Atlas

Atlas (pronounced at-luhs (U) or At-lass (non-U))

(1) A bound collection of maps, named after the Greek god. Since the sixteenth century, pictures of Atlas and his burden have been used as decorations on maps.

(2) A detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity, with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole.  Most associated with anatomy, especially of the human body, it’s long been used to describe detailed collections of drawings, diagrams etc of any subject.

(3) In anatomy, the top or first cervical vertebra of the neck, supporting the skull and articulating with the occipital bone and rotating around the dens of the axis.

(4) In stationery, a size of drawing or writing paper, 26 × 33 or 34 inches (660 x 838 or 864 mm); in some markets sold in a 26 x 17 inch (660 x 432 mm) form.

(5) In architecture, a sculptural figure of a man used as a column; also called a telamon (plural telamones or telamons) or atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural atlantes).

(6) A mountain range in north-west Africa.

(7) In classical mythology, a Titan, son of Iapetus and brother of Prometheus and Epimetheus, condemned for eternity to support the sky on his shoulders as punishment for rebelling against Zeus: identified by the ancients with the Atlas Mountains.

(8) A very strong person or who supports a heavy burden; a mainstay.

(9) In rocketry, a liquid-propellant booster rocket, originally developed as the first US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), used with Agena or Centaur upper stages to launch satellites into orbit around the earth and send probes to the moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.

(9) in military use (US rocketry) & astronautics, the SM-65, an early ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile), re-purposed as the launch platform for orbital vehicles (satellites) and later used with Agena or Centaur upper stages to send probes to the moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.

(10) In astronomy, a small satellite of Saturn, discovered in 1980.

(11) In astronomy, a crater in the last quadrant of the moon.

(12) In astronomy, a triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45) also known as 27 Tauri.

(13) In psychiatry, as Atlas personality, a term used to describe the personality of someone whose childhood was characterized by excessive responsibilities.

(14) As the ERA Atlas, the original name for the UNIVAC 1101 computer, released in 1950.

(15) In differential geometry & topology, a family of coordinate charts that cover a manifold.

(16) A rich satin fabric (archaic).

1580-1590: From the Latin Atlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας (Átlas) (Bearer (of the Heavens)), from τλῆναι (tlênai) (to suffer; to endure; to bear).  The traditional translation of the Greek name as "The Bearer (of the Heavens)" comes from it construct: a- (the copulative prefix) + the stem of tlenai (to bear), from the primitive Indo-European root tele- (to lift, support, weigh) but some etymologists suggest the Berber adrar (mountain) as a source and argues it’s at least plausible that the Greek name is a "folk-etymological reshaping" of this. Mount Atlas, in (then) Mauritania, featured in the cosmology of Ancient Greece as a support of the heavens.  Atlas had originally been the name of an Arcadian mountain god before being transferred to the mountain chain.  In Arabic script atlas was أَطْلَس‎ and Atlas Mountains جِبَال ٱلْأَطْلَس, Romanized as jibāl al-ʾaṭlas.  The Atlas mountain range lies in north-west Africa and separates the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara.  The noun plural is atlases for the collection of maps and atlantes for the architectural feature.  Atlas is a noun and atlas-like is an adjective; the noun plural is atlases.  When used as a proper noun to refer to the figure of mythology, it's with an initial capital.

The first use of the word atlas (in English translation) in the sense of a "collection of maps in a volume" is thought to have the 1636 edition of the 1595 Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura (Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created) by Flemish geographer & cartographer Gerhardus Mercator (1512-1594).  An impression of the Titan Atlas holding the globe was imprinted on the frontispiece and many subsequent atlases followed, creating a tradition which has endured until today. Mercator died prior to publication of the atlas, the first edition of which he had already largely complied and assembled; the final editing was undertaken by his son who would also pursue a career in cartography.

The adjective (resembling or pertaining to Atlas) was atlantean which from 1852 extended to “pertaining to Atlantis".  The mythical island (even sometimes a continent) become widely known in Europe only after circa 1600 after translations of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias (both written circa 360 BC) became available.  Even then, like some previous medieval scholars who knew the texts, many thought regarding Plato as a historian as dubious and considered Atlantis entirely an invention, a device used to illustrate a political cautionary tale.  Still, given a long history of earthquakes and sea-level rise since the last peak of the ice-age (in which we’re still living), it’s not impossible there are buried settlements which would, by the standards of the time, have been thought large.  The Greek Atlantis (literally "daughter of Atlas”), is a noun use of the feminine adjective from Atlas (stem Atlant).

A brace of Atlantes at the tomb of Louis Phélypeaux (1598–1681), seigneur de La Vrillière, marquis de Châteauneuf and Tanlay (1678), comte de Saint-Florentin, church of Saint Martial of Châteauneuf-sur-Loire.

In European architectural sculpture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural atlantes)), was a (usually decorative) support sculpted in the form of a man and either part of or attached to a column, a pier or a pilaster.  The Roman term was telamon (plural telamones or telamons), from a later mythological hero, Telamon, one of the Argonauts, the father of Ajax.  Pre-dating the alantes in Classical architecture was the caryatid, an exclusively female form where the sculpture of a woman stands with each pillar or column.  Usually in an Ionic context, they were traditionally represented in association with the goddesses worshiped in the temples to which they were attached and rarely were they full-length forms, usually crafted as a conventional structural member below the waist, assuming the female lines above.  One difference between the male and female renderings was the atlantes often bore expressions of strain or had limbs bent by the effort of sustaining their heavy load.  The caryatids were almost always purely decorative and carved to show a nonchalant effortlessness.

Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943), oil on canvas by Sir Winston Churchill (1974-1965).

In January 1943, Winston Churchill (1874-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945; US president 1933-1945) met at Casablanca to discuss Allied political and military strategy.  One of the critical meetings of the war and one which tends to be neglected compared with the later tripartite conferences (which included Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; leader of the USSR 1924-1953) at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, it’s remembered for a statement which emerged almost casually at the end of the ten day session: that Germany, Italy and Japan must surrender unconditionally.  The phrase "unconditional surrender" came from the president and surprised many (including Churchill) and it proved a gift for the ever-active Nazi propaganda machine. 

Churchill prevailed on the president to stay another day before returning to Washington DC, insisting one couldn’t come all the way to Morocco without visiting Marrakech and seeing the sun set over the Atlas Mountains.  They stayed at the Villa Taylor on 24 January and the next day, after the American delegation had departed, the prime-minister painted his view of the Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque, framed by the Atlas Mountains.  He’d visited Marrakech during the 1930s and completed several paintings but this was the only one he would paint during the war.  It was sent it to Roosevelt, as a present for his birthday on 30 January.  Churchill was a keen amateur painter, even having published Painting as a Pastime (1922) but never rated his own skills highly, often when speaking with other amateurs cheerfully admitting their work was better but he did think the 1943 effort was “a cut above anything I have ever done so far”.  He would have been surprised to learn that on 1 March 2021, Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque sold at auction at Christie’s in London for Stg£8,285,000 (US$11,194,000).

The Farnese Atlas (left) which historians concluded was a Roman copy (circa 150 AD) in marble of (second century BC) work typical of the style of the Hellenistic period.  It depicts Atlas holding the world on his shoulders and is the oldest known representation of the celestial spheres and classical constellations, Napoli, Museo archeologico nazionale (National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy).  Lindsay Lohan (right) reprises the look in an aqua swimsuit, Mykonos, Greece, July 2017.

After the war Churchill was amused to read that but for a misunderstanding, he may never have got to paint in Morocco at all.  The wartime meetings of the leaders were all top-secret but in something of a coup by North African agents of the Abwehr (the German military-intelligence service 1920-1944), the details of the meeting at Casablanca were discovered and Berlin was advised to consider a bombing mission.  Unfortunately for the Abwehr, the decoders translated “Casablanca” literally as “White House” and the idea of any action was dismissed because the Germans had no bomber capable of reaching the US.  Casablanca had originally been named Dar al-Baiḍā (دار البيضاء (House of the White) in the Arabic, later renamed by the Portuguese as Casa Branca before finally being Hispanicized as "Casablanca".

Group photograph of the political leaders with the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, Casablanca Conference, Morocco, 14-24 January 1943.  It was at this conference the president unexpectedly announced the allied demand for "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers and historians have since debated the political and military implications, one theory being it was something which mitigated against the possibility of any attempt within Germany to depose Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).

Sitting: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) (left); Sir Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) (right).

Standing, left to right (retirement ranks used): General Brehon B Somervell (1892–1955; head of US Army Service Forces 1942-1946); General of the Air Force Henry H "Hap" Arnold (1886–1950; head of US air forces 1938-1947); Fleet Admiral Ernest J King (1878–1956; US Chief of Naval Operations 1944-1945); General Lord (Hastings "Pug") Ismay (1887–1965; chief of staff to the prime-minister in his capacity as minister of defence 1940-1965); General of the Army George C Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945); Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (1877–1943; First Sea Lord 1939-1943); Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946); Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord (Charles "Peter") Portal (1893–1971; Chief of the RAF Air Staff 1940-1945); Admiral of the Fleet Lord (Louis) Mountbatten (1900–1979; First Sea Lord 1955-1959).

Scapulimancy

Scapulimancy (pronounced skap-yuh-luh-man-see)

Divination of the future by observation of the cracking of a mammal's scapula (the shoulder blade, the bone connecting the clavicle to the humerus), sometimes after having been heated by fire or a hot instrument.

1870–1875: The construct was scapul(a) + -i- + -mancy.  Scapula was from the Late Latin scapula (shoulder), from the Classical Latin scapulae (shoulders).  The -mancy suffix was from the Latin -mantīa, ultimately from the Ancient Greek μᾰντείᾱ (manteíā) (divination).  In English it was appended to convey the sense either of (1) divination or (2) in fantasy, varieties of magic, especially those controlling or related to specific elements, substances, or themes.  The synonym is omoplatoscopy and the alternative spelling scapulomancy.  Scapulimancy is a noun, scapulimantic is an adjective and scapulimanticly is an adverb.

Sheep shoulder blades.

Divination was from the Latin divinare (to foresee, foretell or predict; tom make prophesy) and is a general term describing attempts to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice, usually involving either (1) some object or objects in which special qualities are said to be vested, (2) an alleged contact or interaction with supernatural entities or agencies such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the other forces “of the universe” or (3) the interpretation of signs or omens, variously defined.  As a cultural practice, divination has been identified in many cultures and at the root of it is probably a desire to have explained what is by all other means available, inexplicable.  That obviously offers some potential for exploitation by those seeking social, political or religious authority but it can also be a business model and between that and religion especially, there’s historically been some overlap, something alive and well today.  The notion of using the shoulder blades of slaughtered animals for this purpose may seem strange but as a method it seems no more or less convincing than instruments such as the tea-leaf, rune stones, Tarot-cards or the movement of objects in the heavens, some billions of miles remote from the apparent randomness of events on Earth.

