Flitch beam wooden beams, and have been largely supplanted by more recent technology. “Flitch” originally referred to a slab of bacon, which was cut into strips lengthwise. Similarly, a wooden beam was flitched by cutting it lengthwise; one half was then rotated 180 degrees both longitudinally and laterally to ensure that any defects were separated. In the 18 century, before the availability of steel beams, pine beams were flitched with hardwood such as oak. With the availability of affordable steel, flitch beams became a way to strengthen long-span wooden beams cost-effectively while taking up less space than solid wood. An 1883 article
A Horsey Name A Horsey Name "A Horsey Name" () is an 1885 short story by Anton Chekhov. According to the writer and memoirist Vladimir Bogoraz, the plotline might have had to with a popular Taganrog anecdote, based on a real life incident when "...the two men, Zherebtsov and Kobylin, well-off, and known in the city, checked into a hotel simultaneously, and their names appeared on the desk, side by side. I remember well how the whole of Taganrog laughed." The story was published for the first time by "Peterburgskaya Gazeta", in its No.183, 7 July 1885, issue, subtitled "A Scene" (Сценка) and