Teflon

Teflon (pronounced tef-lon)

(1) The trademark for a fluorocarbon polymer with slippery, non-sticking properties; the (chemically correct) synonym is polytetrafluoroethylene.

(2) In casual use, facetiously to denote an ability to evade blame, applied usually to certain politicians, those characterized by imperviousness to criticism, often as “teflon president etc”.

1945: The proprietary name registered in the US by the du Pont corporation, from the chemical name (poly)te(tra)fl(uoroethylene) + the –on.  The use of the -on suffix in science is often described by etymologists as “arbitrary” and in the narrow technical sense the point is well made but there is history.  In physics it was applied on the model of the “on” element in electron, something lent linguistic respectability by the Ancient Greek -ον (-on), used to end neuter nouns and adjectives.  In chemistry, it followed the “on” in carbon, applied to form names of noble gases and certain non-metal elements (creating first boron and then silicon).  In physics, mathematics and biology, it was appended to form nouns denoting subatomic particles (proton), quanta (photon), molecular units (codon), or substances (interferon).  In biology and genetics, it was used to form names of things considered as basic or fundamental units (such as codon or recon).  The derived forms teflonish, tefleony etc are late twentieth century creations from critical political discourse.

Teflon was a serendipitous discovery which was delivered by research on refrigeration gases being undertaken by the Du Pont Company in 1938.  Some of the experiments being performed involved an analysis of the behavior of various compounds of Freon in cylinders and, observations indicated that while the gas appeared to disappear from the cylinders, weight measurements suggested it remained present and, upon inspection, what was found in the cylinders was a white, waxy substance of no use in the process of refrigeration.  The substance did however have remarkable properties, being friction-free (described as being like rubbing wet ice against wet ice) and impervious both almost all solvents and temperature variations between -273–250^o c (-169–121^o f).  Chemically the substance was a form of polytetrafluoroethylene, thankfully shortened to "Teflon" ((poly)te(tra)fl(uoroethylene)).  The significance of Teflon wasn’t initially understood and Du Pont’s major product release that year was anyway nylon, finally available as a commercial substance after thirteen years of development.

Teflon did however soon have an impact in one of the century’s most significant scientific and engineering projects, those attached to the Manhattan Project developing the atom bomb finding it the only coating which worked as seals for the canisters housing the most volatile elements.  However, because of the secrecy which enveloped the Manhattan Project, some aspects of which would not for many decades be declassified, Teflon didn’t enter the public consciousness until the late 1950s, the timing ensuring it came to be associated with the nascent space programme rather than the A-bomb, a perception the military-industrial complex did little to discourage.  Because of the state of the analytical tools then available, it had taken a long time fully to understand the stuff and it transpired the slipperiness came from a unique molecular structure, the core of carbon atoms being surrounded by fluorine atoms, creating a bond so strong that any other interaction was repelled, the chemical mix also accounting for the high degree of invulnerability to solvents and extremes in temperature.

The first extensive use was in electronics industry, first as insulation and corrosion protection for the copper wires and cables which carried the data for telephony and later computer networks but, as an example of the novel products it enabled, shatter-proof, Teflon-coated light bulbs went on sale but most far-reaching, revolutionary actually, was that it was Teflon which was used to hold the new and tiny semiconductor chips.  All those uses played a part in transforming the world but it was the simultaneous (and well-publicized) use in the Apollo Moon programme and the commercial release of the Teflon fry-pans which so cemented the association in public consciousness.  For some years, mystery shrouded how Du Pont managed to get the Teflon to stick to the aluminum or stainless steel with which fry-pans are made but, after the patents expired, it was revealed the classic trick was to sandblast the metal surfaces which left tiny indentations with irregular edges which worked like the clasps jewelers use to secure stones.  Once these tiny impressions were filled with Teflon, the final layer had something to which to adhere; Teflon attracting itself and repelling all else.  That was an wholly mechanical process but chemical processes were also developed to induce attachment to metal.

While some half a billion Teflon fry-pans were being sold, the slippery substance went on extensively to be used in architecture where its qualities of flame resistance and translucence were much appreciated and it proved uniquely suited to solving a problem which had for decades plagued engineers, the need for an insulator to prevent the corrosion endemic between the steel framework and copper skin of the Statue of Liberty.  Living structures also benefited, Teflon of great utility in the medical device industry because of its compatibility with living tissue, proving an ideal substance with which to construct artificial veins and arteries, heart patches and replacement ligaments although most inventive was probably the Teflon powder injections used to restore the function of vocal-cords.  Early in the twenty-first century, concerns were raised after the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used in the production of Teflon, was found to be potentially carcinogenic.  The research didn’t produce direct evidence that it's harmful to humans but it was anyway replaced with a substitute, the wonderfully named GenX but this too has attracted concerns.

Teflon resistant: Although described by Representative Pam Schroeder (Democrat, Colorado) as “Teflonish”, one object did stick to Bill Clinton no matter what (and there was much "what").

