Tactile

Tactile (pronounced tak-til or tak-tahyl)

(1) Of, pertaining to, endowed with, or affecting the sense of touch.

(2) Perceptible to the touch; tangible.

(3) Capable of being touched; tangible (archaic).

1605–1615: From the Middle French tactile, from the Latin tāctilis (tangible), from tāctus, past participle of tangere (to touch)), from the primitive Indo-European root tag (to touch; to handle).  The construct was tact(us) + ile.  The –ile suffix was from the Latin –īlis (neuter -ile, comparative -ilior, superlative -illimus or -ilissimus; the third-declension two-termination suffix), from the Proto-Italic -elis, from the primitive Indo-European -elis, from -lós.  It was used to form an adjective noun of relation, frequently passive, to the verb or root.  The meaning "of or pertaining to the sense of touch" is attested from the 1650s.  Tactile is an adjective, tactilize is a verb, tactility is a noun and tactilely is an adverb; the noun plural is tactilities.  In specialized use, the word “tactile” is an element in many words:

Audiotactile: (relating to the senses of hearing and touch).

Chemotactile: (the ability of an organism to sense changes to its chemical environment).

Electrotactile: (composed of an array of small electrodes that provide stimulation to the skin).

Entactogen: (the quality of combining mechanosensory (of or pertaining to the sensing of mechanical stimuli) with tactility).

Mechanotactile: (mechanosensory (of or pertaining to the sensing of mechanical stimuli) and tactile).

Orotactile: (of or pertaining to the sense of touch in mouth).

Pedotactile: (that can be felt by the feet).

Pneumotactile: (relating to the skin's ability to feel a pneumatic pulse).

Protactile: (a dialect of ALS (American Sign Language) that communicates with touch).

Tactilometry: (The measurement of touch or of vibration (change in dimension) (tactilometric the adjective).

Teletactile: (relating to the transmission of physical touch over a telecommunication network (teletactility the noun).

Thermotactile: (Sensitive to heat and to touch (but distinct from thermomreactive)).

Visuotactile: (relating to perception by vision and touch).

Vibrotactile: (of, pertaining to, or using vibrotaction (the dynamic response of tactile nerve endings in the skin to vibration)).

Tactile Paving

Examples of tactile pavers.

Tactile graphics (the singular form does exist but is rare and restricted to technical use (software manuals and such)) are raised-surface representations of images, maps, graphs and diagrams designed for individuals who are blind or visually impaired, enabling them to explore (using touch) anything able to be represented thus (physical topography, complex STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) content (cabling diagrams the classic example) spatial layouts, art etc).  Tactile paving was a practical application of tactile graphics, describing a system of textured ground surface indicators (constructed typically using a brightly colored rubberized plastic) permanently affixed to stairs, railway station platforms, the point at which a sidewalk (footpath) ends (the so-called “curb-cut”) and access to a pedestrian road-crossing begins etc.  The concept first appeared in Japan in the mid-1960s and was based on 点字ブロック (tenji (the name for Japanese braille, a system of writing in which letters and some combinations of letters are represented by raised dots arranged in three or four rows of two dots each and are read by the blind and partially sighted using the fingertips; the system was named after French educator Louis Braille (1809–1852))).  Something like “braille writ large” the “tactile paving tiles” are there as a kind of “signage” for the blind or visually-impaired, designed specifically easily to be detectable by shod-feet or a hand-held cane; the system was a major contribution to making the built environment more easily negotiable.  Although the shapes (“blister”, “lozenge”, “ribbed”, “cycleway”, “directional”, “stair” etc) are not quite internationally standardized, within jurisdictions, there is one for railway platforms, one for stairs, one for curb-cuts etc, the latter of importance because there’s sometimes no grade-change between a sidewalk and roadway along which motorized vehicles pass.

Tactile Necrophilia

Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices (2008) by Professor Anil Aggrawal.

In psychiatry, “tactile necrophilia” (a condition in which subjects sexually are aroused by touching or stroking a corpse, without engaging in intercourse) is one of the ten classifications of necrophilia defined by Indian forensic psychologist Professor Anil Aggrawal (b 1956), author of the 438 page Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices (2008), described in a review published in the AAJFC (American Academy Journal of Forensic Sciences) as a “quite remarkable book” and an “authoritative text” in which “Dr Aggrawal deftly brings to bear his 25 years of interest and knowledge of sexual deviancy”.  Within the profession, Dr Aggrawal is considered the leading authority on necrophilia and, as well as being a text book for the profession, Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices is also a valuable contribution to the evolution of the history of how “normal” & “abnormal” have at various times been constructed, one reviewer noting “a enjoyable aspect of this book is Dr Aggrawal’s grasp of ancient references concerning the paraphilias in both religious and historical texts” while another was pleased by the inclusion of “minor aberrant behavior such as coprolalia and troilism.”

