Words and Phrases from Industry and Science

[OldTimeRadio]

I was being facetious.

My God, man....in PUBLIC?

 

[wembley8]

These days it seems to have been superceded by the (I believe) American import, "it's not rocket science".

Hmmm, obviously rocket science is a cultural and scientific stumbling block for the Americans with their Operation Paperclip.

My theory is that US cold war propaganda gave a lot of prominence to NASA and US rocketry (which was not at all German or Nazi, perish the thought), which was trumpeted as the acme of scientific achievement. Hence 'rocket science' being especially intellectually demanding.

But why did it catch on in Britain?

 

[Peripart]

My theory is that US cold war propaganda gave a lot of prominence to NASA and US rocketry (which was not at all German or Nazi, perish the thought), which was trumpeted as the acme of scientific achievement. Hence 'rocket science' being especially intellectually demanding.

But why did it catch on in Britain?

I think the expression "It's not rocket science" has an exact equivalent in "We can put a man on the moon but we can't...", as in "but we can't cure the common cold / keep the streets safe / wipe our own arses", etc. In the early 1970s, putting a man on the moon (involving rocket science, naturally) was seen, quite rightly perhaps, as the summit of human achievement at that time, and it's not too surprising that it caught on as a saying on both sides of the Atlantic.

I do chuckle, though, when the "man on the moon" cliche is used nowadays, since people seem to ignore the fact that there have been no moon missions for well over 30 years, which implies that, for whatever reason, we can't (or won't) put a man on the moon any more.

 

[jefflovestone]

I was being facetious.

My God, man....in PUBLIC?

I found being facetious alone, in front of a mirror, with shameful tears scoring hot, red lines down my puffy and blotchy face got me nowhere!

 

[rynner2]

My theory is that US cold war propaganda gave a lot of prominence to NASA and US rocketry (which was not at all German or Nazi, perish the thought), which was trumpeted as the acme of scientific achievement. Hence 'rocket science' being especially intellectually demanding.

But why did it catch on in Britain?

Britain had its own rocket program until the end of the 60s, I believe.

There was a bit on TV the other night about it - the rocket was called Blue Streak, and it worked OK, but the government finally decided it was too expensive.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I wonder if the phrase 'punch his lights out' existed prior to electric lamps? ...

 

[wembley8]

I wonder if the phrase 'punch his lights out' existed prior to electric lamps? ...

I bet it goes back (in some form) for centuries. You can punch out a lantern too.

A quick google suggests that 'lights out' comes from a military or nautical expression which could go back a long way.

Whereas the phrase "I'll reformat his hard disk" is much more recent

 

[rynner2]

Whereas the phrase "I'll reformat his hard disk" is much more recent

I like it!

And right now I know whose hard disk I want to reformat....

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Whereas the phrase "I'll reformat his hard disk" is much more recent

I think you're right - a thorough perusal of both BEOWULF and the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE failed to turn it up.

Although the spirit of the phrase seemed to be there, right enough.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I wonder if the phrase 'punch his lights out' existed prior to electric lamps? ...

And here I'd always assumed that "lights" referred to the same "lights" as in the phrase "liver and lights," which dates back many centuries.

 

[DougalLongfoot]

Wembley8 wrote:

A quick google suggests

Exactly the example I was going to bring up. We now use Google as a ubiquitous verb, to search on the internet. I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard about Google. I was listening to ABC Newsradio, driving along Turton Rd in Newcastle in about May of 2001. Computer comentator was talking about this marvellous new search engine. He had to spell it several times to make sure the listeners didn't confuse it with the number.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

But I and many use the term Google because we actually use Google, not Yahoo, etc etc, whether their dominance of the default (and for most , only) search engine will remain - time will tell.

We may not be "googling" in ten years time but people will still likely be "Hoovering" even if the technology for doing so has changed slightly

 

[rynner2]

We have a shop in town called "Wavelength" (It sells various works of art.)

Now I don't know how far back this word goes - despite my fairly extensive knowledge of things nautical, this word only seems to have entered the language after radio came into use, and it's associated with expressions like 'tuning in' and 'being on the same wavelength'.

The idea of radio waves (and other electromagnetic waves) arose from the work of James Clerk Maxwell (Lord Kelvin)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell,
so I guess we can date this word to about 1861.

It's a common idea nowadays, when we are completely immersed in an ocean of radio signals of many types, but which we can only experience (via the appropriate equipment) when we 'tune in' to the right 'wavelength'.

We might also talk about 'radio frequency', which relates to wavelength via the constant speed of light, c, which equals wavelength time frequency.
(High frequency = short wavelength, and vice-versa.)

