The Hindu Business Line : Don't place all your bets on one quarter alone

ON October 12, Infosys posted a net profit of Rs 606 crore for Q2, short for the second quarter that ended on September 2005. The profit was 36 per cent more than what was achieved in last year's Q2, and beat street expectations, reported the media.

The same day, Tata Consultancy Services announced a net profit of Rs 694 crore for Q2 against Rs 575 crore in the year-ago period; and the company was happy to report `a double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth both for topline and bottomline'.

This is the reporting season and so `quarter' news often adds to more than three-quarters of a page, with stories about MphasiS BFL posting 28 per cent rise in Q2 net, iGATE Global's Q2 net up 85 per cent, bilateral trade with China jumping 40 per cent in Q1, and Apple's lower-than-expected third-quarter revenues.

However, a news-feed that is 1-hour old talks of stock markets opening lower despite the announcement of good second quarter results by software majors, as if the bourses haven't come to terms with the companies' performance. Meanwhile, let us explore `quarter'.

The word means `each of four equal or corresponding parts into which something can be divided,' according to Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

Thus, if you divide a year into four equal parts, you get four three-months, each numbered as Q1, Q2 and so on, for financial reporting. A simple measure of time, so Mistress Overdone says, "He promised her marriage: his child is a year and a quarter old," in Measure For Measure. `Quarter' is "used by production accountants and publicity departments for financial issues," states Movie Terminology Glossary on http://us.imdb.com.

"Public companies must report certain data on a quarterly basis, and other financial events are scheduled with the beginning and end of the quarter in mind," reminds www.investorwords.com. A common criticism, though, is that companies may be pushed to engineer their results to beat street expectations every quarter.

`School term of about 12 weeks', defines Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. `One-fourth,' says Encarta; it is "a number that is equal to one divided by four, represented by the symbol ¼".

Also, quarter is 25 cents in the US and Canada. Quarter is `two bits', states Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing on http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk. "This in turn comes from the `pieces of eight' famed in pirate movies — Spanish silver crowns that could be broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make change," it elaborates.

"Early in American history the Spanish coin was considered equal to a dollar, so each of these `bits' was considered worth 12.5 cents." Not the computer bits, these are.

To those number weary, however, comedian Eric Idle has a suggestion: "Bear in mind the simple rule, X squared to the power of two minus five over the seven point eight three times nineteen is approximately equal to the cube root of MCC squared divided by X minus a quarter of a third per cent.

Keep that in mind, and you can't go very far wrong." I'd rather put BCCI in the place of MCC!

A quarter of/to the hour means 15 minutes before the stated hour, says Cambridge Dictionary of American English, and gives an example, "It's a quarter to three."

Use past/after instead of of/to to mean 15 minutes after the stated hour, as in "I'll meet you at a quarter past five."

Lord Nelson would say, "I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me." Only, most of our politicians won't subscribe to the thought, living as they do in imagined eternity.

Mistress Page says, "Within a quarter of an hour," in Merry Wives of Windsor to mean within 15 minutes. "Washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour," is what Gentlewoman tells the Doctor, just before Lady Macbeth complicates matters by saying, "Yet here's a spot."

Hear Falstaff say, "Diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter-of an hour," in King Henry IV, part I.

"I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life," claims Prince Henry, elsewhere in the same play.

As verb, quarter means "divide (something) into four pieces of approximately the same size". Thus, when your wife instructs you, "Peel and quarter the tomatoes and put them in the stew," as in the example on http://dictionary.cambridge.org, you needn't be too exact about the quarters being equal. "If he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself," from Merry Wives of Windsor is a puzzle you may like to solve. As much as, "Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!" from The Taming of the Shrew.

Quarter also means `an area of a city or place having a special history or character' and the dictionary explains: `We stayed in the French Quarter in New Orleans.' Well, that place exists, because a disturbing report dated October 12 on www.alertnet.org reads: "A New Orleans man who was beaten by police in the city's historic French Quarter pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of public drunkenness and resisting arrest, while the officers accused of brutalising him maintained their innocence." Wikipedia speaks of `The Quartier Latin' or Latin Quarter; it is "an area in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France, around the Sorbonne University". The name derives from the Latin language, which was widely spoken in the Middle Ages in and around the University, informs http://en.wikipedia.org.

Latin quartarius `fourth part,' from quartus `fourth' are at the root of the word quarter, informs Online Etymology Dictionary. Circa1300, from Old French quartier, it adds. Shockingly, earliest sense of the word is "parts of the body as dismembered during execution (1297)". Historical meaning is "to divide (the body of a hanged traitor) into four parts, each with a limb," informs www.allwords.com. In heraldry, to quarter is "to divide (a shield) into quarters using one horizontal and one vertical line". Quarter days were when rents got paid and contracts began or expired, in England, and these were "Lady day (March 25), Midsummer day (June 24), Michaelmas day (September 29), and Christmas day (December 25)," according to www.etymonline.com.

Allied words that the dictionary lists are quart (one-fourth of a gallon), quarto (in the fourth part of a sheet of paper), quadroon (one quarter African blood), quarrel (square-headed bolt for a crossbow), quadrant (a quarter of a day, six hours), square (four sides), and quarantine (period of 40 days in which a widow has the right to remain in her dead husband's house). Quartile is "one of four segments of a distribution that has been divided into quarters," explains Deardorff's Glossary of International Economics.

Quarter also means pity or mercy shown towards an enemy or opponent who is in one's power, says www.phrases.org.uk citing `the Tatty old' OED.

For example, "The riot squad gave no quarter." On `no quarter', Dictionary of Phrase and Fable on www.bartleby.com cites Dr Tusler thus: "It originated from an agreement anciently made between the Dutch and the Spaniards, that the ransom of a soldier should be the quarter of his pay."

Lambs at the mercy of wolves much expect no quarter, says Webster's 1828 Dictionary. However, in slaughterhouses, you may so expect; for, the word means "one limb of a quadruped with the adjoining parts; or one fourth part of the carcase of a quadruped, including a limb; as a fore quarter, or hindquarter".

Quarter is the part of a horse's hoof lying between the heel and the toe, notes Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.

"False quarter is a cleft from top to bottom of the quarter of a horse's hoof." Quarter horse is "any of a breed of compact muscular saddle horses characterised by great endurance and by high speed for short distances," explains www.m-w.com.

The word is very much a part of ship jargon. For instance, quarter is the part of a ship's side that lies towards the stern; quarterdeck is the part of the deck extending from the stern to the mainmast; and `quarters' are where the officers and men are posted in action.

The plural form `quarters' refers to "living or sleeping accommodations provided for somebody such as military personnel and their families, and household employees," explains http://encarta.msn.com.

Quarter refers to northeast, southeast, southwest, or northwest; that is "the four compass points that lie midway between north, east, south, and west."

In sports, quarter divides the game; in astronomy, quarter refers to a fourth of the moon's orbit; as verb, it can mean `position something at 90 degrees'; and it can mean just anybody, as in `help from any quarter', as Encarta explains.

Quarter bumper is a type of shortened bumper designed to give a car a sporting image, according to Dictionary of Automotive Terms Abbreviations.

"Instead of extending around the full width of the car, short bumper sections around the left-hand and right-hand corners leave the centre unprotected.

This type of bumper was popular on certain sports models manufactured by Opel and Ford in the 1970s," adds http://100megsfree4.com. "Quarter window is a small, roughly triangular, front-door window that swings out on fixed hinges; situated in front of and separate from the main window."

As if to caution investors against pegging a scrip's value too much to the quarterly results, Sigmund Freud advises: "Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone."

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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