The Fra Mauro Map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià is a map made between 1457 and 1459 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro. It is a circular planisphere drawn on parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter.
The original world map was made by Fra Mauro and his assistant Andrea Bianco, a sailor-cartographer, under a commission by king Alfonso V of Portugal. The map was completed on April 24, 1459, and sent to Portugal, but did not survive to the present day. Fra Mauro died the next year while he was making a copy of the map for the Signiory of Venice, and the copy was completed by Andrea Bianco.
The map was discovered in the monastery of San Michel in Isola, Murano, where the Camaldolese cartographer had his studio, and is now located in a stairway in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, but is visible by entering in the Museo Correr, where it is accessible from the easternmost room upon request to the museum attendants there. A critical edition of the map was published by Piero Falchetta in 2006.

World map
The description of Africa is surprisingly accurate, especially in light of the fact that Portuguese explorers had not yet been beyond 12 degrees North at that date.
Fra Mauro puts the following inscription by the southern tip of Africa, which he names the "Cape of Diab", describing the exploration by a ship from the East around 1420:
"About the year of Our Lord 1420 a ship, what is called an Asian junk (lit. "Zoncho de India"), on a crossing of the Sea of India towards the "Isle of Men and Women", was diverted beyond the "Cape of Diab" (Shown as the Cape of Good Hope on the map), through the "Green Isles" (lit. "isole uerde", Cabo Verde Islands), out into the "Sea of Darkness" (Atlantic Ocean) on a way west and southwest. Nothing but air and water was seen for 40 days and by their reckoning they ran 2,000 miles and fortune deserted them. When the stress of the weather had subsided they made the return to the said "Cape of Diab" in 70 days and drawing near to the shore to supply their wants the sailors saw the egg of a bird called roc, which egg is as big as an amphora." (Text from Fra Mauro map, 10-A13.)
Some of the islands named in the area of the southern tip of Africa bear Arabian and Indian names: Negila ("celebration" in Arabic), or Mangula ("fortunate" in Sanskrit.).
If the account of the roc's egg is not merely a traveler's fable, it would probably have been the egg of Aepyornis, an enormous flightless bird which still existed in Madagascar or had recently become extinct.
Fra Mauro also comments that the account of this expedition, together with the relation by Strabo of the travels of Eudoxus of Cyzicus from Arabia to Gibraltar through the southern Ocean in Antiquity, led him to believe that the Indian Ocean was not a closed sea and that Africa could be circumnavigated by her southern end (Text from Fra Mauro map, 11,G2). This knowledge, together with the map depiction of the African continent, probably encouraged the Portuguese to intensify their effort to round the tip of Africa.

Africa
The Fra Mauro map is one of the first Western maps to represent the islands of Japan (possibly after the De Virga world map). A part of Japan, probably Kyūshū, appears below the island of Java, with the legend "Isola de Cimpagu" (a mis-spelling of Cipangu).

Japan
An even earlier map, the De Virga world map (1411-1415) also depicts the old world in a way broadly similar to the Fra Mauro map, and may have contributed to it.
Fra Mauro also probably relied on Arab sources. This is suggested by the North-South inversion of the map, an Arab tradition examplified by the 12th century maps of Muhammad al-Idrisi, and the detailed information on the southeastern coast of Africa, which was brought by an Ethiopian embassy to Rome in the 1430s.
The map may also have drawn on Chinese sources as described by Ramusio, a contemporary who states that Fra Mauro's map is an improved copy of the one brought from Cathay by Marco Polo:
"That fine illuminated world map on parchment, which can still be seen in a large cabinet alongside the choir of their monastery (The Calmoldese monastery of Santo Michele on Murano) was by one of the brothers of the monastery, who took great delight in the study of cosmography, diligently drawn and copied from a most beautiful and very old nautical map and a world map that had been brought from Cathay by the most honourable Messer Marco Polo and his father." Ramusio v.3.
The Fra Mauro map displays many similarities to the Kangnido map, made in 1402 in Korea, which is based on earlier, now lost, Chinese maps. They share the same understanding of the Old World in its general structure, although the relative proportions of the countries and continents are inverted, with Europe and Africa enlarged on the Fra Mauro map, and China and especially Korea very largely represented in the Kangnido.
These maps were made before the European voyages of exploration and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 by the Europeans. It has been suggested that the geographical knowledge contained in the Kangnido map was created by Muslim, Indian or Chinese sailors (expedition of the Chinese Admiral Zheng He), and then transmitted to the West in some other way, possibly through Indian or Muslim merchants, or through 15th century travelers to the East such as the Venetian Niccolò da Conti.
Fra Mauro and his map were recently celebrated in James Cowan's novel The Mapmaker's Dream.

