Vulpine (pronounced vuhl-pahyn or vuhl-pin)
Etymology of words with examples of use illustrated by Lindsay Lohan, cars of the Cold War era, comrade Stalin, crooked Hillary Clinton et al.
Monday, August 11, 2025
Vulpine
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Ranga
Ranga (pronounced rang-ah)
In Australian slang, a person with red (ginger, auburn
etc) hair.
1990s: Based on the name orangutan (pronounced aw-rang-oo-tan, oh-rang-oo-tan or uh-rang-oo-tan), any of three endangered species of long-armed, arboreal anthropoid great ape, the only extant members of the subfamily Ponginae, inhabiting Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatra (P. abelii). The three species are Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis). Ranga is a noun; the noun plural is rangas. Australians tend to be linguistic reductionists and one is deemed either a ranga or not but presumably there can be "gray areas" (there may, in this context, be a better way of putting that) so adjectives such as rangaish or rangaesque could be coined as required.
A ketchup of gingers? Roodharigendag in the Netherlands.
Since 2005 (except in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to the fun), the Netherlands has hosted what is described as the "world's
largest gathering of redheads". Were the three-day festival (which attracts participants from over eighty nations) staged in certain other countries it might have gained a playful, fanciful name but the practical Dutch unadventurously used Roodharigendag (Redhead Day) which does have the virtue of being unambiguous. There are a variety of events including lectures and pub-crawls; presumably, coffee shops are visited and perhaps the proprietors offer special blends of red-themed weed for the event. If not, presumably "Fanta Orange" (€13 per gram in mid 2024) sales spike.
Because, of the origin, to call someone a ranga is to compare them to a sub-human primate, so it might have been thought offensive but it remains widely used and is one of the additions to English which has spread from Australia. Possibly the fact the world's redheads are almost exclusively white meant the comparisons with the orangutan weren't historically or culturally "loaded" so it never became more than a minor micro-aggression. It certainly can be offensive and is often (though apparently mostly by children) used that way but it can also be a neutral descriptor or a form of self-identification by the red-headed. It may be that many of those who deploy ranga (for whatever purpose) are unaware of the connection with sub-human primate and treat it as just another word; in that sense it’s actually less explicit than some of the many alternatives with a longer linguistic lineage including "ginger minge", "fire crotch", "carrot top", Fanta (not always capitalized) pants", "rusty crotch" and "blood nuts". Whether ranga is more or less offensive than any of those (none of which reference apes) is something on which not all redheads may agree but in 2017 (some months on from ranga being added to the Australian Macquarie Dictionary), presumably so there was a forum to discuss such matters, RANGA (the Red And Nearly Ginger Association) was formed, finding its natural home on social media where it operates to provide social support rather than being a pressure group.
There was also the Australian moniker “blue” (and, being Australia, the inevitable “bluey”) to describe redheads and most dictionaries of slang suggest the origin was in the tradition of “lofty” or “stretch” sometimes being applied to the notably short (ie the stark contrast between “red” and “blue”). There is the suggestion it may have been an allusion to the propensity of “hot-headed” redheads to “start a blue” (ie start a fight, that use another of the nation’s many re-purposings of the word) but there’s no documentary evidence. However, there is an established connection between “orange” & “blue”, a number of orange-flavored liqueurs dyed blue, Blue Curaçao the best-known. According to historians of the industry, the blue dye came to be used just for the visual novelty, blue uncommon in natural foods or drinks and the striking colour was a point of differentiation with the many other orange-colored beverages. Curaçao liqueur originated on the Caribbean island of Curaçao and was made using the dried peel of the laraha (a bitter orange). Originally distilled as a clear or amber fluid, various vivid artificial colors (blue, green, orange, red) were added just to create different brands and Blue Curaçao became the most popular becoming almost synonymous with the striking blue cocktails (Blue Lagoon, Blue Hawaiian etc) in which it is an ingredient. Because the blue dye (typically Brilliant Blue FCF, aka E133) has no taste, the orange flavour remains unaffected.
Ginger, copper, auburn & chestnut are variations on the theme of red-headedness: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities. Red hair is the result of a mutation in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene responsible for producing the MC1R protein which plays a crucial role also in determining skin-tone. When the MC1R gene is functioning normally, it helps produce eumelanin, a type of melanin that gives hair a dark color. However, a certain mutation in the MC1R gene leads to the production of pheomelanin which results in red hair. Individuals with two copies of the mutated MC1R gene (one from each parent) typically have red hair, fair skin, and a higher sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) light, a genetic variation found most often in those of northern & western European descent.
Just as blonde women have long been objectified and
derided as of limited intelligence (ie the "dumb" blonde), redheads have been stereotyped as sexually promiscuous (women) or having
fiery tempers (men & women) but there is no evidence supporting any relationship
between hair color, personality type or temperament. The sample sizes are inherently small (redheads
less than 2% of the global population) but there are populations in which the predominance
is higher, so further research would be interesting but such questions are of
course now unfashionable. Most style
guides list "red-haired”, “redhead” & “redheaded” as acceptable
descriptors but the modern practice is wherever possible to avoid references
which apply to physical characteristics, much as the suggestion now is not to
invoke any term related to race or ethnic origin. That way nothing can go wrong. If it’s a purely technical matter, such as hair
products, then descriptors are unavoidable (part-numbers not as helpful at the
retail level) and there’s quite an array, ranging from light ginger at the
lighter end to chestnuts and and auburns at the darker and there was a time when
auburn was used as something of a class-identifier.