Butchered & dressed lamb shoulder chops (left) and lamb shoulder chops with garlic and rosemary (right).

Although much-associated with priests, magicians and prophets (again, the overlap not hand to find), divination was practiced also by those for whom religion (in the way the word is conventionally understood) wasn’t a significant force.  The Hun of the Eurasian steppe, best remembered for their fifth century invasion of the Roman Empire, may have Turkic language (though one much infused with words from others), are known to have never developed writing and never seem to have flirted beyond the vaguest with God or gods, the only devotional aspect of their culture a kind of “nature worship”, something which would probably now attract much sympathy.  There may though have been something of a cargo-cult in that various objects seem to have been associated with a kind of veneration, notably swords or weapons linked with military success and generals down the ages, however practical and pragmatic they might have been in other matters, are recorded by historians or in diaries as being fond of consulting soothsayers the night before a battle.  The Huns definitely practiced scapulimancy, the logs of travelers and merchants recording how a shaman-like figure would take from the fire the shoulder blades of the roasted sheep, “reading the patterns” on the surface to make predictions for the days, the foretold omens revealed by pits, stains ridges & hollows which made each bone as unique as a finger-print.  This use for the sheep’s scapula adds another layer to the oft-repeated observation about the reductive efficiency of the steppe peoples in the husbanding of their scare resources: “For some purpose, they used every part of the sheep”.  Because the Huns left no written records, all that is known of their scapulimantic technique comes from third-party observers but as far as is known, their practice was in the “pyromantic” tradition (the “preparing” of the bone by leaving it for a time in the embers of the cooking fire), the “apyromantic” (examination after the flesh had been cut from the bone) method most known in Europe & Northern Africa.  Both these descriptions came from the work of nineteenth century anthropologists.

Lohanic scapulae; a tetrad:  Four photographs of Lindsay Lohan's shoulder blades.

It’s not only in the post-Enlightenment West that divination has (mostly) been dismissed as silly superstition, many thinkers from Antiquity pointing out in their writings the absurdity of the idea and their most effective criticism was probably not the abstract arguments philosophers usually can’t resist but a simple “fact-checking”: comparing predictions with outcomes, the success rate found predictably low.  In the text of one sceptic however, there appears to be the first mention of the efficacy, even in the age of climate change, of one reliable prediction about the weather: “three times out of four, the weather tomorrow will be much the same as today.” (YMMV).  However, despite the two-thousand-odd years of intellectual scorn, the lure of prediction by dubious means remains strong, some otherwise respectable publications regularly including a horoscope, even though there’s nothing to suggest astrology is otherwise taken seriously.  It seems star-sighs exert a special fascination and many identify with their birth sign and read the horoscope, even if usually for amusement.  For some though it’s serious.  Nancy Reagan (1921–2016; US First Lady 1981-1989) regularly consulted an astrologer (on the White House payroll for a reputed US$3000 a month) after one warned her husband Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) would be “in danger” on a certain day; on that day he survived an assassination attempt.

Others couldn’t quite decide.  Being interviewed by a prison psychologist in 1945, Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) claimed he’d made his bizarre attempt to secure a negotiated peace between Germany on the UK (his flight to Scotland in May 1941 on the eve of the Nazi’s invasion of the Soviet Union) because the year before “…one of his astrologers had read in the stars that he was ordained to bring about peace”, adding that both Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) “…had come to have an abiding belief in astrology.”  It was a claim he would repeat to a journalist in the 1980s.  Despite that, as soon as the news of the flight was brought to Hitler at the Berghof (the Führer’s alpine retreat in the Bavarian Alps) the party hierarchy instantly was summoned from Berlin and the scramble was on to find the most plausible way to spin to the world an explanation why the “second man in the Reich” had delivered himself to the enemy.  In the circumstances, madness probably was the best option and the task was made easier by the British who made no attempt to exploit the defection for propaganda purposes.  Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) put out a statement saying Hess had fallen under the influence “…of soothsayers and fortune-tellers” and had become “...a deluded, deranged and muddled idealist, ridden with hallucinations traceable to World War (ie the 1914-1918 conflict) injuries.”  Immediately, just to make things more plausible still, the state security apparatus (a well-oiled machine) conducted a crackdown on soothsayers and fortune-tellers, locking up many until the scandal had passed which it did remarkable quickly.

All must have been forgiven by 1945 when in the Führerbunker Goebbels, after reminding Hitler of the “miracle of the House of Brandenburg” when the death of a czarina had saved Frederick II (Frederick the Great, 1712–1786, Prussian king 1740-1786) from defeat, consulted two horoscopes kept in the files, one written on 9 November 1918 (the date on which the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) was formed), the other from 30 January 1933 (the date Hitler was appointed chancellor).  According to Goebbels, both documents predicted “…the outbreak of the war in 1939, the victories until 1941, and the subsequent series of reversals, with the hardest blows during the first months of 1945, particularly during the first half of April.  In the second half of April we were to experience a temporary success.  Then there would be stagnation until August and peace that same month.  For the following three years Germany would have a hard time, but starting in 1948 she would rise again.”  Confident that “…according to historical logic and justice things were bound to change”, he must have felt vindicated a few days later when the new broke of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945); history had given Goebbels his czarina: “Bring out our best champagne!” he commanded, adding “And get me the Fuehrer on the telephone!”  Unfortunately for Goebbels, while he might have felt he wrote his will across the sky, the stars dimmed and fell, the horoscopes no more a reliable predictor of the future than scorched shoulder blades.

