describe+an+invention

1) describe smb., smth. describe one's acquaintance (a person, the criminal, smb.'s appearance, a flower, an event, a picture, a battle, etc.) описать своего знакомого и т. д., we asked him to describe his impressions мы попросили его поделиться своими впечатлениями

2) describe smth. describe a straight line (a triangle, a rectangle, etc.) начертить прямую [линию] и т. д.', describe a circle описать окружность

describe what... (where..., etc.) describe what one saw (where one went, etc.) описывать, что видел и т. д.

describe to smb. what... (how..., etc.) describe to him what one saw (how to do it, etc.) описывать кому-л., что видел и т. д.

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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It would seem that most of the stories about Lee's invention of the stocking frame cannot be verified by any contemporary evidence, and the first written accounts do not appear until the second half of the seventeenth century. The claim that he was Master of Arts from St John's College, Cambridge, was first made in 1607 but cannot be checked because the records have not survived. The date for the invention of the knitting machine as being 1589 was made at the same time, but again there is no supporting evidence. There is no evidence that Lee was Vicar of Calverton, nor that he was in Holy Orders at all. Likewise there is no evidence for the existence of the woman, whether she was girlfriend, fiancée or wife, who is said to have inspired the invention, and claims regarding the involvement of Queen Elizabeth I and her refusal to grant a patent because the stockings were wool and not silk are also without contemporary foundation. Yet the first known reference shows that Lee was the inventor of the knitting machine, for the partnership agreement between him and George Brooke dated 6 June 1600 states that "William Lee hath invented a very speedy manner of making works usually wrought by knitting needles as stockings, waistcoats and such like". This agreement was to last for twenty-two years, but terminated prematurely when Brooke was executed for high treason in 1603. Lee continued to try and exploit his invention, for in 1605 he described himself as "Master of Arts" when he petitioned the Court of Aldermen of the City of London as the first inventor of an engine to make silk stockings. In 1609 the Weavers' Company of London recorded Lee as "a weaver of silk stockings by engine". These petitions suggest that he was having difficulty in establishing his invention, which may be why in 1612 there is a record of him in Rouen, France, where he hoped to have better fortune. If he had been invited there by Henry IV, his hopes were dashed by the assassination of the king soon afterwards. He was to supply four knitting machines, and there is further evidence that he was in France in 1615, but it is thought that he died in that country soon afterwards.

The machine Lee invented was probably the most complex of its day, partly because the need to use silk meant that the needles were very fine. Henson (1970) in 1831 took five pages in his book to describe knitting on a stocking frame which had over 2,066 pieces. To knit a row of stitches took eleven separate stages, and great care and watchfulness were required to ensure that all the loops were equal and regular. This shows how complex the machines were and points to Lee's great achievement in actually making one. The basic principles of its operation remained unaltered throughout its extraordinarily long life, and a few still remained in use commercially in the early 1990s.

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1) ((often with ever) from a certain time onwards: I have been at home (ever) since I returned from Italy.) desde que

2) (at a time after: Since he agreed to come, he has become ill.) después que

3) (because: Since you are going, I will go too.) ya que, puesto que

1) ((usually with ever) from that time onwards: We fought and I have avoided him ever since.) desde entonces

2) (at a later time: We have since become friends.) desde entonces

1) (from the time of (something in the past) until the present time: She has been very unhappy ever since her quarrel with her boyfriend.) desde

2) (at a time between (something in the past) and the present time: I've changed my address since last year.) desde

3) (from the time of (the invention, discovery etc of): the greatest invention since the wheel.) desde

since¹ adv desde entonces

since² conj desde que

since³ prep desde

tr[sɪns]

adverb

1 desde entonces

■ he left 10 years ago and I haven't seen him since se marchó hace 10 años y desde entonces no lo he visto

■ she arrived in 1988 and has lived here ever since llegó en 1988 y vive aquí desde entonces

■ I've long since stopped worrying about my weight hace mucho que dejé de preocuparme por mi peso

preposition

1 desde

■ I've been here since four o'clock llevo aquí desde las cuatro

■ he's worked there since 1980 trabaja allí desde 1980

■ I haven't seen her since last summer no la veo desde el verano pasado

■ how long is it since your party? ¿cuánto (tiempo) hace de tu fiesta?

■ since when do you call the shots round here? ¿desde cuándo mandas tú por aquí?

conjunction

1 (time) desde que

■ he hasn't worked since he had the accident no trabaja desde que tuvo el accidente

■ it's years since I went to the theatre hace años que no voy al teatro

■ since moving here, she's taken up painting desde que se trasladó aquí, ha empezado a pintar

■ how long is it since we had a holiday? ¿cuánto hace que no tenemos vacaciones?