Jessica Gagen, Miss England, 2022.
Winner of Miss England 2022 (the first redhead to claim the crown (which really was a crown rather than the tiara some contests award)), Miss World Europe 2023 & Miss United Kingdom 2024, Jessica Gagen (b 1996) holds a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Liverpool, and is an advocate for women and girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering & math). Having been subject to "rangaphobia" bullying as a child, Ms Gagen used her platform to spread a positive message to those who have also suffered cruel taunts about being red-headed. After leaving school, Ms Gagen discovered one advantage her locks afforded was they attracted modeling agencies and, as a multi-tasker, she pursued a lucrative international career in conjunction with her studies. Her interest in encouraging women to enter STEM fields came while at university when the paucity of female participation in her engineering course was obvious in male-dominated lecture theatres and tutorial rooms.
Interestingly, Ms Gagen says participation in beauty contests changed her perception of them as sexist displays, regarding that view as archaic, noting the women involved all seemed to have their own motives, usually involving raising awareness about something of personal interest. Being part of the subset of humanity likely to do well in beauty contests (a matter of concern among some critical theorists) is of course just a form of comparative advantage in the way some benefit from a genetic mix which makes them ideal basketball players. The beauty contest is thus an economic opportunity and choosing to participate in one can be a rational choice in that one's allocation of time and resources can yield greater returns than the alternatives. Another notable thing about Jessica Gagen is that being born in 1996, she is part of that sub-set of the population called “peak Jessica”, the cohort which reflected the extraordinary popularity of the name between 1981-1997, overlapping slightly with “peak Jennifer” which occurred between 1970-1984.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Cutthroat
Cutthroat (pronounced kuht-throht)
(1) Slang
for a murderer (regardless of chosen method) or one thought capable of murder (based on the notion of "cutting the throat" being a classic, ancient method of murder (done properly, being quick, rapid and almost silent)).
(2) Ruthless
in competition.
(3) In
games of cards where the rules permit each of three or more persons to act and
score as an individual.
(4) In billiards,
a three person game where the object is to be the last player with at least one
ball still on the table.
(5) As cutthroat eel, a family, Synaphobranchidae,
of eels found worldwide in temperate and tropical seas.
(6) As cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii),
a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes.
(7) As cutthroat finch, a common species of estrildid
finch found in Africa.
(8) As cutthroat razor, a reusable knife blade used for shaving hair.
(9) In linguistics, as an ellipsis of cutthroat compound (an agentive-instrumental verb-noun compound word).
1525–1535: A compound word, the construct bing cut + throat. the early twelfth century cut was from the Middle English cutten, kitten, kytten & ketten (to cut), from the Old English cyttan (related to the Scots kut & kit (to cut)), probably of North Germanic origin, from the Old Norse kytja & kutta, from the Proto-Germanic kutjaną & kuttaną (to cut), of uncertain origin but possibly related to the Proto-Germanic kwetwą (meat, flesh). It was akin to the Middle Swedish kotta (to cut or carve with a knife), the Swedish kuta & kytti (a knife)), the Norwegian kutte (to cut), the Icelandic kuta (to cut with a knife), the Old Norse kuti (small knife) and the Norwegian kyttel, kytel & kjutul (pointed slip of wood used to strip bark). Descent from the Old French coutel (knife) is thought improbable and it displaced the native Middle English snithen (from Old English snīþan (related to the German schneiden)), which survives still in some dialects as snithe. The pre-900 t was from the Middle English throte, from the Old English throtu, þrote, þrota & þrotu (throat), from the Proto-Germanic þrutō (throat), from the primitive Indo-European trud- (to swell, become stiff). It was cognate with the Dutch strot (throat), the German drossel (throttle, gorge of game (wild animals)), the Icelandic þroti (swelling) and the Swedish trut. The Old English throtu was related to the Old High German drozza (throat) and the Old Norse throti (swelling). Words with a similar meaning in the figurative sense include ferocious, vicious, savage, barbarous, bloodthirsty, cruel, dog-eat-dog, merciless, pitiless & relentless and unprincipled. The alternative form is cut-throat although dictionaries note the rare use of cut throat. Cutthroat is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is cutthroats.
You're wrong.—He was the mildest manner'd man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat:
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could divine his real thought;
No courtier could, and scarcely woman can
Gird more deceit within a petticoat;
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.