Belladonna

Belladonna (pronounced bel-uh-don-uh)

(1) In botany, a poisonous Eurasian perennial herb, Atropa belladonna, of the nightshade family, having purplish-red flowers and poisonous black berries (sometimes also called deadly nightshade).

(2) In clinical pharmacology, a drug from the leaves and root of this plant, containing atropine or hyoscyamine and related alkaloids; used in medicine to check secretions and spasms, to relieve pain or dizziness, and as a cardiac and respiratory stimulant; the alkaloids affect the nervous system by blocking the effects of acetylcholine.

(3) A female given name (now rare).

1590-1600: A compound word, from the Italian belladonna, from the Medieval Latin blādōna (nightshade) which may have been of Gaulish origin.  The construct was bella (a stantivization of the singular feminine form of the adjective bello (beautiful)), from the Latin bellus (beautiful, pretty, handsome, pleasant, agreeable, charming) + donna, from the Late Latin domna, a shortened variant of the Latin domina (lady, mistress of an estate or household), from dominus (master), from domus (home) and a doublet of dama (dame).  Belladonna is a noun and is capitalized if used as given name or as the taxonomic genus within the family Solanaceae–Atropa (this largely archaic except as a historic reference).

Vesicaire rempant: A print of Henbane-Belladonna, woodcut on laid paper by an unknown illustrator in Commentaires de M. Pierre Andre Matthiole medecin senois sur les six livres de Pedacion Dioscoride Anazarbeen de la matière médicinale (1572) by Dr Pietre Andrea Mattioli, published by Guillaume Roville of Lyon.

The belladonna plant seems first to have been so described by Italian physician Andrea Mattioli (1501–circa 1577) who used the form herba bella donna.  Dr Mattioli was a pioneer in botanical classification and a diligent scientist who admitted (and corrected) his errors although some of his research methods would today shock, the data he published documenting the effects of poisonous plants gained by testing them on prisoners languishing in various royal dungeons.  Apart from the value to botanists and students of medical history, his texts and the high quality artwork they included have provided much source material for social historians interested in matters as diverse as the dyes used in clothing and the produce regionally available to chefs; his texts contain the first documented evidence of tomatoes being grown in Europe.

Belladonna: Lindsay Lohan in "deadly nightshade" print fabric.

The term belladonna introduced to English by the London-based botanist John Gerarde (circa 1545-1612) who almost certainly acquired from one of Mattioli’s textbooks and quickly it seems largely to have displaced the native English forms used for the plant including dwale, (from the Old English dwola (connected with the Modern English “dull”)) & morelle (from the Old French morele, from the Latin morella (black nightshade)).  Gerarde’s epic-length (1484 page) Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597), was one of the standard texts in English until well into the seventeenth century although it was later found substantially to be a plagiarised translation of Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597) by the Flemish physician Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585), a work translated into several languages in continental Europe.

Amaryllis Belladonna.

In eighteenth century Italian use, belladonna (literally "fair lady"), was understood to convey the meaning "beautiful woman" and, supposedly, the use in botany came from the cosmetic eye-drops women made from the juice (atropic acid) of the plant known in English as "deadly nightshade", the desired quality the property of dilating the pupils to create the alluring look young ladies desired.  The mid-nineteenth century explanation that it gained the nomenclature because it was used to poison beautiful women appears to have no basis in any European legal records and was likely a folk etymology alteration.  The Italian belladonna was certainly altered by folk etymology to bella donna (beautiful lady)) the original Medieval Latin being blādōna ("nightshade" and written variously as besulidus, belbulidus, belulidus or belhulidus), the meaning shift again motivated by the cosmetic use of nightshade for dilating the eyes and the authoritative German-Austrian Romanist and linguist Ernst Gamillscheg (1887-1971) suggested it was ultimately of Gaulish origin, the Italian botanist Luigi Anguillara (actually Luigi Squalermo, circa 1512-1570) using the spelling biasola.

Pulchra domina sed tribulation: (the Latin for "a beautiful woman but trouble").

In modern use, Italian men note the legend that the more beautiful the flower of a belladonna, the more deadly its poison although this has no documented basis in botanical study it's never been disproved (were such research possible) so, according to the scientific method, it's not impossible there may be a link.  Attracted by the logic of this, the folk tradition in Italy was more beautiful a woman, the more problems she’s likely to cause, nulla altro che guai (nothing but trouble) the common vernacular form although one probably often uttered in hindsight.  Belladonna is known to have been used for medicinal purposes since Antiquity although it was the use to enlarge the pupils by women in Renaissance Italy for which lent it the romance.  The more sinister name (deadly nightshade) hints at its other chemical role and the dark berries the plant yields were known variously as “murderer’s berries”, “devil’s berries” & sorcerer’s berries, many suggesting it was the poison in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1596) which made Juliet appear dead.  Things of course ended badly for the star-cross'd lovers but despite that belladonna remains in use as an ingredient in a number of medications, sold as a supplement and best known still for being in the drops used to dilate the eyes.

Romeo (Leonard Whiting (b 1950)) finds Juliet (Olivia Hussey (b 1951)) lying in a death-like coma after taking a potion, Franco Zeffirelli’s (1923–2019) production of Romeo and Juliet (1968).

