Oracle

Oracle (pronounced awr-uh-kuhl)

(1) As used especially in reference to Ancient Greece, an utterance, often ambiguous or obscure, given by a priest or priestess at a shrine as the response of a god to an inquiry.

(2)  The agency or medium giving such responses.

(3) A shrine or place at which such responses were given (classically the oracle of Apollo at Delphi).

(4) A person who delivers authoritative, wise, or highly regarded and influential pronouncements.

(5) A divine communication or revelation; a prophecy, often obscure or allegorical, revealed through the medium of a priest or priestess at the shrine of a god

(6) Any person or thing serving as an agency of divine communication.

(7) Any utterance made or received as authoritative, extremely wise, or infallible.

(8) The English translation for The Holy of Holies, the term in the Hebrew Bible which refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle where God's presence appeared.

(9) In computer science theory, a theoretical entity capable of answering some collection of questions.

1350–1400: From the Middle English oracle (a message from a god expressed by divine inspiration through a priest or priestess (in answer to a human inquiry, usually respecting some future event)) via the twelfth century Old French oracle (temple, house of prayer; oracle) from the Latin ōrāclum & ōrāculum (divine announcement, oracle; place where oracles are given), the construct being ōrare (to pray to, plead to, beseech (from which Modern English gained orator)) + the instrumental suffix -culo- (as -culum (a re-bracketing of diminutive suffix -lus on nouns ending in -cus, used freely in Latin)).  Ōrāculum was the alternative form with similar forms also in Hittite where it meant either “to worship; revere” or “to consult an oracle”.  In Attic Greek the equivalent was ἀρά (ará) (prayer) and in the Sanskrit it was आर्यन्ति (āryanti) (praise).  Ōrō is from the primitive Indo-European hzer- (to pronounce a ritual). The diminutive suffix culum was from -culus, from the Proto-Italic -klom, from the primitive Indo-European -tlom, from -trom.  Interestingly there is stabulum which comes from a similar suffix (-dhlom) but, despite the resemblance, osculum (which is never found in the form osclum) and other diminutive nouns do not contain this suffix.  Oracle is a noun & verb, oracularity is a noun and oracular is an adjective; the noun plural is oracles.

The dualism of the oracle as (1) the agency or medium of a god and (2) the place where such divine utterances were given dates from antiquity and was another of those things which wasn't always appreciated by Medieval translators which accounts for some of the misleading documents (presumably the work of more than one scribe) in which the senses shift which in some way anticipated (however inadvertently) Marshall McLuhan's (1911–1980) distinctly twentieth century construct of "the medium is the message" the influential phrase from his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).  The notion of the oracle as a physical place entered English in the early fifteenth century, the extended sense of "uncommonly wise person" developed by the 1590s.  The adjective oracular (of or pertaining to, or of the nature of, an oracle or oracles) emerged in the 1670s, the construct being from the Latin ōrāculum (see oracle) + -ar ((from the Latin -āris (of, pertaining to) and was appended to nouns to create adjectives).  The now extinct (although it has of course been seen in the odd literary novel) was oraculous, dating from the 1610s.

The GHD Oracle

Claimed by the GHD corporation (it really is an initialism of Good Hair Day) to have taken six years and absorbed some Stg£5.2 million (US$6.3m) in research & development (R&D), the Oracle styling tool was in 2019 simultaneously launched with the Platinum+, an upgrade of the Platinum styler, first introduced in 2015.  The Platinum+ was an evolution from its predecessor, featuring enhanced heat management to maintain a hair-safe temperature and new sensors which recognise the thickness of hair, the section size and the speed at which hair is passing through, adjusting the power to suit.  Importantly, the Platinum can be used in exactly the same way as previous GHD stylers.

The Oracle is different in both design and use, featuring a U-shaped clamp, with one cooling plate on top and ceramic heater plates on each arm to maintain the temperature at 365˚F (185˚C), the innovation in the heated hair being cooled before leaving the styler which GHD said helps set curls in place.  However, the design does demand a different technique in use because there's a defined “curl-zone” and the positioning of the hair in relation to this space is critical: the Oracle must exactly be positioned.  GHD’s manual instructs that to achieve what they describe as zig-zaggy, energetic, beachy curls, the styler needs first to be vertically adjacent to the head, then turned 90˚, then, with the logo facing outwards, moved in a gentle gliding action along the hair at a 45˚ angle.  Given the dexterity demanded, perhaps unsurprisingly, users in GHD’s test-labs reported the right-handed found the right-side easier to style, left-handers preferring the left.  Using the Oracle does necessitate movements of wrists and arms very different from those used with GHD’s traditional products.

For this reason, the Oracle is available only in hair salons with the purchase price  including an instructional session from a stylist.

Suspected GHD Oracle user Lindsay Lohan who over the years has done more with her hair than most.