Don Juan (1819–24) canto III, stanza XLI, by Lord Byron (1788–1824)
The cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) is of the family Salmonidae and is native to a number of North American cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean and Rocky Mountains. The common name "cutthroat" is derived from the coloration on the underside of the lower jaw. Despite the use of the name, not all cutthroat trout instantly are recognizable. Coastal cutthroat trout occur as sea-run or freshwater-resident forms in streams and lakes in a coastal range from lower south-east Alaska to Prince William Sound and are the most common trout species in the region. What was noted as early as the 1950s was a lack of a distinct red slash mark in some sea-run and lake-resident forms which meant easily they could be confused with rainbow trout and although a positive identification was possible because (unlike the rainbow) the cutthroat is marked by the by the presence of minute teeth between the gills behind the base of the tongue, that obviously demanded close inspection. That cutthroat trout and rainbow trout often share the same habitats does lead to occasional hybridization (the mating producing fertile offspring) which can make identification challenging as the hybrid fish are intermediate in appearance.
The “cutthroat compound” is one of the more recent additions to the jargon of structural linguistics, the term in 2015 coined by historical linguist Brianne Hughes to describe a compound word formed from a transitive verb followed by a noun that is the object of that verb and the form is self-referential because “cutthroat” is such a form. According to Ms Hughes’ analysis, although her research revealed some 1350 have from time-to-time been created, in Modern English, fewer than three dozen remain in common use, the most frequently heard being “breakfast” (the meal that “breaks the fast” since dinner, supper, midnight snack or whatever was one’s last meal). She listed some which have survived to appear occasionally (swashbuckler, sawbones, and skinflint) but, being a historical linguist it was the “fun” ones which caught her eye and these included “catch-fart” (a footboy or servant who follows too closely behind his master, “hugmoppet” (an overly-affectionate old woman), “lackbeard” (a young man) and the hopefully metaphorical “lickspittle” (a toady or yes-man, base on the imagery of “one who licks up the spittle of another”. More familiar are “daredevil” (one who “dares” the devil (ie takes great risks, tempting the devil to “take them to Hell”), “scarecrow” (used to “scare away crows”, “spoilsport” (one who ruins the fun), “turncoat” (one who changes their allegiance), “breakwater” (something that diverts or breaks the force of water) and “pickpocket” (one who “picks pockets”). At the margins, deconstruction can be challenging: Is a dreadnought (1) an individual with a dread of nothing or (2) an individual who does but dread? As the Royal Navy knew, it was the former and Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Fisher (First Baron Fisher, 1841–1920; First Sea Lord 1904–1910 & 1914–1915), the figure most associated with the epoch-making HMS Dreadnought (1906), when raised to the peerage, choose as the motto on his coat of arms: “Fear God and dread nought”. Much the old salt would much have preferred the punchy “cutthroat compound” to the academic textbook term in the linguistics literature: “agentive and instrumental exocentric verb-noun compounds”.
There are also surnames which are cutthroat compounds (William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863); Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) & William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and the constructs appear also in other languages, the French amuse-bouche a small appetizer meant to “amuse one’s bouche (mouth)” (ie taste good). As a device, the technique was in Romance languages a common way to form agent nouns but use was rare in Germanic languages (which use the suffix “-er” or its homologues). The increase in the appearance of the pattern in English after the Norman Conquest (1066 and all that) was a consequence of French influence and linguistic anthropologists believe this reflected sociological factors: forming agent nouns in this way for despicable or derisible agents (such as cutthroat and turncoat) was apparently one way the English could mock both the French and those English folk who had become “affected”, speaking French and acting “more French than the French”.
Monday, June 9, 2025
Glaucus
Glaucus (pronounce gloh-kus)
(1) Bluish-green,
grayish-blue, sea-colored (ie of certain seas) or a gleaming pale blue.
(2) Any
member of the genus Glaucus of nudibranchiate mollusks, found in the warmer
latitudes, swimming in the open sea, strikingly colored with blue and silvery
white. They’re known also as sea
swallow, blue angel, blue glaucus, blue dragon, blue sea slug, blue ocean slug). If offered the choice, the organisms
presumably would prefer to be called swallows, angels or dragons rather than
slugs.
(3) A desert
lime (Citrus glauca), a thorny shrub species endemic to semi-arid regions of
Australia.
From the
Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós) (the γλαῦκος
(glaûkos) was an edible grey fish although
the species is uncertain (perhaps the derbio)) and was taken up by the Medieval
Latin as glaucus (bright, sparkling,
gleaming” and “bluish-green). There may
be an Indo-European root but no link has ever been found and despite the
similarity, other words used to denote gleaming or shimmering light and colors
(glow, gleam etc), there’s no known etymological link and it may have been a substratum
word from Pre-Greek. The eighth century BC
poet Homer used the Greek glaukos to
describe the sea as “gleaming, silvery”, apparently without any suggestion of a
specific color but later writers adopted it with a sense of “greenish” (of
olive leaves) and “blue; gray” (of eyes).
In English, the adjective glaucous dates from the 1670s and was used to
refer to shades of bluish-green or gray; it’s a popular form in botany and
ornithology, describing surfaces with a powdery or waxy coating that gives a
pale blue-gray appearance. In fashion,
the vagueness of glaucus (especially the adjective glaucous) makes it handy
because it can be used to describe eyes or fabrics neither quite blue nor green
yet really not suited to being called turquoise, teal, aqua etc. Glaucus is a noun & adjective; the noun plural
is glaucuses.
