Goodly

Goodly (pronounced good-lee)

(1) Of a substantial size or quantity.

(2) Of a good or fine appearance (rare).

(3) Of fine quality (obsolete).

(4) Highly virtuous (obsolete unless quantity is thought virtuous which does seem possible).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English, from the Old English gōdlīc, from the Proto-Germanic gōdalīkaz (equivalent to the Old English gōd (good)).  The construct was good + -ly.  Good was from the Middle English good & god, from Old English gōd (that which is good, a good thing; goodness; advantage, benefit; gift; virtue; property), from the Proto-West Germanic gōd, from the Proto-Germanic gōdaz, from the primitive Indo-European ghed (to unite, be associated, suit).  It was cognate with the Dutch goed, the German gut, the Old Norse gōthr, the Gothic goths & the Russian го́дный (gódnyj) (fit, well-suited, good for) & год (god) (year). The –ly prefix was from the Middle English -ly, -li, -lik & -lich, from the Old English -līċ, from the Proto-West Germanic -līk, from the Proto-Germanic -līkaz (having the body or form of), from līką (body) (from whence Modern German gained lich); in form, it was probably influenced by the Old Norse -ligr (-ly) and was cognate with the Dutch -lijk, the German -lich and the Swedish -lig.  It was used (1) to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "behaving like, having a likeness or having a nature typical of what is denoted by the noun" and (2) to form adjectives from nouns specifying time intervals, the adjectives having the sense of "occurring at such intervals".  Goodly, goodlier & goodliest are adjectives and goodliness is a noun.

Lindsay Lohan with a largifical show of skin and a goodly sprinkle of freckles in Lynn Kiracofe tiara & Frye boots with Calvin Klein Original’s blue cotton jeans over white polyester and spandex XT Trunk briefs, W Magazine photo shoot, April 2005.

In English, goodly was long used to mean (1) someone or some act thought commendable or virtuous, (2) an item of high quality, (3) something or someone attractive and (4) ample or numerous in quality.  It was thus variously a synonym of many words including ample, big, biggish, burly, capacious, comprehensive, decent, extensive, good, great, gross, hefty, husky, jumbo, largish, major, massive, ponderous, respectable, sensible, beautiful & virtuous.  However, by the mid-twentieth century most senses of goodly had gone extinct and the word was only ever used of something quantitative.  Even then it was (and remains) rare but it exists in a niche populated by poets and literary novelists so its audience is thus limited.  As an example of the inconsistency in English’s evolution, the sense of virtue did survive in the noun goodliness.  An alternative to goodly when speaking of quantities was largifical and unlike goodly, it did not survive although large obviously has flourished.  The adjective largifical was from the Latin largificus, from largus (bountiful, liberal), the construct being an adaptation (via facere (in fact)) of larg(us) + faciō (do, make), from the Proto-Italic fakjō, from the primitive Indo-European dheh- (to put, place, set), the cognates of which included the Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi), the Sanskrit दधाति (dádhāti), the Old English dōn (from which English ultimately gained “do”) and the Lithuanian dėti (to put).  So, beyond the confines of the literary novel, the preferred alternatives to goodly and largifical include sufficient, adequate, plenty, abundant, enough, satisfactory, plentiful, copious, profuse, rich, lavish, liberal, generous, bountiful, large, huge, great, bumper, flush, prolific, overflowing, generous & ample, the choice dictated by the nuances of need.

Esurient

Esurient (pronounced ih-soo-r-ee-uhnt)

(1) The state of being hungry; greedy; voracious.

(2) One who is hungry.

1665–1675: A borrowing from the Latin ēsurient & ēsurientem, stem of ēsuriēns (hungering), present participle of ēsurīre (to be hungry; to hunger for something), from edere (to eat), the construct being ēsur- (hunger) + -ens (the Latin adjectival suffix which appeared in English as –ent (and –ant, –aunt etc) and in Old French as –ent).  The form ēsuriō was a desiderative verb from edō (to eat), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hédti (to eat and from the root ed-) + -turiō (the suffix indicating a desire for an action).  English offers a goodly grab of alternatives including rapacious, ravenous, gluttonous, hoggish, insatiable, unappeasable, ravening, avaricious, avid and covetous.  Esurient is a noun & adjective, esurience & esuriency are nouns and esuriently is an adverb; the noun plural is esurients.

A noted Instagram influencer assuaging her esurience.

For word-nerds to note, a long vowel in the Proto-Italic edō from the primitive Indo-European hédti is illustrative of the application of Lachmann's law (a long-disputed phonological sound rule for Latin named after German philologist and critic Karl Lachmann (1793–1851)).  According to Lachmann, vowels in Latin lengthen before primitive (and the later proto-) Indo-European voiced stops which are followed by another (unvoiced) stop.  Given the paucity of documentary evidence, much work in this field is essentially educated guesswork and Lachmann’s conclusions were derived from analogy and the selective application of theory.  Not all in this highly specialized area of structural linguistics agreed and arguments percolated until an incendiary paper in 1965 assaulted analogy as an explanatory tool in historical linguistics, triggering a decade-long squabble.  This polemical episode appeared to suggest Lachmann had constructed a framework onto which extreme positions could be mapped, one wishing to attribute almost everything to analogy, the other, nothing.  With that, debate seemed to end and Lachmann’s law seems now noted less for what it was than for what it was not.