The word Teflon is used also to refer to that small class of politicians to whom no blame, however well-deserved, seems to attach; whatever mud is slung, none of it ever sticks.  It seems first to have been used by Pat Schroeder (b 1940; Democrat Representative for Colorado in the House 1973-1997) who in a speech on the floor of the House in 1983 denouncing President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) said “He has been perfecting the Teflon-coated presidency: He sees to it that nothing sticks to him.”  Schroeder later said that the expression came to her while frying eggs in a Teflon fry-pan.  In a display of feminist bi-partisanship, she would in a later interview with CNN note that President Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) was very “Teflonish” and the phrase has come to be used to describe the political phenomenon of the willingness in voters to excuse in some the shortcomings they wouldn’t accept in most.  The linguistic adaptation didn’t please Du Pont which greatly valued their trademark, issuing a press release insisting that when used in print, the media should always put the trademark symbol next to the word and that ”It is not, alas, a verb or an adjective, not even when applied to the President of the United States!”  Their demands were ignored and English proceeds along its inventive ways.  There is nothing to suggest Teflon sales ever suffered by association.

Lindsay Lohan in a yacht's galley, cooking with non-stick frypan, Cannes, May 2017.

Teflon is produced from a mix of certain chemicals which are part of a large family of substances called perfluoroalkyl & polyfluoroakyl (PFAS) and research has linked human exposure to a number of conditions including some cancers, reproductive issues, and elevated cholesterol levels.  Given that, on the basis of the experience of litigation and legislative response to other once common materials found to be at least potentially dangerous, it might be expected an intensive research effort has at least quantified the extent of the problem.  However, it transpired it’s effectively impossible to measure the risks of the use of PFAS in non-stick, simply because for decades the chemicals have been so ubiquitous in domestic environments because of their role providing water & stain-resistance in everything from raincoats, carpets and car upholstery.  That means PFAS chemicals have long since become part of the environment, detected everywhere from the seabed to mountain tops.  For the human and animal population, the presence in the water supply is of significance and in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2020 published guidelines for the acceptable level of certain PFAS in drinking water, a document which attracted great interest because it appears about the same time as a study which indicated a correlation between exposure and a disturbing “millions of deaths”.  Among the general population, it’s the cookware which came quickly to attract the most concern, not because there’s any evidence to suggest the stuff is a more productive vector of transfer than carpet, curtains or any other source but because of the intimacy of contact; it’s from those non-stick frypans we eat.  It’s also in dental floss but the psychological threshold of swallowing is real.

Lindsay Lohan using non-stick frypan.  Note the metal fork; Ms Lohan is a risk-taker.

Not all PFAS are identical in the critical areas assessed although they all share the characteristic of being stable, something which has seen then dubbed the “forever chemicals”, something potentially useful for science although it’s the implication that once released, the stuff will persist in the environment for millions of years which disturbs.  Some have been identified as especially dangerous and two (PFOS & PFOA) have already been phased out of industrial use, notably because of a risk posed to the human immune system and encouragingly, testing revealed that after FOS use ceased in 2000, levels in human blood declined significantly.  Those who ensure they use only soft kitchen utensils when using the non-stick products shouldn’t be too assured because injecting a big chunk of the stuff historically hasn’t been the issue; it’s the micro-sized bits entering the body and while manufacturers claim any coating swallowed is inert, the concerns remain.  In the absence of relevant data, there are nuanced positions on non-stick pans. The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) continues to permit the use in cookware while the EPA maintains exposure can lead to “adverse health effects” and in 2022 proposed a labeling protocol which would require certain PFAS to be listed as “hazardous substances”.  Another branch of the administration, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) maintains the health effects of low exposure remain “uncertain.”

Cash

Cash (pronounced kash)

(1) Money in the form of coins or banknotes, historically that issued by a government or a bank or other financial institution operating with the approval of a government.

(2) Money or an equivalent paid at the time of making a purchase.

(3) Immediate payment, in full or part, for goods or services, even if not paid in physical cash (ie as distinct from the various forms of time (delayed) payment).

(4) To give or obtain cash for a check, money order, bill of exchange etc.

(5) In some games of cards, (1) to win (a trick) by leading an assured winner or (2) to lead (an assured winner) in order to win a trick.

(6) Any of several low-denomination coins of China, Vietnam, India, and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), especially the Chinese copper coin.

1590–1600: From the Portuguese caixa, from the Tamil காசு (kācu) (a copper coin), from the Sanskrit karṣa (a weight (of precious metal such as silver or gold)).  There was also the sixteenth century Old Italian cassa (money box) from the Latin capsa (case).  Variation of cash appear in many languages including the Japanese: キャッシュ (kyasshu), the Serbo-Croatian (kȅš & ке̏ш) the Romanian cash and the Swedish cash.

Cashable is an adjective, cashability & cashableness are nouns.  The noun plural is cash (except for the proper noun; the surname’s plural being Cashes).  The homophone of cash is cache, often mispronounced as kaache although cache’s adoption as a technical term in computing has led some to suggest kaache should be the use in the industry with kash for all other purposes and there’s much support for the view which does make sense, even if, given the specificity of the context, confusion is unlikely.  The verb cashier (and the related cashiering & cashiered) is (1) the simple past tense and past participle of cashier and (2) the apparently curious term for the dismissal of a military officer, cashiered in this context from the Dutch casseren & kasseren, from the Old French casser (to break (up)).  During a ceremonial cashiering, the break of his link with the military was sometimes symbolized dramatically by literally breaking the officer’s sword (which had in advance been partly sawn through).   

The surname appears to be an American variant of Case, the records indicating it was first adopted by in the US by German immigrants named Kirch and Kirsch, an example of the Anglicization of names once a common of those migrating to the English-speaking world.  In rare cases it has been used a male given name, often as a second name reflecting the mother’s maiden name.  A cashier (person in charge of money), dates from the 1590s, from the French caissier (treasurer), from caisse (money box), the immediate source of the English word perhaps the Middle Dutch kassier.