Notes

"Fra Mauro's World Map", Piero Falchetta, Brepols 2006, ISBN 2503517269

Bernard Sumner (born Bernard Dicken, 4 January 1956 in Broughton, Salford, Lancashire, England, and also known as Bernard Albrecht) is a British guitarist and keyboardist, originally with Joy Division. After the May 1980 suicide of Joy Division's vocalist, Ian Curtis, Sumner and remaining bandmates Peter Hook and Stephen Morris started a new band named New Order, later taking in Gillian Gilbert. Though Hook, Morris and Gilbert also contributed vocals on some early tracks, Sumner emerged reluctantly as the band's permanent lead vocalist and lyricist. Sumner has also served as a record producer for other Factory Records acts such as the Happy Mondays and Section 25.
In 1989, Sumner joined up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form Electronic. He has also recorded tracks with fellow Mancunians 808 State and Sub Sub. Sumner appeared as a guest vocalist on The Chemical Brothers' 1999 album Surrender, on the track "Out of Control", and in the 2005 Chemical Brothers show at the Brixton Academy, Sumner appeared live on stage as a special guest recreating this track.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sumner was also sometimes credited under the names 'Bernard Albrecht', 'Bernard Dicken' and 'Bernard Albrecht-Dicken'. In interviews,he has repeatedly refused to comment on these name changes, calling it a family matter. Fans have reported that Sumner is his all time favorite guitarist.
Sumner has been portayed on film twice. Firstly by John Simm in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, which focused on Factory Records and in the forthcoming Ian Curtis biopic Control where he is played by James Pearson.

Ukrainian Village is a Chicago neighborhood located on the west side of the Chicago downtown. Its boundaries are Division Street to the north, Grand Avenue to the south, Western Avenue to the west, and Damen Avenue to the east. It is one of the neighborhoods in the West Town community area.
In past decades, Ukrainian Village has been a safe middle-class neighborhood, populated by older citizens of Eastern European ethnicity, and bordered on many sides by more dangerous areas. It was insulated somewhat from surrounding socioeconomic change by large industrial areas on its south and west borders, and by the staying power of the Orthodox churches. However, gentrification of West Town is rapidly changing the demographic.
Notable local landmarks include Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, Roberto Clemente High School, St Mary's Hospital, and Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the latter having been commissioned by St. John Kochurov and designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan.
"East Village", the area east of Ukrainian Village extending from Damen to Ashland, was originally known as "East Ukrainian Village". "West Ukrainian Village" and "Smith Park" are both terms used to describe the small section of Ukrainian Village that lies west of Western Avenue, between Grand Avenue and Chicago Avenue.

Gallery

Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are open ended mutual funds that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day. Typically, ETFs try to replicate a stock market index such as the S&P 500 (.INX) or the Hang Seng Index, a market sector such as energy or technology, or a commodity such as gold or petroleum; However, as ETFs proliferated in 2006 from under one hundred in number to almost four hundred by the end of the year, the trend has been away from these simpler index-tracking funds to intellidexes and other proprietary groupings of stocks.
The legal structure and makeup varies around the world, however the major common features include:
These qualities provide ETFs with some significant advantages compared with traditional open-ended collective investments. The ETF structure allows for a diversified, low cost, low turnover index investment. This appeals to both institutional and retail investors both for long term holding and for selling short and hedging strategies.

An exchange listing and ability to trade continually;
They are index-linked rather than actively managed;
Through dynamic and quantitative strategies, these can be dynamic rather than static indexing strategies
The ability to handle contributions and redemptions on an in-kind basis (typically in large blocks of shares only); and
Their 'value' (but not necessarily the price at which they trade—they can trade at a 'premium' or 'discount' to the 'underlying' assets' value) derives from the value of the 'underlying' assets comprising the fund. Creation and redemption of shares
People have talked about 'actively managed ETF' for a long time, therefore more likely to be proponents of indexing (a passive strategy). So it is not immediately obvious who would buy actively managed ETFs.