Translators
seem to believe Homer's glauk-opis Athene
(Athena Glaukopis) meant “bright-eyed” rather than “gray-eyed” goddess; it was an
epithet emphasizing her intelligence and wisdom, the construct being glau(kos)
(gleaming, silvery; bluish-green; grey) + opsis (eye; face). The word γλαύξ (glaux) (little owl) may have been related and linked to the bird’s
distinctive, penetrating stare but it may also be from a pre-Greek source. Owls do however sometimes appear with the
goddess in Greek art and, like her, became a symbol of wisdom and intelligence. The other epithets applied to Athena included
Ophthalmitis and Oxyderkous, both references to her sharp, penetrating gaze. As a descriptor of color, glaucus was applied
widely including to eyes, the sea, the sky or fabrics and was used of shining
surfaces. The descendants include the Catalan
glauc, the English glaucous, the
French glauque, the Romanian glauc,
the Italian glauco, the Portuguese
glauco, the Romanian glauc and the Spanish glauco.
The Middle English glauk (bluish-green, gray) was in use as
late as the early fifteenth century.
In the
myths of Antiquity there were many tales of Glaucus and in that the character
was not unusual, the figures in the stories sometimes differing in details like
parentage, where they lived, the lives they led and even whether they were gods
or mortals; sometimes the lives depicted bore little similarity to those in
other tales. The myths in ancient Greece
were not a fixed canon in the modern Western literary tradition; they were for
centuries passed down orally for centuries before being written and in
different regions a poet or dramatist was likely to tell it differently. That was not just artistic licence because
the stories could be a product people would pay to hear and content providers
needed new product. Additionally, as is
a well-documented phenomenon when information is passed on orally, over
generations, the “Chinese whispers
problem” occurs and things, organically, can change.
Nor was there the
modern conception of IP (intellectual property) or copyright in the characters,
the myths “belonging” literally to all as a shared public cultural heritage. Were a poet (Ovid, Homer, Hesiod etc) to
“re-imagine” an old myth or use well known characters to populate a new plot,
that wasn’t plagiarization but simply a creative act in interpretation or reshaping. There were social and political determinisms
in all this: We now refer casually to “Ancient Greece” but it was not a unitary
state (a la modern Greece) but an aggregation of city-states with their own distinct
cults, local legends and literary traditions. So, in one region Glaucus might have been
depicted as a sea-god while somewhere to the south he was a warrior; a
tragedian might make Glaucus tragic, a philosopher might use him as an allegorical
device and a poet might map him onto a formulaic tale of jealousy, transformation
and redemption. The best comparison is
probably the fictional characters which have entered public domain (as Mickey
Mouse recently achieved) and thus become available for anyone to make of what
they will. To be generous, one might
suggest what the AI (artificial intelligence) companies now wish to be made
lawful (vacuuming up digitized copyright material to train their LLMs (large
language models) for commercial gain while not having to pay the original
creators or rights holders) is a return to the literary practices of antiquity.
Lindsay Lohan’s eyes naturally (left) are in the glaucus range but with modern contact lens (right), much is possible.
So it
wasn’t so much that writers felt free to adapt myths to suit their purposes but
rather it would never have occurred to them there was anything strange in doing
exactly that. Significantly, any author
was at any time free to create a wholly new cast for their story but just as
movie producers know a film with “bankable” stars has a greater chance of
success than one with talented unknowns, the temptation must have been to avoid
risking market resistance and “stick to the classics”. Additionally, what’s never been entirely
certain is the extent to which the poets who wrote down what they heard were
inclined to “improve” things. The myths
were in a sense entertainment but they were often also morality tales, psychological
studies or statements of political ideology, a medium for exploring fate,
identity, love, betrayal, divine justice and other vicissitudes of life. The very modern notion of “authorship” would
have been unfamiliar in Antiquity, a ποιητής (author; poet) being someone who “shaped”
rather than “owned” them and Homer (who may not have been a single individual)
was revered not because he “made up” the Trojan War, but because masterfully he
recounted it, just as now historians who write vivid histories are valued.
Some of
the many lives of Glaucus (Γλαύκος)
(1) He was the
son of Antenor who helped Paris abduct Helen and to punish him, his father
drove him out. He fought against the
Greeks, and was said sometimes to have been slain by Agamemnon but the more
common version is he was saved by Odysseus and Menelaus; as the son of Antenor, who was
bound to them by ties of friendship.
(2) He was
the son of Hippolochus and grandson of Bellerophon and with his cousin Sarpedon, he
commanded the Lycian contingent at Troy. In the fighting around the city, he found himself
face to face with Diomedes but both recalled their families
were bound by ties of friendship so the two exchanged weapons, Diomedes of bronze and Glaucus of gold.
Later, when Sarpedon was wounded, he
went to assist him, but was stopped by Teucer, wounded and forced to retire
from the fray. Apollo cured Glaucus in
time to recover Sarpedon's body, though he was unable to stop the Greeks
stripping the corpse of its arms. Glaucus
was killed during the fight for the body of Patroclus by Ajax and on Apollo's order
his body was carried back to Lycia by the winds.
