The Conversation Academic rigor, journalistic flair: https://theconversation.com/us/10-ways-we-are-different?utm_source=theconversation.com&utm_medium=ContentInline&utm_campaign=System&utm_content=pro

Originally published in The Conversation.

Palestinians in Gaza have begun receiving humanitarian aid delivered through a newly completed floating pier off the coast of the besieged territory. Built by the U.S. military and operated in coordination with the United Nations, aid groups and other nations’ militaries, the pier can trace its origins back to a mid-20th century U.S. Navy officer who collected discarded cigar boxes to experiment with a new idea.

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Among the artifacts of the military collections of the National Museum of American History, I happened upon these humble cigar boxes and the remarkable story they contain.

In 1939, John Noble Laycock, then a commander in the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, was assigned, as the war plans officer for the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks in Washington, D.C., to help prepare for a potential war in the Pacific.

Laycock had to figure out how to construct naval bases on undeveloped islands. The top priority would be what the military called “naval lighterage,” the process of getting cargo and supplies from ships to a shoreline where there were no ports or even piers to dock at.

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That’s exactly the problem the relief effort faced in Gaza – and one that military forces and humanitarian groups have faced countless times in the past century.

In the office files of his predecessors, Laycock found plans developed in the 1930s to use small pontoons – essentially floating boxes – that could be easily transported and quickly assembled by hand into larger barges or floating platforms. But Laycock saw problems with the plans’ design and method of connecting the pontoons to each other. And he had an idea.

In my research into his work, I found that around July 1940, Laycock began visiting every concessionaire in the Navy’s headquarters building, which was then located along the National Mall, asking them to save empty cigar boxes for him. Laycock and a helper lined up the boxes and spaced them evenly. Then they linked them together using wooden strips from children’s kites, which they fastened to the corners of the boxes with small nuts and screws.

The simple model demonstrated that it was possible to connect individual, uniformly sized, small pontoon boxes into a much longer, and much stronger, floating beam. Multiple beams could be combined into the base for a platform of any needed size. A big enough platform could support cargo, military trucks and armored vehicles weighing up to 55 tons.

From cigar boxes to steel pontoons

In August 1940, during his family vacation, Laycock figured out how exactly to connect the individual pontoons, which were made of steel and not wood or cardboard like his cigar-box model. He designed steel fasteners – scaled-up nuts and bolts nicknamed “jewelry” that could be inserted and tightened by hand – that could handle the stress of the movement of the ocean beneath a floating platform.

Through trial and error, and applying various military requirements such as the width of the steel plates, weight of the empty pontoon, depth needed to float and load-bearing capacity, Laycock designed a basic pontoon 5 feet high by 7 feet long by 5 feet wide. He also designed a curved section to serve as the bow of a pontoon-based transport vessel. By 1941, testing had proved the design and the system were ready for mass production.

Floating causeways of steel

The pontoon technology first went to war in the South Pacific in February 1942 with the Naval Construction Force, nicknamed the Seabees, who took it to Bora Bora in the Society Islands. The Seabees were pleased with how it worked and helped contribute to the system’s nickname – Laycock’s “magic box.”

The universal nature of the pontoons permitted construction of an array of floating structures, including dredges, barges, floating cranes, workshops, storehouses and gas stations, tug boats, pile drivers and dry docks. These pontoon structures could be found from Guadalcanal to the Marianas, the Aleutians and the Philippines.

The planning for the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 found another use for Laycock’s pontoon system. In late 1942, Royal Navy Capt. Thomas A. Hussey recognized that the Sicilian beaches had gentle slopes. During an invasion, landing craft, especially those designed for tanks, could be expected to run aground several hundred feet from dry land, in water 6 feet deep. Even waterproofed vehicles would be swamped and could sink.

Aware of Laycock’s pontoons, Hussey inquired whether the units could form a floating road, called a causeway, to bridge the gap between ship and shore. Laycock designed a method to build narrow causeways two pontoons wide and 30 pontoons long – roughly 175 feet. Setting them side by side would form a 325-foot floating causeway. They could even be towed or carried by landing craft and deployed upon arrival in shallow water.