Lindsay Lohan themed cash.  Unfortunately, these Lohanic notes are not issued by the US Federal Reserve and thus neither legal tender nor readily convertible (at least at face-value) to other currencies.  However, Lindsay Lohan is dabbling in the embroynic world of the NFT (non fungible token) which may evolve to have some influence on the development of how cash is stored and exchanged (if not valued).   

In idiomatic use, cashing-in one’s chips means literally to take one’s winnings and leave the casino but is also used to mean “to die” whereas cashing-up is a technical term from business referring to the end-of-day audit & balancing procedures.  A moneybags (ie bags full of cash) is someone (usually conspicuously) rich.  A cash-cow is a product or service which dependably provides the owner or operator a lucrative profit.  A cash-crop (agricultural product grown to sell for profit) is attested from 1831 and was distinct from one with some other primary purpose (such as for self-sustenance or stock-feed).  A cash-back is a trick in advertising and a form of discount.  The phrase cold, hard cash is another way of emphasizing the primacy of money.  A cash-book (which historically were physical ledgers but most are now electronic) was a transactional register.  To cash was “to convert (a cheque (the US check) or other bill of exchange) to cash", known since 1811 as a variation of the noun and the now-extinct encash from 1865 was also used as a piece of specialized jargon meaning exactly the same thing; it was replaced as required by cashed & cashing.  The cash-box (also called money-box), dating from the 1590s, was (and remains) a box for the safe-keeping physical cash and was from the sixteenth century French caisse (money box), from the Provençal caissa or the Italian cassa, from the Anglo-Norman & Old French casse (money box), from the Latin capsa (box, case) ultimately from capiō (I take, I seize, I receive), from the primitive Indo-European kehp- (to grasp) (which also led to the Spanish caja (box); the original sense was literally the wooden or metal box by the eighteenth century, the secondary sense of the money began to run is parallel before, for most purposes, becoming the sole meaning.  To cash in is to profit from something, applying it one's advantage.  A cash-register, dating from 1875, was historically a mechanical device used to record transactions and issue receipts, such machines now mostly electronic and increasingly linked to centralized (even international) databases; in Jewish humorous use, a cash-register was “a Jewish piano”.  Cash-flow (which surprisingly seems to date only from 1954) refers to a specific characteristic of business and means the periodic accumulation of disposable revenue to permit the operations always to meet its obligations and continue trading; it’s not directly related to long-term profitability in that something with a good cash-flow can continue indefinitely while only breaking even while a profitable concern with a poorly managed cash-flow can flounder.  In commerce, use is common such as cash-and-carry, cash account, cash-only, discount for cash etc although transaction handling costs have affected the last: where once it was common for businesses to offer a discount to customers paying with physical cash (sometimes because it offered the possibility of a hidden (ie un-taxed) transaction, it’s now not uncommon for a fee to be imposed, reflecting the difference in processing costs for weightless (electronic) payments compared with the physical (notes & coins).  In criminal slang, "cash" is said to be a euphemism for “to do away with, to kill” the word "disband" also carrying this meaning and both “cash” and “disband” are reputed to be used on the dark web as code by those offering contract killing although such things are hard to verify and may be an internet myth. Cash on delivery (COD) dates from 1859 and was an invention of American commerce designed to encourage sales from businesses previously unknown to the individual consumer.  Cashless (often as cashless-society or cashless transaction) refers usually to the elimination of physical money (ie notes and coins), something sought by many bureaucrats for various reasons although of concern to civil libertarians.

According to anthropologists, the word cash (money and all that) is really derived from the word kash, a beer brewed in Ancient Egypt which was used to pay workers (including the builders of the Great Pyramids).  Stone cutters, slaves, architects, and even public officials were often paid (at least in part) with beer, two containers of kash often set as the minimum wage for an Egyptian laborer’s day of work.  At the time, there was quite a brewing industry, the Egyptians known to be distributing at least six varieties of beer by 3,000 BC and there is evidence it played a part in the social conventions of the age: in some circumstances if a man offered a lady a sip of his beer, they could be held to be betrothed so dating could be minefield for those who’d drunk too much.

The traditions associated with kash spread.  In Mesopotamia, tavern owners found guilty of overcharging patrons for beer could be sentenced to death by drowning in the Tigris or Euphrates rivers (depending on where the establishment was located) although most punishments were apparently commuted to fines.  The Ancient Babylonians, serious about beer making, to regulate quality decreed that any commercial beer maker who sold unfit beer was to be drowned in that very impure libation although no records exist which confirm how many were actually suck in their own dodgy brew.  The most attractive Babylonian tale (although not one all historians accept) is that more happily, a bride’s father would supply all the “honey" kash (a form of kash to which honey and sweet herbs were added) the groom could drink for one month after the wedding.  Because the calendar was lunar based, this month was referred to as the “honey moon”.

Copper

Copper (pronounced kop-er)

(1) A malleable, ductile, metallic element having a characteristic reddish-brown color, occurring as the free metal, copper glance, and copper pyrites: used as an electrical and thermal conductor and in such alloys as brass and bronze.

(2) As a color, a metallic, reddish brown.

(3) A slang term for a coin (usually of a smaller denomination) composed of copper, bronze etc.

(4) A slang term for a hedge (archaic).

(5) A slang term for a police or other law-enforcement officer, now usually as the shortened “cop”.