Actively managed ETF
Today ETFs present a viable alternative investment option to traditional open-ended mutual funds, especially open-ended index funds. There are many available ETFs that attempt to track all kind of indexes (such as large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap, etc), fixed income, style (such as value and growth), industries, countries, precious metals and other commodities and more are being developed.
ETFs also enable people living outside the United States to participate in US based mutual funds. Traditional open-ended US mutual funds are available only to US residents, whereas anyone in the world can purchase shares in an ETF that trades on the open market.

Usage
The first ETF was introduced on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1990.
There are over one hundred ETFs traded on the American Stock Exchange, with more in other countries. ETFs have been gaining popularity ever since they were introduced on the American Stock Exchange in the mid 1990s, beginning with SPY (launched by State Street Global Advisors and tracking the S&P 500) in 1993. ETFs are attractive to investors because they offer the diversification of mutual funds with the features of a stock. The popularity of these funds is likely to increase as new and more innovative ETFs are introduced.
The original ETFs were set up as competitors to open-ended index funds, and subsequent ETFs have usually followed in their footsteps: they typically have very low expense ratios compared to actively managed mutual funds. They also have a lower turnover ratio, which in some jurisdictions can be more tax-favorable.
ETF managers such as BGI and State Street Global Advisors are the current leaders in the ETF industry by assets under management, with 75% of the market.

History
Given that ETFs trade on an exchange, each transaction is subject to the broker's fee. Many mutual funds do not charge such fees. In scenarios where an investor transacts frequently, or for small amounts, these fees for trading ETFs can erode gains and thus make investing in a mutual fund more attractive. However, with the advent of low or no-cost transactions from various brokerages, this advantage of mutual funds over ETFs has been diminished in many cases.
ETF fees also tend to be slightly more transparent than fees for mutual funds. There are no deferred sales charges, or other kickbacks to the dealer. Instead there is a regular MER, and the initial exchange commission, if any, to purchase the ETF.
There are many advantages to ETFs, and these advantages will likely increase over time. Most ETFs have a lower expense ratio than comparable mutual funds. Mutual funds can charge 1% to 3%, or more; index funds are generally lower, while ETFs are almost always in the 0.1% to 1% range. Over the long term, these cost differences can compound into a noticeable difference.
ETFs are more tax-efficient than mutual funds in some jurisdictions [2]. In the U.S., whenever a mutual fund realizes a capital gain that is not balanced by a realized loss, the mutual fund must distribute the capital gains to their shareholders by the end of the quarter. This can happen when stocks are added to and removed from the index, or when a large number of shares are redeemed (such as during a panic). These gains are taxable to all shareholders, even those who reinvest the gains distributions in more shares of the fund. In contrast, ETFs are not redeemed by holders (instead, holders simply sell their ETF on the stock market, as they would a stock), so that investors generally only realize capital gains when they sell their own shares.
However, there are some potential taxation drawbacks to ETFs in the United States. One argument made in favor of index mutual funds having a tax advantage over ETFs is that ETFs often trade their shares more rapidly to maintain a high cost basis of their underlying shares. This can result in ETF dividends failing to be classified as qualified dividends since the underlying shares don't satisfy the IRS requirements. This can be a substantial drawback since your ordinary tax rate may be significantly higher than the 15% tax charged on qualified dividends.
Perhaps the most important, although subtle, benefit of an ETF is the stock-like features offered. Since ETFs trade on the market, investors can carry out the same types of trades that they can with a stock. For instance, investors can sell short, use a limit order, use a stop-loss order, buy on margin, and invest as much or as little money as they wish (there is no minimum investment requirement). Also, many ETFs have the capability for options (puts and calls) to be written against them. Mutual funds do not offer those features.
For example, an investor in an open-ended fund can only purchase or sell at the end of the day at the mutual fund's closing price. This makes stop-loss orders much less useful for open-ended funds – if your broker even allows them. An ETF is continually priced throughout the day and therefore is not subject to this disadvantage, allowing the user to react to adverse or beneficial market condition on an intraday basis. This stock-like liquidity allows an investor to trade the ETF for cash throughout regular trading hours, and often after-hours on ECNs. ETF liquidity varies according to trading volume and liquidity of the underlying securities, but very liquid ETFs such as SPY, DIA, and QQQQ can be traded pre-market and after-hours with reasonably tight spreads. These characteristics can be important for investors concerned with liquidity risk.
A more subtle advantage is that ETFs, like closed-ended funds, are immune from some market timing problems that have plagued open-ended mutual funds. In these timing attacks, large investors trade in and out of an open ended fund quickly, exploiting minor variances in price in order to profit at the expense of the long-term unit holders. With an ETF (or closed-ended fund) such an operation is not possible--the underlying assets of the fund are not affected by its trading on the market.