In memory of Tenuate Dospan

A seemingly permanent condition of late modernity is weight gain; the companion permanent desire being weight loss.  The human propensity to store fat was a product of natural selection, those who possessed the genes which passed on the traits more likely to achieve sexual maturity and thus be able to procreate.  Storing fat meant that in times of plenty, weight was gained which could be used as a source of energy in times of scarcity and for thousands of generations this was how almost all humans lived.  However, in so much of the world people now live in a permanent state of plenty and one in which that plenty (fats, salt & sugars) doesn’t have to be hunted, gathered or harvested.  Now, with only a minimal expenditure of energy, we take what we want from the shelf or, barely having to move from our chair, it’s delivered to our door.  In our sedentary lives we thus expend much less energy but our brains remain hard-wired to seek out the fats, salt & sugars which best enable the body to accumulate fat for the lean times.  Some call this the "curse of plenty".

For all but a few genetically unlucky souls, the theory of weight loss is simple: reduce energy intake and increase the energy burn.  For many reasons however the practices required to execute the theory can be difficult although much evidence does suggest that once started, exercise does become easier because (1) the brain rewards the body for doing it with what’s effectively a true “recreational drug”, (2) it becomes literally easier because weight-loss in itself reduces the energy required and (3) the psychological encouragement of success (some dieticians actually recommend scales with a digital read-out so progress can be measured in 100 gram (3½ oz) increments).  Still, even starting is clearly an obstacle which is why the pharmaceutical industry saw such potential in finding the means to reduce supply (food intake) if increasing demand (exercise) was just too hard.

Lindsay Lohan about to assuage her esurience.

For centuries physicians and apothecaries had been aware of the appetite suppressing qualities of various herbs and other preparations but these were usually seen as something undesirable and were often a side effect of the early medicines, many of which were of dubious benefit, some little short of poison.  Although the noun anorectic (a back formation from the adjective anorectic (anorectous an archaic form) appeared in the medical literature in the early nineteenth century, it was used to describe a patient suffering a loss of appetite; only later would it come to be applied to drugs, firstly those which induced the condition as a side-effect and later, those designed for purpose.  The adjective anorectic (characterized by want of appetite) appeared first in 1832 and was a coining of medical Latin, from the Ancient Greek ἀνόρεκτος (anórektos) (without appetite), the construct being ἀν- (an-) (not, without) + ὀρέγω (orégō) (a verbal adjective of oregein (to long for, desire) which was later to influence the word anorexia)).  The noun was first used in 1913.

Tenuate Dospan.  As an industry leader in promoting DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), Merrell was years ahead in the use of plus-size models.

In the twentieth century, as modern chemistry emerged, anorectic drugs became available by accident as medical amphetamines reached the black market as stimulants, the side effects quickly noted.  Those side effects however were of little interest to the various military authorities which during World War II (1939-1945) made them available to troops by the million, their stimulant properties and the ability to keep soldiers alert and awake for days at a time functioning as an extraordinary force-multiplier.  Not for years was fully it understood just how significant was the supply of the amphetamine Pervitin in the Wehrmacht’s (the German armed forces (1935-1945)) extraordinary military successes in 1939-1941.  In the post-war years, various types of amphetamine were made commercially available as appetite suppressants and while effective, the side effects were of concern although many products remained available in the West well into the twenty-first century.  Probably the best known class of these was amfepramone (or diethylpropion) marketed most famously as Tenuate Dospan which was popular with (1) those who wanted to be thin and (2) those who wanted to stay awake longer than is usually recommended.  Tenuate Dospan usually achieved both.

The regulatory authorities however moved to ensure the supply of Tenuate Dospan and related preparations was restricted, the concern said to be about the side effects although in these matters the true motivations can sometimes be obscure.  In their place, the industry responded with appetite suppressants which essentially didn’t work (compared with the efficient Tennuate Dospan) but sold for two or three times the price which must have pleased some.  The interest in restricting esurience however continued and one of the latest generation is Liraglutide (sold under various the brand names including Victoza & Saxenda) which started life as an anti-diabetic medication, the appetite suppressing properties noted during clinical trials, rather as the side-effects of Viagra (sildenafil) came as a pleasing surprise to the manufacturer.  Being a injection, Liraglutide is harder to use than Tenuate Dospan (which was a daily pill) and users report there are both similarities and differences between the two.

Liraglutide (Saxenda).  The dose increases month by month.

