Here I go again with another query about how the real world (outside the USA) uses a word. Hereabouts, the term, "battery" seems to mean any electric cell or group of cells, whereas its original meaning indicates a group of two or more cells linked together. How is it elsewhere? My curmudgeonly self rebels against this loose usage, but I'm being overwhelmed by popular usage. HELP!
BTW, I do understand that two or more people linked together can lead to battery, but I'm not assailing that definition.
It also means a group/set of drums. When you are feeling particularly fiendish, giving the son of your friends a battery set for his birthday can be considered assault with battery.
And then Bel, there is "batterie de cuisine", which is used in English as a more chichi term than "kitchen tool set".
>My curmudgeonly self rebels against this loose usage...
so, do you want to go back to Leyden jars then? (that was the first electrical battery, and that usage stems from the artillery battery, and that usage stems from...)
Geoff: While it is strictly true that battery means more than one battery, in the real world more than one is two and two is a pair. Hence a pair of battery is actually two batteries. Do you feel better now?
But your posting brings to mind a much more serious linguistic offence, namely, the battery upon the word "assault". Strictly speaking, an "assault" is an attempt to commit a "battery", or the threat of a "battery", not a "battery" itself.
This-here barrister is embarrassed. I was about to correct plutarch, saying he had the above reversed -- when I thought to LIU. Plut's 100% correct; I erred. Thanks, plut!
100% correct
Then I am failing to understand sumpin'!
as·sault (ə-sôlt')
n.
A violent physical or verbal attack.
A military attack, such as one launched against a fortified area or place.
The concluding stage of an attack in which close combat occurs with the enemy.
Law.
An unlawful threat or attempt to do bodily injury to another.
The act or an instance of unlawfully threatening or attempting to injure another.
Law. Sexual assault.
The crime of rape.
v., -sault·ed, -sault·ing, -saults.
v.tr.
To make an assault upon; attack. See synonyms at attack.
To rape.
v.intr.
To make an assault.
[Middle English assaut, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *assaltus, variant of Latin assultus, from past participle of assilīre, to jump on. See assail.]
as·sault'er n.
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Now, the way I understand that lil' lot is that an assault can be a verbal offence, a military assault on say a battery of guns would be an actual physical attack; and a legal assualt can be either the actual or threatened attack; or indeed a sexual attack. In short, assault can be an attack enacted in words, threat, or actions.
mav, perhaps the legal definition is more carefully circumscribed. I'll re-check the law dictionary tonight, but as I recall from this morning:
Assault is in rough terms the threatening (not necessarily consummated) of a physical attack, thus the "putting the other party in fear". (The harm threatened must be physical harm to the person, not to his property, feelings or reputation.) As you note, the threat may be conveyed either physically (the raised fist) or verbally ("I'm gonna kill you"). The threat, even if not consummated, can be used to coerce or extort. Indeed, even if the attacker is merely bluffing, with no intention to follow through with his threat, he commits assault by striking fear into the heart of the other party. (Note that by virtue of the above, "assault" is not synonymous with "attempted battery".)
Battery is the implementation of that threat -- or, without any warning threat, the actual doing of physical violence to the person. The general wisdom, perhaps not 100% accurate, is that a battery always includes an assault, but not vice versa.
EDIT: I am speaking only of the common law definition. Indivdual states and other political jurisdictions each have specific and varied definitions.
Then I am failing to understand sumpin'!
as·sault (ə-sôlt')
n.
A violent physical or verbal attack.
Mav, i think plut and keiva are speaking from a strictly legal perspective. Common usage (and common sense) would certainly agree with assault as described in the AHD, but the Criminal Code provides as follows:
PENAL CODE Section 240: An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.[E.A.]
further,
PC§220: Every person who assaults another with intent to commit mayhem, rape, sodomy, oral copulation, or any violation of Section 264.1, 288 or 289 is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, four, or six years.[E.A.]
As an aside to the lawyers among us, it's been a decade since i TA'd an evidence class in college, so my memory's hazy, but i don't recall seeing this:
PC§222. Every person guilty of administering to another any chloroform, ether, laudanum, or any controlled substance, anaesthetic, or intoxicating agent, with intent thereby to enable or assist himself or herself or any other person to commit a felony, is guilty of a felony.
Was this added recently, in response to the rohypnol craze?
EDIT: *sigh*.... 44 seconds
While it is strictly true that battery means more than one battery,Were I your schoolmistress, I would rap your knuckles and exclaim, "A battery is two or more of something; a single cell/gun emplacement/drum/pot de cuisine/pot de chambre/lawyer, etc, is not a battery!" (AnnaStrophic, may I borrow one of your "harrumph" emoticons?)
Strictly speaking, an "assault" is an attempt to commit a "battery", or the threat of a "battery", not a
"battery" itself.Indeed. Hence the title of this thread. I am attempting to assail the American usage of battery.
Oh, and Keiva, I much prefer Van de Graff generators, or rubbing a cat's fur with an amber rod! It's the one and only use I can imagine for a cat.
Elvis is dead, but Nikola Tesla lives!!!