ETFs vs. open-ended funds

Ameristock issues Ameristock ETFs.
First Trust Advisors issues specialty First Trust ETFs.
Barclays Global Investors issues iShares.
State Street Global Advisors issues streetTRACKS and SPDRs.
Vanguard Group issues Vanguard ETFs, formerly known as VIPERs
Rydex Investments issues Rydex ETFs.
ETF Securities issues ETFS or specialised ETCs
Merrill Lynch issues HOLDRSs.
Bank of New York issues BLDRS based on ADRs.
PowerShares issues PowerShares ETFs.
Deutsche Bank manages PowerShares DB commodity- and currency-based ETFs.
WisdomTree issues fundamentally weighted WisdomTree ETFs.
Lyxor Asset Management issues Lyxor ETFs.
ETF Capital Management operates a global fund of ETFs.
Claymore Securities issues specialty Claymore ETFs.
ProFunds issues inverse and leveraged ProShares ETFs.
Van Eck Global issues Market Vectors ETFs. Major Issuers of ETFs
The first, and most widely held (as of 2007) US ETF is the Standard & Poor's Depository Receipt, abbreviated SPDR. Shares of SPDR, called "spiders", are issued by State Street Global Advisors, and listed on the American Stock Exchange under the ticker SPY. Also popular and well known are the ETFs that track the NASDAQ-100 index ("qubes") and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA ("diamonds"), also issued by State Street Global Advisors.
Top 10 US-based ETFs, by assets under management (April 2007):

SPDRs "spiders" by State Street Global Advisors (AMEX: SPY)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (AMEX: EFA)
iShares S&P 500 Index Fund (NYSE: IVV)
PowerShares QQQ "qubes" (NASDAQ: QQQQ)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (AMEX: EEM)
iShares MSCI Japan Index Fund (NYSE: EWJ)
iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (AMEX: IWM)
streetTRACKS Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD)
iShares Russell 1000 Value Index Fund (AMEX: IWD)
MidCap SPDRs (AMEX: MDY) Top U.S. ETFs
In the European Union many ETFs are traded as cross border UCITS III funds. For example the UK iShares and ETF Securities are Irish registered UCITS funds and trade on the London Stock Exchange. Other ETF's are offered by Indexchange Investments AG, whose funds are listed in Germany on the Deutsche Börse. Indexchange was a subsidiary of HypoVereinsbank. It has been acquired by Barclays Global Investors

ETFS All Commodities DJ-AIGCISM
ETFS Energy DJ-AIGCISM
iShares DJ STOXX 50
iShares DJ EURO STOXX 50
Indexchange DJ Euro Stoxx EX
Indexchange DJ Euro Stoxx 50 EX
Indexchange DJ Stoxx 50 EX
Lyxor ETF DJ Euro Stoxx 50
Lyxor ETF MSCI Europe European ETFs
In Sweden six ETFs exist as of November 2006, all provided by XACT Fonder:

XACT Bull - leveraged ETF tracking 1,5 times daily OMXS30 returns
XACT Bear - like Bull, but inverse, Bear gains from market declines
XACT OMXS30 - tracking 30 most traded stocks in Stockholm Stock Exchange
XACT OMXSB - tracking 80-100 most traded stocks in Stockholm Stock Exchange
XACT F Euro - Fundamentally Weighted index, about 270 stocks in Eurozone
XACT VINX30 - tracking 30 most traded stocks in the Nordic region (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) Swedish ETFs