On Tenuate Dospan, one’s appetite diminished rapidly but food still tasted much the same, only the desire for it declined and being an amphetamine, energy levels were elevated and there were the usual difficulties (sleeping, dryness in the mouth, mood swings).  Dieticians recommended combining Tenuate Dospan with a high quality diet (the usual fruit, vegetables, clear fluids etc).  By contrast, although Liraglutide users reported much the same loss of interest in food, they noted also some distaste for the foods they had once so enjoyed and a distinct lack of energy.  It’s still early in the life of Liraglutide but it certainly seems to work as an appetite suppressant although in the trials, the persistent problem of all such drugs was noted: as soon as the treatment ceased, the food cravings returned.  Liraglutide does what the manufacturer’s explanatory notes suggest it does: it is a drug which can be used to treat chronic obesity by achieving weight-loss over several months, during which a patient should seek to achieve a permanent lifestyle change (diet and exercise).  It does not undo thousands of generations of evolution.  The early literature at least hinted Liraglutide was intended for obese adolescents for whom no other weight loss programmes had proved effective but anecdotal evidence suggests adults are numerous among the early adopters.

Dick-pic & Slot-shot

Dick-pic (pronounced dik-pik)

A picture of a human’s penis, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Dick became the pet-form name circa 1550 (though some etymologists suspect it had earlier been in use) for Richard via being the rhyming nickname for Rick, Richard's original affectionate diminutive.  Richard being (1) among the commonest English names and (2) exclusively male, it quickly become a synonym for "fellow; lad" and thereby a generally used word to refer to men, individually and collectively; from this connection came the use of dick as slang for that exclusively male body part.  Anything claimed to be an authoritative list of the slang senses must be viewed with scepticism because many forms are very old and the surviving written records are not a comprehensive catalogue of what was often an exclusively oral dialect so the date of origin is uncertain.  The meaning "penis" is attested from 1891 in a dictionary of farmer's slang and was said (predictably) to have been well-known British army slang but, perhaps regionally, the use could date back a century or more.  Most sources note "dick" in this context is thought now less offensive than once it was but for those still disturbed, there's a goodly number of alternatives. 

Pic of Dick Face: The Honorable Richard Face (1943-2023), former New South Wales (NSW) minister of gaming & racing (1995-2003).

The vulgar slang nouns dickhead & dickface (a stupid or contemptible person) are attested only from circa 1969 so Richard Face’s parents can't be accused of making what might now be thought an unwise choice.  Interestingly, although presumably not unaware of the linguistic possibilities his name offered, Richard Face was either indifferent or saw some political advantage in brand-name awareness because he chose to remain a Richard (and, by implication, a "Dick") despite being christened Jack Richard Face.  Whether he ran the usual focus groups to find which worded best (Dick Face or Jack Face) isn't known.  In time, he did live up to his name, in 2004 fined Aus$2500 an given a three-year good behaviour bond for lying to the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), the magistrate's rationale for not imposing a custodial sentence being (1) he was no longer a police officer and therefore "not directly involved in the administration of justice", (2) had an "exemplary record of public service", (3) had been under stress, was depressed and a heavy drinker at the time of his lie, (4) had shown remorse and pleaded guilty, (5) had "not committed perjury" or "sworn false evidence" and (6) "did not engage in persistently false swearing over sustained periods of time."

Pic of Richard Face the cat.

Pic was first recorded circa 1885 as a shortening of picture (image, likeness, photo, etc).  Picture was from the Middle English pycture, from the Old French picture, from the Latin pictūra (the art of painting, a painting), from pingō (I paint); a doublet of pictura.  The plural is pics but pix is common in casual & commercial use so the accepted alternative plural of dick-pics would be dick-pix.  The linguistically fastidious used to be troubled by spellings which respected only the pronunciation (pix, nite, lite, luv etc) but even before the internet their use in advertising and brand names had made them so common the battle obviously was lost.  In structural linguistics, the technical term for such words is “eye dialect”, used to describe a deliberate misspelling of words to suggest a particular pronunciation, dialect, or informal tone, even though the intended pronunciation remains the same.  The use (apart from alternative spellings or misspellings which would have predated the modern practice) seems to have been popularized (and to some extent thus legitimized) in commerce for purposes of advertising or branding and from here it was picked up in casual writing where it can impart variously feelings of playfulness or the "modern".  The Ford Ka (1996–2021) and Chevrolet Cruze (2008–2023) were both named using the technique and familiar examples include Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’ Donuts and Froot Loops but it was also a literary device in fiction as early as the nineteenth century, used by Mark Twain (1835-1910) to evoke Southern American speech patterns and Charles Dickens (1812–1870) to summon the sound of what was perceived as “typical” working-class speech.  George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950), a proponent of the internationalist Esperanto language and often (understandably) critical of English spelling rules, in Pygmalion (1913) used phonetic spellings not only to reflect variations in diction and accents but also to contrast the difference between “proper” and informal speech, a central theme of the play.  In modern use, because the forms often use fewer characters, the practice became a staple of texting (SMS; short message service) which for a certain demographic in the now distant pre-social media, pre-smartphone era became the preferred means of communication.