The ten classifications are not listed in either the APA’s (American Psychiatric Association) DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) nor the WHO’s (World Health Organization) ICD (International Classification of Diseases), and in the latest edition of the DSM (DSM-5-TR, 2022), a recurrent, intense sexual interest in corpses is classified as diagnosable under “Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder (necrophilia)” when “the cause of marked distress or impairment in important areas of functioning.”  Intriguingly, Professor Aggrawal list his ten headings in order of “increasing severity” meaning an “Exclusive Necrophiliac” (Class X; Those for whom sex with a corpse is an exclusive interest (ie they do not respond to a living partner)) is defined as a more severe condition than that of the “Homicidal Necrophiliac” (Class IX; Necrosadists, those who commit murder in order to have sex with the victim).  Presumably the notion of “severity” explored by Professor Aggrawal is based on a scale where the “total exclusion” of sex with a living human is the “terminal state” and one can see his point but it’s suspected most non-clinicians would regard (certainly on public policy grounds) someone who murders their sexual partners to be a “more severe” state of mental disorder than one who enjoys partners who met their end by other means (acts of God, trauma, murdered by the Freemasons, fatal illness etc).  Still, Professor Aggrawal is thought the world’s “leading authority on necrophilia” so we should defer to his expertise; it should be added his ten categories are to be digested while remembering he is a practicing forensic psychologist, his findings empirical and not theoretical:

Class I: Role players (Those aroused when pretending their partner is dead during sexual activity).

Class II: Romantic necrophiliacs (The bereaved people who remain attached to their dead lover's body).

Class III: Necrophiliac fantasizers (Those who fantasize about necrophilia, but do not physically interact with corpses).

Class IV: Tactile necrophiliacs (Those aroused by touching or stroking a corpse, without engaging in intercourse.

Class V: Fetishistic necrophiliacs (Those who remove objects or body parts from a corpse for sexual fetishes, without engaging in intercourse).

Class VI: Necromutilomaniacs (Those who derive pleasure from mutilating a corpse while masturbating, without engaging in intercourse).

Class VII: Opportunistic necrophiliacs (Those who usually have no interest in necrophilia but avail themselves of the opportunity when presented).

Class VIII: Regular necrophiliacs (Those who preferentially (but not exclusively) have intercourse with the dead).

Class IX: Homicidal necrophiliacs (Necrosadists; those who murder someone to have sex with the victim).

Class X: Exclusive necrophiliacs (Those for whom sex with a corpse is an exclusive interest (ie they do not respond to a living partner)).

Tactility's finest hour: The IBM Model M keyboard.

A triumph of modern industrial design but, in a way, a work of art: 1992 IBM (Blue Label) Model M keyboard.

In the few decades computing has been a mainstream activity, in the layers, at various points, such as been the variety of hardware, operating systems, languages and software, often there's been no general agreement about what’s best in any particular field but most with any exposure to the IBM Model M keyboard agree it’s probably the finest keyboard ever.  Even those not attracted to the tactility that is its most obvious characteristic (and there are those gentle souls who prefer a “squishy” to a “clicky” keyboard) will usually concede the build quality is exceptional, compared especially to some of the flimsy devices in recent years bundled with systems.  It shouldn’t be surprising IBM was able at scale to build something like the Model M keyboard given the company’s decades of experience in engineering such constructions and there are Model M nerds prepared to believe all those years were but preparation for what was required to make the Model M a landmark in tactility.

1973 IBM Selectric with three elements (golfballs).  The striking red was quite rare, staid corporations preferring blue, green and beige. 

IBM (International Business Machines) began in New York in 1888 (adopting the initialism in 1924), its early core-business mechanical “tabulating systems” for accounting and time-keeping and, by the 1930s, some of the mechanical engineering used in these systems was applied to typewriter technology after it acquired the tools, patents and production facilities of Electromatic Typewriters of Rochester.  The first result of an intense R&D (research & development) effort was released in 1935 as the Model 01 IBM Electric Typewriter, the machine that became the first really successful electric typewriter in the US and the beginning of a line which, by 1961, had evolved into the IBM Selectric, famous for its “element” that the rest of the world came to call the “golfball”.  The almost spherical “golfball” (it appears also in some IBM documents as “typeball”) contained the impressions of the letters that struck the ribbon and was interchangeable with others using different font sets.  That was not a new idea, other manufacturers using the principle of interchangeability in the late nineteenth century but with “type wheels” that were larger and tended to be fragile; the three-dimensional “golfball” was both more robust and, having to travel a smaller distance per key stroke, permitting a faster typing rate.  It was with the Selectric the evolution of what became the Model M keyboard really began.

1984 IBM Model F keyboard; the IBM mouse of the era was as ghastly to use as the look suggests.

Though the unit on the 1935 Model 01 Typewriter may be thought the Model M's LCA (last common ancestor), it's the Model F that deserves the honor of parenthood.  The first version of the definitively tactile, stand-alone IBM keyboard was the Model 14 which, although most associated with the original IBM PC-1 released in August 1981, had actually debuted with the System/23 Datamaster (1981-1985), a short-lived corporate workstation that proved a dinosaur, unable to adapt to the strange new world created by the unexpected success of the PC-1 (those in the IBM boardroom as surprised as any).  The adoption by corporations and SMBs (small & medium business) of the PC-1 and its successors was also ultimately the death knell for the earlier 6580 Displaywriter (1980-1986), a hefty and expensive dedicated word-processor (the impact printer usually bundled with the thing so loud most put it in an insulated shroud or a separate room); like the System/23 in the battle of "survival of the fittest", it proved unable to adapt, crowded out of the ecosystem by the rapidly expanding niche created by the PC-1.  In an era when "to be first" was often a great marketplace advantage (enabling critical mass to be gained), the Datamaster's introduction five weeks ahead of the PC-1 wasn't enough for the species to survive although it's Model 14 keyboard was shared with the upstart from which not much had been expected.  The Model 14 debuted with an 83 key layout and the nerdiest of nerds still extol its technical superiority over the Model M in that it uses a buckling spring over a capacitive PCB (printed circuit board) rather than the later membrane.  The Model F remained in production until 1985 (although volumes (by both IBM and Lexmark) had slowed) but it was the platform for innovations such as the revised layout to accommodate the PC-AT's protocols and the availability of specialized models with provision for magnetic stripe readers & inbuilt LCD readouts (both with cable-interfaces to external devices) and as few as 50 or as many as 127 keys (the latter industry-specific).

