Meek

Meek (pronounced meek)

(1) Humbly patient or docile, as under provocation from others.

(2) Overly submissive or compliant; spiritless; tame.

(3) Gentle; kind (obsolete).

(4) As meeked, to take a stallion from a state of wild rebellion and make it completely loyal to, and dependent upon, his master (obsolete).

1150-1200: From the Middle English meek, meke & meoc, a borrowing from the Old Norse mjūkr (soft; mild; meek; amenable), from the Proto-Germanic meukaz & mūkaz (soft; supple), from the primitive Indo-European mewg- & mewk- (slick; slippery; to slip).  It was cognate with the Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk mjuk (soft), the Norwegian Bokmål (myk) (soft), the Danish myg (supple), the Dutch muik (soft, overripe) and the dialectal German mauch (dry and decayed; rotten).  It can be compared with the Old English smūgan (to slide, slip), the Welsh mwyth (soft, weak), the Latin ēmungō (to blow one's nose), the Tocharian A muk- (to let go, give up), the Lithuanian mùkti (to slip away from), the Old Church Slavonic мъчати (mŭčati) (to chase), the Ancient Greek μύσσομαι (mússomai) (to blow the nose) and the Sanskrit मुञ्चति (muñcati) (to release, let loose).  Meek is a verb & adjective, meeker, meeking, meeked & meeken are verbs, meekish & meekest are adjectives, meekly is an adverb and meekness is a noun; the noun plural is meeknesses.  Despite the occasional appearance, meaknessness remains a non-standard noun.  

Blessed are the meek

The positive sense of meek implies someone is able to remain calm and subdued even when being provoked. Its negative use is more common and describes someone too passive; the sense of “gentle and kind” is long obsolete.  The word meek is often associated with Christian virtue because it became famous due to its use (Matthew 5:5) in the Biblical Beatitudes (the construct being the Latin beatus (very simple, happy) + the Latin abstract noun suffix to produce beatitudo; the beatitudes thus literally “the happiness”), a collection of practical ethical statements to help one live a happy life.  Matthew 5:5 is the third verse of the Sermon on the Mount (and the third of the Beatitudes).  In the King James Version (KJV, 1611) of the Bible, the text reads “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” whereas newer translations tend to prefer “Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth”, an example of the way translators need to update texts to ensure meaning is maintained, their techniques cognizant of sense-shifts in words. 

The translator’s choice of “meek” in the KJV has been the cause of angst for centuries, especially among those who favour a more muscular Christianity.  Swiss Biblical scholar Eduard Schweizer (1913–2006) held that rather than meaning ”humble or modest”, "meek" should be understood to mean “powerless” and there were antecedents to that view. Theologian James Strong (1822–1894) argued the Greek word praus (πραεῖς) means "mild or gentle" but this does not imply weakness, instead referencing the way in which power is handled; it is "strength under control", the demonstration of power without undue harshness.  The English language has no one word or even convenient phrase conveying both gentleness and power together, a point noted by many scholars to explain the frequency with which "mercy" and "merciful" appear in scripture.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

In the Greek literature of the period, “meek” most often meant gentle or soft but historians and etymologists of the age tend to agree the most accurate interpretation for this verse is “powerless”.  The modern debate long ago assumed a political flavour; Gandhi liked it, seemingly unconcerned whether translated as “meek” or “powerless” but Friedrich Nietzsche was sternly critical, both words to him encapsulating what he damned as the "slave morality" of Christ.  The angst seems however to be a modern thing.  The great theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo thought the beatitudes a self-portrait of Christ, the Gospels from beginning to end a demonstration of the meekness of Christ in its dual aspect of humility and patience, Jesus himself the model of meekness.  As in life so it had to be in death.  On the cross, St Augustine noted, the true victory does not consist in making victims of others but in making oneself a victim: Victor quia victim (victor becomes victim).  In the modern era, victimhood can for many reasons be a thing though the sense Augustine meant now has little appeal.  

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).

Theologically though, St Augustine must be right because, for Christianity to avoid internal contradiction there can be no other view.  That was never likely to appeal to Nietzsche who, even before he went mad (something of a calling among German philosophers), argued that in preaching humility and meekness, turning the other cheek, Christianity introduced a stultifying poison into humanity which destroyed its élan and mortified life.  After Auschwitz, something of an industry has existed to absolve Nietzsche from every accusation, many essentially suggesting he was not against Christ, only against Christians but some remained unconvinced.  French anthropological philosopher René Girard (1923–2015) still thought Nietzsche offered only the two absolute alternatives: paganism or Christianity, the former exalting the sacrifice of the weak for the benefit of the strong and the advancement of life, the latter the sacrifice of the strong for the benefit of the weak.