 

[EnolaGaia]

Speaking of radio-related phrases ... Since the 1980's I've occasionally encountered the phrase 'His / her antenna isn't picking up all the signals (frequencies; channels; etc ...)' to connote 'He / she is kind of dense' ...

 

[Wun_oh_wun]

- 'hard landing / soft landing' (to describe relative harshness / impact of an event)
- to 'dock' / 'dock X to Y' (no doubt figuratively dates back to nautical usage, but with space program and computers now also connotes 'mating up in a precise fashion')
- 'AC / DC' (to connote two dissimilar formats or protocols)
- 'return seats and trays to their upright position' (facetious saying to connote 'we're almost done; configure for finish')

I think this has another meaning too

On that note, so does docking... Now we'll see who the really louche linguists are in here...

 

[rynner2]

Now we'll see who the really louche linguists are in here...

rynner sidesteps that with this story...

Doctors out to cure medicine of eponyms
David Rose

From Aarskog’s syndrome to Zahorsky’s disease, the history of medicine has granted fame to thousands of pioneering physicians and anatomists. But the convention of naming tests, symptoms, and diseases after their discoverers is confusing and should be abandoned, doctors say. An estimated 15,000 eponyms - terms where a discovery or invention is named after a person - are invoked in medicine today, says the website whonamedit.com. Famous examples include Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Heimlich’s manoeuvre, Tourette’s syndrome and pasteurisation.

While eponyms appear to give credit where credit is due, researchers argue in the British Medical Journal, published today, that some terms do not accurately reflect scientific discoveries, are inconsistently used or tainted by the less than illustrious behaviour of their historical namesakes. Doctors and medical students are baffled by an increasingly cluttered medical lexicon, and it is time to abandon eponyms in favour of more descriptive terms, argue Alexander Woywodt, of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, Preston, and Eric Matteson, of the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.

Only 10 of 92 surgeons surveyed were able to give the correct description of Finkelstein’s test (for diagnosing tendon inflammation), while experienced trauma surgeons may spend some time in debating “whether a fracture is a Barton’s, a Smith II or a reversed Barton’s”, they write.

To make matters more complicated, some diseases have many different eponyms in different countries, they say. Sometimes the terms are also considered inappropriate, such as those derived from Nazi doctors during the Second World War.

They cite the case of Hans Reiter, a doctor who is remembered for his discovery for a variant of reactive arthritis, but was recently identified as having conducted experiments on prisoners in concentration camps. There has since been a decline in the use of the term Reiter’s syndrome, and a formal retraction of the term has even been proposed, the authors write.

“Eponyms often provide a less than truthful account of how diseases were discovered and reflect influence, politics, language, habit, or even sheer luck rather than scientific achievement,” they add. “Moreover, the continued use of tainted eponyms is inappropriate and will not be accepted by patients, relatives, or the public.

Instead of using eponyms, they suggest we should use our interest in medical history to provide fair and truthful accounts of scientific discoveries and to dissect individual contributions. They call on the editors of medical journals and textbooks to abandon the use of eponyms.

Writing in defence of the terms in the BMJ, Judith Whitworth, of the Australian National University, Canberra, says that eponyms remain a useful reflection of medical history.

Eponyms bring colour to medicine, provide a convenient shorthand for the profession and are so embedded in our vocabularies that abolishing them is unrealistic, she says.

“Do we really want to speak of violent muscular jerks of the face, shoulders, and extremities with spasmodic grunting, explosive noises, or coprolalia instead of Tourette’s syndrome?” she writes.

“The use of eponyms is often random, inconsistent, idiosyncratic, confused, and heavily influenced by local geography and culture. This is part of their beauty. For example, Plummer-Vinson syndrome in the United States, Paterson-Kelly’s syndrome in the United Kingdom and Waldenstrom-Kjellberg syndrome in Scandinavia all describe sideropenic dysphagia [a throat condition linked with iron deficiency].”

She adds: “If we abolish [eponyms] in medicine, can we still use them in other areas of science? Do we get rid of Avogadro’s number, Boyle’s law, the joule, the Kelvin, the hertz?

“Should we abolish the cardigan because he was a bully whose incompetence led to over a hundred unnecessary deaths in the charge of the Light Brigade? Should we instead speak of a front-opening sweater? What will we call the sandwich, sideburns, diesel or chauvinism?

“Eponyms are here to stay.”

What’s in a name?

James Parkinson English physician and palaeontologist (1755-1824), is best known for his description of “shaking palsy” in 1817, but his name was not attached to Parkinson’s disease until 40 years later. A political radical, he was also questioned over the “popgun plot” to assassinate George III.

Louis Pasteur, French chemist and bacteriologist (1822-1895), was the founder of the science of bacteriology who proved that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease. He was the first to use vaccines for rabies, anthrax and chicken cholera. He originated the process of preserving food known today as pasteurisation.