Custom IBM Model F keyboard with LED module.

Model F aficionados can be a snobby crowd, proud of pointing out even IBM admitted one of the design objectives with the Model M was to reduce manufacturing costs but the attraction is real, the intricacies of the Model F intriguing and their labour-intensive production process does mean nothing like them is likely again to be made.  The internal assembly uses two curved metal back-plates and the PCB is flexible, thus also curved when attached to the back-plate and while just about every other keyboard's curves are simulated by the molding of the keycap profiles, the Model F's curves were integral to the frame, thus allowing all keycaps to be the same shape and size, a great advantage for those who like to tinker and customize.  While freaks customizing keyboards are less frequently found than once they were, they exist still in dark rooms living on pizza and Coca-Cola.  Snobbery or not, the freaks do (up to a point) have a point because the mechanical advantages are real.  The capacitive design is superior, requiring a lighter actuation force, delivering a crisper feel and slightly sharper feedback; it’s also more robust, IBM guaranteeing each key with a MTBF (mean time between failure) of over 100 million key-presses, a reasonable life even for the most productive trolls.  The switch from PCBs to membranes meant these characteristics were to some degree toned down in order to lower manufacturing costs although the MTBF was still rated an impressive 80 million, even a Marcel Proust (1871-1922) unlikely to have worn one out in his lifetime.

IBM user Lindsay Lohan in Life-Size (2000, Walt Disney Television).

Pace the freaks but the Model M is preferable, if for no other reason than simply because it (more-or-less) standardized the core keyboard layout (most others have long conformed) and in use, the tactility is little different from its predecessor.  Regarding the layout, the case can be made that the Model F’s location of the function keys to the left may have made sense but the planet has settled on the Model M's layout and humans adapted.  Introduced in 1985 with the 3161 terminal, the PC-compatible version appeared in 1987 when it was included with the PS/2 range introduced with the OS/2 operating system and MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) bus.  The Model M is a solid (9 lb (4 kg)) tactile experience that feels as solid (and "clicky") as the Model F and users typically have a long time to become accustomed to that feel; the keyboards, some now over 40 years old, appearing not to have a life expectancy, many in continuous use for decades and a servicing ecosystem exists should any parts need to be replaced although it’s said rectifying the consequences of spills (of coffee, red wine, G&Ts etc) is a more common request and, as a general principle, the higher a liquid's sugar content, the more difficult the task.  Black tea or coffee with no sugar is, for many reasons, recommended, keyboard hygiene included.  The best source for the tactile status symbols is ClickyKeyboards.

United States Patent # 4,118,611 Buckling Spring torsional snap actuator. Harris, 1978:

It will be appreciated with regard to the figures that depression of the key button 1 moves the key button and its stem 6 into the housing 3, creating longitudinal compression and lateral deflection of the helical compression spring 2. An initial counter-clockwise moment is exerted on the rocker member 4 which is approximately equal to the force F times the distance between the pivot point 8 of the rocking member 4 and the center line of the spring. The upper end of the helical spring 2 is held squarely against the key button 1 by a clockwise moment created by a force equal to approximately F times the diameter of the spring divided by two. The rocker member 4 will initially be held firmly over the contacts 5A and 5B. As the lateral motion of the center of the helical compression spring 2 increases, both the top and bottom reaction moments in spring 2 are decreased because F is transmitted through the center section of spring 2. Shortly after these moments approach 0, the rocker member rocks to a position squarely over contacts 5A and 5C and the top of spring 2 rocks about the right hand edge of its topmost coil. The constraints upon the depression column spring have changed from an initial end clamped condition to an end clamped-pinned condition. This sudden change provides the tactile response of the key and is accompanied by a sudden rocking action of the rocker member 4 which creates an acoustic feedback as well.

Evolution of the IBM Keyboard layout: Model M, 3161 Terminal (1985) & PS/2 (1987) (top), Model F, PC-AT (1984) (centre) and Model F, PC & XT, (1981) (bottom).

The "buckling spring torsional snap actuator" is the core of the Model M’s charm.  Unlike mechanical switches that are depressed straight down like plungers, the Model M has springs under each key that contract, snap flat, or "buckle," and then spring back into place when released.  This provides the audible “click” so associated with the model and which some don’t like but for those who become accustomed to typing on one, it’s hard to go back to anything else; they have the feel of a pre-modern (circa 1980 and earlier) Mercedes-Benz.  Because of the physicality, typing on a Model M is a tangible experience; like a typewriter, the tactility and the feedback of the click gives every letter a physical presence.

NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) LSLF (Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility).

The LSLF is NASA's repository and laboratory facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston (named after Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 and POTUS 1963-1969 who, as VPOTUS was made titular head of the US space programme, the centrepiece of which was the Apollo project that produced the manned landing on the Moon in July 1969).  Since 1979, the LSLF has housed geologic samples collected from the lunar surface during the Apollo missions (1969-1972).  The facility preserves in a secure vault much of the 842 lb (382 kg) of rocks, dust and such returned to Earth as well as some other material and the associated data records.  The facility also contains "clean-room" laboratories so samples can be processed and studied in a contamination-free environment.