SGL OMHXH25 - It is a market value weighted index that consists of the 25 most-traded stock classes. Provided by Seligson & Co Fund Management
XACT OMXH25 - Same as above by Handelsbanken Mutual Fund Company Ltd. Finnish ETFs
In Canada, Barclays Global Investors is the largest ETF provider, offering ETFs under the iShares brand name:
Claymore Investments also offers a series of ETFs available in Canada:
Horizons Betapro also offers a series of ETFs available in Canada:

XIC -- tracks the S&P/TSX Composite Total Return Index
XIU -- tracks the S&P/TSX 60 Total Return Index
XMD -- tracks the S&P/TSX MidCap Index
XCS -- tracks the S&P/TSX SmallCap Index
XEG -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index
XIT -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology Index
XGD -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Gold Index
XFN -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Financials Index
XMA -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Materials Index
XRE -- tracks the S&P/TSX Capped Real Estate Investment Trust Index
XTR -- tracks the S&P/TSX Income Trust Index
XDV -- tracks the Dow Jones Canada Select Dividend Index
XCG -- tracks the Dow Jones Canada Select Growth Index
XCV -- tracks the Dow Jones Canada Select Value Index
XEN -- tracks the Jantzi Social Index
XSB -- tracks the Scotia Short-term bond Index
XBB -- tracks the Scotia Capital Bond Index
XRB -- tracks the Scotia Capital Real Return Bond Index
XCB -- tracks the Scotia Capital All Corporate Bond Index
XGB -- tracks the Scotia Capital All Government Bond Index
XLB -- tracks the Scotia Capital Long Term Bond Index
XSP -- tracks the S&P 500 Index (currency hedged)
XSU -- tracks the Russell 2000 Index (currency hedged)
XIN -- tracks the MSCI EAFE 100% Hedged to CAD Dollars Index (currency hedged)
CBQ - Claymore BRIC ETF -- tracks the BNY BRIC Select ADR Index (Brazil, Russia India and China)
CDZ - Claymore CDN Dividend & Income Achievers ETF -- tracks Mergent's Canadian Dividend & Income Achievers Index.
CLO - Claymore Oil Sands Sector ETF -- tracks the Sustainable Oil Sands Sector Index
CLU - Claymore US Fundamental ETF (Canadian Dollar Hedged) -- tracks the FTSE RAFI US 1000 Canadian Dollar Hedged Index
CRQ - Claymore Canadian Fundamental Index ETF -- tracks the FTSE RAFI Canada Index
CWW - Claymore S&P Global Water ETF -- tracks the S&P Global Water Index
HXU - the "HBP 60 Bull + ETF" -- tracks two times (200%) the daily performance of the S&P/TSX 60 Total Return Index
HXD - the "HBP 60 Bear + ETF" -- tracks two times (200%) the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the S&P/TSX 60 Total Return Index
HEU - the Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Capped Energy Bull Plus ETF -- tracks two times (200%) the daily performance of the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index.
HED - the Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Capped Energy Bear Plus ETF -- tracks two times (200%) inverse the daily performance of the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index
HFU - the Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Capped Financial Bull Plus ETF -- tracks two times (200%) the daily performance of the S&P/TSX Capped Financials Index.
HFD - the Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Capped Financials Bear Plus ETF --tracks two times (200%) inverse the daily performance of the S&P/TSX Capped Financials Index. Canadian ETFs

M62.SI CIMB FTSE ASEAN40 ETF
I98.SI iShares MSCI India ETF
P58.SI Lyxor ETF China Enterprise (HSCEI)
A9B.SI Lyxor HangSeng 10US$
P60.SI Lyxor ETF MSCI AC Asia-Pacific Ex Japan
CW4.SI Lyxor ETF Japan (Topix)
AO9.SI Lyxor ETF MSCI Korea
A9A.SI Lyxor ETF MSCI Taiwan
S67.SI streetTRACKS® Straits Times Index Fund
A0W.SI Lyxor ETF Commodities CRB
O87.SI streetTRACKS® Gold Shares Singapore ETFs (as of 12 Sep 2007)