(6) In lepidopterology, any of several butterflies of the family Lycaenidae, as Lycaena hypophleas (American copper), having copper-colored wings spotted and edged with black.

(7) In slang and informal use, a tool or any of the various specialized items made from copper, where the use of copper is either traditional or vital to the function of the item.

(8) In historic UK & Commonwealth use, a large kettle (now usually made of cast iron), used for cooking or to boil the laundry (archaic and functionally extinct); a once popular term for any container made of copper.

(9) To cover, coat, or sheathe with copper.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English coper & copper, from the Old English coper & copor, from the Late Latin cuprum (copper), from the Latin aes Cyprium (literally “Cyprian brass” (ie metal from the island of Cyprus)), from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).  It was cognate with the Dutch koper (copper), the Old Norse koparr (copper), the German Kupfer (copper) and the Icelandic kopar (copper).  The alternative spelling coper (a hangover from the Middle English) is obsolete.  Copper & are nouns, verbs & adjectives, copperas is a noun, coppered & coppering are verbs & adjectives and coppery, cupric, cupreous & cuprous are adjectives; the noun plural is coppers.

In the Ancient Greek there was khalkos (ore, copper, bronze), a direct borrowing of the primitive Indo-European word meaning "ore, copper, bronze" and familiar in the Sanskrit ayah and the Latin aes.  In Classical Latin aes originally was used of copper but as technology evolved, this was extended to bronze (its alloy with tin) and because bronze was used much more than pure copper, the word's primary sense shifted to the alloy and a new word evolved for "copper," from the Latin form of the name of the island of Cyprus, where the copper mines were located.  Cyprus being the birthplace of Aphrodite (Venus), this led (in the way mythology adapted to the times) to the association of by alchemists of Aphrodite with copper.  Aes passed into the proto-Germanic where originally no linguistic distinction existed between copper from its alloys while in English it became “ore”.  In Latin vernacular, aes was used also to mean “cash, coin, debt, wages” in many figurative expressions. The chemical symbol Cu is from cuprum, from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).

The use to describe coins made of (or appearing to be made of) copper dates from the 1580s while to refer to vessels (jars, tubs, pots etc) made from the metal it came into use in the 1660s, the adjective cupreous (consisting of or containing copper (from the Late Latin cupreus (of copper), from cuprum (an, alternative form of cyprum (copper)) emerging in parallel.   The adjectival use in the sense of “made from or resembling copper” emerged in the 1570, a development from the verb, in use since the 1520s.  The alloy copper-nickel was first used to mint coins in 1728.  The trade of coppersmithing, practiced by the coppersmith (artisan who works in copper), was a creation of the early fourteenth century and was, as was practice at the time, soon used as a surname.  The noun copperplate (also copper-plate) described a "plate of polished copper, engraved and etched" dates from the 1660s and was later used figuratively to describe designs (wallpaper, woodcuts, carvings, carpet etc) with some resemblance to the styled metal.  Perhaps surprisingly, the adjectival sense in the sense of an allusion to the reddish-brown color isn’t documented until the turn of the nineteenth century (“cupric” used thus in 1799 and "copper-colored" after 1804) although it may earlier have been part of one or more oral traditions.

Symbol: Cu.
Atomic number: 29.
Atomic weight: 63.546.
Valency: 1 or 2.
Relative density: 8.96.
Specific gravity: 8.92 at 20°C.
Melting point: 1084.87±+0.2°C.
Boiling point: 2563°C

In an example of the way English must seem strange to speakers of more apparently logically languages, the use of “cop” as a slang term for “police or other law-enforcement officer” is a shortening of “copper” but that is etymologically unrelated to the metal, the use of “copper” to describe policemen (at a time all were men” derived from the English “cop”.  The construct was cop (to take, capture, seize) +‎ -er (the agent suffix).  Cop is of uncertain origin but the most likely link is with the Middle English coppen & copen, from the Old English copian (to plunder; pillage; steal) although some etymologists have also suggested the Middle French caper (to capture), from the Latin capiō (to seize, grasp) or the Dutch kapen (to seize, hijack), from the Old Frisian kāpia (to buy), source of the Saterland Frisian koopje and the North Frisian koope.  A perhaps related form was the Middle English copen (to buy), from the Middle Dutch copen.

New York's Statute of Liberty with the copper skin colored as it would have appeared in France, prior to being shipped to the US for erection in  in 1886 (left) and as it appeared decades later, the metal showing the effects of oxidization (right).  

The expression “to cop” was thus used in the sense of “to steal” but also (as a transitive verb) “to (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing”, hence the expressed notions of “cop the blame”, “cop an injury” etc.  It was the association with crime and violence which in the nineteenth century saw "copper" (one who cops (apprehends) the criminal) adopted in the UK (first documented in 1846) to describe what were then the still relatively novel (in the sense of a structured, publicly-funded force) policemen and as “cop”, the world spread world-wide.  Cop also had a mono-syllabic appeal to many sub-cultures who took up the sense of “to obtain; acquire; purchase”; it was used (1) by drug users to express acquisition of narcotics, (2) among anoraks (train-spotters, plane-spotters, bird-watchers etc) to mark the observation and recording of something unique or at least rare and (3) by those living off immoral earnings (pimps), to speak of the recruitment of a prostitute to the lineup.  There was also the alleged slang form “fair cop”, said to be used by criminals (to cops) when admitting guilt although whether this was as common in real life as it was in the imaginations of crime writers isn’t known although “bent copper” (a corrupt police officer) still enjoys some currency.