Although so toxic that ingesting even a small quantity of its leaves or berries can be fatal (just a touch of the plant can irritate the skin), the medicinal benefits are real if the active chemicals (atropine & scopolamine) are correctly prepared and while there’s some overlap in their use, atropine as a muscle relaxant is more effective and useful also in regulating the heart rate.  In industrial applications it’s used as an antidote for insecticide poisoning and in chemical warfare agents.  Scopolamine has many sources apart from belladonna and is helpful in reducing body secretions, such as stomach acid and is an ancient sea-sickness treatment, thus the application to help with motion sickness, available in convenient skin patches.  Lethal though it can be, belladonna products are widely available as over-the-counter nutritional supplements in pump-sprays, ointments, tablets, and tincture (liquid).

Pressing

Pressing (pronounced pres-ing)

(1) Urgent; demanding immediate attention; Insistent, earnest, or persistent.

(2) Any phonograph record produced in a record-molding press from a master.

(3) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force; to move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position; to weigh heavily upon.

(4) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.

(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.

(6) To extract juice, sugar, oil etc by applying pressure.

(7) To produce shapes from materials by applying pressure in a mold; a component formed in a press.

(8) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.

(9) A ancient form of torture and execution.

(10) The process of improving the appearance of clothing by improving creases and removing wrinkles with a press or an iron.

(11) A memento preserved by pressing, folding, or drying between the leaves of a flat container, book or folio (usually with a flower, ribbon, letter, or other soft, small keepsake).

1300-1350: From the Middle English presing, from the Classical Latin pressāre, (frequentative of premere (past participle pressus)).  In Medieval Latin pressa was the noun use of feminine pressus, similar to Old French presser (from Late Latin pressāre).  In English, the meaning “exerting pressure" dates from the mid-fourteenth century and sense of "urgent, compelling, forceful" is from 1705.  In the sense of a machine for printing, this spread from the machine itself (1530s) to publishing houses by the 1570s and to publishing generally by 1680.  In French, pressing is a pseudo-Anglicism.

The construct was press + ing.  Press dates from the late twelfth century and was from the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus) and in Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus).  The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare.  Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French.  The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc".  The sense of "urgency, urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s.  It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959.  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  Pressing is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is pressings.

Tarpeia Crushed by the Sabines (circa 1520) by Agostino Veneziano (Agostino de' Musi; circa 1490–circa 1540).

In Roman mythology it was said that while Rome was besieged by the Sabine king Titus Tatius, the commander of the Sabine army was approached by Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, commander of the Roman citadel.  Tarpeia offered the attacking forces a path of entry to the city in exchange for "what they bore on their left arms." Although it was sometimes spun that she actually meant they should cast of their shields and enter in peace, the conventional tale is she wanted their gold bracelets.  The Sabines (sort of) complied, throwing their shields (which they carried upon their left arms) upon her, pressing her until she died.  Her body was then cast from (although some accounts say buried beneath) a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill which has since been known as the Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium (Tarpeian Rock (Rupe Tarpea in Italian)). 

Cassius Convicted of Political Wrong-Doing is Killed by Being Thrown from the Tarpeian Rock Rome (circa 1750), woodcut by Augustyn Mirys (1700–1790).

The Sabines were however unable to conquer the Rome, its gates miraculously protected by boiling jets of water created by Janus, the legend depicted in 89 BC by the poet Sabinus following the Civil Wars as well as on a silver denarius of the Emperor Augustus circa 20 BC.  Tarpeia would later become a symbol of betrayal and greed in Rome and the cliff from which she was thrown was, during the Roman Republic, the place of execution or the worst criminals: murderers, traitors, perjurors and troublesome slaves, all, upon conviction by the quaestores parricidii (a kind of inquisitorial magistrate) flung to their deaths.  The Rupes Tarpeia stands about 25 m (80 feet) high and was used for executions until the first century AD.

Pressing by elephant.

Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in south and south-east Asia.  The elephant had great appeal because, large and expensive to run, they could be maintained as a symbol of power and authority and there were few better expressions of a ruler’s authority that the killing of opponents, trouble-makers or the merely tiresome.  Properly handled, an elephant could be trained to torture or kill although, being beasts from the wild, things could go wrong and almost certainly some unfortunate souls ear-marked for nothing but the brief torture of a pressing under the elephant’s foot (for technical reasons, they don’t have hooves) ended up being crushed to death.  Even that presumably added to the intimidation and in some places in India, this means of dispatch was said to be known as Gajamoksha (based on the Gajendra Moksha (The Liberation of Gajendra (the elephant)), an ancient Hindu text in which elephants were prominent) although these stories are now thought to have been a creation of the imaginations of British writers who, in the years before, found a ready audience for fantastical tales from the Orient.  As told, a Gajamoksha seems to have been more a trampling than a pressing and the political significance of the business was it was done in public; the manufacturing of entertainment and spectacle apparently common to just about every regime in human history.  That there were public displays of torture and execution using elephants is part of the historical record but the surviving depictions seem to suggest pressing rather than trampling was the preferred method.  A trampling elephant does sound like something which may have had unintended consequences.