Alois Alzheimer, German neuropathologist and psychiatrist (1864-1915), spent years working with dementia patients and co-wrote an important six-volume study of the nervous system before becoming director of the psychiatric clinic at the University of Munich, where he described the disease that would bear his name. Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s today is still based on the methods he used in 1906.

Gilles de la Tourette, French neurologist (1857-1904). In 1884 he described nine patients who were afflicted with compulsive behaviour and tics, including the Marquise de Dampierre, an aristocratic lady who “ticked and blasphemed”. She had been assessed 60 years previously by a physician named Jean Itard, but experts preferred the sound of “Tourette” and his name was attached to the disorder.

Henry Jay Heimlich, American thoracic surgeon, (1920-), has been a household name since the 1970s because of his procedure for saving a choking victim. Dr Heimlich’s main field of study is disorders of the alimentary tract. He is president of the Heimlich Institute in Cincinnati.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 357794.ece

 

[rynner2]

Forth Bridge painting set to end

The process of painting the Forth Rail Bridge is finally set to end in four years' time, it has been announced.
The need for continuous maintenance of the structure has passed into folklore and led to the coining of a phrase for a never-ending job.

However, Network Rail has announced a £74m contract which will see painters down their brushes in 2012.

The new paint has an estimated life span of 25 years, although is it hoped it will last closer to 40 years.

The expression "like painting the Forth Bridge" features in the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms.

It states: "If repairing or improving something is like painting the Forth Bridge, it takes such a long time that by the time you have finished doing it, you have to start again."

The restoration of this remarkable bridge will return it to near pristine condition

Marshall Scott
Balfour Beatty

For more than 100 years, that is how painting work on the bridge has been carried out.

However, Network Rail's chief executive, Iain Coucher, said the company was now able to name the date when the process would end.

He said: "The work currently being undertaken will restore the bridge to its original condition and preserve the steel-work for decades to come.

"The team currently working on the bridge has now completed some of the most difficult work and they have already overcome the most significant challenges that this project posed."

The work involves screening off sections of the bridge before old paintwork is removed and any repairs carried out on the bare steel.

The new paint, similar to that used in the offshore oil industry, is then applied in three coats.

Marshall Scott of engineers Balfour Beatty said: "We have now worked in excess of 2.4 million hours on the bridge over six years.

"We now look forward to taking this project to completion in 2012 and, with the removal of the scaffolding, the restoration of this remarkable bridge will return it to near pristine condition."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edi ... 250560.stm

So now we need a new phrase to replace "like painting the Forth Bridge" 8)

 

[rynner2]

Forth Bridge painting 'is coming to an end'
The painting of the Forth Bridge, a job that is famously never finished, is about to come to an end.
Network Rail, which manages the bridge, said contractors will leave the iconic structure in December and will not need to paint it again for 25 years.
After 10 years and more than £130m, the bridge will finally be free of scaffolding.

The current contract is due to be completed ahead of schedule on Friday 9 December 2011.
New techniques and products are being hailed for the success of the project.
A 200-strong team has been applying a triple layer of new glass flake epoxy paint, which is similar to that used in the offshore oil industry.
It creates a chemical bond to provide a virtually impenetrable layer to protect the bridge's steel work from the weather.

Matti Watson, a blaster paint supervisor, said it was dangerous work when he started painting the bridge in 1971.
He said: "There were rope cradles when I first started with the pulleys.
"Now it's scaffold, which is probably a lot safer for everybody concerned.
"A bucket and a brush, that's how it was done. A big round brush and a big bucket. You had to carry them wherever you went. There were no safety belts in those days."

The expression "like painting the Forth Bridge" was coined to describe a never-ending job, one which takes so long that when you have finished it, it is time to start again.
Colin Hardie, Balfour Beatty construction superintendent, said that "old cliche" was now over.
"For the first time in the bridge's history there will be no painters required on the bridge. Job done," he said.

David Simpson, Network Rail Scotland's route managing director, said: "Over the last decade, the bridge has been restored to its original condition and its new paint will preserve the steelwork for decades to come."

The bridge, which was built between 1883 and 1890, is 1.5 miles long.
The track is about 150ft above the water level and the bridge reaches 330ft at the tops of the towers.
The steel structure contains more than 6.5 million rivets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-14789036

 

[Mythopoeika]

Forth Bridge painting coming to an end - whatever next, Hell freezing over?
We're doomed. All doomed.