JTC Roofing in the UK provided a chart using the Statute of Liberty to illustrate the natural process by which copper gradually changes in color from the original reddish-brown to green, a chemical reaction between the metal and the oxygen in the atmosphere, something known as oxidation.  In an aesthetic sense, the transition to green is part of copper’s charming patina but it’s also functional, providing a protective coating which protects surface deterioration and in this it differs from a ferrous metal like iron which, under oxidation, becomes rusted, the rust eating into the material.  The result can be seen in the light bluish-green copper facades which adorn many copper rooftops and structures and the pallette evolves over years before the familiar green tint achieves a final hue, something influenced also by atmospheric and climatic conditions.

The patination of copper induced by oxidation can be emulated in hair colors: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates. 

Helpfully, World of Chemicals has explained the chemistry.  When in 1886 the Statute of Liberty was assembled and erected after being shipped from France, it was a quite dull brown, reflecting the process of oxidation which had already taken from the metal the shininess which the coppersmiths and engineers would have seen when first working on the pates in Paris and it would take another 30-odd years of weathering before the now familiar color settled.  This patination is fine if a structure for decades remains untouched but in some uses in architecture (especially roofs which are vulnerable to damage), it’s sometimes necessary to replace copper panels which can result in an unsightly patchwork of colors.  For this reason, the industry has developed processes of pre-patination which can render copper panels with specific degrees of patination to match a sample of the damaged item, thus providing a close color-match.

PSA.

As a courtesy to Lindsay Lohan and other redheads, Harper's Bazaar published Exactly How to Choose the Perfect Lipstick Shade for Redheads which included a list of “dos & don’ts” by celebrity make-up artist Emma Day (b 1974).  Lipstick for redheads is a “special case” because with the overwhelming majority of lipsticks being red, the chance of a jarring clash is greater for redheads and the interplay between skin-tone, hair color and lipstick demands greater attention.  It would of course be simpler were the term “red head” actually to mean “person with red hair” but the hues grown are typically coppers, ambers, gingers, oranges, auburns etc, not color ranges which typically mesh well with most reds, thus the need for expert advice.

Because of its location and the era in which it has stood, the particular path to verdigris (from the French vert-de-gris (literally “green of Greece”)) assumed by the Statute of Liberty was influenced by the unique environmental conditions.  Although the process is linguistically encapsulated as “oxidation”, it's not a simple single reaction between copper and oxygen because the generated green oxide continues to react to make copper carbonates, copper sulphide, and copper sulphate.  Initially, the copper reacts with oxygen from the air in a redox reaction, the metal donating electrons to oxygen, which oxidises the copper and reduces the oxygen, the copper oxide continuing to react with oxygen to form copper oxide.  However, for many of the decades in which the statute stood, the atmosphere contained much sulphur from the burning of coal and this induced another reaction which produced copper sulphide (black) which reacts with atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydroxide ions from water vapour, forming three compounds all of which exist in shades of blue or green.  The speed at which the patina develops and evolution of the colour depends on factors like temperature, humidity and air pollution, not just the presence of oxygen and carbon dioxide and, in another time, in another place, things would have unfolded differently.

Statue of Liberty (1962), silkscreen print by Andy Warhol. 

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) produced a few depictions of the Statute of Liberty, mostly variations of the familiar theme made famous by his prints of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) but one with a touch of something original was a silkscreen rendering in 1962 of multiple tiled images in 3D.  At auction by Christies (New York) in 2012, it sold for US$43.8 million, part of a collection of contemporary art that realized an encouraging US$412.3 million, regarded at the time as a sign the market was recovering from the shock of the global financial crisis (GFC); the US Federal Reserve (The Fed) must have been pleased to see all that quantitative easing being spent wisely.  Even so, it didn’t set a record for a Warhol, Eight Elvises sold in a private sale 2008 for a reputed US$100 million although the auction house did throw in a pair of 3D glasses with the catalogue so there was that.  In 2013, another Warhol from 1963 set a pop-art record which stands today, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) selling at auction for US$105.4 million.

Isolastic

Isolastic (pronounced ahy-soh las-tik)

An engine-mounting system developed for the Norton Commando motorcycle.

1967: The construct was iso- + e(lastic).  The prefix iso- was from the Ancient Greek, a combining form of ἴσος (ísos) (equal).  Elastic (also as elastik) was from the mid seventeenth century French (coined as part of the technical language of chemistry to describe gases “having the property of recovering its former volume after compression”), from the New Latin elasticus (expanding spontaneously), the construct being the Ancient Greek elast(ós) (a late variant of elatós (ductile, beaten (of metal)) and derivative of elaúnein & elân (beat out, forge, render from metal)) + -icus (-ic-).  The Greek elastos (ductile, flexible) & elaunein are of uncertain origin but some speculate the source was the primitive Indo-European base ele- (to go).  Elastic (and elastik) came to be applied to solids after the 1660s in the sense of "possessing the nature to return to the form from which it is stretched or bent after the applied force is removed".  Figurative use to describe things as diverse as the principles of politicians or statistical properties emerged by 1859 and the most widely used modern form, the noun meaning "piece of elastic material" (originally a cord or string woven with rubber) dates from 1847 as an invention of American English.  The noun elasticity (the property of being elastic) dates from the 1660s, either from the French élasticité or else as the ad-hoc construction from elastic + -ity.  The adjective inelastic began in 1748 as part of the jargon of physical science and engineering meaning “not restored to original shape after responding to strain" and was simply the technical antonym of elastic while the figurative sense of "rigid, unyielding" dates from 1867 but general use didn’t endure as the word became associated with fields such as economics.

