Alice in Chains

Alice in Chains (abbreviated as AIC) is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington. It was formed in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney, who later recruited bassist Mike Starr and lead vocalist Layne Staley. They are associated with grunge music, although they also can be considered as heavy metal.

The band took its name from Staley's earlier group. That band was a glam metal band, Alice N' Chains. That band formed in 1986 had wanted to change their name to Alice in Chains, but there were concerns that the reference to female bondage would hurt the band, so they chose to spell it as Alice N' Chains. Staley's bandmates had also briefly considered the name Alice in Wonderland but settled on the version that could be interpreted as Alice IN Chains or Alice IN Chains in its pronunciation.

One humorous but unfounded origin rumor I found was that they were named after a lost episode from The Brady Bunch series which had a major character named Alice.

       

Ad-lib

Ad-lib is one of the most common Latin phrases used in English. Ad-lib is the shortened version of "ad libitum" which is Latin for "at one's pleasure" or "as you desire." Sometimes it is translated as meaning "at liberty" simply because of that "lib" syllable, but that is not an accurate translation.

The most common use in drama when used to describe times in performance when a performer uses words not found in the text. (When the entire performance is spontaneous and unscripted it is called improvisation.) This occurs on the live stage, in films, on television and frequently in situations such as the conversations on talk-shows, news, podcasts etc.

Larry David's HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, is often pointed to as an example of ad-lib drama. The show can also be said to use "retroscripting." The series also has created its own collection of words and phrases, as noted in the video shown here.

Less well known is its use as a direction in sheet music where "ad libitum" indicates that the performer or conductor has one of a variety of types of discretion with respect to a given passage.

Ad libitum is also used in psychology and biology to refer to the "free-feeding" weight of an animal when the animal eats as it wishes rather than its weight on a restricted diet.

Boilerplate

NASA engineers inspect and test a boilerplate Mercury space capsule.
Image: NASA on The Commons

You will sometimes hear material referred to as being "boilerplate."

In my own academic work, it is sometimes used to describe a general statement, such as a grading policy, used as a starting place that teachers can modify to their needs, or sometimes, it is used "as is."

I have also heard it used to describe standardized pieces of text for contracts, and as a portion of a computer program. As the illustration above shows, it can also be used to describe a non-textual object.

In newspaper publishing, before the days of digital printing. There was syndicated material supplied to smaller newspapers in a printing plate form. This was particularly true for weekly newspapers who could use these feature stories, editorials, etc. supplied by large publishing syndicates. Rather than having to set type for the story, it was delivered on metal plates with the type already in place. They were given the name "boiler plates" because they looked like the plating used in making steam boilers.

The word "boilerplate" was used to refer to the printed material on the plates as well as to the plates themselves. Boilerplate stories were often more considered "filler" than hard news, and so the the word acquired a negative connotation. Some modern dictionaries will list its meaning as including the sense of boilerplate being hackneyed, unoriginal or clichéd writing that expresses a generally accepted opinion or belief.

You will also still find it meaning the rolled steel used for making boilers. And a more specialized meaning, as used in climbing, is to describe smooth, overlapping and undercut slabs of rock.