Dick pics and their role in politics.

As the downfall of disgraced New York politician Anthony Weiner (b 1964) illustrates, politicians should avoid dick-pics on the basis of “good rarely come of it” but, done carefully, they do have a place.  In 1956, the Republican Party’s campaign committee for the 1956 US presidential election included the slogan “I Like Ike”, taking advantage of the great popularity of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) who was seeking re-election.  As a companion slogan, the committee used “We Like Dick” to support Eisenhower’s running mate Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US vice-president 1953-1961 & president 1969-1974).  To cover both, there were also posters and campaign buttons with “I Like Ike and Dick” and the party enjoyed great success, their ticket securing 57.4% of the popular vote and carrying the Electoral College 457-73 (41 states to 7).  Thus encouraged, when Nixon ran for president in 1960, among the promotional materials used were posters and campaign buttons using a variation: “The Nation Needs Dick!”  In 1960, things didn’t go so well with the Democratic Party’s nominee John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) winning by “an electoral eyelash”: the popular vote split 49.72-49.55% in Kennedy’s favour and he took the Electoral College 303-219 although he carried on 22 states to Nixon’s 26.  So, the “The Nation Needs Dick!” campaign nearly worked because in the popular vote Kennedy prevailed only by the twentieth century’s narrowest margin: 34,220,984 to 34,108,157.  That tight result has always fuelled the idea the documented electoral fraud in several states robbed Nixon of a victory and he had no doubts, hosting a subdued Christmas party in Washington DC a few months later he told his guests: “We won, but they stole it from us.”  Despite that, things were done differently in 1960 and although he’d be told by advisors there was enough evidence of fraud for him to challenge the result, he declined on the basis of the damage it might do to the country, telling his staff: “Nobody steals the presidency of the United States.”    

Slot-shot (pronounced slot-shot)

A picture of a human female’s genitalia, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Slot in the sense of a "bar or bolt used to fasten a door, window etc" entered Middle English circa 1300 from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German slot, from the Old High German sloz & German Schloss (bolt, bar, lock, castle), from the Proto-Germanic stem slut- (to close).  The anatomical use to describe the "hollow at the base of the throat above the breastbone" was a late fourteenth century adoption from the Old French esclot (hoof-print of a deer or horse) of uncertain origin, but this sense is probably obsolete except in historic references.  Slot meaning a "a narrow, elongated depression, groove, notch, slit, or aperture, especially a narrow opening for receiving or admitting something" dates from the 1520s, the idea later developed to suggest putting something "where it belongs" but this seems to have been adopted only in the mid-1960s.

Shot (in the sense of the firing of a bow (later applied to firearms etc)) was from pre-900 Middle English, from the Old English sc(e)ot & (ge)sceot and was cognate with the German Schoss & Geschoss.  It was related to the Old Norse skot and the Old High German scoz (missile).  The sense of shot as the "view from a camera" isn't attested until 1958 although it had been used in the cinematic sense since 1922 to describe the process of recording movies (mov(ing picture) + -ies) since 1922 and may thus have enjoyed earlier use.  As used to refer to individual pictures, printed usually on cardboard or special photographic paper, it dates from the late 1930s, the specialized use in law enforcement (as mugshot) began in the US in 1950.

Of context

A “Liz & Dick pic”: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100; 1963-1981) four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flag-staffs (fitted in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by the governments or the corps diplomatique.

The dick-pic, the practice of someone (usually male) sending another (usually female) an unsolicited picture of (what is usually their own) penis isn’t a recent invention but the extraordinary latter day spike in the numbers sent is a genuine cultural phenomenon.  It’s socially and technologically deterministic, something made possible by (1) the permissive social attitude of the participating demographic, (2) the ubiquity of their possession of high-definition cameras, (3) the removal from the process of third-parties (especially those who once developed and printed the physical images), (4) the extent of digital connectivity between members of the demographic and (5), the marginal financial cost of the transactions.  It’s an interesting development in that in the West, the history of the depiction of nudity is overwhelmingly female so “pictures of genitalia sent by phone” is a genre in the annals of the nude (technically probably the naked) untypically dominated by the male body.

Generally uncontroversial if either requested or welcomed by a recipient with whom an appropriate level of emotional capital has already been built, dick-pics are notorious for the negative emotions induced in those receiving them as something unsolicited and unwelcome.  So, unless the intention is actually to shock, offend or upset (and among the demographic, that is sometimes a thing) they’re best avoided; good rarely seems to come of them and in some jurisdictions, there are circumstances in which sending a dick-pic can be an offence which can result in the sender being placed for life on a sex-offender’s register; it depends on the context.