(3) He was
the son of Sisyphus and
succeeded his father to the throne of Ephyra, which later became Corinth. Glaucus took part in the funeral games of
Pelias but was beaten in the four-horse chariot race by Iolaus; after this his mares ate
him alive after being maddened either by the water of a magic well, or as a result
of Aphrodite's anger, for in order to make his mares run faster Glaucus refused
to let them breed, and so offended the goddess. In another legend, this Glaucus drank from a
fountain which conferred immortality. No one would believe that he had become
immortal, however, so he threw himself into the sea, where he became a sea-god and every sailor who cast
a gaze upon him was assured an early death.
(4) He was a sea-deity. Glaucus was a fisherman standing on the shore when he noticed if he laid his catch upon a certain herb-covered meadow, the fish miraculously were restored to life and jumped back into the sea. Curious, he tasted the herb himself and was seized by an irresistible urge to dive into the waters where the sea goddesses cleansed him of his remaining traces of mortality. With that, he assumed a new form, his shoulders grew broader and his legs became a fish’s tail, his cheeks developed a thick beard (tinted green like the patina of bronze) and he became a part of the oceanic pantheon. He also received the gift of prophecy to become a protector of sailors, often giving oracles and wisdom drawn from the sea.
Glaucus et Scylla (1726), oil on canvas by Jacques Dumont le Romain (1704-1781), (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Troyes).
(5) Virgil made him the father of the Cumaean Sibyl and he appeared to Menelaus when the latter was returning from Troy; in some traditions he is said to have built the Argo and to have accompanied the ship on its voyage. Glaucus courted Scylla unsuccessfully, and also tried to win the favours of Ariadne when Theseus abandoned her on Naxos. In that quest he failed but Dionysus included him in his train when the god took her away and made her his wife.
(6) He was
the son of Minos and Pasiphae and while still a child he was chasing a mouse
when he fell into a jar of honey and drowned. When Minos finally found his son's corpse, the
Curetés told him the child could be restored to life by the man who could best
describe the colour of a certain cow among his herds which changed its colour
three times a day. It first became
white, then red and finally became black. Minos asked all the cleverest men in Crete to
describe the colour of the cow and it was Polyidus who answered that the cow
was mulberry-coloured, for the fruit is first white, turns red, and finally goes
black when ripe. Minos felt that Polyidus had solved the problem and told him
to bring Glaucus back to life, shutting him up with Glaucus'
body. Polyidus was at his wits' end, until he saw a snake make its way
into the room and go over towards the body. He killed the serpent but soon
a second came in and,
seeing the first lying dead, went out before returning carrying in
its mouth a herb with which it touched
its companion. Immediately, the snake was
restored to life so Polyidus rubbed this herb on Glaucus, who revived at once. Minos, however, was still not
satisfied. Before allowing Polyidus to return to his fatherland
he demanded that the soothsayer should teach Glaucus his art. This Polyidus did, but when he was finally
allowed to go, he spat into his pupil's mouth, and Glaucus immediately lost all
the knowledge he had just acquired. In
other versions of the legend, it was Asclepius, not Polyidus, who brought Glaucus back to life.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Centaur
Centaur (pronounced sen-tawr)
(1) In
classical mythology, one of a race of monsters having the head, trunk, and arms
of a man, and the body and legs of a horse (some modern depictions prefer
the upper body of a woman). The synonym
is hippocentaur.
(2) In
astronomy, the constellation Centaurus (initial capital).
(3) In
astronomy, any of a group of icy bodies with the characteristics of both
asteroids and comets, orbiting the Sun in elliptical paths mostly in the region
between Saturn & Neptune.
(4) In
modern slang, a skillful (male or female) rider of a horse.
(5) In
rocketry, a US-designed and built upper stage (with re-startable
liquid-propellant engine), used with an Atlas or Titan booster to launch
satellites and probes.
(6) In
chess, team comprising a human player and a computer.
(7) By
extension, in AI (artificial intelligence), a human and some form or AI, working
together.
1325–1375:
From the Middle English, from the Old English, from the Latin centaurus, from the Ancient Greek, from Κένταυρος
(Kéntauros), thought to mean “a
member of a savage race from Thessaly” although some etymologists are
sceptical. Historically, Thessaly was
known as Αἰολία (Aiolía (Aeolia in modern use)) and that’s
how it was referred to in the Odyssey (Homer’s
epic poem from the eighth or seventh century BC); the gentlemen in Athens were
very quick to describe as savages or barbarians, those from elsewhere. The half-human, half horse Centaur from Greek
mythology belongs in the class of mixtumque
genus, prolesque biformis (a mixed or blended race, offspring of two forms),
the phrase made famous when it appeared in the Roman poet Virgil’s (Publius
Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) Aeneid (29-19 BC) description of the Minotaur, the
mythical creature with a bull's head and a human body. Centaur & centaurdom are nouns, centaurian
is a noun & adjective and centauresque, centaurial & centauric are
adjectives; the noun plural is centaurs.
