Variation

Variation (pronounced vair-ee-ey-shuhn)

(1) The act, process, or accident of varying in condition, character, or degree.

(2) Amount, rate, extent, or degree of change.

(3) A different form of something; variant.

(4) In music, the transformation of a melody or theme with changes or elaborations in harmony, rhythm, and melody.

(5) In ballet, a solo dance, especially one a section of a pas de deux.

(6) In astronomy, any deviation from the mean orbit of a heavenly body, especially of a planetary or satellite orbit.

(7) In admiralty use as applied to nautical navigation, the angular difference at the vessel between the direction of true north and magnetic north; also called magnetic declination.

(8) In biology, a difference or deviation in structure or character from others of the same species or group.

(9) In linguistics, any form of morphophonemic change, such as one involved in inflection, conjugation, or vowel mutation.

1350-1400: From the Middle English variation (difference, divergence), from the Middle French variation, from the Old French variacion (variety, diversity) and directly from the Latin variationem & variātiōn (stem of variātiō) (a difference, variation, change), from the past participle stem of variare (to change) (the source of the modern English vary).  The use in the context of musical composition wasn't common until the early nineteenth century.  Variation is a noun and the (rare) adjective is variational; the noun plural is variations.

The available synonyms themselves show an impressive variation: deviation, abnormality, diversity, variety, fluctuation, innovation, divergence, alteration, discrepancy, disparity, mutation, shift, modification, change, swerve, digression, contradistinction, aberration, novelty, diversification, mutation, alteration, difference.  Apart from the English variation, European descendants include the French variation, the Italian variazione, the Portuguese variação, the Russian вариация (variacija), the Spanish variación and Swedish variation.

Ginger, copper, auburn & chestnut are variations on the theme of red-headedness: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities.  

Glenn Gould and the Goldberg Variations: 1955 & 1981

Published in 1741, JS Bach’s (1685-1750) Goldberg Variations consists of an aria and thirty variations.  Written for the harpsichord, it’s named after German harpsichordist & organist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727-1756), thought to have undertaken the first performance.  The work is now thought part of the canon of Baroque music but before 1955, was an obscure piece of the Bach repertoire, a technically difficult composition for the hardly fashionable harpsichord and known mostly as a device for teachers to develop students’ keyboard skills.  Even for aficionados of the Baroque, it was rarely performed.

Glenn Gould (1932—1982) was a Canadian classical pianist, his debut album on the then novel twelve-inch vinyl LP an interpretation of the Goldberg Variations, played on the piano.  A quite extraordinary performance and a radical approach, played at a tempo Bach surely never intended and with an electrifying intensity, it was beyond mere interpretation.  The work was also his swansong, uniquely for him, re-recorded in 1981 and issued days before his death.  Eschewing the stunningly fast pace which made its predecessor famous and clearly the work of a mellower, more reflective artist, for those familiar with the original, it’s a masterpiece of controlled tension.

In 2002, Sony re-released both, the earlier essentially untouched, the later benefiting from a re-mastering which corrected some of the technical deficiencies found in many early digital releases.  Although critics could understand Gould thinking there were aspects of the 1955 performance which detracted from the whole and why he felt the second version a better piece of art, it’s still the original which thrills.

Hot Dog

Hot dog (pronounced hot-dawg)

(1) A frankfurter.

(2) A sandwich consisting of a frankfurter (or some sort of sausage of similar shape) in a split roll, eaten usually with (1) mustard, sauerkraut & relish or (2) mustard & ketchup.

(3) Someone who performs complex, showy, and sometimes dangerous manoeuvres, especially in surfing or skiing (hotdogging sometimes a defined class in competition).

(4) Someone thought a show-off, especially in sporting competition.

(5) In informal use, an expression of joy, admiration or delight (occasionally also used ironically in the manner of “that’s great”).

(6) In New Zealand, a battered, deep-fried sausage or saveloy on a stick (essentially the same concept as the US corn dog and the Australian Dagwood dog).

(7) In slang, the human penis, a variation of which is the “man sausage”.

(8) In slang, a sexually suggestive physical gesture involving hip movement (usually as hotdogging).