Dick-pic detail from Michelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475–1564) David (1501-1504), Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

Michelangelo’s David, a six-ton, 17-foot (5.2 m) tall symbol of divine victory over evil is art as a sculpture or in depiction and, despite the visible penis, in the West is usually thought not obscene.  In another context it can be, the erection of some inventive interior decorating required to conceal the offensive bits when a 3D-printed replica was displayed at the 2021 Dubai Expo.  It happens in the West too.  In the nineteenth century the Grand Duke of Tuscany presented Queen Victoria with a full-sized replica of the original which she found so confronting that hurriedly a proportionally accurate fig leaf was crafted, kept in readiness for any royal visits to be hung from two strategically placed hooks.  Even in the twenty-first century, replicas have attracted complaints, the argument being the context of a museum which people choose to visit being different for places where encounters may happen by chance.  Obscenity and offensiveness thus are situational constructs and a dick-pic exchanged between consenting adults is different from discovered in other circumstances; it depends on the context.

The SSSSS: Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick.

It’s assumed because there are few reports of women sending pics of their genitalia that the practice is notably less common than the dick-pic and while that’s not an accepted way to draw a definitive conclusion from two data sets, few doubt it’s true.  There are surely many reasons that’s the case and the paucity of examples is probably the reason a standardized female equivalent of “dick-pic” seems not to have evolved.  Suggestions have included “gash-flash”, “trap-snap” and “clamagram” but the most phonetically pleasing are probably “pussy-portrait” and “slot-shot”, the latter a metaphor which references the slot on a machine which is a perfect fit for coins of a certain denomination.  For women who find artistically limiting the idea of a static slot-shot, for US$149, there’s the Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick (SSSSS), a USB-rechargeable video-recorder-vibrator which offers, especially for those with basic video-editing skills, the chance to create a clip of an organism from the inside.  Thus the "clit-clip", a bit of digital one-upmanship (that may not be quite the right noun) on any "dick-pic".  

Available in violet, khaki & black, she can be connected to the USB port of a PC or Mac and there's a downloadable app for MacOS, Windows (XP SP2 onwards), iOS and Android.  The camera is a seemingly modest .3 megapixel unit but given the environment in which she'll be operating, that's more than adequate; videos are saved in the familiar mp4 format, the product & software manuals are both downloadable and there's an instructional video on the Svakom website.  Whisper-quiet to ensure privacy, battery-life is said to be around two hours of "continuous use" so one can understand why women might prefer such a device to most men.  The manufacturer refers to the SSSSS as "she" rather than "he" (or even "it"), an interesting assignment of notional gender given the anatomical emulation.

L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World (1866)), oil on canvas by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The recumbent female has, off and on, been a staple of Western art since Antiquity but there was something about French artist’s Gustave Courbet’s L'Origine du monde which was so provocative that publicly, it wasn’t exhibited for 120 years.  A slot-shot writ large, it’s still a work which many institutions avoid, even those sanguine about female nudity (and nakedness) in artistic and other contexts, one columnist noting recently the painting “… if indeed it can be called erotic…” was “…still unsuitable for publication in a paper with a general readership.”  Perhaps it’s because it so differs from the long traditions of the nude, a study more gynecological than artistic or maybe it’s the lush and untended growth of pubic hair, something which seems often to disturb though it may be anatomically accurate: One Russian gynecologist was asked whether the model was a virgin and, after casting his professional eye, answered with an emphatic “Nyet”.  There’s also the objectification, the decapitation of the subject reducing the work somehow to a slot-shottish case-study for the male gaze, a reductionism which has for decades attracted criticism from feminists.  When depictions of L'Origine du monde have appeared in bookshops and galleries, there’s often been controversy, sometimes requiring the summoning of the gendarmerie although the Musée d'Orsay reports the work appears on one of their gift-shop’s best-selling post-cards so there's that.

The head presumptive (publicized in 2013).

Commissioned by Ottoman-Egyptian diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha (Khalil Bey 1831-1879) as an addition to his famous collection of erotica, ever since first it was seen, historians of art have debated among themselves the identity of the model, their short-list with some glee referred to as Les suspects habituels de Gustave (Gustave’s usual suspects).  No conclusion has ever been agreed although the factions promote their theories, one based on an analysis of the joining edges of the respective canvases, an allegedly matching upper-section displayed in 2013.  The Musée d'Orsay issued a statement saying L'Origine du monde is, as it exists, a complete work and not part of a larger whole.  The mystery continues.

Highlight of Coastal Carolina University vs East Carolina University, Clark-LeClair Stadium, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, 8 March, 2025. 

There are also “butt pics”.  In March 2025 a user posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) a clip from ESPN’s coverage of a baseball game between Coastal Carolina University and East Carolina University (Coastal Carolina won 9-11-1 to 1-6-0) which showed two women, one snapping what quickly was described as a “butt-pic” of the other.  Almost instantly viral, the tweet gained more than 10 million views, numbers the ESPN programmers doubtless wish college baseball could generate.  The two protagonists were said to be “not identified” but presumably promotional opportunities on Instagram and TikTok beckon and there may soon be OnlyFans accounts.