A "NASA office", circa 1989 (given the likely specification of the PC, probably not an engineer's desk), the Model M keyboard doubtlessly still functioning perfectly, the keys as tactile as the day it was built.  The "Luna Trash" bin is a nice piece of nerd humor. 

The LSLF also includes (as a "static exhibit", left), a replica of a room in the Space Center as it was in the late 1980s.  On the desk is Model M keyboard connected to a IBM PS/2 PC that, on the basis of the cropped image, appears to be a Model 30, a "low end" version that would have included either an 8086 (16-bit with 8-bit bus connectivity) or 80286 (16/16) CPU (central processing unit) and in either case would have been built on the AT (Advanced Technology) bus, later known as ISA (Industry Standard Architecture).  Higher end models included the 80386 (32/32 bit) CPU and MCA (Micro Channel Architecture, an early implementation of PnP (plug & play)), some even with the new OS/2 operating system.  For a number of reasons (technological and economic), MCA and OS/2 proved chimeric although OS/2 did become a fabulous beast, lasting in its niche into the twenty-first century and hobbyists still support development on the platform.  The LSLF's PS/2 may be running IBM PC-DOS 4.01, a "bug-fix" of the prematurely-released v4.0 that shipped with "bugs" in the handling of the then novel EMS (Expanded Memory Specification) on non-IBM expansion boards; memory was in the 1980s of great interest as users needed ways to "work-around" DOS's by the infamous 640 kb "addressable limit".  Microsoft "bug-fixed" v4.0 and this was released by IBM as PC-DOS 4.01; while MS-DOS 4.0 was always the "debugged" version, very few copies were shipped so numbered, a "cosmetic release" as 4.01 soon in the channel because of the reputation of v4.0 as "flawed".  Despite that, there's nothing to suggest pristine copies (ie still in shrink-wrap) of MS-DOS 4.0 have become even a minor collector's item.

Luna rock samples for touch in the LSLF.

Also in the LSLF is a display of the world's only eight lunar rocks (some nearly four billion years old), able to be touched by visitors.  Actually, as anyone at NASA cheerfully would admit, that exercise in lunar tactility may be a more common experience than advertised because there are many “Moon rocks” (and much dust) on or under the Earth’s surface; what distinguishes those on display in the LSLF is they are “certified” as having travelled here in the care of an Apollo craft’s astronauts.  Lacking a protective atmosphere, as the many craters testify, the Moon has been hit by many objects, the larger with such energy that fragments of lunar material have been ejected at a speed sufficient to exceed the “escape velocity” imposed by gravity (less than 2.5 km/s); Earth being the Moon’s near neighbour, some of those fragments travelled on an Earth-crossing trajectory and have fallen to the surface as lunar meteorites.  This process is ongoing and many have been identified, especially in Antarctica and desert regions where they’re relatively easy to recognise; chemically and isotopically they carry markers and these distinctive characteristics can be compared with the Apollo and other Luna samples.  Geologists note that of the volume of the stuff on Earth, much will never be identified because (1) so much lands (as we say) in the oceans (some 70% of our planet’s surface), (2) some will be buried deep, (3) processes over time will have incorporated much into Earth's geological cycle to the point the material visually is indistinguishable visually from terrestrial rocks and (4) some material may over millions or billions of years have been weathered into dust or metamorphosed.  What does however distinguish what’s on display to touch at the LSLF is “guaranteed purity”, the lunar material ending up “naturally” on Earth in a sense “infected” by “local contamination”.

Laurel

Laurel (pronounced lawruhl or lor-uhl)

(1) A small European evergreen tree, Laurus nobilis, of the Lauraceae family, having dark, glossy green leaves (known also as the bay tree or sweet bay).  Trees & shrubs belonging to (or resembling) the natural order Lauraceae are said to be lauraceous.  When used as an adjective (not in the strict botanical sense), the comparative is more lauraceous, the superlative most lauraceous.

(2) Any tree of the genus Laurus.

(3) In general use, any of various similar trees or shrubs, as the mountain laurel or the great rhododendron.

(4) The foliage of the laurel as an emblem of victory or distinction.

(5) A branch or wreath of laurel foliage.

(6) In the plural (laurels or victory laurels), an award conferred (literally or figuratively) as an honor for achievement in some field or activity.

(7) An English gold coin minted in 1619, so called because the king's head was crowned with laurel.

(8) In many color charts, a green of a darker hue.

(9) To adorn or enwreathe with laurel.

(10) To honor with marks of distinction.

(11) A female given name (there have been rare instances of male use, including as a "second name" referencing some relative).

1250–1300: A dissimilated variant of the Middle English laurer (laurel), from the Anglo-Norman, from the twelfth century Old French laurier & lorier (bay tree; laurel tree), the construct being lor (bay) + -ier, from the Medieval Latin laurārius, from the Latin laurus (laurel tree), thought related to the Greek daphne (laurel), probably from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language.  The French suffix -ier was from the Middle French -ier & -er, from the Old French, from the Latin -ārium, the accusative of -ārius.  It was used to form the names of trees, ships, jobs etc.  The second -r- in the Middle English laurer changed to -l- by process of dissimilation.  Laurel & laureate are nouns & verbs, laureateship & laurustinus are nouns, laureled & laurelled are verbs & adjectives and lauriferous & lauraceous are adjectives; the noun plural is laurels.