As a asset in the inventory, elephants were versatile and in addition to helping to pull or carry heavy loads to battlefields, they could be also a potent assault weapon and, sometimes outfitted with armor (historically of thick leather), were used in a manner remarkably close in concept to the original deployment of tanks by the British Army in 1916, charging the line, breaking up fortifications and troop formations, allowing the infantry to advance through the gaps.  While opponents being trampled underfoot by a charging elephant may not have been the prime military directive, it was a useful adjunct.  For those who survived, it may only have been a stay of execution and while there’s little to suggest elephants were widely used in the bloodbaths which sometimes followed battlefield defeat, there are records of them ritualistically pressing to death a vanquished foe.

A pressing in progress; presumably this profession attracted those who really enjoyed their work and found it a calling.

It’s a myth Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) invented pressing but he certainly adopted it as a method of torture with his usual enthusiasm.  Across the channel, under the French civil code, Peine forte et dure (forceful and hard punishment) defined pressing: When a defendant refused to plead, the victim would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the subject to breathe, fatal suffocation would occur.

Enthusiastic about if not innovative in torture, Henry VIII continues to influence modern fashion.  His combination of a loose jacket, short skirt and tights is here reprised by Lindsay Lohan.

Not all Kings of England have been trend-setters but Henry VIII’s style choices exerted an influence not only on his court and high society but also elsewhere in Europe.  What came to be known as the “Tudor style” was really defined by him and the markers are elaborate embellishments, rich fabrics (velvet, silk, and brocade much favoured), intricate embroidery and many decorative details.  The Tudor style also took existing motifs such as the codpiece (the pouch or flap covering the front opening of men's trousers or hose) and in the early sixteenth century these became larger and more exaggerated, the function in formal wear more decorative than practical.  He also made popular (again) the padded shoulders and sleeves which had been seen for centuries but Henry’s innovation was deliberately to reference the lines used on suits of armor, something which added to what in later years was his broad & imposing figure and modern critics have noted this was something which would visually have re-balanced his increasingly portly figure.  London wasn’t than the centre of fashion it later became and some historians have noted the distinctly French influence which entered the court after the arrival of Henry’s first wife, the Spanish-born Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536; Queen of England 1509-1533) and at least some of what was imported with the unfortunate bride became part of the Tudor style.

Atomism

Atomism (pronounced at-uh-miz-uhm)

(1) In philosophy, an ancient theory, developed by Democritus and expounded by Lucretius, that the ultimate constituents of all matter in the universe are atoms which are minute, discrete, finite, and indivisible elements; also called atomic theory.

(2) In psychology, a method or theory that reduces all psychological phenomena to simple elements; that experiences and mental states are composed of elementary units.

(3) Within the sciences, any of a number of theories that hold that some objects or phenomena can be explained as constructed out of a small number of distinct types of simple indivisible entities; any theory that holds that an understanding of the parts is logically prior to an understanding of the whole.  These theories can be grouped under the rubric of reductionism

1670–1680: The construct was atom + -ism.  Atom was from the Middle English attome from the Middle French athome, from the Latin atomus (smallest particle), from the Ancient Greek ἄτομον & ἄτομος (átomos & átomon) (indivisible; uncuttable), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) +‎ τέμνω (témnō) (I cut).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).

Many English nouns to which -ism is attached are loans from Ancient Greek (mostly via Latin and French).  In Late Latin, the -ismus suffix became the ordinary ending for names of religions and ecclesiastical or philosophical systems, a trend continued in Medieval Latin and from the sixteenth century, such formations became common in English although, until the eighteenth century, the use was usually restricted to either root words from Ancient Greek & Latin or proper names.   By the nineteenth century, the creation of “isms” began to expand and by the twentieth, coinages took no account of previous rules and conventions.  Atomism & atomist are nouns, atomistic & atomistical are adjectives and atomistically is an adverb; the noun plural is atoms.

Atoms and voids

Atomism was a philosophical theory which suggested the universe consisted of indivisible, minute particles known as atoms and the idea was ancient, the first known writings on the matter those of the Ancient Greek philosopher Leucippus who was born during the fifth century BC but it was his better-known pupil Democritus (circa 460-370 BC) who developed and systematized the ideas.  What emerged was the theory that the two diametrically opposed constituents of the universe are indivisible entities: the void and the atom.  Democritus regarded a void as being literally nothing whereas atoms were matter and intrinsically unchangeable; an atom moving about in the void and sometimes combining into clusters although, being separated by the void, they cannot fuse, but instead bounce off one another when they collide.  It was the origin of the understanding that in the material world, objects are transitory because they change as their constituent atoms shift or become detached; matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed into something else.  To the philosopher, it meant everything we experience in the universe is doomed; it’s a question just of when it ends and how.  That’s sometimes expressed as “nothing lasts forever” and in a practical sense that’s correct but what was left unanswered (though not unexplored) was (1) whether the atoms survived no matter what and (2) whether the voids remained or became transformed into a singularity with an undetermined future.

Helpfully for some, the atomists’ postulation of the indivisible atom also provided a solution to one of the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea (circa 495–430 BC): that if magnitudes can be divided to infinity, it becomes impossible for movement to happen because the object would have to traverse an infinite number of spaces in a finite time.  If an atom is the point at which division is impossible, the dilemma, which admittedly occurs only in Philosophy 101 classes, dissolves.  Other problems however persisted because there was nothing to disprove the proposition an atom could infinitely be divided into progressively smaller parts and obviously such a process could be described mathematically, numbers extending infinitely in each direction from what would come to be called zero.

Atomism: Atomic Kitten, EMI promotional poster, 1999.