1894: A coining in US English for commercial purposes, the idea being the vague resemblance of the sausage to a dachshund dog, the “hot” from the traditional use of mustard as a condiment although there’s evidence the early suspicion some hot dogs included actual canine meat weren’t entirely without foundation.  The use as (1) an interjection expressing joy, admiration or delight was another US creation dating from around the turn of the twentieth century (the circumstances unknown) and (2) a descriptor of someone who performs showy, often dangerous stunts was also an Americanism from the same era.  It seems to have begin in sport and is still widely used but has become best known for its use in skiing and surfing where it’s institutionalized to the extent some competitive categories have been named thus.  The variation “hot diggety dog” (also clipped to “hot diggety” was used in the same sense as the interjection “hot dog”, the interpolated “diggety” there for emphasis and rhetorical effect.  The slang synonyms (mostly in the US and not applied exclusively to hot dogs) have included “tubular meat on a bun”, “frank”, “frankfurt”, “frankfurter”, “glizzy”, “pimp steak”, “tube steak”, “wiener”, “weeny”, “ballpark frank”, “cheese coney”, “cheese dog”, “Chicago-style”, “Chicago dog”, “chili dog”, “Coney Island”, “corndog”, “footlong”, “junkyard dog”, “not dog”, “pig in a blanket”, “steamie” “veggie dog” & “frankfurter in a bun”.  In informal use, both single word contractions (hotdog) and hyphenated forms (hot-dog, hot-dogger etc) are common and “hot dog!” as an interjection is heard in the US, especially south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Extra mustard: Lindsay Lohan garnishing her hot dog, New York, 2010.

The construct was hot + dog.  Hot was from the Middle English hot & hat, from the Old English hāt, from the Proto-Germanic haitaz (hot), from the primitive Indo-European kay- (hot; to heat) and was cognate with the Scots hate & hait (hot), the North Frisian hiet (hot), the Saterland Frisian heet (hot), the West Frisian hjit (hot), the Dutch heet (hot), the Low German het (hot), the German Low German heet (hot), the German heiß (hot), the Danish hed (hot), the Swedish het (hot) and the Icelandic heitur (hot).  Dog was from the Middle English dogge (source also of the Scots dug (dog)), from the Old English dogga & docga of uncertain origin.  Interestingly, the original sense appears to have been of a “common dog” (as opposed one well-bred), much as “cur” was later used and there’s evidence it was applied especially to stocky dogs of an unpleasing appearance.  Etymologists have pondered the origin:  It may have been a pet-form diminutive with the suffix -ga (the similar models being compare frocga (frog) & picga (pig), appended to a base dog-, or doc-(the origin and meaning of these unclear). Another possibility is Old English dox (dark, swarthy) (a la frocga from frog) while some have suggested a link to the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the origin of Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow and the German taugen; the theory is based on the idea that it could have been a child’s epithet for dogs, used in the sense of “a good or helpful animal”.  Few support that and more are persuaded there may be some relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock (stumpy tail).  In fourteenth century England, hound (from the Old English hund) was the general word applied to all domestic canines while dog referred to some sub-types (typically those close in appearance to the modern mastiff and bulldog.  By the sixteenth century, dog had displaced hound as the general word descriptor. The latter coming to be restricted to breeds used for hunting and in the same era, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.  Unmodified, the English Hot Dog has been borrowed by dozens of languages.  Hot dog is a noun, verb & adjective, hotdoggery & hotdogger are nouns, hotdogging & hotdogged are verbs; the noun plural is hot dogs.

For the 2016 Texas State Fair, the manufacturer went retro, reviving the "Corny Dog" name although, in a sign of the times, vegetarian dogs were available.

The corn-dog (a frankfurter dipped in cornmeal batter, fried, and served on a stick), although the process was patented in 1927, seems to have come into existence between 1938-1942 (the sources differ with most preferring the latter) but it received a lexicographical imprimatur of when it began to appear in dictionaries in 1949 and it was certainly on sale (then as the “corny dog”) at the 1942 Texas State Fair.  In Australia, the local variation of the US corn dog is the Dagwood dog (a batter-covered hot dog sausage, deep fried in batter, dipped in tomato sauce and eaten off a wooden stick), not to be confused with the “battered sav”, a saveloy deep fried in a wheat flour-based batter (as used for fish and chips and which usually doesn’t contain cornmeal).  The Dagwood Dog was named after a character in the American comic strip Blondie.  Dagwood, Blondie’s ineptly comical husband, did have a dog albeit not one especially sausage-like and it may simply have been it was at the time the country’s best known or most popular cartoon dog.

The hot dog as class-identifier: David Cameron showing how the smart set handle a hot dog while on the campaign trail, April 2015.

After leaving Downing Street, Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) visited Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) in the White House and was served lunch, a meal the former prime-minister found so remarkable that in his six-volume memoirs it warranted a rare exclamation mark: "Hotdogs!"  He didn’t comment further but it’s assumed his experience of the culinary treat must have been the Old Etonian’s first and last.  The hot dog certainly can be political, David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016 and another Old Etonian) attracting derision after being photographed eating his hot dog with knife and fork, something declared “out-of-touch” by the tabloid press which, while usually decrying the class system, doesn’t miss a chance to scorn toffs behaving too well or chavs too badly.  Cameron had other problems with takeaway snacks, caught being untruthful about his history of enjoying Cornish pasties, another working class favourite.  So it would seem for politicians, hot dogs are compulsory but only if eaten in acceptable chav style.

Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) and David Cameron eating hot dogs (both in approved manner) at a college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, Dayton Arena, Ohio, March 2012 (Western Kentucky won 59-56) (left) and UK Labour Party politician Ed Miliband (b 1969) enjoying what came to be known as "the notorious bacon sandwich moment", May 2014 (right).  Mr Miliband didn't attend Eton and some of his high school education was undertaken in the US so presumably he knows how to handle a hot dog.  If so, he has no excuse because a toastie is less challenging. 

Curiously, Mr Cameron, had some three years earlier undergone "hot dog eating training", supervised by President Obama, noted for his expertise (both theoretical and practical) in the subject.  So he knew how it should be done and immediately there was speculation he resorted to knife & fork to avoid any chance of something like Ed Miliband's "notorious bacon sandwich moment", something which had resulted in ridicule and a flood of memes after the photograph was published in Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) tabloid The Sun on the eve of the 2015 general election.     

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Australian since May 2022) enjoying a Dagwood dog (in approved bogan manner) in three aspects, Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka), Australia, 2022.  On seeing the photos, Mr Dutton observed of such things: "There is no good angle".  In Australia, it’s probably good for a politician to be known to eat Dagwood dogs but not necessarily be photographed mid-munch.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

The Dagwood dog was responsible for an amusing footnote in Australian legal history, a dispute from the 1949 Sydney Royal Easter Show played out in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in its equity jurisdiction, the press reports at the time noting one happy outcome being an “uninterrupted supply of hot dogs during the next few days.”  Hot dogs were one of the show’s big sellers but a dispute arose when allegations were made there had been breaches of letters patent for "improvements in sausage goods" giving the patentees (who sold “Pronto Pups”) "exclusive enjoyment and profit within Australia for sixteen years from September, 1946.  The plaintiffs (holders of the patent), sought an injunction against those who had begun selling “Dagwood Dogs" at the show, preventing them from vending or supplying any of the improvements in sausages described in the patent, the writ claiming Dagwood dogs embodied the patented improvements and that as a consequence of the infringement, the plaintiffs were suffering economic loss.  The trial judge, ordered a hearing for an assessment (a taking of accounts) of damages to be scheduled for the following April and issued a temporary order requiring the defendants undertook to pay into a trust account the sum of ½d (half a penny) for each for each axially penetrated sausage sold.  The culinary delight has since been a fixture at city and country shows around the country although the name Pronto Pup didn’t survive; after the judgment in the Supreme Court it was replaced by “Pluto Pup” which also didn’t last although whether that was a consequence of a C&D (“cease & desist letter”) from Walt Disney’s lawyers isn’t known.  Anyway, since then it’s been Dagwood dogs all the way except in South Australia (proud of their convict-free past, they often do things differently) where they’re knows as “Dippy Dogs” (an allusion to the generous dip in the tomato sauce pot) which may be of Canadian origin, although there. in at least some provinces, they’re sold as “Pogos”.

Robert Mitchum (1917–1997) paying attention to what Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) is saying.

There are a number of “hot dog” stories about the film star Robert Mitchum, all told in the vein of him arriving at a Hollywood fancy-dress party covered in tomato ketchup and when asked to explain replying: “I’m a hot dawg!”.  That was representative of the sanitized form in which the tale was usually published, the original apparently involved the ketchup being applied to something which, anatomically, more resembled the hot dog’s sausage.

Zimbabwe's T20 cricket team, winners of the inaugural Women's T20 cricket tournament at the 13^th African Games, Accra, Ghana, March 2024.

Hotdog Stand color scheme, Microsoft Windows 3.1, 1992.

The industry legend is the “Hotdog Stand” color scheme Microsoft in 1992 shipped with Windows 3.1 was the winner of an informal contest between the designers to see who could concoct the worst possible combination.  Whether or not the competition was alcohol-fueled depends on which version of the story is told but all agree the winner based her entry on a vision of a hot dog, smothered in mustard and ketchup.  It’s doubtful many deliberately chose “Hotdog Stand” as their default scheme although there were certainly sysadmins (system administrators) who vengefully would impose it on annoying users, the more vindictive adding insult to injury by ensuring the user couldn’t change it back.  However, Hotdog Stand did briefly find a niche because it turned out to be the scheme which provided the best contrast on certain monochrome monitors, then still prevalent in corporations.  Windows 3.1 was the first version of the environment (it ran on the PC/MS/DR-DOS operating system) to attain wide corporate acceptance, whereas Windows 3.0 (1990) had tantalized while being still too unstable.  Windows 3.0 was unusual in being (apart from the short-lived 1.0) the only version of Windows released in a single version.  Although it ran in three modes: Real (on machines with only 640K RAM), Standard (requiring an 80286 CPU & 1 MB RAM) and Enhanced (requiring an 80386 CPU & 2 MB RAM), it shipped as a single product, the user with a command line switch (/r, /s or /e respectively) able to "force" the mode of choice, depending on the hardware in use.  Real mode didn't make it into Windows 3.1 and v3.11 ran exclusively as "Enhanced" so in a sense, "Enhanced" had become standard.