In scientific use, the prefix iso- was used to indicate “equal (as in isometric, isobar, isocyanic acid etc); having equal measurements”.  As a word and abbreviation, iso had its quirks even before it became popular oral shorthand to refer to the various states of isolation imposed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The use to describe the specifications of standards (eg ISO 9001 etc) defined by the Organisation internationale de normalisation (International Organization for Standardization) leads many to believe ISO is an acronym or initializm.  However, the organization notes that when founded, it was given approved the short form “ISO”, a nod to the Ancient Greek ἴσος (ísos) (equal), the implication being the equalization (ie standardization) of rules and terminology across jurisdictions.  Despite that, there appears to be no documentary evidence to support the pedigree of the name and most folk who give the matter a moment’s thought probably assume it means “International Standards Organization”.

In film and television production, an “iso” is an isolated camera (a camera used to isolate a subject, usually for instant replay, a use dating from 1967 in sports broadcasting).  In executive salary packaging, tax minimization etc, an ISO incentive stock option) is a right extended to an employee to buy shares of company stock at a discounted price (the realized profit on which are taxed usually at a concessional rate).  In a number of sports, iso is used as a clipping of isolation to refer to tactical plays and in category theory it’s a clipping of isomorphism (morph a back-formation from morpheme, from the Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) (form, shape).  In optics, isochromatic (iso- +‎ chromatic) refers to "possessing the same colour or wavelength; of or corresponding to constant colour".  Chromatic was from either the French chromatique (chromatic) or directly from its etymon the Latin chrōmaticus, from Ancient Greek χρωματικός (khrōmatikós) (relating to colour; one of the three types of tetrachord in Greek music), from χρῶμα (khrôma), (colour; pigment; chromatic scale in music; music), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ger- (to grind; to rub; to stroke; to remove), presumably in the sense in which pigments were found.

1966 Iso Grifo Spyder (left), 1971 Iso Fidia (centre) & 1973 Iso Grifo 7 Litre (penthouse).

Iso Autoveicoli SpA (subsequently several times re-named) was an automobile and motorcycle maker in Italy, active between 1939-1974, their most fondly remembered cars from the 1960s & 1970s being sold under the Iso brand.  The Iso name was derived from the company’s pre-war origin in Genoa as a manufacturer of refrigeration units when it was called Isothermos, the construct being iso + thermos, from the Ancient Greek θερμός (thermós) (warm), the implied sense being "something which maintains the correct temperature".  In 2022, the corporate name is IsoRivolta and it continues to operate as a low-volume manufacturer.

The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulfurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Norton's isolastic engine mounting

Norton Featherbed frame.

Powerful as the engines were, much of the success in competition Norton’s motorcycles enjoyed in the 1950s were attributable to the “Featherbed” frame, introduced in 1950.  Designed with twin parallel rectangular loops, each formed from a single length of Reynolds steel tubing with crossed-over welded ends which met a securely braced headstock at the front and swinging arm mountings to the rear, the Featherbed frame was stiff, strong and surprisingly light and proved resistant to even sever road and transmission stresses.  It was state of the art but that state reflected the technology of the late 1940s and as the years went by, engine speeds, displacement and compression ratios increased so power and torque rose, imposing mechanical stresses and, most significantly, vibration levels became so pronounced that the big Norton twin-cylinder bikes were becoming less attractive to buyers; while all the power and torque was admired, for many it was rendered unusable by all the shaking which had to be endured at a wide range of engine speeds.

Norton Commando frame.

A new engine was the obvious solution but, despite years of success, by the early 1960s, the whole British motorcycle industry was under-capitalized and nothing emerged; Norton’s bankruptcy surprised few.  Re-structured in 1966 as Norton-Villiers Ltd, it was still obvious a new engine was needed to remain competitive and this was pursued but the engineers suggested a new frame might be a stop-gap solution while engine development proceeded.  Most attractive was that a new frame should cheap and fast to create.  Afforcing the engineering staff, even with a German nuclear physicist who had once worked for Rolls-Royce, work proceeded quickly even though the Featherbed’s box-frame approach was abandoned in favor of a single, large diameter top tube that ran from the top of the steering tube to the seat struts with a short, angled gusset (made from a tube of the same dimension) was incorporated to triangulate the steering/top tube connection.  Two smaller diameter tubes extended from the bottom of the steering tube, running underneath the engine-gearbox unit where, connected by the centre stand’s mounting tube, they curved upwards to meet the seat struts at the rear suspension top fixing brackets.  The frame was completed by a triangulation of the rear section, achieved by using two more tubes which ran from the rear engine-gearbox unit mounting bracket to midway along the large top tube.

As intended, the new frame was light and the torsional strength (the resistance to twisting) was even higher than the engineers’ theoretical calculations had projected.  The design imperatives had been surprisingly simple, a kind of “back to basics” approach which (1) ensured the relation between the front & rear wheels remained constant regardless of the roughness of the surface, and 2) the higher loadings were Imposed only on the straight tubes, the bent portions of the frame are stressed.  Most innovative was the isolastic mounting system for the engine-gearbox unit (which the factory initially dubbed “GlideRide”.  Although essentially an admission the vibrations inherent in big, twin-cylinder engines couldn’t (then) be fixed, they could substantially be isolated to the unit and not transmitted through the frame to the rider.  At the core of the problem was that as a crankshaft rotates, the engine’s centre of gravity describes a heart-shaped path around the crankshaft axis, the engine therefore tending to oscillate around that path.  What the isolastic system did was provide the engine with three suspension points: (1) at the front, (2) at the top-rear of the gearbox and (3) at the cylinder head.  The mountings were large because of the vibration they needed to absorb but with a torsional stiffness provided by a rigidity in the side mountings, the idea being that the engine must be free to move in the plane of the crankshaft but without twisting in the frame.