Lindsay Lohan fridge magnet by Alexanton.  Laurel Hollow is an incorporated village in Nassau County on the North Shore of Long Island, New York, within the Town of Oyster Bay (where Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; POTUS 1901-1909) died).

The use to describe an emblem of victory or of distinction (hence the phrase “to rest on one’s laurels” (the original form was “repose upon”)) dates from 1831.  The phrase is now used used in the cautionary sense “don’t rest on your laurels”, a warning not to rely on a reputation gained through past successes but instead continue to strive and improve.  The companion phrase “look to your laurels” is an idiomatic expression (known in Antiquity) meaning one needs to be vigilant and attentive to one's accomplishments, skills or position because there will be those eager to surpass or outshine you.  Like “don’t rest on your laurels”, it stresses the importance of maintaining one’s competitive edge.  It was a bay leaf from a laurel shrub that Πυθία (Pythia, priestess of Pythian Apollo at Delphi) chewed during her prophetic trances.

Sirens and the Night (1865) by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Although most associated with women (the feminine variants including Laura, Lauren, Lori and Lorraine), Laurel is a unisex given name.  It was related to the German Lorelie and in Germanic mythology there were several tales of the lovely maiden Lorelei (luring rock) who lived upon a rock in the River Rhine.  She lured fishermen to their deaths by singing songs of such beauty they couldn't resist, a variation of the stories of the Sirens in Greek mythology.  The Sirens were legendarily beautiful but deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, the intrigued seafarers would sail too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be shipwrecked, there to suffer a worse fate still at the hands of the hungry Sirens.  In Homer's Odyssey (an epic poem from perhaps as long ago as the eighth century BC), it was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but, forewarned by Circe and having no wish to be shipwrecked and devoured, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Then, he ordered he be tied to the mast, telling his crew that whatever he said, they were not to release him but instead tighten the knots, not cutting the bonds until the ship had sailed far from the coast.  Of course, approaching the rocks, he heard the lovely voices and implored the crew to release him but they followed their skipper’s orders, not setting him free until the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were doomed to die if a man heard their singing and escaped and, as Odysseus sailed off, they flung themselves into the waters and drowned but, among the myths, that was not always their fate.  Not untypically for the myths of Antiquity, the Sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs and thus for ships potentially lethal places although the fate of sailors was more gruesome, the Sirens devouring them.  The Argonauts sailed close to the Sirens, but, using the same principle as “radio jamming” in the twentieth century, Orpheus sang as long as the crew was within earshot of them (“drowning out their signal”), so none were lured (except the unfortunate Butes, carried away by Aphrodite after he fell victim).

#metoo: Apolo persiguiendo a Dafne (Apollo chasing Daphne (circa 1637)), oil on canvas by Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The feminine proper name Daphne was from the Greek daphne (laurel, bay tree) and in mythology was the name of a nymph.  Etymologists conclude the word is related to the Latin laurus (laurel) although the mechanism has been lost in time.  In Greek mythology, Δάφνη (Daphne), daughter of the River Ladon (and sometimes of the Thessalian River Peneus), was a nymph with whom the God Apollo fell in love; he was provoked by Cupid, having disputed with him the power of his darts which Apollo, the recent conqueror of the Python, belittled.  When he pursued her to the banks of the Peneus, she was saved from being ravished by the god who transformed her into a Laurel tree, the origin of Apollo being so often depicted crowned with laurel leaves.  None of the writers from Antiquity seem ever to have pondered whether the nymph, had she been offered time to consider the choice between being ravished by a Greek god or becoming eternally arboreous, might have preferred to permit a slice be cut from the loaf.  While at the time not of much consolation to the unfortunate Daphne, Apollo ordained that the laurels should be the prize for poets and victors and, being, at least briefly, a sentimental chap, Apollo adopted the laurel as his favorite tree so there’s that.  The site of temples and a stadium, the Grove of Daphne was a pleasure resort of renowned natural beauty, dedicated to Apollo and located near Antioch.  

Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625), sculpture in white Carrara marble by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Being a Greek myth, there are of course variants in the tales and in a Laconian version, Daphne was the daughter of Amyclas who spent her days among the mountains where she was a favourite of Artemis.  From afar, Leucippus fell in love with her and, disguising himself as a girl, joined her companions.  Daphne became fond of him (thinking him a her), but Apollo became jealous and vowing to expose his trickery, inspired Daphne and her companions with a wish to bathe.  Leucippus, obviously, hesitated to remove his clothing, but his companions forcibly undressed him and, feeling betrayed upon discovering his identity, they attacked him, his life saved only by the gods rendering him invisible.  At this point, Apollo dashed to try to seize Daphne but she ran off and in answer to her prayer, Zeus turned her into a laurel.  Latter-day interpretations of Daphne's fate have differed.  While her name lives on as a tragic hero (the girl who gave up her life rather than succumb to a sexual assault) some feminists have criticized the notion that a victim of such a crime should be transformed into something silent and thus uncomplaining.

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) in a “laurel leaves” hat designed by Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018), photograph by Howell Conant (1916–1999), Switzerland, February 1962.