Microsoft's Hotdog Stand scheme didn’t survive the August 1995 transition to Windows 95 but a quarter of a century on, someone may have felt nostalgic because a buyer of a 2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC configured their car in bright yellow (Giallo Granturismo) over leather trim in red (Rosso Corallo).  As eye-catching in 2016 as Microsoft's Hotdog Stand had been in 1992, the Maserati’s recommended retail price was US$163,520.  Displayed first at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, the GranTurismo (Tipo M145) remained in production until 2019, the MC Sport Line offered between 2012-2019; it's not known how many buyers chose this color combination.  The OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) wheels were all-black but on this MC were replaced with two-tone 21 & 22 inch Forgiato S201 ECL units in black and yellow on which were mounted Pirelli P Zero tyres (255/30-21 front & 315/25-22 rear).  Finishing the wheels in red and yellow might nicely have augmented the hot dog vibe but between the spokes Maserati's red brake calipers can be seen.  For the right buyer, this was the perfect package.

Juan Manuel Fangio, Maserati 250F, German Grand Prix, Nürburgring, August, 1957.

It’s drawing a long bow but the vivid combo may have be picked as a tribute to the Maserati 250F with which Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995) won the 1957 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, an epic drive and his most famous.  Fangio was Scuderia Alfieri Maserati’s team leader and a splash of yellow was added to the nosecone of his 250F so easily it could be identified, the color chosen because it was one of the two allocated to his native Argentina.  The 250Fs of the other team members also had nosecones painted in accordance with the original international auto racing colours standardized early in the century, American Harry Schell (1921–1960) in white and Frenchman Jean Behra (1921–1959), blue, all atop the factory’s traditional Italian red.

1981 Chevrolet Corvette: 190 horsepower. 

The 2016 Maserati GranTurismo was certainly distinctive but strange color-combos are sometimes seen although in recent decades, factories have restricted not only the ranges offered but also the way they can be combined.  The 1981 Chevrolet Corvette (above) definitely didn’t leave the assembly line in yellow & green; that season, yellow (code 52) was available but there was no green on the color chart and while two-tone paint was a US$399.00 option, the only choices were Silver/Dark Blue (code 33/38); Silver/Charcoal (code 33/39); Beige/Dark Bronze (code 50/74) & Autumn Red/Dark Claret (code 80/98).  After taking in the effect of the yellow/green combo, the camel leather trim (code 64C/642) seems anti-climatic.

2025 John Deere 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester: 956 horsepower.

Modern harvesters are machines of extraordinary efficiency, one able in an hour to reap more than what would once have taken a large team of workers more than a day.  Mechanized harvesters were an early example of the way technology displaces labor at scale and because historically women were always a significant part of the harvesting workforce, they were at least as affected as men.  The development meant one machine operator and his (and they were almost exclusively men) machine could replace even dozens of workers, something which profoundly changed rural economies, the participation of the workforce engaged in agriculture and triggered the re-distribution of the population to urban settlements.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest innovation in technology applied to agriculture as just a one operator + machine combo replaced dozens of workers, multiple machines now go about harvesting which an AI bot handling the control and a dozen or more of these machines can be under the supervision of a single individual sitting somewhere on the planet, not so much controlling the things and monitoring for errors and problems.  Removing the on-site human involvement means it becomes possible to harvest (or otherwise work the fields) 24/7/365 without concerns about intrusions like light, the weather or toilet breaks.  Of course people remain involved to do tasks such as refueling and such but AI taking over many of these roles may be only a matter of time.

Maybe the Corvette's repaint was ordered by a fan of John Deere’s highly regarded farm equipment because JD’s agricultural products are always finished in a two-tone yellow/green (their construction equipment being black & yellow).  For the 1981 Corvette, a single engine was offered in all 50 states, a 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) V8 designated L81 which was rated at the same 190 HP (142 kW) as the previous season’s base L48; no high-output version was now available but the L81 could be had with either a manual or automatic transmission (it would prove to be the last C3 Corvette offered with a manual).  Glumly though that drive-train might have been viewed by some who remembered the tyre-smoking machines of a decade-odd earlier, it would have pleased buyers in California because in 1980 their Corvettes received only the 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8 found often in taxi-cabs, pickup trucks and station wagons; to them the L81 was an improvement.  The L81’s 180 horsepower certainly wouldn’t impress those in the market for John Deere’s 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester, powered by a 1465 cubic inch (24 litre) Liebherr V12, rated at 956 HP (713 kW) (956 hp), the machine available only in the corporate two-tone yellow & green.  Like Corvettes which have tended to be quite good at their intended purpose and pretty bad at just about everything else, harvesters are specific purpose machines; one which is a model of efficiency at gathering one crop will be hopelessly inept with another and in that they differ from the human workforce which is more adaptable.  However, where there is some similarity in the plants, it can be possible for the one basic machine to be multi-purpose, the role changed by swapping the attachable device which does the actual picking or gathering.   