Oh, and Keiva, I much prefer Van de Graff generators, or rubbing a cat's fur with an amber rod! It's the one and only use I can imagine for a cat.How did I get involved in "cats"? About which I would not dare to express an opinion, lest
I be struck like a lightning rod!
I'll stick to hippopotami!
Oh, and Keiva, I much prefer Van de Graff generators, or rubbing a cat's fur with an amber rod! It's the one and only use I can imagine for a cat.Oh no, Geoff, you're dead wrong. Take a cat plus chicken tikka masala and some white shag pile carpet, and you have the world's first monorail system based on antigravity ...
Oh no, Geoff, you're dead wrong. Take a cat plus chicken tikka masala and some white shag pile carpet, and you have the world's first monorail system based on antigravity ...Well, yes, of course you're right, but I was referring to a cat alone, not one with a dead bird stuck to its back. Besides, we DO need a lighting source for your levitated monorail, now don't we?
Keiva, my regrets - it was TSUWM to whom I meant to address my remark. Were I female, I'd claim my confusion was due to the stressful effects of CATamenia, but that would be CATachresis.
yeahbut.®
a much more serious linguistic offence, namely, the battery upon the word "assault". Strictly speaking, an "assault" is an attempt to commit a "battery", or the threat of a "battery", not a "battery" itself. (my emphasis)I was responding to a post that seemed to be saying my ordinary use of mangulage was an assault or battery that would land me in the cells! The day I take linguistic lessons from the lawyers is the day I'll let my cat feed the birds
Rules? we don't...
are amber rods made out of amber?
Some ancient Greek geek discovered that when one rubs amber on fur (Prob'ly a sheep, not a puddy tat in his or her case) it would produce static electricity. Thus the word, "elektron." I know you'll get a charge out of knowing that.
The day I take linguistic lessons from the lawyers...Really! Have you ever heard them pronounce Latin?
Sigh knee dye, indeed (Harrumph{® Anastrophic Enterprises, used with permission})!
there are places, (the baltic, and Santa Domingo come to mind) where there are vast deposits of amber. it can be mined, since it lies in seams inches to feet deep. these deposits are from forest of amber producing trees that were once common to the area. other sites have amber, but not in thick seams. many places in the world, you can find smaller deposits of amber, sometimes in chunks, or petrified globs. (nowday, amber with a insect is more valuable than clear amber, in the not so distant past, the opposite was true. )
In any case, when amber is 2 or 3 feet thick, it is possible to mine and shape it into any thing--including a rod. I have no idea why rod shapes where first made, but soon after they were, the properties of the same were discovered.
one of the russian czars had a whole room made of amber.. (the walls, the floor, all the furniture, were cover in, or made directly of amber. (it was in the hermatige i think) Rather shocking i think, especially if you dressed in fur!
mav, I largely agree with your point,
"I was responding to a post that seemed to be saying my ordinary use of mangulage was an assault or battery that would land me in the cells! The day I take linguistic lessons from the lawyers is the day I'll let my cat feed the birds. Your usage is quite correct. In some area more precisely-honed definitions are necessary (and law is one such area, for upon the precise definition of "assault" can turn the rather important question of whether an individual is sent to jail), but that
in no way limits the scope of proper usage outside those areas.
I know I am going to regret this, because it comes back to creating another thread about sports. But I cannot help myself because there exists another meaning of battery that is probably not in current use. At one time battery referred to the duo on defense who pitched and caught in baseball. Back in the 20s and 30s, the newspapers would have a box about the games to be played and would list the batteries for each team. This was probably stopped when wholesale pitching changes became common.
Thus the word, "elektron." I know you'll get a charge out of knowing that.Negative, Geoff. (Wish I could say "positive", but I can't put that spin on it. 'tis an electra-complex subject.)
teD, I was going to post about the baseball sense of battery myself, but I hesitated; not because of the sports connection, but because originally it referred to just one (oh no!) part of the pitcher/catcher pairing. The following purports to be from "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary":
"The explanation offered in the glossary in R.G. Knowles and Richard Morton's 1896 book 'Baseball': "The term has its origin in telegraphy, the pitcher being the transmitter and the catcher the receiver." In 1897 however, in a slim volume in the Spalding's Athletic Library entitled 'Technical Terms of Baseball', Henry Chadwick clearly implies a military borrowing when he gives this definition: "This is the term applied to the pitcher and catcher of a team. It is the main attacking force of the little army of nine players in the field in a contest." Most later attempts to pin a history on the term have alluded to this comparison to a military artillery unit. Metaphorically, it fits nicely with 'firing line' a now dated, but once popular term for the pitcher's mound, and 'powder' and 'smoke', two synonyms for fastball. Perhaps the most contrived attempt to explain the exact origin of the term appeared in a letter published in 'The Sporting News' on January 18, 1940. In response to an appeal for clues to the origin of the term, Frank J. Reiter of Kenmore, New York, wrote, "It may possibly have arisen as follows: General Abner Doubleday, the founder of baseball, being a military man, may have originated the phrase, or someone in the army so named it in honor of General Doubleday. As the word 'fire' is a miltary command, and as the pitcher literally 'fires' the ball to the plate much in the same manner as a field artillery battery fires a cannon, this may have prompted the name of a military unit to be applied to the pitcher and the catcher.