As an adjective, laureate (crowned with laurels as a mark of distinction) dates from the late fourteenth century and the earliest reference was to poets of particular distinction, from the Latin laureatus (crowned with laurel), from laurea (laurel crown; emblematic of victory or distinction in poetry), from the feminine laureus (of laurel).  The first known use of Laureat poete is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s (circa 1344-1400) Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) in reference to Scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), and it was used in Middle English of Greek fabulist Aesop (circa 620–564 BC) and, by the early fifteenth century of Chaucer himself.

In English the inverted form “poet laureate” was in imitation of Latin word order and although used informally since the early 1400s, the evidence suggests the first appointed by the state was probably (and perhaps posthumously) Ben Jonson (circa 1572–circa 1637) in 1638 although the first for whom the letters patent remain extant was John Dryden (1631–1700).  In the UK, the position of poet laureate is an honorary office in the gift of the sovereign but in these days, appointed on the advice of the prime minister; because few prime-ministers know much of poetry, they too take advice on the matter; in that, it's similar to the appointment of bishops, most prime ministers knowing as little of religion.  Curiously, although the office is not un-remunerated, the government describes it still as an “honorary appointment”, the advantage of that being summary dismissal is a simpler process should the poet start writing material unpleasing to the party in power.  It may be more correct to call it a kind of sinecure because while the expectation is the appointee will compose verse to mark moments of national significance, such things are not defined and nor are aspects such as frequency or length.  So it’s one of those “gentlemen’s agreements” which, as late as the 1950s was still a feature of the way the establishment ran the UK.  That would have extended also to Dame Carol Ann Duffy (b 1955, poet laureate 2009-2019), thus far the only woman appointed (she had the benefit of ticking several boxes for Gordon Brown (b 1951; prime minister of the UK 2007-2010): Scottish; female; lesbian).  Just for once, Gordon's stars aligned.

Opportunity missed: Dylan Thomas (1914–1953, left) and his wife Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara; 1913-1994, right) in the bar of Brown’s Hotel, Laugharne, Wales, 1938.

For his laureateship, Dryden's was paid an annual fee of Stg£200, the inclusion in 1630 by the doomed Charles I (1600–1649; King of England, Scotland & Ireland 1625-1649) of an annual “butt of Canary wine”, later converted into the monetary equivalent.  A butt of wine (known also as “a pipe”) had a volume of 105 imperial gallons (126 US gallons, 477 litres) and was part of the English standardized “Cask Measurement System” regulating trade in liquids between brewers, distillers, merchants and shippers.  All graduations of the defined sizes of wooden barrels were fractions of the largest standard cask (the “tun” (210 imperial gallons (252 US gallons, 954 litres)) with a butt a half-tun and a “hogshead” half a butt (52 imperial gallons (63 US gallons, 238 litres)).  However, being English, the system was complicated by a butt of ale or beer being defined as 108 imperial gallons (130 US gallons, 491 litres).  As a unit of measurement the butt was the origin of the slang term “buttload”.  The tradition of the “butt of Canary wine” was revived on the request of Ted Hughes (1930–1998; poet laureate 1984-1998) who received 720 bottles of sherry.  Being Irish, the poet Brendan Behan (1923-1964) wouldn't have been created poet laureate but the government avoided a significant charges against the exchequer by not appointing Dylan Thomas for whom 720 bottles of anything would likely not have proved sufficient.

Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017, Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2009).  The peace prize is awarded by a committee elected by the Norwegian Stortinget (parliament); it summarized the basis of their decision being President Obama's: “...extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”  Those skilled in deconstruction concluded the true rationale was “He is not George W. Bush” (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009)).

The poet laureate's annual payment is now “Stg£5,750 and a barrel of sherry” so it’s good gig considering there are no set hours and only the vaguest KPIs (key performance indicators).  There was a time when a poet laureate was an exalted figure but these days there’s less interest and the best remembered probably still is Ted Hughes (1930–1998; poet laureate 1984-2008) and that less for his oeuvre than calls by feminists to boycott his works because he had Sylvia Plath’s (1932-1963) “blood on his quill”.  The noun laureate came into existence in the 1520s, either as an evolution from the adjective or through a mistaken reading and laureateship has been in use since 1732.  In modern use, laureate is most frequently applied to Nobel prize winners, a use that began in 1947; while many of the Nobel laureates have been outstanding figures in their field, there have been a few about as undeserving as some of the less distinguished British poets laureate.  Of the 21 who have held the office, serious critics seem to rate only Dryden, William Wordsworth (1770–1850; poet laureate 1843-1850) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; poet laureate 1850-1892) as first-rate poets.

The laurel appeared in Hymn to Proserpine (1866), a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) exploring atheism, a theme to which he would on occasion return as he developed in verse his increasingly strident opposition to Christianity in general and stifling Victorian morality particularly.  Nominated every year between 1903 and 1909 for the Nobel Prize in Literature, his name was on the list in 1893 presented to Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) as the replacement for Tennyson as Poet Laureate but the queen vetoed him “on moral grounds” although it’s not known if she’d read or merely been told about his works discussing sado-masochism and lesbian longings.  Swinburne was of a figure of the post-Romantic disillusionment and a part of the sceptical tradition that would emerge in the nineteenth century to grow to a critical mass in the twentieth; even if not familiar with his most “disturbing” verse, Hymn to Proserpine, an address to Proserpina (in Rome, the goddess of the Underworld), lamenting that the rise of Christianity had displaced the pagan goddess and her pantheon, would alone have been enough to incur royal disapprobation.

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has
   grown grey from Thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the
   fullness of death.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives
   not May.