 

[Nemo]

Hell freezing over

 

[rynner2]

Another look at the Forth Bridge, from the World Wide Words newsletter:

GONE FORTH When somebody says that a job is like painting the Forth
Bridge they mean that it's never-ending. Although the famous railway
bridge across the Firth of Forth north of Edinburgh was opened in
1890, research by the Oxford English Dictionary has shown that the
simile first appeared in print only in 1955. But the symbolism of
the endless task was around long before then. As early as 1894, it
was reported in the Glasgow Herald: "The Forth bridge receives a new
coat of paint every three years, and one-third is done each year, so
that the painters are continually at work." In 1901, US papers noted
"The Forth bridge is constantly being repainted" and that minor fact
was repeated down the years until it was embedded in the public mind
on both sides of the Atlantic. An expensive refit using epoxy resin
and polyurethane coatings in place of traditional paint, though in
the same rust-red colour, is about to be finished. News reports last
week noted that the completion date is set for 9 December, that the
bridge will then be clear of scaffolding after 10 years work and
that it won't now need repainting for at least two decades. But how
long will it take for the cliché to die?

 

[Pete Younger]

long will it take for the cliché to die?

How long is a piece of string?

 

[OneWingedBird]

We're doomed. All doomed.

Don't worry, prob. the paint will have failed by 2015 anyway and the goons someone thought it was a good idea to outsource the job to will have gone into liquidation leaving the taxpayer with the bill.

Then we will be undoomed again.

 

[rynner2]

long will it take for the cliché to die?

How long is a piece of string?

I happen to have a piece of string here - (measures it) - it is 80 cm long.

(Other pieces of string may be available.)

 

[Pete Younger]

Good heavens, you've explained the superstring theory.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... whatever next, Hell freezing over?
We're doomed. All doomed.

That reminds me of an incident involving Huntley and Brinkley (NBC nightly news team back in the '60's)...

One evening David Brinkley looked calmly into the camera and simply said, "Hell has frozen over...."

He then paused just long enough for silverware to clatter onto dinner tables all across America ....

... and went on to explain that the small Lake Erie port of Hell Michigan had officially frozen over for the winter .....

They don't make TV like that anymore...

 

[rynner2]

Under the rainbow: Mother nature celebrates end of Forth Bridge's 121-year paint job with a spectacular show
By Jim Mcbeth
Last updated at 3:15 PM on 26th November 2011

It is newly painted in what some see as a rather mundane shade of ochre - but yesterday Mother Nature decided that the Forth Bridge deserved better.
In a trice the heavens opened up and suddenly the world's most distinctive rail bridge was bathed in all the bright colours of the rainbow. It was the ideal backdrop for the bridge, standing in all its glory - free of scaffolding for the first time in ten years.
It was also a historic moment for the team of 200 workmen carrying out what was known as the world's longest paint job.
For the first time since 1890 they could lay down their brushes, knowing they won't have to start all over again on Monday.

Thanks to advances in paint ‘technology’, the one-and-a-half mile bridge, with its 43 acres of surface and 6.5million rivets will not require a paint job for 25 years.

Maintenance of the bridge has passed into the language to describe an endless task. ‘It is like painting the Forth Bridge,’ goes the saying. Now that has been made redundant by a triple-layer coat of super-strong paint.
A Network Rail spokesman said: ‘The bridge looks amazing, restored to its original glory. It’s looking almost as good as when it was first built.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1eu8J5LBQ

 

[rynner2]

The word 'Strike' has a very wide variety of meanings. But nowadays it often refers to a withdrawal of labour.

Years ago, I seem to remember reading that this sense derived from the phrase 'striking the masts' (ie, lowering them, something that would render a sailing vessel inoperable).

This relates to other uses of 'strike':

23. Nautical
a. To haul down (a mast or sail).
b. To lower (a flag or sail) in salute or surrender.
c. To lower (cargo) into a hold.
24. To remove (theatrical properties, a set, or technical equipment) from a stage.
25. To dismantle and pack up for departure: strike camp.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/strike

These thoughts occur because today I was checking on progress on the new Hayle bridge: now that the main concrete bridge deck has been created, they're starting to disassemble the scaffolding that held up the wooden mould for the concrete, and before they can remove the wood the temporary safety railings around the edge of the wood deck have had to be removed.

When I looked at my photos in detail, I saw a notice on the wood deck which read:

"Striking in progress - Keep out"

Now clearly no one was on strike - there was activity all over the site - so here the word 'striking' seems to have its older sense of lowering or removing equipment.

Can anyone connected to the construction industry confirm that this is current usage?

 

[ramonmercado]

Don't know about that but I like the expression Striking The Colours.

 

[rynner2]

Just came across this in the Test Match coverage:

In a parallel universe, somewhere, England enforced the follow-on, and the game was home and hosed by now. Ho hum.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/22656682

8)