Piste

Piste (pronounced peest)

(1) In skiing, a downhill trail or run.

(2) In competitive fencing, the internationally recognized regulation-size strip, 2 m (6’ 6”) in width and 14 m (46’) long.

(3) A track left by somebody riding a horse (archaic).

(4) A spoor made by a wild animal.

1727: From the Old French piste (beaten track of a horse or other animal) from the Italian pista (via (a beaten track)) a variant of pesta (footprint).  Pesta was a deverbal of pistare & pestare (to pound, crush) a Vulgar Latin frequentative of the Latin pīnsere, pistus the past participle.  Other languages picked up piste from the French.  Like English, Lithuanian, Dutch and German used the same spelling (the Germans capitalizing the noun) while there’s also the Catalan pista, the Greek πίστα (písta), the Persian: پیست‎ (pist) and the Turkish pist.  The alternative spelling pist is now rare.  Piste is a noun; the noun plural is pistes.

In Dutch, a piste (diminutive pistetje) is (1) a downhill ski run, (2) a track used in competitive athletics, or (3) a ring in a circus.  In Finnish, piste was originally a synonym of pisto (sting; prick, puncture).  In examples of linguistic innovation it was used in typography to mean "period, full stop, dot", use later extending to the sense of “mark or stroke above a letter” and a “unit of font size or spacing”.  In geometry it meant "point", thus the general sense in mathematics of it being the representation of a dimensionless object in space and thus a specific location and in figurative (though obviously inaccurate) use, piste came mean “tiny; something infinitesimally small”.  The idea of small was picked up in the scoring systems of various sports, a piste being (in the familiar sense of “a point”) the smallest unit a team or player could be awarded.

In French, the phraseology provides the descriptive nuances which indicate whether piste is being used in the literal sense of physical geography or figuratively thus: Une piste automobile dans le desert (track left in the desert sand by a car); piste cyclable (a bicycle path); La police est sur la piste d’un complot (the police are following a lead in their investigation of a conspiracy); piste d’atterrissage (an airport runway); piste de danse (a dance floor).  English adds modifiers to trail, track etc in the same manner.  In the sense in which piste is used in English, the French also use it to refer to ski slopes in general but also in more elaborated forms to differentiate where necessary: piste de ski (ski slope, ski trail); piste de luge (sled or sledge track).  Use in Italian follows the French but, noting the quality of snow as a white powder, imaginatively adds piste as the street slang for a line of cocaine and it’s a word which in this sense might see a goodly amount of use because the 2019 Global Drug Survey identified Italy as the world’s second largest consumer of the narcotic.

On the Piss

Piste is pronounced peest and the usual phrase when speaking of skiing is “on the piste” so care must be taken it’s not confused with another phrase, often used in parts of the English-speaking world, the operative word there pronounced pis.

On the piss: Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a quick belt of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.

On the piss: Boris Johnson enjoying champagne, port and a pint.  It's not known if these photographs were all taken the same day.

On the piste

On the piste: An assured Lindsey Vonn (b 1984), four-time World Cup alpine ski champion and Olympic gold medallist.

In pink, on the piste: A less assured Lindsay Lohan, on skis during filming of Netflix’s Falling for Christmas.  The pink jumpsuit and pink fluffy vest are available on-line.

Algorithm

Algorithm (pronounced al-guh-rith-um)

(1) A set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.

(2) In computing, a finite set of unambiguous instructions performed in a prescribed sequence to achieve a goal, especially a mathematical rule or procedure used to compute a desired result.

(3) In mathematics and formal logic, a recursive procedure whereby an infinite sequence of terms can be generated.

1690s: From the Middle English algorisme & augrym, from the Anglo-Norman algorisme & augrimfrom, from the French algorithme, re-fashioned (under mistaken connection with Greek αριθμός (arithmos) (number)) from the Old French algorisme (the Arabic numeral system) from the Medieval Latin algorismus, a (not untypical) mangled transliteration of the Arabic ⁧الخَوَارِزْمِيّ⁩ (al-ḵawārizmiyy), the nisba (the part of an Arabic name consisting a derivational adjective) of the ninth century Persian mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī and a toponymic name meaning “person from Chorasmia” (native of Khwarazm (modern Khiva in Uzbekistan)).  It was Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī works which introduced to the West some sophisticated mathematics (including algebra). The earlier form in Middle English was the thirteenth century algorism from the Old French and in English, it was first used in about 1230 and then by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) in 1391.  English adopted the French term, but it wasn't until the late nineteenth century that algorithm began to assume its modern sense.  Before that, by 1799, the adjective algorithmic (the construct being algorithm + -ic) was in use and the first use in reference to symbolic rules or language dates from 1881.  The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The noun algorism, from the Old French algorisme was an early alternative form of algorithm; algorismic was a related form.  The meaning broadened to any method of computation and from the mid twentieth century became especially associated with computer programming to the point where, in general use, this link is often thought exclusive.  The spelling algorism has been obsolete since the 1920s.  Algorithm, algorithmist, algorithmizability, algorithmocracy, algorithmization & algorithmics are nouns, algorithmize is a verb, algorithmic & algorithmizable are adjectives and algorithmically is an adverb; the noun plural is algorithms.