Joey Chestnut (b 1983) (left) and Miki Sudo (b 1986) (right) the reigning men's and women's world champions in hot dog eating.  The contest is conducted annually on 4 July, US Independence Day.

In July 2022, Mr Chestnut retained and Ms Sudo regained their titles as world champions in hot dog eating.  Mr Chestnut consumed 15 more than the runner-up so the victory was decisive although his total of 63 was short of his personal best (PB) of 76, set in 2021.  It’s his fifteenth title and he has now won all but one of the last sixteen.  Ms Sudo won her eighth championship, swallowing forty hot dogs (including the bun) in the requisite ten minutes, meaning she has now prevailed in eight of the last nine contests (in 2021 she was unable to defend her title, being with child and therefore thinking it best to avoid too many hot dogs).  That there are hot dog eating champions brings delight to some and despair to others. 

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) famously observed that people "shouldn't see how laws or sausages are made".  The processes (now effectively institutionalized) which produce legislation are now more disturbing even than in the iron chancellor's gut-wrenching times but sausage production has (generally) become more hygienic.

BMW's venture into the "hotdog look", the K1.

Between 1988–1993, BMW produced almost 7,000 K1s.  It was a modest volume and lifespan but the appearance and specification were quite a departure for the company which for sixty-odd years had built its reputation with air-cooled flat twins, packaged in designs which were functionally efficient but offered few concessions to fashion.  That began to change in 1973 when the R90S appeared with a small bikini fairing in the style then favored by the “café racer” set but the rest of the machine remained in the sober Teutonic tradition, finished in a conservative silver (a more exuberant “Daytona Orange” would later be offered).  The fairings grew in size in subsequent models but never before the K1 did the factory produce anything so enveloping as was first seen at the 1988 Cologne Show, the effect heighted by the bold graphics and the choice of color schemes being blue & yellow or a hotdog-like red & yellow.  That attracted almost as much comment as the mechanical specification which used an in-line four cylinder, 987 cm³ (60 cubic inch) water-cooled engine, mounted in an unusual longitudinal arrangement with the crankshaft to the right, something which delivered a low centre of gravity and contributed to the drag coefficient (CD) of .34 (with the rider prone).

The original alternative to the hotdog, in blue & yellow, restrained by comparison.

The engineering was innovative and the K1 garnered many awards but after some initial enthusiasm sales waned and in 1991 the color scheme was not so much toned-down as re-toned, a more Germanic black metallic with silver wheels offered which was not as eye-catching but also less controversial.  That solved one aesthetic challenge but others were more fundamental, the thing too big and heavy to be a “sports bike” in the accepted sense and all that fibreglass meant things could get very hot for both components and rider, a problem the factory, with some improvised tricks, ameliorated but never wholly solved.  What couldn’t be fixed was the lack of power, BMW at the time committed to the voluntary 100 horsepower (75 kW) limit for motorcycles sold in Germany and while the industry leading aerodynamics made the machine a creditable high-speed cruiser, as a “super-bike” in the manner of the Japanese and Italian machines, it simply wasn’t competitive; fifty years on, at least on two wheels, power dynamics within the Axis had shifted.

Flat

Flat (pronounced flat)

(1) Level, even, or without unevenness of surface, as land or tabletops.

(2) Having a shape or appearance not deep or thick.

(3) Deflated; collapsed.

(4) Absolute, downright, or positive; without qualification; without modification or variation.

(5) Without vitality or animation; lifeless; dull.

(6) Prosaic, banal, or insipid.

(7) In artistic criticism, lifeless, not having the illusion of volume or depth or lacking contrast or gradations of tone or colour.

(8) Of paint, without gloss; not shiny; matt.

(9) In musical criticism, not clear, sharp, or ringing, as sound or a voice lacking resonance and variation in pitch; monotonous.

(10) In musical notation, the character ♭ which, when attached to a note or a staff degree, lowers its significance one chromatic half step.

(11) In music, below an intended pitch, as a note; too low (as opposed to sharp).

(12) In English grammar, derived without change in form, as to brush from the noun brush and adverbs that do not add -ly to the adjectival form as fast, cheap, and slow.

(13) In nautical matters, a sail cut with little or no fullness.

(14) A woman’s shoe with a flat heel (pump) or no heel (ballet flat).

(15) In geography, a marsh, shoal, or shallow.

(16) In shipbuilding, a partial deck between two full decks (also called platform).

(17) In construction, broad, flat piece of iron or steel for overlapping and joining two plates at their edges.