2800.HK TraHK -- tracks the Hang Seng Index
2801.HK China Tracker -- tracks the MSCI China Index
2819.HK ABF HK IDX ETF -- tracks the iBoxx ABF Hong Kong Index
2821.HK ABF Pan Asia Bond Index Fund -- tracks the iBoxx ABF Pan-Asia Index
2823.HK A50 China Tracker -- tracks the FTSE/Xinhua China A50 Index
2828.HK HS H-Share ETF -- tracks the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index
2833.HK HS HSI ETF -- tracks the Hang Seng Index
2836.HK SENSEXINDIA ETF -- tracks the BSE Sensitivity Index
2838.HK Hang Seng FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF -- tracks the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Hong Kong ETFs
All ROK-based ETFs, as of June 2006:

KODEX 200
KOSEF
KODEX Baedang ('Baedang' means 'dividend' in Korean)
KODEX KRX 100
KODEX Star
Lyxor ETF MSCI Korea Top Republic of Korea ETFs

Listed in Osaka Securities Exchange

• 1320 Daiwa ETF - Nikkei 225 -- tracks the Nikkei 225
  1321 Nikkei 225 Exchange Traded Fund (Nomura) -- tracks the Nikkei 225
  1328 Gold-Price-Linked Exchange Traded Fund Japan ETFs
  
  Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (At this moment, only indexed ETF's)
  
  
  
  • SFX -- tracks the the top 50 Australian Shares
    STW -- tracks the top 200 Australian Shares
    SLF -- tracks the Listed property trusts in the top 200 Commodity ETFs
    
    Collective investment scheme
    Mutual fund
    Index fund
    Enhanced indexing
    Investment trust
    Gold exchange-traded fund

For advice on the use of weasel words in editing Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words.
A weasel word is a word that is intended to, or has the effect of, softening the force of a potentially loaded or otherwise controversial statement. This phrase appears in Stewart Chaplin's short story Stained Glass Political Platform published in 1900 in The Century Magazine according to The Macmillan Dictionary of Contemporary Phrase and Fable : "Why, weasel words are words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks the egg and leaves the shell." Thus, weasel words suck the meaning out of a statement while seeming to keep the idea intact, and are particularly associated with political pronouncements. Weasel words are used euphemistically. The term invokes the image of a weasel being sneaky and well able to wiggle out of a tight spot. Weasel words work, ad nauseam, as in commercial lingo to glide over an uncomfortable fact (therefore "headcount reduction" replaces "firing staff") encouraging people to identify and nominate examples of weasely language, which gives many examples of dissimulation through verbosity. Watson was previously a speech writer for Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
"I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity." Bill Watterson (1994) Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat page 62

Purposes
In certain kinds of advertisements, for example, the part of the syntax that would normally establish the validity of a statement is missing or is being withheld deliberately in the expectation that the listener or reader will complete the message subliminally and so will be influenced by it:

"... is now 20% cheaper" (It is now 20% cheaper than what?)
"There is more goodness in ..." (How is this goodness measured and of what does it consist?)
"More people than ever are using ..." (What does that mean in numbers?)
"New and improved ..." (Improved in which qualities? If it is "improved", how can it also be "new"?)
"Our ... will never be cheaper." (Is this accounting for inflation? Is your profit margin thin enough that you could not have a cheaper sale next year?)
"Clinically tested..." (but not proven? What did the test results reveal? Does the product work as claimed?)
"Four of every five people would agree." (Is this a good sample population? Were only five people interviewed?)
"... is among the" or "... one of the (top, leading, best, few, worst, etc.)" (How many else among? What percentage are not among? Where does the one rank among?) Use of generalizations

