ace

ace

An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades. This embellishment on the ace of spades started when King James VI of Scotland and I of England required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new stamp tax. Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers. In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.

The word "ace" comes from the Old French word as (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman coin. It originally meant the side of a die with only one pip, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in Middle English, but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has since changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'.

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Speaking of tradition, the following is ripped off from astrodigital dot org:

The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End

Did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches? That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

But why did the English build them like that? Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did they use that gauge in England? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts? The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.

And the motto of the story is Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses.

So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space? Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.

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From U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR (www dot dol dot gov) :

From 1865-1869, 12,000 Chinese immigrants constructed the western section of the transcontinental railroad – one of the greatest engineering feats in American history. Their efforts, which connected the western United States to the eastern United States, laid the foundation for the extraordinary economic prosperity enjoyed by the United States in the years that followed. Many of these workers risked their lives and perished during the harsh winters and dangerous working conditions. They faced prejudice, low wages and social isolation. Despite these challenges, they courageously took a stand to organize for fairer wages and safer working conditions. Their efforts not only bridged our nation together, they advanced the cause of good, safe jobs for all workers, immigrant and native workers alike.

六级/考研单词: ace, deck, diamond, spade, necessity, abolish, seldom, excel, rip, shuttle, rear, railroad, gauge, wagon, imperial, alike, thereby, unite, derive, bureaucrat, accommodate, pad, rocket, tunnel, immigrate, construct, feat, perish, harsh, prejudice, isolate, despite, indigenous