The notion all matter is composed of tiny, indivisible (and indestructible) particles called atoms (from a Greek form meaning “indivisible” or “uncuttable” endured well in both Western and Eastern traditions although there were those who resisted and clung to the model of continuous matter, something which would have seemed compelling obvious based on observation.  What the thinkers from Antiquity left however was something speculative and, given the technology of the time, wholly unsupported by empirical evidence but with the advances which followed the Enlightenment, there was renewed interest in what was at the time known variously as “modern” or “revival” atomism and the first structured theories emerged in the early 1800s.  Indeed, the diagrams and explanations which became widely available early in the twentieth century really made the atomic structure understandable (at least conceptually) even to those with no background which was fine until the shock of quantum mechanics, papers and discussions about which began to circulate in the 1920s.  Quite a jump in the understanding of atoms and sub-atomic particles, quantum theory did not describe atoms as solid, billiard ball-like objects but rather as probabilistic entities with wave-like properties, the most challenging implication of that being that such a thing could simultaneously be in two places (points in space) at the same time (points in time).  For those brought up on the neat little diagrams of the atom, it was quite a challenge to visualize those two points in space being possibly on opposite sides of the universe.

Apothaneintheloish

Apothaneintheloish (pronounced uh-poth-un-inn-th-loe-ish)

An expression of a wish to die.

1968: The construct was apo + thanein + thelo + ish.  The Ancient Greek prefix ἀπό- (apó-) was from the preposition ἀπό (apó) (from, away from), from the primitive Indo-European hepo (off, away), the ultimate source also of the English words "off" & "of" and of (ab- came via Latin).  The English –ish was appended to create the adjectival form.  The -ish suffix was from the Middle English -ish & -isch, from the Old English -isċ (-ish (the suffix)), from the Proto-West Germanic -isk, from the Proto-Germanic -iskaz (-ish), from the primitive Indo-European -iskos.  It was cognate with the Dutch -s, the German -isch (from which Dutch would gain -isch), the Norwegian, Danish & Swedish -isk or -sk, the Lithuanian -iškas, the Russian -ский (-skij) and the Ancient Greek diminutive suffix -ίσκος (-ískos).  It was used to create adjectives (standard and (in the modern era) increasingly non-standard, even in slang as the stand-alone "ish" indicating “sort of”, “kind of”, “tending towards” etc).  In colloquial use it became a popular way to create both adjectives & nouns with a diminutive or derogatory implication.  The word was coined by the author Anthony Burgess (1917–1993).  Apothaneintheloish is an adjective.

A black-figure pottery vase (circa 500 BC) showing Thanatos (Death) and Hypnos (Sleep) carrying the dead body of the hero Sarpedon; discovered in Attica, Greece and now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In Greek mythology, Thantos was the god of death and the significance of Burgess's choice was that Thantos was associated specifically with a “graceful, peaceful departure from life”.  So, a vision of Thantos was a tap on the shoulder, a notice to quit the world and something known in English as "the visitation of the Angel of Death" and, except for those few wishing to go out in a “blaze of glory”, as one's death goes, a visit from Thantos was about as good as it got.   Thantos appears sometimes in commentaries by Freudians & neo-Freudians but Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) never used the word.  He used Todestrieb (death drive), the construct being Tod (death) +‎ -es- (in German a genitival interfix used to link elements in certain compounds) +‎ Trieb (sprout (but in the technical jargon of psychoanalysis specifically “drive” (in the sense of “desire, urge, impulse”)).  Freud in his famous Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)) borrowed the word (which he used more often in the plural (Todestriebe) (death drives) from Russian psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942 and a student and lover of Carl Jung (1875–1961)) who in 1912 had published the essay Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens (Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being).  The relationship between Freud & Spielrein was both convivial and entirely professional.  Thanatos came into popular use in psychoanalysis after it appeared in a paper by Austrian-American psychologist Paul Federn (1871–1950 and, like Freud, trained in Vienna).  Federn used Thanatos as a dichotomous contrast with eros (from the Ancient Greek ἔρως (érōs) (love, desire”) which in psychiatry) is used to describe the human “life drive” (the collective instincts for self-preservation).  In the profession it's used also of the libido and it's not only among the Freudians the link between the two uses is thought so fundamental.

The Greek phrase Apothanein thelo (I want to die) concludes the epigraph of TS Eliot’s (1888–1965) The Waste Land: “Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidiin ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβνλλα τί ϴέλεις; respondebat illa: άπο ϴανεΐν ϴέλω.”  The text was from the satirical novel Satyricon, presumed written by the Roman courtier Petronius (Gaius Petronius Arbiter, circa 27–66), Eliot’s translation being: “I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her: ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she answered: ‘I want to die.’”

Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl (circa 1670), oil on canvas by Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, (1609-1681).  Sibyl is holding a handful of dust.

The Satyricon was a collection of tales, the misadventures of Trimalchio, a one-time gladiator in the Roman Empire of the first century AD and the passage is one of the few fragments of the text still extant.  Sibyl of Cumae was one of the great beauties of the age and Apollo, wanting her for his own, offered to grant her any wish.  Without a moment’s thought she asked to “live for as many years as there were grains in a handful of dust.”  Apollo granted her wish, but she anyway refused his affections and she came to regret things, over the centuries growing older and more decrepit but unable to die.  What she had wanted was an eternal youth but instead decayed into a figure tiny, frail and confined to her bed.  When Trimalchio speaks of her in the Satyricon, he describes her as a tourist attraction, a withered, ancient relic, longing to die.  As recounted by the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in his Metamorphoses, Sibyl lived a thousand years and as she shrunk and shrivelled, eventually she was kept in an ampulla (jar); in her final years, only the faint echo of her voice remained.  She might have said, as the 99 year old Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864–1963; Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-1963) grew fond of saying: “I have lived too long, but that is not my fault”.  That would have been half correct but, given Sibyl’s calling of prophesy, she had only herself to blame.