The most common use of the adjective centauric was a reference to the
mythological creatures (resembling or of the nature of a centaur) but in the
sometimes weird world of spiritualism it was defined as "characterized by
an integration of mind and body for consciousness above the ego-self"
(whatever that means). When the
adjective is used in SF (SciFi or science fiction) it's with an upper case if
referring to the residents or natives of the constellation Centaurus. The case difference matters because there no
reason why in SF half human, half-horse beasts can't be part of the ecosystem in
Centaurus and they would have to be described as Centauric centaurs. In fantasy fiction, a centauress was a female
centaur (a she-centaur) and the term centaurette has also been used; it does
not (as the -ette prefix might be thought to imply) mean a “a small centaur”. Presumably, a centauress, while possessing
the secondary sex characteristics of a human female could, anatomically, in the
hind quarters either colt, stallion, filly or mare so it could be helpful if
authors differentiated centauress & centaurette thus.
Centaurus, copperplate engraving by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687) from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia (1687), his atlas of constellations. In English, the southern constellation of Centaurus has been so described since the 1550 but was known by that name to the Romans and known as a centaur to the Greeks. The ninth largest constellation, visible in the far southern sky in the months around March, since classical times, it has been confused with Sagittarius.
Centaurus is one of two constellations said
to represent Centaurs and is associated primarily with Chiron (Cheiron), a
wise, immortal being who was King of the Centaurs and said to be a scholar and
prophet skilled in the healing arts. In
some of the myths, from his cave on Mount Pelion, he is said to have raised,
tutored, or counselled several figures prominent in Greek mythology, including
Jason, Heracles and Asclepius. Of Chiron's
association with the constellation, there are several tales. In one legend, Chiron was the first to
identify the constellations and teach them to mortal humans, placing an image
of himself in the sky to help guide Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. A different story has Chiron was placed in the
sky by Zeus and of this telling there are variants but the most common element
is Chiron being accidentally wounded by a poisoned arrow and giving up his
immortality as a way to escape the never-ending pain. A twist on this has Chiron simply bored with
life and wanting it to be over and this came to the attention of Prometheus,
the Titan undergoing permanent torture for stealing fire from the gods to give
to humans. For Prometheus to be released
from his torture, an immortal had to volunteer to renounce eternal life and go
to Tartarus in his place. Someone (Zeus,
Heracles, or Chiron himself depending on the author) suggested Chiron's offer
be used to release Prometheus and for this Zeus honored Chiron with his place
in the sky. There’s even a tale in which
the constellation represents the Centaur Pholus, honoured thus by Zeus for his
skill in prophecy.
In astronomy, a
centaur is a small, icy celestial body orbiting the Sun in an in elliptical
paths, most tracking between Jupiter and Neptune, the name gained from them typically
having the characteristics of both asteroids and comets, the dual-nature the link
with the half-human, half-horse from mythology.
Centaurs are considered transitional objects which may originally have
been Kuiper Belt Objects and often have unstable orbits due to gravitational
interactions with the giant planets.
Orbiting mostly between 5.5-30 AU (an “astronomical unit the average
distance between the Earth and Sun (about 150 million km (93 million miles))
from the sun, such is the gravitational effect of the big planets that most
centaurs (which range in diameter between 100-400 km (60-250 miles) are
expected over millennia to be sent into the inner solar system or even ejected
into interstellar space. Astronomers
first became aware of the objects in 1977 with the discovery of Chiron but the
technology of the time didn’t permit the structure fully to be understood and
the body was thus initially classified both as a comet (95P/Chiron) and minor
planet. It was improvements in
observational hardware which demonstrated that while appearing as asteroids,
when closer to the sun the comet-like behavior of developing a coma or tail will
manifest. The largest known centaur is 10199/Chariklo. Listed as a minor planet, it orbits the Sun
between Saturn and Uranus and in 2014 it was announced it possessed two rings
(nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí after the rivers that define Brazil's borders),
the existence confirmed by observing a stellar occultation. One implication of the rings is that it
likely also has at least one shepherd moon and infrared images indicate the Chariklo
is named after the nymph Chariclo (Χαρικλώ), the wife of Chiron and the
daughter of Apollo.
Front (left) and rear (right) covers of the album Ride a Rock Horse (1975) by The Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey (b 1944). The artwork was done by his cousin Graham Hughes who produced a number of album covers during the 1970s.