Essentially contested concept
Spin (public relations)
Political correctness
Glittering generality
Newspeak
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Sibawayh (Sibuyeh in Persian, سيبويه Sîbawayh in Arabic, سیبویه) was a linguist of Persian origin born ca. 760 AD in the town of Bayza (ancient Nesayak) in the Fars province of Iran.
He was one of the earliest and greatest grammarians of the Arabic language, and his phonetic description of Arabic is one of the most precise ever made, leading some to compare him with Panini. He greatly helped to spread the Arabic language in the Middle East.
Sibawayh was the first non-Arab to write on Arabic grammar and therefore the first one to explain Arabic grammar from a non-Arab perspective. Much of the impetus for this work came from the desire for non-Arab Muslims to understand the Qur'an properly and thoroughly; the Qur'an, which is composed in a poetic language that even native Arabic speakers must study with great care in order to comprehend thoroughly, is even more difficult for those who, like Sibawayh, did not grow up speaking Arabic. Additionally, because Arabic does not necessarily mark all pronounced vowel sounds, it is possible to misread a text aloud (See Short vowels in Arabic); such difficulty was particularly troublesome for Muslims, who regard the Qur'an as the literal word of God to man and as such should never be mispronounced or misread.
The name Sibawayh is derived from the Persian words سیب-بو-یه (Sib-bu-yeh) meaning "the one with an apple's scent". His full name is: ʕAmr ibn ʕUthmān ibn Qanbar - al-mulaqqab bi-"Sibawayhi". That is: "ʕAmr ibn ʕUthmān ibn Qanbar - a.k.a. Sibawayhi".
Sibawayh died in Shiraz (also in the Fars province of Iran) around 793 AD.

The Standard Template Library (STL) is a software library partially included in the C++ Standard Library. It provides containers, iterators, algorithms, and functors. More specifically, the C++ Standard Library is based on the STL published by SGI. Both include some features not found in the other. SGI's STL is rigidly specified as a set of headers, while ISO C++ does not specify header content, and allows implementation either in the headers, or in a true library.

Overview
The architecture of STL is largely the creation of one person, Alexander Stepanov. In 1979 he began working out his initial ideas of generic programming and exploring their potential for revolutionizing software development. Although David Musser had developed and advocated some aspects of generic programming as early as 1971, it was limited to a rather specialized area of software development (computer algebra).
Stepanov recognized the full potential for generic programming and persuaded his then-colleagues at General Electric Research and Development (including, primarily, David Musser and Deepak Kapur) that generic programming should be pursued as a comprehensive basis for software development. At the time there was no real support in any programming language for generic programming.
The first major language to provide such support was Ada, with its generic units feature. By 1987 Stepanov and Musser had developed and published an Ada library for list processing that embodied the results of much of their research on generic programming. However, Ada had not achieved much acceptance outside the defense industry and C++ seemed more likely to become widely used and provide good support for generic programming even though the language was relatively immature. Another reason for turning to C++, which Stepanov recognized early on, was the C/C++ model of computation which allows very flexible access to storage via pointers is crucial to achieving generality without losing efficiency.
Much research and experimentation were needed, not just to develop individual components, but to develop an overall architecture for a component library based on generic programming. First at AT&T Bell Laboratories and later at Hewlett-Packard Research Labs, Stepanov experimented with many architectural and algorithm formulations, first in C and later in C++. Musser collaborated in this research and in 1992 Meng Lee joined Stepanov's project at HP and became a major contributor.
This work undoubtedly would have continued for some time as just a research project or at best would have resulted in an HP proprietary library if Andrew Koenig of Bell Labs had not become aware of the work and asked Stepanov to present the main ideas at a November 1993 meeting of the ANSI/ISO committee for C++ standardization. The committee's response was overwhelmingly favorable and led to a request from Koenig for a formal proposal in time for the March 1994 meeting. Despite the tremendous time pressure, Alex and Meng were able to produce a draft proposal that received preliminary approval at that meeting.
The committee had several requests for changes and extensions (some of them major), and a small group of committee members met with Stepanov and Lee to help work out the details. The requirements for the most significant extension (associative containers) had to be shown to be consistent by fully implementing them, a task Stepanov delegated to Musser. It would have been quite easy for the whole enterprise to spin out of control at this point, but again Stepanov and Lee met the challenge and produced a proposal that received final approval at the July 1994 ANSI/ISO committee meeting. (Additional details of this history can be found in Stevens.) Subsequently, the Stepanov and Lee document 17 was incorporated into the ANSI/ISO C++ draft standard (1, parts of clauses 17 through 27). It also influenced other parts of the C++ Standard Library, such as the string facilities, and some of the previously adopted standards in those areas were revised accordingly.
In spite of STL's success with the committee, there remained the question of how STL would make its way into actual availability and use. With the STL requirements part of the publicly available draft standard, compiler vendors and independent software library vendors could of course develop their own implementations and market them as separate products or as selling points for their other wares. One of the first edition's authors, Atul Saini, was among the first to recognize the commercial potential and began exploring it as a line of business for his company, Modena Software Incorporated, even before STL had been fully accepted by the committee.
The prospects for early widespread dissemination of STL were considerably improved with Hewlett-Packard's decision to make its implementation freely available on the Internet in August 1994. This implementation, developed by Stepanov, Lee, and Musser during the standardization process, became the basis of many implementations offered by compiler and library vendors today.