Apothaneintheloish appeared first in 1968 in an essay written by Anthony Burgess and published in The Listener:

“Waking crapulous and apothaneintheloish, as I do most mornings these days, I find a little loud British gramophone music over the bloody mary helps me adjust to the daily damnation of writing.”  It can be translated as: “Suffering from taking too much strong drink and feeling I want to die.”

Burgess had an extraordinary knowledge of words so probably felt entitled to kick language around a bit and it’s likely he’d not much have been concerned at any pedant drawing a red circle around the appended –ish, content the linguistic sin of mixing an English suffix into a otherwise Greek formation was minor compared with the world gaining a new adjective.  Such was the skill of Burgess that in his writing the rare and unusual words slurred effortlessly into the text, avoiding the tiresome, jarring effect achieved by some who seem intent to flaunt what Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his austere A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) called the “pride of knowledge”; Henry Fowler knew sin when he saw it on the page.  Others can do it too: the historian Piers Brendon (1940) made the discovery of novel forms a pleasure and when reading Umberto Eco’s (1932–2016) Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum (1988)), some can’t resist keeping pencil & paper at hand, just to note down the most memorable.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Burgess though probably made the trick most fun and without Burgess, would it have become known even slightly that vaccine can be an adjective?  It means “cow-like” so is a word for those who find bovine too repetitive or a bit common.  He also included gems like myrmidon (a faithful follower of someone or some institution who follows orders without demur), oneiric (of, suggestive of or pertaining to dreams), proleptic (the act of anticipation) and exiguity which should baffle most used to anything similar; it means “a tiny quantity” and was from the Latin exiguus (scanty), the antonym for which was the Pythonesque sounding adaequatus, the perfect passive participle of adaequō, the construct being ad- (near, at; towards, to) +‎ aequō (make equal, level or smooth).

Apothaneintheloish will of late have gained a new audience with the publication in January 2024 of The Devil Prefers Mozart, On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993, a compilation (Carcanet Press, edited by PaulPhillips (b 1956), an associate professor at Stanford University)) of Burgess’s (mostly) previously published pieces on the topic of music (something he grants and unexpectedly wide vista).  Although now remembered mostly as a novelist and literary critic, his attachment to music was life-long, reflected in the breadth of the 75 chapters of essays, reviews and letters plus the odd interview & transcription.  The book is divided into five parts (1) Musical Musings which ranges from thoughts on Shakespeare to the Beatlemania of the 1960s and the punk movement a decade later, (2) Composers and Their Music which is a list hardly less eclectic, including Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner & Kurt Weill, (3) Burgess and His Music, a more personal assortment of material including some intriguing liner notes, (4) Performers and Performances which includes some interesting reflections on the less obvious aspects of affording a primacy to “the singer rather than the song” and (5) Of Opera, the West’s supreme art form.  Of particular interest to some will the focus on some of the now less than fashionable British composers, notably William Walton (1902–1983) and Edward Elgar (1857–1934).

Gerti Deutsch's (1908–1979) photograph of Hans Keller (1919-1855), London, 1961.  Keller was a noted Freudian and would these days be thought a suspected postmodernist.

It’s really not even necessary to have any great interest in music to be amused by this book because probably without the reader realizing it, what is so often being explored is the interplay between words and music, Burgess understanding “everything is text” even before the postmodernists made a cult of it.  It’s worth reading also for the waspish comments about the Austrian-born music journalist Hans Keller, best understood after listening to the composition Homage to Hans Keller (1982), written by Burgess in reaction to Keller’s review of his opera Blooms of Dublin (1982) based on James Joyce’s (1882–1941) Ulysses (1922).  Scored for four tubas (which should be a hint), the “homage” was very much in the spirit of Metal Machine Music which in 1975 Lou Reed (1942–2013) handed to his record company.  In that vein, an irony of his fame was that he became best known as the author of the novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) and that happened because of the notoriety achieved by the film version (1971), directed by Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999).

Cover of a first edition A Clockwork Orange (1962), signed by the author, (Aus$18,975.08 on eBay (left)) and a promotional poster for the film version (1971, right).  The film was based on the abridged US edition of the book which omitted the final chapter in which the protagonist undergoes something of a redemption.  That does change the moral effect but some critics thought the distinction slight, the film just too gratuitous in its depiction of sexual violence for the original's anyway ambiguous conclusion to be rendered much different. 

In Flame into Being (1985), his biography of DH Lawrence (1885–1930), Burgess would write: “The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d’esprit (literally “game of the spirit” and used here to suggest something intended as a quick comment on an idea rather than anything substantial) knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation, and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928).”  Scholars cataloguing his papers later found A Clockwork Orange was some two years in the making but that he didn’t deign even to mention the book by name was an indication of something and many suspect he’d have been not unhappy if remembered for the book and not the film which gained him a new audience, if not exactly the one he’d have preferred.  However, for those who like words, The Devil Prefers Mozart, On Music and Musicians contains enough expected Burgessian gems and like apothaneintheloish, there aren’t many other places to find multiguous, parthenogenetical, theodician, apodemoniosis, stichomythia or quinquennium.