1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat.

When the Norton Commando was launched in 1967, the combination of frame and the isolastic engine-gearbox mounting system proved the inherent vibration problem associated with big twins, if not solved, had been artfully concealed.  The early implementations of both the isolastic plumbing and the frame did reveal some weaknesses but these problems quickly were solved and both enjoyed a decade long life, over 60,000 Commandos produced between 1976-1977.  However, the clever improvisation (driven by financial necessity) really just delayed the inevitable as the manufacturers from the Far East had proven their modern, four-cylinder concepts were a better direction for the high performance motorcycle.  In the ten years the Norton Commando was on sale, the Japanese improved their products while the British tinkered at the edges and by the time the last Commando was made, the superiority it once enjoyed in road-holding and handling had evaporated.  The British industry never recovered from the mistakes made during the 1960s and 1970s.

Isolastic-era advertising: The agencies never depicted women riding Norton Commandos but they were a fixture as adornments, usually with lots of blonde hair and a certain expression.  One reason they may not have been suitable to use as riders was the phenomenon known as “helmet hair” (in idiomatic use, the effects of helmet wearing on those with “big hair”), which, upon removing helmet, manifested either as an unintended JBF or a bifurcated look in which the hair above the shoulders was flattened against the scalp while that beneath sat as the wind had determined.  There was also the challenge of kick-starting the big twins, the long-overdue electric-start not installed until 1975.

Grief

Grief (pronounced greef)

(1) Acute mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret; deep or intense sorrow or distress, associated especially with the death of someone.

(2) A cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow.

(3) In online use (especially in gaming and dating from the late 1990s), to behave in an un-sportsmanlike way or take pleasure in antagonizing other players (used as “to grief”, “griefing” or “be griefed” etc (and vaguely similar to the verb sense of troll)); to exploit a glitch or execute an online prank that diminishes or ruins a website or other online experience for other users.

(4) In idiomatic use, as “come to grief”, to suffer disappointment, misfortune, or other trouble; to fail:

(5) In idiomatic use as “good grief”, an exclamation of dismay, surprise or relief which can be used also to convey approval or disapproval, depending on context, verbal & non-verbal.

(6) In idiomatic use, as “giving me grief”, an expression of (usually mild) annoyance.

1175-1225: From the Middle English greef & gref (hardship, suffering, pain, bodily affliction), from the Anglo-French gref, from the verb grever (afflict, burden, oppress), from the Old French grief (grave, heavy, grievous, sad), from the Vulgar Latin grevis & gravare (make heavy; cause grief), from the Latin gravis (weighty, heavy, grievous, sad) (later influenced by its antonym levis) and ultimately from primitive Indo-European gréhus, gwere & gwerə- (heavy).  The general sense of “suffering or hardship” (Emotional pain, generally arising from misfortune, significant personal loss, bereavement, misconduct of oneself or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness) evolved between the early thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; a doublet of grave.  The alternative forms were greefe & griefe, both long obsolete.  The expression “good grief” appears to date only from 1912 but has been used in historical fiction which long pre-dates the twentieth century.

The circa 1300 adjective grievous was from the Anglo-French grevous, from the Old French grevos (heavy, large, weighty; hard, difficult, toilsome) and was formed directly from grief.  The term grievous bodily harm (the famous GBH) was first used in English criminal law in 1803.  The circa 1300 noun grievance (state of being aggrieved) was from the Old French grevance (harm, injury, misfortune; trouble, suffering, agony, sorrow) from grever (to harm, to burden, be harmful to) and was first used in reference to a cause of such a condition from the late fifteenth century.  The verb is now most commonly found in the gerund-participle griefing and the derived noun griefer; the past participle is griefed and the noun plural griefs.  The related terms include grievance, grieve & grievous and grief is sometimes used as a modifier (grief-striken, grief-tourism etc).  Words which often overlap with grief include agony, anguish, bereavement, despair, discomfort, gloom, heartache, heartbreak, melancholy, misery, moroseness, mourning, pain, regret, remorse, sadness, sorrow, trouble, unhappiness, woe & worry.

The DSM-5-TR, ICD codes and Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD)

In March 2022, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) released a revision to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (2013)).  DSM-5-TR (text revision) includes some updated text and new references, clarifications to diagnostic criteria and updates to the ICD-10-CM (International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification) codes which have changed since the DSM-5 was published in 2013.  A text revision to an edition of the DSM is released when a number of changes to the text that accompanies the description of disorders and their criteria are warranted by new evidence or the need for more clarity.  The text of the DSM-5 had since 2013 received some minor corrections but DSM-5-TR is a systematic text revision based on a review of the literature of the last decade (and some re-evaluation of some earlier material).  By contrast, a new edition of the DSM is released when there are thought to have been sufficient advances in the field to support the creation, substantive revisions, and elimination of multiple diagnostic criteria sets or disorders.  There has within the profession been some discussion of the implications of this and some have suggested there’s no indication of support for the need for a DSM-6, some speculation the APA might adopt the conventions of the software industry and work instead towards a version 5.1, the first number indicating a major release, the second the agglomeration of minor revisions, a format well suited to digital editions.