2 (because, seeing that) ya que, puesto que

■ since you're going to the shop... ya que vas a la tienda...

■ since you haven't got any money... ya que tú no tienes dinero...

since ['sɪnts] adv

1) : desde entonces

they've been friends ever since: desde entonces han sido amigos

she's since become mayor: más tarde se hizo alcalde

2) ago: hace

he's long since dead: murió hace mucho

since conj

1) : desde que

since he was born: desde que nació

2) inasmuch as: ya que, puesto que, dado que

since prep

: desde

• desde adv.

• desde entonces adv.

• después adv.

• cuando conj.

• desde que conj.

• pues conj.

• puesto que conj.

• ya que conj.

• a partir de prep.

• desde prep.

1) ( in time) desde que

2) ( introducing a reason)

preposition desde

adverb ( from then till now) desde entonces

ADV desde entonces

PREP desde

3. CONJ

1) (=from the time that) desde que

2) (=as, because) ya que, puesto que, como

* * *

1) ( in time) desde que

2) ( introducing a reason)

preposition desde

adverb ( from then till now) desde entonces

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Chanute was born in Paris, but from the age of 6 he lived in the United States, where he became a prominent railway engineer. He developed an interest in aviation relatively late in life, and in fact built his first glider at the age of 64. Before that, he had collected all the information he could find on aviation, especially on the work of Otto Lilienthal in Germany. In 1894 he published an account of these researches in a classic work, Progress in Flying Machines.

By 1896 Chanute was ready to carry out practical experiments of his own and designed a series of hang-gliders. He started with a Lilienthal-type monoplane and progressed to his very successful biplane glider. He used a bridge-truss method of cross-bracing to give his wings the required strength, a system used by many of his successors, including the Wright brothers. Chanute's gliders were flown on the shore of Lake Michigan by his two young assistants A.M.Herring and W.Avery. The biplane glider made some seven hundred flights without mishap, covering up to 100 m (110 yds). In 1898 Herring fitted an engine into a modified glider and claimed to have made two short hops.

In 1900 the Wright brothers made contact with Chanute and sought his advice, which he readily gave, indeed, he became one of their most trusted advisors. In 1903 Chanute travelled to Paris and gave an illustrated lecture describing his own and the Wrights' gliding successes, generating much interest amongst European aviators.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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A loom on which more than one ribbon could be woven at once may have been invented by Anton Möller at Danzig in 1586. It arrived in England from the Low Countries and was being used in London by 1616 and in Lancashire by 1680. Means were being devised in Switzerland c.1730 for driving these looms by power, but this was prohibited because it was feared that these looms would deprive other weavers of work. In England, a patent was taken out by John Kay of Bury and John Stell of Keighley in 1745 for improvements to these looms and it is probably that Gartside received permission to use this invention. In Manchester, Gartside set up a mill with swivel looms driven by a water-wheel; this was probably prior to 1758, because a man was brought up at the Lancaster Assizes in March of that year for threatening to burn down "the Engine House of Mr. Gartside in Manchester, Merchant". He set up his factory near Garrett Hall on the south side of Manchester and it may still have been running in 1764. However, the enterprise failed because it was necessary for each loom to be attended by one person in order to prevent any mishap occurring, and therefore it was more economic to use hand-frames, which the operatives could control more easily.

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   1) The Book of Nature Is Written in the Language of Mathematics

   Philosophy is written in that great book, the universe, which is always open, right before our eyes. But one cannot understand this book without first learning to understand the language and to know the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and the characters are triangles, circles, and other figures. Without these, one cannot understand a single word of it, and just wanders in a dark labyrinth. (Galileo, 1990, p. 232)

   2) Arranging Speech so as to Reply Appropriately

   It never happens that it [a nonhuman animal] arranges its speech in various ways in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do. (Descartes, 1970a, p. 116)

   3) No Other Animal Has the Language Capacity of the Human

   It is a very remarkable fact that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts; while, on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same. (Descartes, 1967, p. 116)

   4) Human Beings Do Not Live Only in the World of Objects

   Human beings do not live in the object world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built on the language habits of the group.... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (Sapir, 1921, p. 75)

   5) Language Powerfully Conditions All Our Thinking

   It powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes.... No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same worlds with different labels attached. (Sapir, 1985, p. 162)

