width+of+knowledge

of [əv, stressed ɒv]

preposition

(a) (after nouns expressing quantity, number, amount) de;

∎ a pound of onions une livre d'oignons;

∎ a loaf of bread un pain;

∎ a piece of cake un morceau de gâteau;

∎ a bottle of wine une bouteille de vin;

∎ a pair of trousers un pantalon;

∎ there are six of us nous sommes six;

∎ thousands of mosquitos des milliers de moustiques;

∎ some/many/few of us were present quelques-uns/beaucoup/peu d'entre nous étaient présents;

∎ half of them failed la moitié d'entre eux ont échoué;

∎ how much of it do you want? combien en voulez-vous?

(b) (indicating age) de;

∎ a boy/a girl of three un garçon/une fille de trois ans;

∎ at the age of nineteen à dix-neuf ans, à l'âge de dix-neuf ans;

∎ his wife of twenty years la femme avec qui il est marié depuis vingt ans

(c) (indicating composition, content) de;

∎ a photo of Lily une photo de Lily;

∎ a map of Spain une carte d'Espagne;

∎ a report of events in Parliament un compte rendu de ce qui se passe au Parlement;

∎ a rise of 25 percent une augmentation de 25 pour cent;

∎ a team of cricketers une équipe de cricket;

∎ a city of 120,000 une ville de 120 000 habitants;

∎ a series of programmes on Italy une série d'émissions sur l'Italie

(d) (created by) de;

∎ the poems of Byron les poèmes de Byron

(e) (with words expressing attitude or emotion) de;

∎ I'm ashamed of it j'en ai honte;

∎ I'm proud of it j'en suis fier;

∎ familiar I'm sick of it j'en ai assez;

∎ I'm afraid of the dark j'ai peur du noir;

∎ she dreamt of one day becoming Prime Minister elle rêvait de devenir Premier ministre un jour;

∎ I have no intention of leaving je n'ai aucune intention de partir;

∎ the fear of God la crainte de Dieu

(f) (indicating possession, relationship) de;

∎ he's a friend of mine c'est un ami à moi;

∎ a friend of mine saw me un de mes amis m'a vu;

∎ I'd like a home of my own j'aimerais avoir mon chez-moi;

∎ the corner of the street le coin de la rue;

∎ the subject of the lecture le sujet du cours;

∎ cancer of the bowel cancer des intestins;

∎ the love of a mother l'amour d'une mère;

∎ the rights of man les droits de l'homme;

∎ she's head of department elle est chef de service;

∎ doctor of medicine docteur en médecine

(g) (indicating subject of action)

∎ it was kind/mean of him c'était gentil/méchant de sa part;

∎ how clever of her comme c'est intelligent de sa part

(h) (with names of places) de;

∎ the city of New York la ville de New York;

∎ the people of Chile le peuple ou les habitants du Chili;

∎ the University of Cambridge l'université de Cambridge;

∎ the village of Carlton le village de Carlton

(i) (after nouns derived from verbs) de;

∎ the arrival/departure of Flight 556 l'arrivée/le départ du vol 556;

∎ we need the approval of the committee nous devons obtenir l'autorisation du comité;

∎ a lover of fine wine un amateur de bons vins;

∎ the success of the meeting le succès de la réunion;

∎ an outbreak of cholera une épidémie de choléra

(j) (describing a particular feeling or quality) de;

∎ a feeling of relief un sentiment de soulagement;

∎ she has the gift of mimicry elle a un talent d'imitatrice;

∎ a man of courage un homme de courage;

∎ people of foreign appearance gens à l'air étranger;

∎ a coat of many colours un manteau multicolore;

∎ a sort or kind or type of tree un type d'arbre;

∎ formal to be of sound mind être sain d'esprit;

∎ to be of a nervous disposition avoir une prédisposition à la nervosité;

∎ that fool of a sergeant cet imbécile de sergent

(k) (made from)

∎ a ring of solid gold une bague en or massif;

∎ a heart of stone un cœur de pierre;