(18) In architecture, a straight timber in a frame or other assembly of generally curved timbers.

(19) An iron or steel bar of rectangular cross section.

(20) In textile production, one of a series of laths covered with card clothing, used in conjunction with the cylinder in carding.

(21) In photography, one or more negatives or positives in position to be reproduced.

(22) In printing, a device for holding a negative or positive flat for reproduction by photoengraving.

(23) In horticulture, a shallow, lidless box or tray used for rooting seeds and cuttings and for growing young plants.

(24) In certain forms of football, the area of the field immediately inside of or outside an offensive end, close behind or at the line of scrimmage.

(25) In horse racing, events held on flat tracks (ie without jumps).

(26) An alternative name for a residential apartment or unit (mostly UK, Australia, NZ).

(27) In phonetics, the vowel sound of a as in the usual US or southern British pronunciation of hand, cat, usually represented by the symbol (æ).

(28) In internal combustion engines (ICE), a configuration in which the cylinders are horizontally opposed.

1275–1325: From the Middle English flat from the Old Norse flatr, related to Old High German flaz (flat) and the Old Saxon flat (flat; shallow) and akin to Old English flet.  It was cognate with the Norwegian and Swedish flat and the Danish flad, both from the Proto-Germanic flataz, from Proto-Indo-European pleth (flat); akin to the Saterland Frisian flot (smooth), the German flöz (a geological layer), the Latvian plats and Sanskrit प्रथस् (prathas) (extension).  Source is thought to be the Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús & platys) (flat, broad).  The sense of "prosaic or dull" emerged in the 1570s and was first applied to drink from circa 1600, a meaning extended to musical notes in the 1590s (ie the tone is "lowered").   Flat-out, an adjectival form, was first noted in 1932, apparently a reference to pushing a car’s throttle (accelerator) flat to the floor and thus came to be slang for a vehicle’s top speed.  The US colloquial use as a noun from 1870 meaning "total failure" endures in the sense of “falling flat”.  The notion of a small, residential space, a divided part of a larger structure, dates from 1795–1805; variant of the obsolete Old English flet (floor, house, hall), most suggesting the meaning followed the early practice of sub-dividing buildings within levels.  In this sense, the Old High German flezzi (floor) has been noted and it is perhaps derived from the primitive Indo-European plat (to spread) but the link to flat as part of a building is tenuous.

The Flat Earth

Members of the Flat Earth Society believe the Earth is flat but there's genuine debate within the organisation, some holding the shape is disk-like, others that it's conical but both agree we live on something like the face of a coin.  There are also those in a radical faction suggesting it's actually shaped like a doughnut but this theory is regarded by the flat-earth mainstream as speculative or even "heretical".  Evidence, such as photographs from orbit showing Earth to be a sphere, is dismissed as part of the "round Earth conspiracy" run by NASA and others.

The flat-earther theory is that the Arctic Circle is in the center and the Antarctic is a 150-foot (45m) tall wall of ice around the rim; NASA contractors guard the ice wall so nobody can fall over the edge.  Earth's daily cycle is a product of the sun and moon being 32 mile (51 km) wide spheres travelling in a plane 3,000 miles (4,800 km) above Earth.  The more distant stars are some 3100 miles (5000 km) away and there's also an invisible "anti-moon" which obscures the moon during lunar eclipses.

Lindsay Lohan in Lanvin Classic Garnet ballet flats (Lanvin part-number is FW-BAPBS1-NAPA-A18391), Los Angeles, 2012.  In some markets, these are known as ballet pumps.

Flat Engines

“Flat” engines are so named because the cylinders are horizontally opposed which means traditionally (though not inherently) there are an equal number of cylinders.  It would not be impossible to build a flat engine with an uneven cylinder count but the disadvantages would probably outweigh anything gained and specific efficiencies could anyway be obtained in more conventional ways.  The flat engine configuration can be visualized as a “flattened V” and this concept does have some currency because engineers like to distinguish between the “boxer” and the “180^o V” (also called the “horizontal V”, both forms proving engineers accord the rules of math more respect than those of English).  The boxer is fitted with one crankpin per cylinder while the 180^o V uses one crankpin per pair of horizontally opposed cylinders.

The 180^o Vee vs the Boxer.

Both engines use a 180^o layout but the boxer gains its name from the manner in which each pair of opposing pistons operate: Those with pairs of pistons which move inwards and outwards at the same time are dubbed “boxers” on the metaphor of the pugilist punching their gloves together before the start of the match whereas those where the strokes vary are merely “flat”.  Apart from engineers, this matters to pedants who enjoy pointing out that while all boxers are flat, not all flats are boxers, a distinction Ferrari to this day are not much concerned about, on the factory website cheerfully referring to the flat-12 introduced in the 365/4 BB variously as a “boxer”, a “flat-12” and a 180^o V12”.  Actually, the story of the BB (1974-1983) is even more amusing because years later the factory would admit the name designation didn’t actually stand for “Berlinetta Boxer” but Bridget Bardot, the engineers developing the thing quite besotted.  There’s also another version of the flat engine and that’s one in which there are two crankshafts (at the far left & right) and no cylinder head; the combustion chamber created in the gap between the two pistons.  The layout offers some advantages and enjoyed limited success in commercial vehicles but never really caught on.