   6) A List of Language Games

   [A list of language games, not meant to be exhaustive:]

   Giving orders, and obeying them- Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements- Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)Reporting an eventSpeculating about an eventForming and testing a hypothesisPresenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagramsMaking up a story; and reading itPlay actingSinging catchesGuessing riddlesMaking a joke; and telling it

   Solving a problem in practical arithmeticTranslating from one language into another

   LANGUAGE Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, and praying-. (Wittgenstein, 1953, Pt. I, No. 23, pp. 11 e-12 e)

   7) Language Constrains Certain Modes of Interpretation

   We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages.... The world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.... No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks himself most free. (Whorf, 1956, pp. 153, 213-214)

   8) We Dissect Nature in Accordance with Our Native Languages

   We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages.

   The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.... We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or can in some way be calibrated. (Whorf, 1956, pp. 213-214)

   9) The Forms of a Person's Thoughts Are Controlled by Unperceived Patterns of His Own Language

   The forms of a person's thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language-shown readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with other languages, especially those of a different linguistic family. (Whorf, 1956, p. 252)

    10) The Analysis of Certain Types of Utterances

   It has come to be commonly held that many utterances which look like statements are either not intended at all, or only intended in part, to record or impart straightforward information about the facts.... Many traditional philosophical perplexities have arisen through a mistake-the mistake of taking as straightforward statements of fact utterances which are either (in interesting non-grammatical ways) nonsensical or else intended as something quite different. (Austin, 1962, pp. 2-3)

    11) The Dictionary of a Language Is a System of Concepts

   In general, one might define a complex of semantic components connected by logical constants as a concept. The dictionary of a language is then a system of concepts in which a phonological form and certain syntactic and morphological characteristics are assigned to each concept. This system of concepts is structured by several types of relations. It is supplemented, furthermore, by redundancy or implicational rules..., representing general properties of the whole system of concepts.... At least a relevant part of these general rules is not bound to particular languages, but represents presumably universal structures of natural languages. They are not learned, but are rather a part of the human ability to acquire an arbitrary natural language. (Bierwisch, 1970, pp. 171-172)

    12) Talk about the Evolution of the Language Capacity is Beside the Point

   In studying the evolution of mind, we cannot guess to what extent there are physically possible alternatives to, say, transformational generative grammar, for an organism meeting certain other physical conditions characteristic of humans. Conceivably, there are none-or very few-in which case talk about evolution of the language capacity is beside the point. (Chomsky, 1972, p. 98)

    13) The Development of Language

   [It is] truth value rather than syntactic well-formedness that chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcement by parents-which renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult whose speech is highly grammatical but not notably truthful. (R. O. Brown, 1973, p. 330)

    14) Sentential and Conceptual Levels in Language

   he conceptual base is responsible for formally representing the concepts underlying an utterance.... A given word in a language may or may not have one or more concepts underlying it.... On the sentential level, the utterances of a given language are encoded within a syntactic structure of that language. The basic construction of the sentential level is the sentence.

   The next highest level... is the conceptual level. We call the basic construction of this level the conceptualization. A conceptualization consists of concepts and certain relations among those concepts. We can consider that both levels exist at the same point in time and that for any unit on one level, some corresponding realizate exists on the other level. This realizate may be null or extremely complex.... Conceptualizations may relate to other conceptualizations by nesting or other specified relationships. (Schank, 1973, pp. 191-192)

    15) Linguistic Realities Have Not Yet Been Captured by Theoretical Models

   The mathematics of multi-dimensional interactive spaces and lattices, the projection of "computer behavior" on to possible models of cerebral functions, the theoretical and mechanical investigation of artificial intelligence, are producing a stream of sophisticated, often suggestive ideas.

   But it is, I believe, fair to say that nothing put forward until now in either theoretic design or mechanical mimicry comes even remotely in reach of the most rudimentary linguistic realities. (Steiner, 1975, p. 284)

    16) The Final Steps to Human Language

   The step from the simple tool to the master tool, a tool to make tools (what we would now call a machine tool), seems to me indeed to parallel the final step to human language, which I call reconstitution. It expresses in a practical and social context the same understanding of hierarchy, and shows the same analysis by function as a basis for synthesis. (Bronowski, 1977, pp. 127-128)