The meaning is that both romantic love and artistic fame are fleeting, fragile, and bound to fade, the work a pagan perspective rejecting the idea of eternal life or permanent earthly glory.  In saying “Laurel is green for a season”, the leaves exist in their traditional symbolic role celebrating poetic glory, victory and cultural achievement but as “Love is sweet for a day”, while human affection can briefly be thrillingly intense, notoriously is it brief and transitory.  Just as “love grows bitter with treason” with relationships easily and often turned toxic by a betrayal or shift in faith, the “laurel outlives not May” and like spring flowers, fame dies quickly when the cultural season shifts and fashions change.  Nothing lasts forever and even the highest artistic achievements will one day dissolve into nothingness: Man can write his will across the heavens but those stars will soon dim and fall.  Swinburne found comfort not in an afterlife, but in the total, final darkness granted by Proserpine, the goddess of death.  Charmingly, Christians and pagans alike would both concur with the scriptural “Vanity, vanity, vanity of vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) although each would draw different conclusions, the former in eternal life, the latter in peaceful oblivion.  As a footnote, Hymn to Proserpine includes cross-rhyme (known also as an interlaced rhyme) a device occurring in long couplets, the device operating on words in the middle of each line (here “season” and “treason”).

Sketch

Sketch (pronounced skech)

(1) A simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details, later to be elaborated.

(2) A rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.

(3) A brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences etc.

(4) As thumbnail sketch, a piece of text which summaries someone or something.

(5) A short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.

(6) A short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a variety or vaudeville program; a short comedy routine (a skit).

(7) To make a sketch.

(8) To summarize, to set forth in a brief or general account.

(9) In metallurgy, to mark a piece of metal for cutting.

(10) In music, a short evocative instrumental piece, used especially with compositions for the piano.

(11) In the slang of the Irish criminal class, as “to keep (a) sketch), to maintain a lookout; to be vigilant; watch for something.

(12) In journalism, as parliamentary sketch, a newspaper article summarizing political events which attempts to make serious points in a lest than obviously serious manner (mostly UK).

(13) In category theory, a formal specification of a mathematical structure or a data type described in terms of a graph and diagrams (and cones (and cocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models” (functors) which are graph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams become commutative, the cones become limiting (ie products) and the cocones become colimiting (ie sums).

1660–1670: From the Dutch schets (noun), from the Italian schizzo, from the Latin schedium (extemporaneous poem), noun use of neuter of schedius (extempore; hastily made), from the Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios) (made suddenly, off-hand, unprepared), from σχεδόν (skhedón) (near, nearby), from ἔχω (ékhō) (I hold).  The German Skizze, the French esquisse & the Spanish esquicio are also from the Italian schizzo.  Sketch,  sketcher, sketchist & sketchiness are nouns, verb & adjective, sketching is a noun & verb, sketched is a verb, sketchlike, sketchy, sketchier, sketchiest & sketchable are adjectives, and sketchily & sketchingly are adverbs; the noun plural is sketches.  When a sketcher (or sketchist) sketches their sketches, they appear often in a sketchbook.

Six photographs of Lindsay Lohan, rendered in software as pencil sketches.

Sketch became a verb in the 1660s in the sense of “present the essential facts of" and was derived from the earlier noun. This idea of a sketch as a “brief account” by 1789 had enlarged to a "short play or performance, usually comic", still maintaining the connection from art as something less than full-scale, the reference to comedy suggesting something slight rather than a serious work.  The sketch-book was first recorded in 1820.  That sense extended beyond text to art and design from 1725 when it came also to mean "draw, portray in outline and partial shading", firstly to describe simple drawings, referring later to preparatory work for more elaborate creations.  The adjective sketchy is noted from 1805, describing art “having the form or character of a sketch".  The colloquial sense of "unsubstantial, imperfect, flimsy" is from 1878, possibly to convey the sense of something "unfinished".  Adumbrate (faint sketch, imperfect representation), actually pre-dates sketch, noted first in the 1550s.  It was from the Latin adumbrationem (nominative adumbratio) (a sketch in shadow, sketch, outline).  The meaning "to overshadow" is from the 1660s at which time emerged the derived forms adumbrated and adumbrating and related forms are adumbration (noun), adumbrative (adjective) and adumbratively (adverb).

Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), illustrated by George Cruikshank (1792–1878).

Charles Dickens' first book, Sketches by “Boz” was a collection of 56 short pieces, originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833-1836. They were re-issued in a two-volume set in 1836 with a single edition appearing in 1839.  Very different from the work with which Dickens most is associated, the theme of 56 sketches was the people and scenes of London (the built environment best understood also as a “character” in the narratives.  Divided into four sections (Our Parish, Scenes, Characters & Tales), the first three contained non-narrative pen-portraits while the final wholly was fictional.  In Sketches by “Boz”, there are passages which constitute classic “thumbnail sketches” (in literature, concise, vivid descriptions (classically in a single paragraph of no more than a few sentences) that captures the fundamental essence, appearance, or personality of a character, setting or scene).  The term was a borrowing from the visual arts, where a thumbnail sketch was a quickly composed, rough drawing to map out an idea, the notion being it looked “sketchy enough to have been drawn by the artist's thumb”.  In both graphics and text, the shared definition was an entire concept rendered by the depiction of its most recognizable and striking elements with no extraneous detail.