∎ made of wood fait de ou en bois

(l) (after nouns of size, measurement etc) de;

∎ a width/length of sixty feet une largeur/longueur de soixante pieds;

∎ they reach a height of ten feet ils atteignent une hauteur de dix pieds

(m) (indicating cause, origin, source) de;

∎ the consequence/the effects of the explosion la conséquence/les effets de l'explosion;

∎ to die of cancer mourir du ou d'un cancer;

∎ of royal descent de lignée royale;

∎ of which/whom dont

(n) (indicating likeness, similarity) de;

∎ the colour of blood/of grass la couleur du sang/de l'herbe;

∎ the size of a tennis ball de la taille d'une balle de tennis;

∎ he reminds me of John Wayne il me rappelle John Wayne;

∎ it smells of coffee ça sent le café;

∎ a giant of a man un homme très grand;

∎ a huge barn of a house une énorme bâtisse

(o) (indicating specific point in time or space) de;

∎ the 3rd of May le 3 mai;

∎ in the middle of August à la mi-août;

∎ the crash of 1929 le krach de 1929;

∎ the day of our wedding le jour de notre mariage;

∎ it was the high point of the week ça a été le point culminant de la semaine;

∎ American a quarter of nine neuf heures moins le quart;

∎ in the middle of the road au milieu de la chaussée;

∎ at the far end of the room à l'autre bout de la pièce;

∎ south of au sud de;

∎ within a mile of à moins d'un mil(l)e de

(p) (indicating deprivation or absence)

∎ a lack of food un manque de nourriture;

∎ to get rid of sth se débarrasser de qch;

∎ to be cured of sth être guéri de qch;

∎ to rob sb of sth voler qch à qn

(q) (indicating information received or passed on)

∎ I've never heard of him je n'ai jamais entendu parler de lui;

∎ to learn of sth apprendre qch;

∎ her knowledge of French sa connaissance du français;

∎ of President Nixon it was said that… il a été dit du président Nixon que…

(r) (as intensifier)

∎ the best/the worst of all le meilleur/le pire de tout;

∎ today of all days! il fallait que ça arrive aujourd'hui!;

∎ he, of all men or people lui entre tous;

∎ you, of all people, should know… toi, plus que quiconque, devrais savoir que…

(s) old-fashioned

∎ or humorous I like to listen to the radio of a morning/an evening j'aime écouter la radio le matin/le soir

SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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Few biographical details are known of Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg, yet it has been said that he was responsible for Germany's most notable contribution to civilization. He was a goldsmith by trade, of a patrician family of the city of Mainz. He seems to have begun experiments on printing while a political exile in Strasbourg c. 1440. He returned to Mainz between 1444 and 1448 and continued his experiments, until by 1450 he had perfected his invention sufficiently to justify raising capital for its commercial exploitation.

Circumstances were propitious for the invention of printing at that time. Rises in literacy and prosperity had led to the formation of a social class with the time and resources to develop a taste for reading, and the demand for reading matter had outstripped the ability of the scribes to satisfy it. The various technologies required were well established, and finally the flourishing textile industry was producing enough waste material, rag, to make paper, the only satisfactory and cheap medium for printing. There were others working along similar lines, but it was Gutenberg who achieved the successful adaptation and combination of technologies to arrive at a process by which many identical copies of a text could be produced in a wide variety of forms, of which the book was the most important. Gutenberg did make several technical innovations, however. The two-piece adjustable mould for casting types of varying width, from T to "M", was ingenious. Then he had to devise an oil-based ink suitable for inking metal type, derived from the painting materials developed by contemporary Flemish artists. Finally, probably after many experiments, he arrived at a metal alloy of distinctive composition suitable for casting type.

