Verbing Nouns
“The satellites were placed in an elliptical orbit in place of a circular orbit,” caveated the chairman.”
In what way does “ caveated “ make any sort of sense in that sentence?
India's small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) made a spectacular debut launch on Sunday, but the mission fell short of overall success when two satellites were inserted into the incorrect orbit, rendering them space junk. The SSLV was developed to carry payloads of up to 500kg to low Earth orbits on an "on-demand basis". India …
In English caveat has been nounified to mean a warning, but it is actually a verb. Third person active present subjunctive of cavere: "Let him/her/it beware" as in "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Grey beards from posh schools would know it from the first person perfect active "cavi" (pronounced kay vee) meaning "I have looked out" or "the teacher is coming". The proper Latin here would probably be "cavit" (she warned) but only ex-public school kids now in their dotage would understand that.
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Maybe it's a misprint for 'Cavitated'
"Under pressure, the chairman was reduced to blowing bubbles"
Variously: to talk nonsense, to mislead, misdirect, blather, blethers. bllithering.
Bubbling - Scot:. to cry, cying
Burst bubble' - to show a belief to be false; the termination of a succesful period (Bubble burst)
Refer also: 'Economic bubble' - Asset prices higher than underlying fundamentals reasonably justify. etc.
Yeah, probably a misprint...
Yeah but - in my experience - cultural differences mean Indian Devs are generally much less likely to raise concerns with their superiors, if they've been told it's ready, then it's ready. Whereas if I was told to release something that wasn't ready to the point of it being a car-crash, I'd make noise about it, and if it was safety critical I'd be prepared to make so much noise that I'd risk my job, or certainly my career prospects.
... it's hard to imagine the emotions of the school children ... According to the space org, the satellite was built by female students in rural regions across the country, with guidance from the team of of student space-enthusiast org Space Kidz India.
So they get to build it again! Twice as fun.
It was a much safer idea than sending a schoolteacher into space.
The article notes:
- India hopes the craft will let its space agency target commercial launches.
i.e. this is hopefully a precursor to them actually making money with this launcher.
Furthermore, the prime satellite was for earth observation intended for "cartographic applications at a cadastral level, urban and rural management, coastal land use and regulation, utilities mapping, development and various other GIS applications." - information which is all vital for the allocation of many forms of development aid and for confirmation that it has been used correctly.