Babylonian and later algorithms

An early Babylonian algorithm in clay.

Although there is evidence multiplication algorithms existed in Egypt (circa 1700-2000 BC), a handful of Babylonian clay tablets dating from circa 1800-1600 BC are the oldest yet found and thus the world's first known algorithm.  The calculations described on the tablets are not solutions to specific individual problems but a collection of general procedures for solving whole classes of problems.  Translators consider them best understood as an early form of instruction manual.  When translated, one tablet was found to include the still familiar “This is the procedure”, a phrase the essence of every algorithm.  There must have been many such tablets but there's a low survival rate of stuff from 40 centuries ago not regarded as valuable.

So associated with computer code has the word "algorithm" become that it's likely a goodly number of those hearing it assume this was its origin and any instance of use happens in software.  The use in this context, while frequent, is not exclusive but the general perception might be it's just that.  It remains technically correct that almost any set of procedural instructions can be dubbed an algorithm but given the pattern of use from the mid-twentieth century, to do so would likely mislead or confuse confuse many who might assume they were being asked to write the source code for software.  Of course, the sudden arrival of mass-market generative AI (artificial intelligence) has meant anyone can, in conversational (though hopefully unambiguous) text, ask their tame AI bot to produce an algorithm in the syntax of the desired coding language.  That is passing an algorithm (using the structures of one language) to a machine which interprets the text and converts it to language in another structure, something programmers have for decades been doing for their clients.

A much-distributed general purpose algorithm (really more of a flow-chart) which seems so universal it can be used by mechanics, programmers, lawyers, physicians, plumbers, carpet layers, concreting contractors and just about anyone whose profession is object or task-oriented.   

The AI bots have proved especially adept at such tasks.  While a question such as: "What were the immediate implications for Spain of the formation of the Holy Alliance?" produces varied results from generative AI which seem to range from the workmanlike to the inventive, when asked to produce computer code the results seem usually to be in accord with a literal interpretation of the request.  That shouldn't be unexpected; a discussion of early nineteenth century politics in the Iberian Peninsular is by its nature going to to be discursive while the response to a request for code to locate instances of split infinitives in a text file is likely to vary little between AI models.  Computer languages of course impose a structure where syntax needs exactly to conform to defined parameters (even the most basic of the breed such as that PC/MS-DOS used for batch files was intolerant of a single missing or mis-placed character) whereas something like the instructions to make a cup of tea (which is an algorithm even if not commonly thought of as one) greatly can vary in form even though the steps and end results can be the same.

An example of a "how to make a cup of tea" algorithm.  This is written for a human and thus contains many assumptions of knowledge; one written for a humanoid robot would be much longer and include steps such as "turn cold tap clockwise" and "open refrigerator door".

The so-called “rise of the algorithm” is something that has attracted much comment since social media gained critical mass; prior to that algorithms had been used increasingly in all sorts of places but it was the particular intimacy social media engenders which meant awareness increased and perceptions changed.  The new popularity of the word encouraged the coining of derived forms, some of which were originally (at least to some degree) humorous but beneath the jocularity, many discovered the odd truth.  An algorithmocracy describes a “rule by algorithms”, a critique in political science which discusses the implications of political decisions are being made by algorithms, something which in theory would make representative and responsible government not so much obsolete as unnecessary.  Elements of this have been identified in the machinery of government such as the “Robodebt” scandal in Australia in which one or more algorithms were used to raise and pursue what were alleged to be debts incurred by recipients of government transfer payments.  Despite those in charge of the scheme and relevant cabinet ministers being informed the algorithm was flawed and there had been suicides among those wrongly accused, the politicians did nothing to intervene until forced by various legal actions.  While defending Robodebt, the politicians found it very handy essentially to disavow connection with the processes which were attributed to the algorithm.

The feeds generated by Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and such are also sometimes described as algorithmocracies in that it’s the algorithm which determines what content is directed to which user.  Activists have raised concerns about the way the social media algorithms operate, creating “feedback loops” whereby feeds become increasingly narrow and one-sided in focus, acting only to reinforce opinions rather than inform.  In fairness, that wasn’t the purpose of the design which was simply to keep the user engaged, thereby allowing the platform to harvest more the product (the user’s attention) they sell to consumers (the advertisers).  Everything else is an unintended consequence and an industry joke was the word “algorithm” was used by tech company CEOs when they didn’t wish to admit the truth.  A general awareness of that now exists but filter bubbles won’t be going away but what it did produce were the words algorithmophobe (someone unhappy or resentful about the impact of algorithms in their life) and algorithmophile (which technically should mean “a devotee or admirer of algorithms” but is usually applied in the sense of “someone indifferent to or uninterested in the operations of algorithms”, the latter represented by the great mass of consumers digitally bludgeoned into a state of acquiescent insensibility.