New ICD-10-CM codes have been added to flag and monitor suicidal behavior and non-suicidal self-injury and these can be used without the requirement of another diagnosis and in total there are over 50 coding updates for substance intoxication, withdrawal and other disorders.  The innovation in the use of the ICD-10-CM codes relation to suicidal behavior is interesting.  It’s long been understood suicidal behavior can be a useful tracking mechanism or flag for clinical attention and these codes are now available to all clinicians without the need for a mental disorder diagnosis.  The suicidal behavior codes can be applied to individuals who have engaged in potentially self-injurious behavior with at least some intent to die as a result of the act and the evidence of intent can be explicit or inferred from the behavior or circumstances.  Many suicide attempts don’t result self-injury and the changes reflect the analysis of the statistical data which indicated the previous focus on self-harm and injury meant the extent of the disorder was in many ways underestimated.  It should mean the always interesting phenomenon of “suicide attempts” undertaken in the in absence of suicidal intent becomes better understood or at least quantified.

The new diagnosis of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) has been added to the trauma- and stressor-related disorders chapter.  Noted for centuries, much recent research and clinical experience has indicated there are those who experience a persistent inability to overcome their grief for the loss of a loved one for at least a year or more, with intense yearning or preoccupation with thoughts or memories of the deceased person almost every day since the death (and it’s noted that in children and adolescents, this preoccupation may focus on the circumstances of the death), symptoms severe enough to impair day-to-day functioning.  As part of the diagnosis, the duration and severity of the bereavement reaction must clearly exceed what is expected based on standards related to the individual’s social, cultural, or religious background. This does not imply people feeling grief periodically one year or more after the loss of a loved one have the disorder but those with intense and impairing grief after one year may be considered for the diagnosis.  Prior to the fifth edition, the DSM did not distinguish between “normal” and prolonged grief but PGD may be considered an evolution given the DSM-5 did include a category of persistent complex bereavement disorder (known also as traumatic grief (TG) & complicated grief (CG)) as a “condition for further study” and the first draft of a proposal was in 2018 submitted to the DSM Steering Committee and the Review Committee on Internalizing Disorders, a white paper circulated for discussion before being approved by the Board of Trustees.

The DSM editors clearly were sensitive to suggestions the creation of prolonged grief disorder might have the effect of pathologizing grief and there has long be the criticism that psychiatry increasingly has attempted to list as disorders much that has for centuries been considered part of the “normal” human condition.  To clarity things, the editors note the diagnosis is not a medicalization of grief and the diagnosis is intended only for those individuals who meet the criteria: something dramatically different from the grief normally experienced by anyone who loses a loved one; a grief intractable and disabling in a way that typical grieving is not.  Grief continues to be thought of as something healthy but not if ongoing and it's dealt with in different ways.  In 2013 Lindsay Lohan revealed her 19 year old Maltese dog Gucci (which gained the name after chewing up a pair of prized Gucci boots) had died and to feel a form of grief is thought to be a natural reaction to the event but it shouldn't persist and in many cases it seems the best therapy to to replace the pet with another/

One internally significant technical change is also noted: there are now no unique DSM codes.  The codes that appear in DSM-5-TR are the ICD codes that are equivalent to the DSM diagnoses given the version of the manual and only ICD-10-CM codes are used because this is the version of ICD that is in effect in the United States.  Although based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ICD-10 codes, ICD-10-CM codes in DSM-5 (and thus DSM-5-TR) have been modified from ICD-10 for clinical use by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and provide the only permissible diagnostic codes for mental disorders for clinical use in the United States. In the United States, the use of ICD-10-CM codes for disorders in DSM-5-TR has been mandated by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) for purposes of reimbursement under the Medicare system. Although it sounds nerdy, it’s an important advance in standardization which should improve record keeping, data collection, retrieval, and compilation of statistical information.

One change which was expected was the update to the terminology to describe gender dysphoria based on updated and more culturally sensitive language.  (1) desired gender is now experienced gender, (2) cross-sex medical procedure is now gender-affirming medical procedure” and (4)  the companion terms natal male / natal female are now individual assigned male / female at birth.  Whether these changes prove to be final remains to be seen; the whole area is one of shifting linguistic sand but what’s in DSM-5-TR reflects current thinking and the entire text of the Gender Dysphoria chapter has also been updated based on a review of the literature.

Also expected was the restructuring (again) of the diagnostic criteria of Autism, reflecting the view that Autism seems to be over diagnosed, a problem inherent in spectrum conditions.  Less anticipated was the creation of Unspecified Mood Disorder (UMD) which, ominously, does sound like the criminal charge of “unspecified offences” used in the justice systems of places like the DPRK (North Korea) but which seems to have been coined to permit clinicians some flexibility so that patients presenting with irritability, agitation and sadness (and for whom some diagnosis is clearly appropriate), don’t have to be labeled as “bipolar unspecified” or “depressive disorder unspecified’, both stigmatizing conditions, the presence of which in a medical record may have implications which last a lifetime.  It’s thus a legitimate diagnosis (which really is important to patients) to be applied until a more specific disorder is found but does raise two interesting technical points: (1) can any emo not be diagnosed UMD and (2) should all emos be diagnosed UMD?