2. Before the 1880s the term was commonly used for the pitcher alone. "
[the catcher was called the 'battery mate']
Re: so, do you want to go back to Leyden jars then? (that was the first electrical battery, and that usage stems from the artillery battery, and that usage stems from...)
Why, as a matter of fact, i do!
i am guessing the next step back refers to a battering ram. but that begs the question why was it a battering ram....
Don't worry TEd, if it shows any tendency to be come a sports thread, those of us who are inclined to food threads will have no trouble turning batter into a food thread..
Batter from the Latin battuare to beat, knock
why was it a battering ram....Purely a matter of machismo, Troy. I mean, who wants to be clobbered by a battering ewe?
Now, back to the amber rod and the sheep pelt... or was that a pelted sheep?
ne of the russian czars had a whole room made of amber.. (the walls, the floor, all the furniture, were cover
in, or made directly of amber. (it was in the hermatige i think) Rather shocking i think, especially if you dressed
in fur!
So what do you um,- infer - from this shocking display by this sap?
a pelted sheep?
In our efforts to resolve this question of the ages, let us leave no tern unstoned.
Pelted sheep. Now I
know that you're trying to pull the wool over our eyes ...
Oh no, Geoff, you're dead wrong. Take a cat plus chicken tikka masala and some white shag pile carpet, and you have the world's first monorail system based on antigravity ...
In a similar vien: in a humorous research paper I heard of, the author proposed an array cats with slices of buttered toast strapped to their backs as a mechanism to facilitate high-speed travel. As the toast always lands buttered side down and the cat must always land on its feet, the combination would remain spinning just above the ground in perpetuity.
Pelted sheep. Now I know that you're trying to pull the wool over our eyes ...
Perhaps he is just a mutton for punishment?
Then I am failing to understand sumpin'!
Perhaps it is that "legal" English bears little relation to "normal" English in many cases. If it did, perhaps it wouldn't take five pages for my mortgage documents to say, "If you don't pay us each month, we take your house."
Somewhere between kitty turns and battering rams, could this thread proffer secrets of purr-pet-ual motion and elektricity?Oh, WW, you're most illuminating! We shall indeed sing the body electric along with Whitman if we strap amber rods as well as chicken tacky messy to the spinning cat, and make the carpet from wool, thereby providing both perpetual levitation and illuminating power! What a truly elegant machine!
BTW, my local PBS station is broadcasting program on Tesla tonight. Catch it if you really want to learn some electrigying things!
Pelted sheep. Now I know that you're trying to pull the wool over our eyes ...
Only if you're an innocent demoiselle wearing a sweater.
my local PBS station is broadcasting program on Tesla tonight. Catch itCommercial-solicitation alert!
Will the station be explicitly soliciting donations during the program?
Will it mention Tesla's association with (if I recall correctly) General Electric? This is simply
shocking! 
(
)
Tesla's association with (if I recall correctly) General Electric? This is simply shocking!
It was Westinghouse - the place where wabbits welax. The show's on now - gotta go!
In old textbooks from when I was a kid there were pictures of castles being beseiged and the pole being used to batter the door had a carved ramshead, including horns, on it. Rams frequently battle one another for herd dominance by butting heads together until the opponent gives up (or dies.) Ewes don't exhibit this macho behaviour. So that's why they are called battering rams.
the pole being used to batter the door had a carved ramshead, including horns, on it...that's why they are called battering rams
Or either the other way around, one.
The AHD is unclear.
fwiw, from OED2:
[f. battering vbl. n. + ram. Cf. L. aries ram, battering-ram.]
1. An ancient military engine employed for battering down walls, consisting of a beam of wood, with a mass of iron at one end, sometimes in the form of a ram's head; (also fig.).
Rams frequently battle one another by butting heads together. Ewes don't exhibit this macho behaviour
Ewes are not sufficiently horny to exhibit this behavior.
Well, shoot Martha, somebody's got to use their head.
(as opposed to butting)
you know, it occurred to me when I posted the OED stuff that I should mention that, in as much as it was used as a siege engine, the battering-ram was related to batteries of artillery, but no....
battering vbl n. 1. The action of beating with successive blows, esp. in Mil. of attacking a fortification with cannon or other engines. Also fig.
2. The result of this action; bruising or defacement caused by successive blows.
3. attrib. a. in ancient warfare, battering-engine, an engine constructed for breaking down walls; so battering-machine, battering-ram. b. in modern warfare, battering-train, a number of cannon specially intended for siege purposes; so battering-artillery, -cannon, -gun, -piece. c. battering-charge, the full charge of powder for a cannon.
The result of this action; bruising or defacement caused by successive blows.Thus more than a single blow, which returns me to my original question: Do non-US'n English speakers speak of a single electric cell as a battery? I'll be on vacation - away from my computer - for a week, so I DO hope some of you will answer me by the time I check in here again!