History

Containers
The STL implements five different types of iterators. These are input iterators (which can only be used to read a sequence of values), output iterators (which can only be used to write a sequence of values), forward iterators (which can be read, written to, and move forward), bidirectional iterators (which are like forward iterators but can also move backwards) and random access iterators (which can move freely any number of steps in one operation).
It is possible to have bidirectional iterators act like random access iterators, as moving forward ten steps could be done by simply moving forward a step at a time a total of ten times. However, having distinct random access iterators offers efficiency advantages. For example, a vector would have a random access iterator, but a list only a bidirectional iterator.
Iterators are the major feature which allow the generality of the STL. For example, an algorithm to reverse a sequence can be implemented using bidirectional iterators, and then the same implementation can be used on lists, vectors and deques. User-created containers only have to provide an iterator which implements one of the 5 standard iterator interfaces, and all the algorithms provided in the STL can be used on the container.
This generality also comes at a price at times. For example, performing a search on an associative container such as a map or set can be much slower using iterators than by calling member functions offered by the container itself. This is because an associative container's methods can take advantage of knowledge of the internal structure, which is opaque to algorithms using iterators.

Iterators
A large number of algorithms to perform operations such as searching and sorting are provided in the STL, each implemented to require a certain level of iterator (and therefore will work on any container which provides an interface by iterators).

Algorithms
The STL includes classes that overload the function operator (operator()). Classes that do this are called functors or function objects. They are useful for keeping and retrieving state information in functions passed into other functions. Regular function pointers can also be used as functors.
A particularly common type of functor is the predicate. For example, algorithms like find_if take a unary predicate that operates on the elements of a sequence. Algorithms like sort, partial_sort, nth_element and all sorted containers use a binary predicate which must provide a strict weak ordering, that is, it must behave like a membership test on a transitive, irreflexive and antisymmetric binary relation. If none is supplied, these algorithms and containers use less by default, which in turn calls the less-than-operator <.

Functors

Criticisms
The Quality of Implementation (QoI) of the C++ compiler has a large impact on usability of STL (and templated code in general):

Error messages involving templates tend to be very long and difficult to decipher. This problem has been considered so severe that a number of tools have been written which simplify and indent STL-related error messages to make them more comprehensible. A proposal to the new C++ Standard (concept checking) tries to reduce this problem.
Careless use of STL templates can lead to code bloat. This has been countered with special techniques within STL implementation (using void* containers internally) and by improving optimization techniques used by compilers.
Template instantiation tends to increase compilation time and memory usage (even by an order of magnitude). Until the compiler technology improves enough this problem can be only partially eliminated by very careful coding and avoiding certain idioms. Notes

Alexander Stepanov and Meng Lee, The Standard Template Library. HP Laboratories Technical Report 95-11(R.1), November 14, 1995. (Revised version of A. A. Stepanov and M. Lee: The Standard Template Library, Technical Report X3J16/94-0095, WG21/N0482, ISO Programming Language C++ Project, May 1994.)
Nicolai M. Josuttis. The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-37926-0. 
Scott Meyers. Effective STL: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of the Standard Template Library. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-74962-9. 
Al Stevens (March 1995). "Al Stevens Interviews Alex Stepanov". Dr. Dobb's Journal. Retrieved on 2007-07-18. 
Bjarne Stroustrup (2000). The C++ Programming Language, 3rd ed, Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-70073-5. 
Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu (2005). C++ Coding Standards. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-321-11358-6. 
David Vandevoorde and Nicolai M. Josuttis (2002). C++ Templates: The Complete Guide. Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 0-201-73484-2.