Tested successfully in mid-March 1943, the causeways proved a success at Sicily. In 23 days of round-the-clock shifts, the Seabees unloaded over 10,000 vehicles, including trucks, jeeps, half-tracks and towed artillery, on the causeways. Senior American and British leaders said the landings could not have succeeded so rapidly were it not for the pontoon causeways.

Pontoon highways at Normandy

Much like Sicily, the Normandy coast of France also featured beaches with gentle, flat slopes. Floating pontoon causeways were key to the June 6, 1944, D-Day landings for U.S., British and Canadian forces. Engineers would anchor one end of the causeway on the shore and extend the structure out into the ocean far enough that whether it was low or high tide, cargo-carrying vessels could dock without running aground.

Along the sides, every few hundred feet along the causeway, additional pontoons were attached to form piers, so multiple vessels could dock at the same time, regardless of tidal conditions. They could unload directly onto dry pontoons just as they would at any regular pier or dock.

This system allowed a massive, around-the-clock flow of tanks, trucks, artillery, supplies and personnel to support the fighting as the Allied forces moved inland through Normandy over the coming months.

Uses in war and for humanitarian aid

Over the decades, this concept, with technological advancements in construction and fasteners, evolved into pontoon systems used in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Those have since been improved as well and have helped provide humanitarian aid such as in Haiti after a massive earthquake in 2010.

The pier at Gaza involves both parts of the pontoon system – Laycock’s original floating platform as a cargo transfer site 3 miles offshore, and the British-suggested floating causeway and pier system allowing truck deliveries to get to dry land. All from a humble concept model of cigar boxes.Author

1. Frank A. Blazich Jr.

Curator of Military History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

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Frank A. Blazich Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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If you’re one of those people whose writing gets corrected by someone else, you may sometimes get called out for using a comma where what’s technically called for is a period or a semi-colon. It’s called a comma splice (or comma fault, comma blunder, comma error, or don’t do that with a comma). (We made up that last one, sorry.) And it’s quite common. In fact, there’s an example of one in that parenthetical we used just now; if we had wanted to avoid a comma splice we would have said, “We made up that last one. Sorry.”

A comma splice is the joining of two independent clauses with a comma, e.g. “The hat does not fit, it’s too tight.” Though regarded as an error in formal writing assignments, it can be carried off successfully in informal writing.

So what is it exactly? A comma splice is a joining of two independent clauses with nothing but a comma. (Quick review: an independent clause is a part of a sentence that has its own subject and verb and could be used by itself as a simple sentence but is instead part of a larger sentence.) Comma splices are a subspecies of run-on sentence; a run-on sentence is when two independent clauses are joined without the correct conjunction or punctuation.

To avoid a comma splice you can do one of several things. You can 1) make each clause its own sentence, 2) you can join the clauses with a semicolon instead of a comma, or 3) you can replace the comma with a conjunction like and, but, because, or although. If the second clause is long, you can also keep the comma before the conjunction.)

Examples of each solution

With a comma splice: The hat does not fit, it’s too tight.

Without:

The hat does not fit. It’s too tight.

The hat does not fit; it’s too tight.

The hat does not fit because it’s too tight. (longer) The hat does not fit, and it’s so tight that my brain hurts when I wear it.

Comma splices are not a new phenomenon. In fact, they seem to be survivors from an older, looser form of punctuation. And by “older” we mean really old:

As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him, he was so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him….
— Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Why, sure Betty, thou art bewitcht, this Cream is burnt too.
— Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation, 1738

The New Jersey job was obtained, I contrived a copperplate press for it.…
— Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

No one was correcting these writers back in their day; there was, in fact, nothing to correct. Eighteenth century punctuation did not follow the conventions that we practice today. But even as the standards of punctuation were evolving during the 19th century to those we’re familiar with, the older, looser punctuation continued to be employed in the personal letters of well-known writers:

I have found your white mittens, they were folded up within my clean nightcap….
— Jane Austen, letter, 24 Aug. 1805

It is not necessary for Miss M. to be an authoress, indeed I do not think publishing at all creditable either to men or women….
— Lord Byron, letter, 1 May 1812