Things rarely were consistent in the evolution of the myths from Antiquity and the mythical centaurs were described variously as being wholly equine from (human) torso down or with the from parts of the legs also human, the latter a popular depiction during the Medieval period while in Classical era, they had four horses' hooves and two human arms. Living on raw flesh and inhabiting mountains and forests, they were descended either from Centaurus (the son of Apollo & Stilbe) or of Ixion & Nephele although the Centaurs Chiron and Pholus were of a different descent lineage: Chiron was the son of Philyra & Cronus while Pholus was fathered by Silenus and born of an unnamed Nymph; what distinguished that pair was that unlike the other herds, they were hospitable and non-violent. The cooking of food being a marker of civilization, it was recorded that when Heracles was hunting the Erymanthian boar, he visited Pholus who received him hospitably, giving him cooked meat whereas Pholus himself ate exclusively raw food. When Heracles asked for wine, Pholus told him that there was only one jar, which either belonged communally to the Centaurs or had been a gift from Dionysus who had told them to open it only if Heracles should be their guest. Telling his host not to be afraid, Pholus broke the seal but when the Centaurs smelled the wine they galloped from the mountains, armed with rocks, fir trees and torches to attack the cave. The first two Centaurs to attack were Anchius and Agrius (killed by Heracles) but Pholus was killed in the aftermath of the fight: while burying a fallen Centaur he drew one of Heracles' poisoned arrows from a wound but it fell from his grasp, piercing his leg and almost instantly he died. Heracles drove off the remaining Centaurs and pursued them to Cape Malea where they took refuge with Chiron. In the ensuing battle Heracles shot Elatus in the elbow, but Chiron either dropped one of Heracles' arrows on his foot or was shot in the knee by Heracles. The wounds of Heracles' arrows could not be healed and the immortal Chiron begged the gods to make him mortal. It was Prometheus agreed to take on his immortality, and Chiron died, leaving most of the Centaurs to take refuge in Eleusis. Their mother (Nephele) aided them by summoning a rain storm but that didn’t deter Heracles who slaughtered a dozen including Daphnis, Argeius, Amphion, Hippotion, Oreius, Ispoples, Melanchaetes, Thereus, Doupon, Phrixus & Homadus.
Wedding reception gone bad: Rape of Hippodamia (The Lapiths and the Centaurs) (1636-1637), oil on canvas by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain. The painting was one of a large cycle of mythologies by Rubens for the Torre de la Parada, Philip IV's (1605–1665; King of Spain 1621-1665 and (as Philip III) King of Portugal 1621-1640) newly built hunting lodge on the outskirts of Madrid. One of Rubens’ oil sketches for the work is on display at Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, Belgium and is of interest to art students and critics because of the detail differences in the final composition.
The Centaurs also fought a legendary battle against the Lapiths (a Thessalian people who originally inhabited Pindus, Pelion and Ossa; they drove out the native people, the Pelasgians). Pirithous invited the Centaurs (who regarded themselves as his parents) to his wedding feast and it went well until, unaccustomed to the effects of wine, the Centaurs became drunk and one of them tried to rape (in the classical sense of "abduction") Deidamia (Pirithous' bride and more commonly known as Hippodamia), resulting in a violent brawl which ended with the Lapiths driving the Centaurs out of Thessaly after killing many. Containing so many wonderful subjects (Centaurs, a feast, a rape scene, a brawl), the disrupted wedding reception (which came to be known as “the Centauromachy”) for centuries drew artists to the theme. In Antiquity the Centaurs got a bad press because and they appear in other appear in other legends involving rape, abductions and violence. In many ways the myths can be deconstructed as violent soap operas with an undercurrent of licentiousness, typified by the tales of Eurytion attempting to rape Hippolyta or Mnesimache, the daughter of Dexamenus. In one version Dexamenus had betrothed his daughter to Azan (an Arcadian) and Eurytion (again as a guest at the wedding feast) attempted a kidnapping but was saved by the hero Heracles arrived in time to kill him, returning bride safely to groom. Most scribes were member of the Heracles admiration society and there also the story of how Heracles, on his way to Augias, seduced the girl, promising to marry her upon his return. While he was away, forcibly she was betrothed to Eurytion but just as the wedding ceremony was about to begin, Heracles stormed in, killed the Centaur and had himself declared her husband.
Whatever processes led to Chrysler Australia adopting the name “Centura” for their local version of the European Chrysler 180 (1970-1982) may still exist in the corporation’s archives but it seems the details have never been published though it can be assumed it was not an Anglicized adaptation of the Romanian centură (belt, girdle). In Latin centum meant "one hundred" and the term centuria referred to (1) a unit of the Roman army, nominally consisting of 100 soldiers (historians suggest in practice the establishments varied between 60-160) and headed by a centurion, (2) in real estate a unit of area, equal to 100 heredia or 200 iugera (circa 125 acres (50 hectares)), (3) a group of citizens eligible to vote, the system apparently one of the reforms introduced by Servius Tullius (king of Rome 578-535 BC) and based on the ownership of land, one of the many systems which, over millennia, have codified a relationship between ownership of property (usually land) with a right to in some way participate in the polity (usually by voting) and (4) figuratively or literally, things in some way related to "100". In modern Romance languages, things of course evolved: the Romanian centura (belt or girdle) was from the French ceinture (belt), from the Latin cinctura (girdle, belt), thus by extension used also to refer to the to beltways (ring roads) around cities. In Spanish & Portuguese, the related cintura (waist; belt) is from the same Latin root cingere (to gird; surround).