The boxer layout has been in use since 1897 when Carl (also as Karl) Benz (1844–1929) released a twin cylinder version and it was widely emulated although Mercedes-Benz has never returned to the idea while others (notably BMW (motorcycles), Porsche and Subaru) have made variations of the flat configuration a signature feature.  The advantages of the flat form include (1) a lower centre of gravity, (2) reduced long-term wear on the cylinder walls because some oil tends to remain on the surface when not running, meaning instant lubrication upon start-up and (3) reduced height meaning the physical mass sits lower, permitting bodywork more easily to be optimized for aerodynamic efficiency although this can't be pursued to extremes on road cars because there are various rules about the minimum heights of this & that.  The disadvantages include (1) greater width, (2) accessibility (a cross-flow combustion chamber will necessitate the intake or exhaust (usually the latter) plumbing being on the underside, (3) some challenges in providing cooling and (4) the additional weight and complexity (two cylinder heads) compare to an in-line engine (although the same can be said of conventional vees).

Flat out but anti-climatic: The Coventry-Climax flat-16

Flat engines have ranged from the modest (the flat-4 in the long-running Volkswagen Beetle (1939-2003)) to the spectacular (Coventry-Climax and Porsche both building flat-16s although both proved abortive).  The most glorious failure however was the remarkable BRM H16, used to contest the 1966-1967 Formula One (F1) season when the displacement limit was doubled to three litres.  What BRM did was take the 1.5 litre V8 with which they’d won the 1962 F1 driver and constructor championships, flatten it to and 180^o V and join two as a pair, one atop the other.  It was a variation on what Coventry-Climax had done with their 1.5 litre V8 which they flattened and joined to create a conventional flat-16 and the two approaches illustrate the trade-offs which engineers have to assess for merit.  BRM gained a short engine but it was tall which adversely affected the centre of gravity while Coventry-Climax retained a low profile but had to accommodate great length and challenges in cooling.  The Coventry-Climax flat-16 never appeared on the track and the BRM H16 was abandoned although it did win one Grand Prix (albeit when installed in a Lotus chassis).  Unfortunately for those who adore intricacy for its own sake, BRM's plan to build four valve heads never came to fruition so the chance to assess an engine with sixteen cylinders, two crankshafts, eight camshafts, two distributers and 64 valves was never possible.  Truly, that would have been compounding existing errors on a grand scale.  Tellingly perhaps, the F1 titles in 1966-1967 were won using an engine based on one used in the early 1960s by General Motors in road cars (usually in a mild state of tune although there was an unsuccessful foray into turbo-charging) before it was abandoned and sold to Rover to become their long-running aluminium V8.  As raced, it boasted 8 cylinders, one crankshaft, two camshafts, one distributer and 16 valves.  The principle of Occam's Razor (the reductionist philosophic position attributed to English Franciscan friar & theologian William of Ockham (circa 1288–1347) written usually as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity) is essentially: “the simplest solution is usually the best".

The ultimate flats: Napier-Sabre H-24 (left) and BRM H-16 (right).

The H configuration though was sound if one had an appropriate purpose of its application.  What showed every sign of evolving into the most outstanding piston aero-engine of World War II (1939-1945) was the Napier-Sabre H-24 which, with reduced displacement, offered superior power, higher engine speeds and reduced fuel consumption compared with the conventional V12s in use and V16s in development.  The early teething troubles had been overcome and extraordinary power outputs were being obtained in testing but the arrival of the jet age meant the big piston-engined warplanes were relics and development of the H24 was abandoned along with the H-32 planned for used in long-range heavy bombers.

A mastectomy bra with prostheses (left) and with the prostheses inserted in the cups' pockets (centre & right).

For those who elect not to have a reconstruction after the loss of a breast, there are bras with “double-skinned” cups which feature internal “pockets” into which a prosthetic breast form (a prosthesis) can be inserted.  Those who have had a unilateral mastectomy (the surgical removal of one breast) can choose a cup size to match the remaining while those who lost both (a bilateral or double mastectomy) can adopt whatever size they prefer.  There are now even single cup bras for those who have lost one breast but opt not to use a prosthetic, an approach which reflects both an aesthetic choice and a reaction against what is described in the US as the “medical-industrial complex”, the point being that women who have undergone a mastectomy should not be subject to pressure either to use a prosthetic or agree to surgical reconstruction (a lucrative procedure for the industry).  This has now emerged as a form of advocacy called the “going flat” movement which has a focus not only on available fashions but also the need for a protocol under which, if women request an AFC (aesthetic flat closure, a surgical closure (sewing up) in which the “surplus” skin often preserved to accommodate a future reconstructive procedure is removed and the chest rendered essentially “flat”), that is what must be provided.  The medical industry has argued the AFC can preclude a satisfactory cosmetic outcome in reconstruction if a woman “changes her mind” but the movement insists it's an example of how the “informed consent” of women is not being respected.  Essentially, what the “going flat” movement seems to be arguing is the request for an AFC should be understood as an example of the legal principle of VAR (voluntary assumption of risk).  The attitude of surgeons who decline to perform an AFC is described by the movement as the “flat refusal”.