In 1450 Gutenberg borrowed 800 guldens from Johannes Fust, a lawyer of Mainz, and two years later Fust advanced a further 800 guldens, securing for himself a partnership in Gutenberg's business. But in 1455 Fust foreclosed and the bulk of Gutenberg's equipment passed to Peter Schöffer, who was in the service of Fust and later married his daughter. Like most early printers, Gutenberg seems not to have appreciated, or at any rate to have been able to provide for, the great dilemma of the publishing trade, namely the outlay of considerable capital in advance of each publication and the slowness of the return. Gutenberg probably retained only the type for the 42- and 36-line bibles and possibly the Catholicon of 1460, an encyclopedic work compiled in the thirteenth century and whose production pointed the way to printing's role as a means of spreading knowledge. The work concluded with a short descriptive piece, or colophon, which is probably by Gutenberg himself and is the only output of his mind that we have; it manages to omit the names of both author and printer.

Gutenberg seems to have abandoned printing after 1460, perhaps due to failing eyesight as well as for financial reasons, and he suffered further loss in the sack of Mainz in 1462. He received a kind of pension from the Archbishop in 1465, and on his death was buried in the Franciscan church in Mainz. The only major work to have issued for certain from Gutenberg's workshop is the great 42-line bible, begun in 1452 and completed by August 1456. The quality of this Graaf piece of printing is a tribute to Gutenberg's ability as a printer, and the soundness of his invention is borne out by the survival of the process as he left it to the world, unchanged for over three hundred years save in minor details.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Heathcote was the son of a small farmer who became blind, obliging the family to move to Long Whatton, near Loughborough, c.1790. He was apprenticed to W.Shepherd, a hosiery-machine maker, and became a frame-smith in the hosiery industry. He moved to Nottingham where he entered the employment of an excellent machine maker named Elliott. He later joined William Caldwell of Hathern, whose daughter he had married. The lace-making apparatus they patented jointly in 1804 had already been anticipated, so Heathcote turned to the problem of making pillow lace, a cottage industry in which women made lace by arranging pins stuck in a pillow in the correct pattern and winding around them thread contained on thin bobbins. He began by analysing the complicated hand-woven lace into simple warp and weft threads and found he could dispense with half the bobbins. The first machine he developed and patented, in 1808, made narrow lace an inch or so wide, but the following year he made much broader lace on an improved version. In his second patent, in 1809, he could make a type of net curtain, Brussels lace, without patterns. His machine made bobbin-net by the use of thin brass discs, between which the thread was wound. As they passed through the warp threads, which were arranged vertically, the warp threads were moved to each side in turn, so as to twist the bobbin threads round the warp threads. The bobbins were in two rows to save space, and jogged on carriages in grooves along a bar running the length of the machine. As the strength of this fabric depended upon bringing the bobbin threads diagonally across, in addition to the forward movement, the machine had to provide for a sideways movement of each bobbin every time the lengthwise course was completed. A high standard of accuracy in manufacture was essential for success. Called the "Old Loughborough", it was acknowledged to be the most complicated machine so far produced. In partnership with a man named Charles Lacy, who supplied the necessary capital, a factory was established at Loughborough that proved highly successful; however, their fifty-five frames were destroyed by Luddites in 1816. Heathcote was awarded damages of £10,000 by the county of Nottingham on the condition it was spent locally, but to avoid further interference he decided to transfer not only his machines but his entire workforce elsewhere and refused the money. In a disused woollen factory at Tiverton in Devonshire, powered by the waters of the river Exe, he built 300 frames of greater width and speed. By continually making inventions and improvements until he retired in 1843, his business flourished and he amassed a large fortune. He patented one machine for silk cocoon-reeling and another for plaiting or braiding. In 1825 he brought out two patents for the mechanical ornamentation or figuring of lace. He acquired a sound knowledge of French prior to opening a steam-powered lace factory in France. The factory proved to be a successful venture that lasted many years. In 1832 he patented a monstrous steam plough that is reputed to have cost him over £12,000 and was claimed to be the best in its day. One of its stated aims was "improved methods of draining land", which he hoped would develop agriculture in Ireland. A cable was used to haul the implement across the land. From 1832 to 1859, Heathcote represented Tiverton in Parliament and, among other benefactions, he built a school for his adopted town.

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