The name of the short-lived Chrysler Centura (1975-1978) may have been an allusion to the Centaurs of myth because, like them it had a dual nature, combining the platform of a European four-cylinder with a much more powerful (and heavier) Australian built six. That had been a concept Holden (the General Motors (GM) outpost) in 1969 introduced when they installed their six-cylinder engine in a modified Vauxhall Viva and called it the Torana. It proved a great success and Ford Australia in 1972 responded by fitting it’s even bigger sixes to the Cortina which, being longer than the Viva, didn’t need the four inch (100 mm) odd stretch of the wheelbase required for things (tightly) to fit in the Torana. Given the way local journalists would within a few years decry the inherently unbalanced Cortina six, it is remarkable how well the press received it upon debut.
Had the Centura been
released in 1973 as planned, it might have been a success but the timing was
unfortunate, the decision by the French government of Georges Pompidou
(1911–1974; President of France 1969-1974) to conduct tests of nuclear weapons
in its South Pacific territories causing the trade unions to blacklist French
goods arriving in ports (Australian trade unions in those days running an
independent foreign policy and the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) a
kind of co-government). As a consequence,
it wasn’t until 1975 the Centura arrived in showrooms and by then the market
had moved on, competition rather more intense.
Although the Centura offered class-leading performance (indeed, in a straight line
it could out-run some V8s) by virtue of its optional 4.0 litre (245
cubic inch) straight-six, increasingly buyers were more tempted by the
equipment levels and perceptions (sometimes true) of superior build quality and
economy of operation offered by vehicles with origins in the Far East. As it was, Chrysler in 1976 began local
production of the Japanese Mitsubishi Sigma and it proved a great success, even
without the six cylinder engine once thought such a selling point. Tellingly, although a prototype Centura with
the 5.2 litre (318 cubic inch) V8 was built, the project rapidly was abandoned. Officially, the explanation was the body
structure lacked the rigidity to come with the additional torque, the same
reason Ford never contemplated their V8 Cortina entering production; engineers
familiar with the structures of both platforms agree that was true of the
Cortina but maintain the Centura was robust enough and suspect both companies,
having observed the subdued demand for the V8 Holden Toranas (1974-1978)
decided Holden was welcome to its exclusive presence in the niche sector. Fewer than 20,000 Centuras were built during
its dismal three year run, a fraction of what was projected as its annual
production.
It’s not known if than Donald Trump (b 1946; US
president 2017-2021 & since 2025) is a student of Greek mythology (stranger
things have happened) but he did provide us with his unique version of the half
horse, half human beast, labeling pornographic actress & director Stormy
Daniels (Stephanie Gregory Clifford; b 1979) “horse face”. In
May, 2024, the memorable phrase returned to the news as matters came before
court related to “hush money” allegedly paid to Ms Daniels (on behalf the of
the President) in exchange for her maintaining a silence about a certain “intimate
encounter” they had shared, their apparently brief tryst including
her spanking him on the butt with a rolled-up magazine featuring his picture on
the cover. Mr Trump denies not only the
spanking but the very encounter, claiming it never happened. To give a flavor of the proceedings, at one
point counsel asked Ms Daniels: “Am I correct in that you hate President Trump?”
to which she replied: “Yes.” No
ambiguity there and although not discussed in court, her attitude may not
wholly be unrelated to Mr Trump’s rather ungracious description of her as “horse face”. Really, President Trump should have been more
respectful towards a three-time winner of F.A.M.E.'s (Fans of Adult Media and
Entertainment) much coveted annual “Favorite
Breasts” award.
Born on the Isle of Mann,
Arthur Lemon spent his childhood in Rome before moving to California to work as
a cowboy; there he became a devotee of what he would call en plain air (by which he meant “an outdoor life”. Later he would return to Europe to study art
and for the rest of his life he would travel between Italy and England where
regularly he staged exhibitions at London's Royal Academy; his work most
associated with scenes of the Italian countryside and the daily lives of the
rural peasantry. Lemon's fine eye for
painting a Centaur was a thing of practice.
He became close friends with English artist Henry Scott Tuke
(1858–1929), noted for his prolific output of works in the Impressionist
tradition focused on nude adolescent boys and during the 1880s the pair for a time
lived Florence where they “spent time sketching male nudes in the Italian sunshine.”
Daphnis possessed the youthful beauty of the kind idealized by Tuke and
the many nymphs who so adored him. A
victim of that beauty, his life ended badly.
The artistic approach of Lemon and Tuke was interesting in that their
nude youths often were shown in a contemporary setting and in that they
differed from the many paintings and sculptures of Ancient Greek gods and mythological
which, historically, enabled an exploration of the male nude without upsetting
public decency; what Lemon and Tuke especially did was eroticise their young
subjects. From his time as a cowboy,
Lemon was well acquainted with the physicality of the horse and knew from his
studies that in Greek art Centaurs often were depicted as highly sexed figures;
being not wholly human, Centaurs could be treated as creatures able to ignore
the strict moral expectations of society and accordingly, formed their own
community. Lemon and Tuke in their own
ways noted this and both took the Centaur as something of a model although
while Lemon devoted much of his energy to painting horses, Tuke’s attention on
the nude male youth was an obsession and today, among sections of the gay
community, he’s a minor cult.