    17) The Inadequacy of Formal Linguistic Models for Ordinary Language Usage

    t is the language donn eґ in which we conduct our lives.... We have no other. And the danger is that formal linguistic models, in their loosely argued analogy with the axiomatic structure of the mathematical sciences, may block perception.... It is quite conceivable that, in language, continuous induction from simple, elemental units to more complex, realistic forms is not justified. The extent and formal "undecidability" of context-and every linguistic particle above the level of the phoneme is context-bound-may make it impossible, except in the most abstract, meta-linguistic sense, to pass from "pro-verbs," "kernals," or "deep deep structures" to actual speech. (Steiner, 1975, pp. 111-113)

    18) When a Language Is an Abstract Machine

   A higher-level formal language is an abstract machine. (Weizenbaum, 1976, p. 113)

    19) Metaphor and Metonymy Underpin the Formation of Linguistic Signs

   Jakobson sees metaphor and metonymy as the characteristic modes of binarily opposed polarities which between them underpin the two-fold process of selection and combination by which linguistic signs are formed.... Thus messages are constructed, as Saussure said, by a combination of a "horizontal" movement, which combines words together, and a "vertical" movement, which selects the particular words from the available inventory or "inner storehouse" of the language. The combinative (or syntagmatic) process manifests itself in contiguity (one word being placed next to another) and its mode is metonymic. The selective (or associative) process manifests itself in similarity (one word or concept being "like" another) and its mode is metaphoric. The "opposition" of metaphor and metonymy therefore may be said to represent in effect the essence of the total opposition between the synchronic mode of language (its immediate, coexistent, "vertical" relationships) and its diachronic mode (its sequential, successive, lineal progressive relationships). (Hawkes, 1977, pp. 77-78)

    20) Language and the Analysis of Nature

   It is striking that the layered structure that man has given to language constantly reappears in his analyses of nature. (Bronowski, 1977, p. 121)

    21) Correspondence Rules for Mapping Old Theory into Subsets of New Theory

   First, [an ideal intertheoretic reduction] provides us with a set of rules"correspondence rules" or "bridge laws," as the standard vernacular has it-which effect a mapping of the terms of the old theory (T o) onto a subset of the expressions of the new or reducing theory (T n). These rules guide the application of those selected expressions of T n in the following way: we are free to make singular applications of their correspondencerule doppelgangers in T o....

   Second, and equally important, a successful reduction ideally has the outcome that, under the term mapping effected by the correspondence rules, the central principles of T o (those of semantic and systematic importance) are mapped onto general sentences of T n that are theorems of Tn. (P. Churchland, 1979, p. 81)

    22) The Inclusion of Non- linguistic Factors in a Theory of Grammar

   If non-linguistic factors must be included in grammar: beliefs, attitudes, etc. [this would] amount to a rejection of the initial idealization of language as an object of study. A priori such a move cannot be ruled out, but it must be empirically motivated. If it proves to be correct, I would conclude that language is a chaos that is not worth studying.... Note that the question is not whether beliefs or attitudes, and so on, play a role in linguistic behavior and linguistic judgments... [but rather] whether distinct cognitive structures can be identified, which interact in the real use of language and linguistic judgments, the grammatical system being one of these. (Chomsky, 1979, pp. 140, 152-153)

    23) Language Is Inevitably Influenced by Specific Contexts of Human Interaction

   Language cannot be studied in isolation from the investigation of "rationality." It cannot afford to neglect our everyday assumptions concerning the total behavior of a reasonable person.... An integrational linguistics must recognize that human beings inhabit a communicational space which is not neatly compartmentalized into language and nonlanguage.... It renounces in advance the possibility of setting up systems of forms and meanings which will "account for" a central core of linguistic behavior irrespective of the situation and communicational purposes involved. (Harris, 1981, p. 165)

    24) The Genetic Blueprints of Language

   By innate [linguistic knowledge], Chomsky simply means "genetically programmed." He does not literally think that children are born with language in their heads ready to be spoken. He merely claims that a "blueprint is there, which is brought into use when the child reaches a certain point in her general development. With the help of this blueprint, she analyzes the language she hears around her more readily than she would if she were totally unprepared for the strange gabbling sounds which emerge from human mouths. (Aitchison, 1987, p. 31)

    25) Languages Are Machines

   Looking at ourselves from the computer viewpoint, we cannot avoid seeing that natural language is our most important "programming language." This means that a vast portion of our knowledge and activity is, for us, best communicated and understood in our natural language.... One could say that natural language was our first great original artifact and, since, as we increasingly realize, languages are machines, so natural language, with our brains to run it, was our primal invention of the universal computer. One could say this except for the sneaking suspicion that language isn't something we invented but something we became, not something we constructed but something in which we created, and recreated, ourselves. (Leiber, 1991, p. 8)