The sketch (a short, often topical comedic performance) quickly became a staple of television variety shows and such productions have (thankfully) declined in number, the format is still used.  In literary theory, there are two basic categories of sketch: (1) a short prose piece (perhaps between one to two thousand words) which tends to be of the descriptive kind once most associated with newspapers and magazines (and still often appearing in the latter).  In newspapers, one notable survivor is the “parliamentary sketch” in which some (often anecdotal) “color” is added to political reporting.  A feature of British political journalism since the 1700s when the reporting of the antics of politicians was more restricted (to avoid the truth being told about the lies they told, that strategy seen still in the laws of defamation in some jurisdictions), many of the early parliamentary sketches used pseudonyms for those described and the art of a fine sketch writer was providing just enough for the well-informed reader to “read between the lines”.  In literary use, because of the nature of the form, stylistically some sketches could overlap with the short story and there's is little point attempting to be prescriptive about where one ends and the other begins; the classic example of a sketch was Charles Dickens's Sketches by "Boz", a series of sketches of life and manners.  (2) A brief dramatic piece of the kind one might find in a revue or as a curtain raiser or as part of some other kind of theatrical entertainment, exemplars being Harold Pinter's (1930-2008) Request Stop, Last to Go & Special Offer, performed in the revue Pieces of Eight, which opened at the Apollo Theatre, London, in September 1959.  For better or worse, ambitious monologists including Ruth Draper (1884-1956) and Joyce Grenville (1910-1979) extended the concept of the sketch into a particular dramatic form described as "a kind of monodrama".  Nor were sketches dependent on oral delivery, the solo mime artist Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) sometimes referring to his performances as un sketch dramatique (a dramatic sketch).

Sketches of Spain

Although not yet regarded as the landmark in jazz it would come to be in the decades which followed its release in 1959, even in 1960 Miles Davis’s (1926-1991) Kind of Blue had already created among some aficionados an expectation; realising it was something special, this was what they hoped would be the definitive Davis style and they were anxious for more.  The next release however, wasn’t indicative of what was to come, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960 Cat# Prestige P-7166) was the third of four albums assembled from sessions recorded long before the Kind of Blue sessions and released to fulfil contractual obligations to the independent label Prestige.  Although some purists were pleased, after Kind of Blue, the music seemed old-fashioned.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8163).

Davis had enjoyed considerable success in the 1950s but, needing the distribution and promotional network of a major label to reach a wider audience, he’d signed with Colombia (CBS internationally).  The early Colombia releases had been well received but it was the sixth, Kind of Blue, which made him a star beyond the world of jazz, the album selling in volumes unprecedented in the genre; to date, over four million copies are said to have been shipped.  Davis had been innovative before, his performance at the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival defining what had come to be called “hard bop” (a flavor of jazz influenced by other forms, especially rhythm and blues) but the appeal extended little beyond already established audiences.  What made Kind of Blue so significant was that Davis effectively invented modal jazz which shifted the technique from one where the players worked within a set chord progression to soloists creating melodies using modes which could be deployed alone or in multiples.  Musicians explain the significance of this as a movement to the horizontal (the scale) rather than the traditional vertical (the chord).  In the somewhat insular world of jazz, that would anyway have been interesting but the sound captivated those beyond and was a landmark in what would come to be known as musical fusion, the cross-fertilisation of sound and technique.  Among composers, fusion was nothing new but Kind of Blue realised its implications in a tight, seductive package.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8271).

Sketches of Spain too was a fusion but it was different to what had come before and was no attempt to be "Kind of Blue II".  For one thing, the sound was big, recorded in the famously cavernous converted church in Manhattan which for decades was Colombia’s recording studio.  Lined with old timber and with a ceiling which stretched 100 feet (30 m) high, technicians called it the “temple of sound” because of the extraordinary acoustic properties.  The ensemble too was big, a necessity because this time the fusion was with the orchestral, the long opening track an arrangement by Davis and Gil Evans (1912-1988) of the adagio movement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s (1901-1999) guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez  (1939).  Such was the extent of the fusion there were traditionalists who doubted Sketches of Spain could still be called jazz; they saluted the virtuosity but seemed to miss the sometimes arcane complexities in construction inaccessible except to the knowing few.

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970, CBS, Cat# S 66236).

The wider world however was entranced and technical progress needs also to be noted.  Colombia had recorded Davis before in the then still novel stereo but even fans acknowledged the mono pressings remained superior and it wasn’t until 1960, after extensive testing and the refinement of equipment that the technique had been perfected.  Sketches of Spain was lush or austere as the moment demanded, listeners new to stereo especially enchanted at being able to hear the sounds hanging in a three-dimensional space, each instrument a distinct object in time and place.  Nobody asked for mono after that.  Influential as it was, to Davis, Sketches of Spain was just another phase.  Ten years later, noting the increasingly sparse audiences in jazz clubs and aware a new generation had different sensibilities, Davis would fuse with other, more recent traditions and Bitches Brew would cast his shadow over a new decade.  A footnote to the change of direction Bitches Brew flagged came with the release of material from Davis's performance at the Isle of Wight Festival (1970) which included, inter alia, a 17 minute passage substantially from the album.  Noting the discursiveness, producers from Columbia contacted Davis and asked him what the piece should be titled.  "Call it anything" he told them, repeating the answer he'd given to the musicians at the Festival who had asked him what he was about to play.  Liking that, Colombia's literalists included the track Call it Anything when the album The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies (1971) was released.