the.com/shredder
a paper guillotine for secrets, deployed equally by the paranoid and the guilty
means A machine that cuts paper (or other material) into thin strips or tiny pieces, often to destroy sensitive documents beyond reading.
from From "shred," an Old English word — "scrēade," meaning a fragment or cutting — with the "-er" suffix that turns a verb into the thing that does it, so a shredder is simply "a thing that shreds." "Shred" shares deep Germanic roots with words for cutting and scraping, a cousin of German "Schrot" (small fragments) and likely related to the same family that gives us "shroud" and "scrap." The mechanical office shredder, devouring documents whole, is a modern application of a very old word for the small ragged remains of something cut apart.
- enron
- shredders ran overtime as the empire collapsed
- reassembly
- strip-cut documents can be pieced back together
- origin
- invented in 1909 to destroy anti-government leaflets
- appetite
- some industrial models eat credit cards and CDs
- casualties
- ties, fingers, and pets occasionally get caught
document shredder machine — fellowes 79ci, industrial cross-cut shredder used in offices and government agencies worldwide
shredder snowboard — shredder skis and boards, equipment brand founded 1980s, popular in freestyle and backcountry skiing