Well, I won’t talk about myself, it is not a healthy topic.
— Lewis Carroll, letter, 29(?) July 1885

It seems most probable that the origin of the comma splice is the use of the comma to represent a relatively brief pause in speech (18th-century prose is closer to actual speech than it often appears now, and letters are often a close approximation of speech). Further evidence for this hypothesis can be found in modern transcriptions of speech. In the next example, the speech is fictitious:

“This is Tyler,” she said. “He grew up in Tennessee, he has a horse named Custard—”

The two independent clauses about Tyler read as though they are spoken so rapidly that any punctuation other than a comma would hardly seem possible. The comma similarly used turns up in transcriptions of actual speech:

“The toxic anger built up, the confusion built up….”
— Anne Rice, Nightline, 11 Aug. 2010

Letters and speech (both fictitious and transcribed) demonstrate language at the less formal end of the spectrum, and that is where the comma splice is most at home. It’s also very common in poetry and is found in fiction too:

On the white beach, ground-up coral and broken bones, a group of the children are walking. They must have been swimming, they’re still wet and glistering.
— Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 2003

Language writer Stan Carey has an extensive list of examples of comma splices in action, some of which work better than others.

In writing assignments a comma splice is typically regarded as an error. In informal writing, though, a comma splice can be carried off successfully with the right kind of clauses: not too long, and preferably related. Adventurous writers pull it off regularly.

If you’re one of those people whose writing gets corrected by someone else, you may sometimes get called out for using a comma where what’s technically called for is a period or a semi-colon. It’s called a comma splice (or comma fault, comma blunder, comma error, or don’t do that with a comma). (We made up that last one, sorry.) And it’s quite common. In fact, there’s an example of one in that parenthetical we used just now; if we had wanted to avoid a comma splice we would have said, “We made up that last one. Sorry.”

A comma splice is the joining of two independent clauses with a comma, e.g. “The hat does not fit, it’s too tight.” Though regarded as an error in formal writing assignments, it can be carried off successfully in informal writing.

So what is it exactly? A comma splice is a joining of two independent clauses with nothing but a comma. (Quick review: an independent clause is a part of a sentence that has its own subject and verb and could be used by itself as a simple sentence but is instead part of a larger sentence.) Comma splices are a subspecies of run-on sentence; a run-on sentence is when two independent clauses are joined without the correct conjunction or punctuation.

To avoid a comma splice you can do one of several things. You can 1) make each clause its own sentence, 2) you can join the clauses with a semicolon instead of a comma, or 3) you can replace the comma with a conjunction like and, but, because, or although. If the second clause is long, you can also keep the comma before the conjunction.)

Examples of each solution

With a comma splice: The hat does not fit, it’s too tight.

Without:

The hat does not fit. It’s too tight.

The hat does not fit; it’s too tight.

The hat does not fit because it’s too tight. (longer) The hat does not fit, and it’s so tight that my brain hurts when I wear it.

Comma splices are not a new phenomenon. In fact, they seem to be survivors from an older, looser form of punctuation. And by “older” we mean really old:

As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him, he was so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him….
— Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Why, sure Betty, thou art bewitcht, this Cream is burnt too.
— Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation, 1738

The New Jersey job was obtained, I contrived a copperplate press for it.…
— Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

No one was correcting these writers back in their day; there was, in fact, nothing to correct. Eighteenth century punctuation did not follow the conventions that we practice today. But even as the standards of punctuation were evolving during the 19th century to those we’re familiar with, the older, looser punctuation continued to be employed in the personal letters of well-known writers:

I have found your white mittens, they were folded up within my clean nightcap….
— Jane Austen, letter, 24 Aug. 1805

It is not necessary for Miss M. to be an authoress, indeed I do not think publishing at all creditable either to men or women….
— Lord Byron, letter, 1 May 1812

Well, I won’t talk about myself, it is not a healthy topic.
— Lewis Carroll, letter, 29(?) July 1885

It seems most probable that the origin of the comma splice is the use of the comma to represent a relatively brief pause in speech (18th-century prose is closer to actual speech than it often appears now, and letters are often a close approximation of speech). Further evidence for this hypothesis can be found in modern transcriptions of speech. In the next example, the speech is fictitious:

“This is Tyler,” she said. “He grew up in Tennessee, he has a horse named Custard—”

The two independent clauses about Tyler read as though they are spoken so rapidly that any punctuation other than a comma would hardly seem possible. The comma similarly used turns up in transcriptions of actual speech:

“The toxic anger built up, the confusion built up….”
— Anne Rice, Nightline, 11 Aug. 2010

Letters and speech (both fictitious and transcribed) demonstrate language at the less formal end of the spectrum, and that is where the comma splice is most at home. It’s also very common in poetry and is found in fiction too:

On the white beach, ground-up coral and broken bones, a group of the children are walking. They must have been swimming, they’re still wet and glistering.
— Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, 2003

Language writer Stan Carey has an extensive list of examples of comma splices in action, some of which work better than others.

In writing assignments a comma splice is typically regarded as an error. In informal writing, though, a comma splice can be carried off successfully with the right kind of clauses: not too long, and preferably related. Adventurous writers pull it off regularly.

Lots of writers use comma splices, but many editors and teachers don’t. From Merriam Webster’s blog. Read this and other similar posts at www.merriam-webster.com/grammar

Q: How did “foot” come to be used in “He’ll foot the bill”? And doesn’t it sound awkward to say “He footed the bill”?

A: The use of the verb “foot” in the expression “foot the bill” ultimately comes from the use of “foot” as a noun for the lower part of something—in this case, the total at the bottom of a bill.

When “foot” first appeared in Old English, it referred (as it does now) to the part of the leg below the ankle. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the epic poem Beowulf, dating back to as early as 725:

“Sona hæfde unlyfigendes eal gefeormod fet ond folma” (“Soon he’d devoured the lifeless body, feet and hands”). The passage describes the monster Grendel eating one of his victims.

The noun “foot” soon took on the additional sense of something resembling a foot. The OED’s first citation for this meaning, which we’ve expanded here, is from an Old English riddle that refers to the base of an inkhorn (an inkwell made from an antler) as a foot, spelled fot:

“nu ic blace swelge wuda ⁊ wætre … befæðme þæt mec on fealleð ufan þær ic stonde eorpes nathwæt hæbbe anne fot” (“now I swallow the black wood and water.  … I embrace within me the unknown darkness that falls on me from above. Where I stand on something unknown, I have one foot”). From the Exeter Book, “Riddle 93.”

In the early 15th century, the OED says, the noun “foot” took on the sense of “the sum or total of a column of numbers in an account, typically recorded directly below the final entry in the column.”

The dictionary’s first citation is from a 1433 financial report in the records of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, a merchant guild:

“First, the saide maister and constables hafe resayved [have received] in mone tolde [money counted], iiijli. ijs. xd., as it profes be [proves by] the fote [foot] of accounte of the yere past” (from The York Mercers and Merchant Adventurers 1356–1917, a 1918 work by the British historian Maud Sellers).

A similar use of “foot” as a verb appeared in the late 15th century, according to the OED, which defines the term as “to add up (a column of numbers, or an account, bill, etc., having this) and enter the sum at the bottom.”

The earliest Oxford citation, with “footed” spelled “futit,” is from a record of judicial proceedings in Scotland: “The tyme that his compt [account] wes futit.” From The Acts of the Lords of Council in Civil Causes, 1478–95 (edited by Thomas Thomson, 1839).

The sense of “foot” you’re asking about showed up in the early 19th century. Oxford defines it as “to pay or settle (a bill, esp. one which is large or unreasonable, or which has been run up by another party).”

The first OED citation, which we’ve expanded, is from A Pedestrious Tour, of Four Thousand Miles, Through the Western States and Territories, During the Winter and Spring of 1818, an 1819 memoir of a walking tour by Estwick Evans, a New England lawyer and writer:

“My dogs, knowing no law but that of nature, and having forgotten my lecture to them upon theft, helped themselves to the first repast presented, leaving their master to foot their bills.” (The dogs were later killed by wolves in the Michigan Territory as Evans was on his way to Detroit.)

As for “footed,” it may sound awkward, but it’s the only past tense and past participle listed in the standard dictionaries we regularly consult.