, expunge, abolish, erase, uproot, extinguish, efface, demolish, total, abate, liquidate, obliterate, trash, squash, purge, extirpate, scratch, slaughter, decimate, execute, massacre, abolish, erase, extirpate, destroy, oust, waive, ignore, defeat, cancel, exclude, disqualify, invalidate, drop, eject, expel, liquidate, omit, terminate, slay, discard & disregard.

In the (relatively) happy times before the emergence of SARS-Cov2's Delta variant, the New Zealand prime minister declared COVID-19 “eradicated but not eliminated” which did sound given that, regarding disease, the words have specific, technical meanings.  In the context of disease, eradication refers to the complete and permanent worldwide reduction to zero new cases through deliberate effort.  Elimination refers to the reduction to zero (or a very low defined target rate) of new cases in a defined geographical area, which can be any size, a province, country, continent or hemisphere.  As used by virologists and epidemiologists therefore, eradication is used in its normal conversational sense but elimination is applied with a specific technical meaning.  There is a quirk to this. The World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of smallpox in 1980 although small cultures remain in US and Russian research laboratories.  If these residual stocks are ever destroyed, the WHO may adopt some new term to distinguish between eradication in the wild and an absolute extermination from the planet.  Nobody seems now to believe COVID-19 will ever 

Professionals in the field of pest control actually stick more closely to classic etymology in their technical distinction between the two central words: extermination and eradication.  Extermination (from the Latin, exterminare meaning “out of the boundary” and related to the deity Terminus who presided over boundaries) means to drive the pests beyond the boundaries of the building.  It doesn’t of necessity mean the pests are all dead, just that they are no longer in the building.  Eradicate (from the Latin eradicare meaning to root out) refers to the processes leading to extermination, to bring to light the breeding spots, the places where the infestation has, so to speak, taken root.