Some of the products are fighting back: The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now (2024) by  by Hilke Schellmann, pp 336, Hachette Books (ISBN-13: 978-1805260981).

Among nerds, there are also fine distinctions.  There are subalgorithms (sub-algorithm seems not a thing) which is a (potentially stand-alone) algorithm within a larger one, a concept familiar in many programming languages as a “sub-routine” although distinct from a remote procedure call (RPC) which is a subroutine being executed in a different address space.  The polyalgorithm (again hyphens just not cool) is a set of two or more algorithms (or subalgorithms) with instructions for choosing which in some way integrated.  A very nerdy dispute does exist within mathematics and computer science around whether an algorithm, at the definitional level, really does need to be restricted to a finite number of steps.  The argument can eventually extend to the very possibility of infinity (or types of infinity according to some) so it really is the preserve of nerds.  In real-world application, a program is an algorithm only if (even eventually), it stops; it need not have a middle but must have a beginning and an end.

There is also the mysterious pseudoalgorithm, something les suspicious than it may first appear.  Pseudoalgorithms exist usually for didactic purposes and will usually interpolate (sometime large) fragments of a real algorithm bit it may be in a syntax which is not specific to a particular (or any) programming language, the purpose being illustrative and explanatory.  Intended to be read by humans rather than a machine, all a pseudoalgorithm has to achieve is clarity in imparting information, the algorithmic component there only to illustrate something conceptual rather than be literally executable.  The pseudoalgorithm model is common in universities and textbooks and can be simplified because millions of years of evolution mean humans can do their own error correction on the fly.

Of the algorithmic

The Netflix algorithm in action: Lindsay Lohan (with body-double) during filming of Irish Wish (2024).  The car is a Triumph TR4 (1961-1967), one of the early versions with a live rear axle, a detail probably of no significance in the plot-line.

The adjective algorithmic has also emerged as an encapsulated criticism, applied to everything from restaurant menus, coffee shop décor, choices of typefaces and background music.  An entire ecosystem (Instagram, TikTok etc) has been suggested as the reason for this multi-culture standardization in which a certain “look, sound or feel” becomes “commoditised by acclamation” as the “standard model” of whatever is being discussed.  That critique has by some been dismissed as something reflective of the exclusivity of the pattern of consumption by those who form theories about what seem not very important matters; it’s just they only go to the best coffee shops in the nicest parts of town.  In popular culture though the effect of the algorithmic is widespread, entrenched and well-understood and already the AI bots are using algorithms to write music will be popular, needing (for now) only human performers.  Some algorithms have become well-known such as the “Netflix algorithm” which presumably doesn’t exist as a conventional algorithm might but is understood as the sets of conventions, plotlines, casts and themes which producers know will have the greatest appeal to the platform.  The idea is nothing new; for decades hopeful authors who sent manuscripts to Mills & Boon would receive one of the more gentle rejection slips, telling them their work was very good but “not a Mills & Boon book”.  To help, the letter would include a brochure which was essentially a “how to write a Mills & Boon book” guide and it included a summary of the acceptable plot lines of which there were at one point reputedly some two dozen.  The “Netflix algorithm” was referenced when Falling for Christmas, the first fruits of Lindsay Lohan’s three film deal with the platform was released in 2022.  It was an example of followed a blending of several genres (redemption, Christmas movie, happy ending etc) and the upcoming second film (Irish Wish)  is of the “…always a bridesmaid, never a bride — unless, of course, your best friend gets engaged to the love of your life, you make a spontaneous wish for true love, and then magically wake up as the bride-to-be.” school; plenty of familiar elements there so it’ll be interesting to see if the algorithm was well-tuned.

Math of the elliptic curve: the Cox–Zucker machine can help.

Some algorithms have become famous and others can be said even to have attained a degree of infamy, notably those used by the search engines, social media platforms and such, the Google and TikTok algorithms much debated by those concerned by their consequences.  There is though an algorithm remembered as a footnote in the history of linguistic oddities and that is the Cox–Zucker machine, published in 1979 by Dr David Cox (b 1948) and Dr Steven Zucker (1949–2019).  The Cox–Zucker machine (which may be called the CZM in polite company) is used in arithmetic geometry and provides a solution to one of the many arcane questions which only those in the field understand but the title of the paper in which it first appeared (Intersection numbers of sections of elliptic surfaces) gives something of a hint.  Apparently it wasn’t formerly dubbed the Cox–Zucker machine until 1984 but, impressed by the phonetic possibilities, the pair had been planning joint publication of something as long ago as 1970 and undergraduate humor can’t be blamed because they met as graduate students at Princeton University.  The convention in academic publishing is for authors’ surnames to appear in alphabetical order and the temptation proved irresistible.