Monsoon

Monsoon (pronounced mon-soon)

(1) The seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, blowing from the southwest in summer (associated with heavy rain) and from the northeast in winter.

(2) On the Indian sub-continent and in nearby countries, the season during which the southwest monsoon blows, commonly marked by heavy rains; the rainy season (known as the Asiatic monsoon).

(3) Any wind that changes directions with the seasons (rare) or any persistent wind established between water and adjoining land.

(4) In colloquial use, sudden, hard rain.

(5) Entire meteorological systems with such characteristics.

1547: From the Raj-era English monsoon (alternating trade wind of the Indian Ocean), from the now obsolete Dutch monssoen, from the Portuguese monção, from the earlier moução, from the Arabic موسم (mawsim) (time of year, appropriate season (for a voyage, pilgrimage etc.)), from وَسَمَ‎ (wasama) (to mark, to brand; he marked).  Monsoon has a specific technical meaning in meteorology but in casual use it’s sometimes used as a synonym for (especially sudden) hard rain as an alternative to terms like deluge, rainstorm, storm & squall.  Monsoon is a noun and monsoonal & monsoonish are adjectives; the noun plural is monsoons.

Lindsay Lohan caught in a monsoon in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004).

The Arabic word came into use among Portuguese sailors crewing ships which plied the Indian Ocean trade routes.  In the Arabic, mawsim could be used to describe anything recurrent, especially annual events such as festivals and, confusingly to the Portuguese, it could reference difference seasons (spring, summer etc) because each could be associated with the appropriate time for some activity (a pilgrimage, a harvest et al).  Under the Raj, in the sub-continent and adjacent lands, it came to be applied specifically to the seasonal (April through October) south-westerly winds which both brought the rains and were best suited to the sailing ships making voyages to the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia).  Technically, the winter’s north-easterly winds were also a monsoon but because the summer monsoon generated much heavier rain, it came emphatically to be spoken of as "the monsoon".  Because of the similarity of the conditions, use of the word (as a technical term) has extended from the original (Asian-Australian) to describe the rain patterns in West Africa and the Americas associated with seasonal changes in the direction of prevailing winds but, because the change is not as dramatic (especially in North & South America), some meteorologists prefer other terms.

To a meteorologist a monsoon is not just the summer rains but a system of winds which influences the climate of a large area which stretches as far south as northern Australia, the prevailing direction reversing with the change in seasons.  Although affected by ocean temperatures, monsoons were long thought primarily caused by the much greater annual variation in temperature over large land masses but the influence of oceanic temperatures is now becoming clear.  This variation induces higher atmospheric pressure over the continents in the winter and much lower levels in summer, the disparity causing the strong winds to blow between the ocean and the land, accounting for the heavy seasonal rainfall.

Monsoon storm event over Tuscon, Arizona.

That climate change is caused by the increased levels of atmospheric CO₂ is now accepted by just about everybody except some right-wing fanatics and those who get their medical and scientific advice from their hairdressers or personal trainer.  In the last decade, enough data has been accumulated to build models which predict the changes the Asian-Australian monsoon is expected to undergo and although there are variations between them, all seem to suggest a net increase in monsoon rainfall on a seasonal mean, area-average basis, the causes essentially two-fold: The rise in the land-sea thermal contrast and, of greater significance, warming over the Indian Ocean which means the monsoon winds will carry more moisture to the sub-continent.  There are variations in estimates but typically most models suggest the increase in total rainfall over India will be around 5-10%.  That figure is often misunderstood because it refers to a long-term average number and given that in some years rainfall will actually be below average, in some years it will be much above and climate simulations also show different patterns of geographic distribution which means it’s difficult to predict specific outcomes except to say the trend-lines are upward.  The effect on the Asian-Australian monsoon of anthropogenic climate change is thus certain in direction (and to a degree in extent) but unpredictable at the margins.  The mechanism is well known:  A warming climate allows more moisture to be held in the atmosphere which means rainfall when it does occur will be heavier.  Carbon is a form of energy so more of it in the atmosphere means a more energetic atmosphere and thus climate events, when they occur, will probably tend to the extreme in frequency and severity.