The Hindu Business Line : From the little wooden foot to gun barrel to the big bank

Brace up, this can be tough: "We hope to bring growth to a reasonable trajectory by emphasising on improvement in quality, but not diluting growth. The word calibrated has been introduced deliberately." That is a quote of Dr Y. V. Reddy, Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on the Annual Policy Statement for 2006-07 announced on Tuesday.

Quite uncharacteristic of the central banker, you may fret, having read his usually simple style of communication. Be that as it may, let us come to terms with `calibrate' and search for its roots.

Our first stop, before rummaging dictionaries, is the RBI statement, which is a 74-page document dated April 18, available on http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in. The word in question `has been introduced deliberately' thus, in paragraph 92: "It needs to be noted that this projected growth of non-food credit (of 20 per cent in 2006-07) implies a calibrated deceleration from a growth of above 30 per cent ruling currently."

Or, in plain English: "We are going to press the brake real hard, rather than the accelerator, and so fasten your seatbelts." You can then handle with ease the other clutch of calibration that happens in paragraph 105: "Policy initiatives have been calibrated to the country-specific situation even as the ongoing endeavour has been to converge to international best practices."

The word is pronounced `kae lih bret,' as www.wordsmyth.net educates. In Concise Oxford English Dictionary, calibrate appears after calf love and calfskin. "Mark (a gauge or instrument) with a standard scale of readings," reads the definition. Other meanings are: "Correlate the readings of (an instrument) with those of a standards; adjust (experimental results) to take external factors into account or to allow comparison with other data."

Set, correct, label

Nouns are calibration and calibrator. Synonyms are graduate and fine-tune, according to www.ultralingua.net. "Adjust, set, correct, tag, label, mark, measure, and mensurate," are more such, from WordNet 2.1 Vocabulary Helper. "To cross-calibrate is to extend the check or adjustment of graduations across one or more instruments," explains www.biology-text.com.

You need to calibrate gadgets. "For example, a thermometer could be calibrated so that it showed the temperature in celsius at the correct point," says Wikipedia. "Unlike competing sensors, the UVX-300G-REM includes both auto-teach and manual calibration. This makes it easy for operators to fine-tune and calibrate the sensor without any special training," informs www.processingtalk.com about a remote ultraviolet light luminescence sensor, in an April 19 report. `No more pH calibration in the field,' assures a headline on www.ferret.com.au.

At times, the task can be tough. "Calibration of and constraints on models of binary production and collisional evolution can only be done using these large-scale, real-life physical systems that we are beginning now to find and utilise," is a snatch from NASA Hubble Space Telescope Daily Report dated April 18 on www.spaceref.com.

The word originates from calibre (or caliber). Means "quality of character or level of ability; standard reached by something; the internal diameter of a gun barrel." Caliber is a 2007 automobile model in the news. Such as: `Gay Group Says Dodge Caliber Fairy Ad is Offensive' on http://advertising.about.com.

"Should the easily available .50 caliber sniper rifle find its way into the hands of Mexican drug smugglers or other criminals," there could be danger on the border, cautions www.yubanet.com. "Police found near the bodies the .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun he used," is from one of the never-ending crime reports. "To calibrate the light gun, you simply slide the calibration switch on the right side of the gun. This turns the PC display white... " explain Kevin's notes on www.retroblast.com, about Act-Labs USB PC Light Gun.

Little wooden foot

The word is traced thus by Online Etymology Dictionary: "1567, from Med. French calibre, via Spanish or Italian, ultimately from Arabic qalib `a mold, last,' perhaps from Greek kalopodion `a shoemaker's last,' literally `little wooden foot,' from kalon `wood' + podos, `foot'." It seems the Arabic also used the word in the sense `mold for casting bullets,' which is the original literal meaning in English, "though the earliest cited sense is the figurative one of `social standing, quality, rank.'" Calibrate, came in much later; from 1864.

"A fully developed muscle does not only allow you to do normal tasks; it is calibrated to reach its full potentials — far beyond what regulating muscles can do," instructs http://mathaba.net on `the science of muscle building', 17 hours ago. And a communiqué from Wipro dated April 19 is about Delta call centre TSEs (technical support engineers) who were `audited on specific quality parameters' and whose `audit scores were calibrated between the managers at both ends'. Auditors, though, aren't supposed to calibrate accounting scores!

Don't stop with calibration, because the Managing Director of IBM India, Shankar Annaswamy, is reported to have said that re-calibration is a distant concept for Indian industry at this point of time. The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce has advocated a calibrated approach to rupee convertibility. "The government should scrap its calibrated pre-emptive response (CPR) policy on political rallies," demands www.manilastandardtoday.com, protesting against the `no-permit, no-rally provision' in the Philippines.

"Calibration is less optimistic about what your theory can accomplish because you'd only use it if you didn't fully trust your entire model," opines Thomas J. Sargent, a leader in the field of macroeconomics. To him, calibration is intended as "a balanced response to professing that your model, though not correct, is still worthy as a vehicle for quantitative policy analysis."

Or, in layman English, we calibrate when we aren't too sure about our models!

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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