Soldier

A soldier is one who fights as part of an organized land-based armed force. A soldier can be an enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or junior-commissioned officer, or an officer.

Etymology

The word soldier derives from the Middle English word soudeour, from Anglo-French soudeer or soudeour, meaning mercenary, from soudee, meaning shilling's worth or wage, from sou or soud, shilling. The word is also related to the Medieval Latin soldarius, meaning soldier (literally, "one having pay"). These words ultimately derive from the Late Latin word solidus, referring to an Ancient Roman coin used in the Byzantine Empire.

Occupational designations

In most armed forces use of the word 'soldier' has taken on a more general meaning due to the increasing specialization of military occupations that require different areas of knowledge and skill-sets. As a result, 'soldiers' are referred to by names or ranks which reflect an individual's military occupation specialty arm, service, or branch of military employment, their type of unit, or operational employment or technical use such as: trooper, tanker (a member of tank crew), commando, dragoon, infantryman, marine, paratrooper, grenadier, ranger, sniper, engineer, sapper, signaller, medic, or a gunner.

Soldier (disambiguation)

A soldier is a person who has enlisted with, or has been conscripted into, a country's armed forces (usually only the army or land forces). Soldier or Soldiers may also refer to:

People

Biology

Places

Soldiers (ABBA song)

Soldiers is an ABBA song, released on their 1981 album The Visitors. Its working title was "Peasants"

Synopsis

The song is a critique of militarism.

Billboard explains "emphasizing that although there seems to be so little one can do to prevent the machinations of soldiers and those who control them, we must "not look the other way/taking a chance/cos if the bugle starts to play/we too must dance". The Telegraph describes the premise of the song as "how warmongers convince themselves they are noble men".

Composition

The entire song rests upon a "simple two-note" statement". The song has a "string-ensemble synth arrangement". Agnetha uses a "subdued yet stoic vocal", and "the chorus vocals, while typically multi-tiered, are somewhat 'murkier' and less liberated in texture".

Critical reception and analysis

Abba's Abba Gold describes the song as "bleak-yet-catchy".Billboard notes its "simple yet ominous metaphors that envision impending nuclear holocaust". It goes on to explains "the offbeat cadence of the drumming holds dark, somber verses and the sing-song quality of the chorus together", and concludes by saying "certainly very few groups can effectively handle a subject as serious as this, and still imbue it with all the qualities of a great pop song".Billboard listed the song under the "Best cuts" section of an album review, along with four other songs from the album.ABBE: Let The Music Speak says the song has an "unsettling caution" and also "heart and humanity". The synths "gently inflame the sense of yearning throughout, driving along a backing track which features ...bass courtesy of Rutger Gunnarsson".

Grey

Grey or gray (see spelling differences) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is a color "without color". It is the color of a cloud-covered sky, of ash and of lead.

The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in AD 700.Grey is the dominant spelling in European and Commonwealth English, although gray remained in common usage in the UK until the second half of the 20th century.Gray has been the preferred American spelling since approximately 1825, although grey is an accepted variant.

In Europe and the United States, surveys show that grey is the color most commonly associated with neutrality, conformity, boredom, uncertainty, old age, indifference, and modesty. Only one percent of respondents chose it as their favorite color.

Etymology

Grey comes from the Middle English grai or grei, from the Anglo-Saxon graeg, and is related to the German grau. The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in AD 700.

Gray (horse)

Gray or grey is a coat color of horses characterized by progressive silvering of the colored hairs of the coat. Most gray horses have black skin and dark eyes; unlike many depigmentation genes, gray does not affect skin or eye color. Their adult hair coat is white, dappled, or white intermingled with hairs of other colors. Gray horses may be born any base color, depending on other color genes present. White hairs begin to appear at or shortly after birth and become progressively lighter as the horse ages. Graying can occur at different rates—very quickly on one horse and very slowly on another.

Gray horses appear in many breeds, though the color is most commonly seen in breeds descended from Arabian ancestors. Some breeds that have large numbers of gray-colored horses include the Thoroughbred, the Arabian, the American Quarter Horse, the Percheron, the Andalusian, the Welsh pony, and the most famous of all gray horse breeds, the Lipizzaner.

People who are unfamiliar with horses may refer to gray horses as "white." However, a gray horse whose hair coat is completely "white" will still have black skin (except under markings that were white at birth) and dark eyes. This is how to discern a gray horse from a white horse. White horses usually have pink skin and sometimes even have blue eyes. Young horses with hair coats consisting of a mixture of colored and gray or white hairs are sometimes confused with roan. Some horses that carry dilution genes may also be confused with white or gray.

Gray (unit)

The gray (symbol: Gy) is a derived unit of ionizing radiation dose in the International System of Units (SI). It is defined as the absorption of one joule of radiation energy per one kilogram of matter.

It is used as a measure of absorbed dose, specific energy (imparted), and kerma (an acronym for "kinetic energy released per unit mass"). It is a physical quantity, and does not take into account any biological context. Unlike the pre-1971 non-SI roentgen unit of radiation exposure, the gray when used for absorbed dose is defined independently of any target material. However, when measuring kerma the reference target material must be defined explicitly, usually as dry air at standard temperature and pressure.

The equivalent cgs unit, the rad (equivalent to 0.01 Gy), remains common in the United States, though "strongly discouraged" in the style guide for U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology authors.

Etymology

The gray was named after British physicist Louis Harold Gray, a pioneer in the field of X-ray and radium radiation measurement, and their effects on living tissue. It was adopted as part of the International System of Units in 1975.