Augustine and Nietzsche may both have been wrong; it seems it is the geeks who have inherited the Earth: Mark Zuckerberg (b 1984, left), Bill Gates (b 1955, centre) and Elon Musk (b 1971, right).

The line "blessed are the geeks for they shall inherit the earth” is one of many variants of the Biblical phrase.  Appearing in her first collection The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), the last three stanzas of Sylvia Plath’s (1932-1963) poem Mushrooms reads:

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
 
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
 
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

The imagery in the work is of mushrooms silently emerging from the earth, stealthily and inexorably taking over the environment.  As an allegory that could of course have been something political and it certainly wasn’t about mycology, scholars concluding, being Sylvia Plath, it was a comment on the insidious nature of women's oppression, the triumph of the fungi dangling the possibility of resistance and liberation.  So female agency, suppressed by patriarchal hegemony, will be realized as the meek arise and quietly proliferate, the gradualism of the process meaning men won’t realize it’s happening until one day, the demand for equality proves irresistible.  Sylvia Plath had really bad luck in her choice of men.

Technically, Mushrooms was written in syllabic form, the meter determined by the number of syllables per line; in this case five, with two or three stresses and the structure (eleven three-lined stanzas (tercets)) was typical of her approach.  Most eye-catching was her use of enjambment, a technique in which a clause is split at the line or even stanza break to maintain the syllable count.  What enjambment did was continue a sentence from one verse line to the next without a punctuated pause, compelling the reader to scan on uninterrupted if the flow is to be preserved.  That sounds like a dictatorial edict imposed just so the math of the structure can be preserved but, done well, it means the narrative flow is continuous, allowing a leitmotif to be maintained over several lines, something which could be lost were conventional punctuation to be used; even over a few lines with a relative handful of words, a train of thought can be lost.  In Mushrooms, the metronomic effect is one of a quiet but relentless build-up to revolution.

Triple-Face Portrait by Sylvia Plath (circa 1951) tempera on paper, The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Although now commonly associated with modern, free-form poetry, enjambment is an old technique, appearing sometimes in the epic poems of Ancient Greece dating from as long ago as the eighth century BC and over the centuries, although the fashion for it came and went, as a deliberate stylistic tool it never vanished, poets seemingly like it as a piece of “light & shade”, contrasting with the more frequent end-stopping of the formal meter.  In the Medieval to Early Modern period, (especially in Latin and early vernaculars), because there was such an emphasis on meter and rhyme, instances of enjambment became less common but it was never wholly absent.  In the Renaissance there was a great revival of interest in the Classical world which led to early Modern English making greater use of enjambment in an attempt to emulate the fluid, expressive verse of the Ancients and this was something continued by the Romantic poets because of their quest for naturalistic rhythms of speech.  In the twentieth century, the modernists took to enjambment to create a long continuous flow which suddenly and jarringly would end, echoing what composers were doing with orchestral and later electronic pieces.

Of the variants, the best known may be: “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights”, attributed to US oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty (1892-1976).  Like a few oft-quoted fragments from many, no primary source (speeches, recordings, documents etc) proving the words came from his pen or lips has ever been identified but the quote often is cited in dictionaries, history texts and biographies and certainly it was a dictum the oilman never disowned, few doubting it reflected his world view.  More troubling was: “Blessed are the meek, for they make easy targets” which appeared in the diary of a protagonist in the videogame Postal (1997) a TDS (top-down shooter, a sub-set of the class “Shoot 'em ups” (known also as STGs or shmups) and a sub-genre of action games) in which the central character commits mass-murder with a variety of weapons of increasingly lethality.  Even in 1997 it was a controversial game but whether a line like: “Blessed are the meek, for they make easy targets” still has the capacity to shock is doubtful because, in the US, mass-shootings of civilians (including young children in their classrooms) have become so frequent news of another has just become part of the orthodoxy of modern life, echoing the idea of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who, as the death toll in World War II (1939-1945) rose observed: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

Wonder

Wonder (pronounced wuhn-der)

(1) To think or speculate curiously.

(2) To be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel (often followed by at).

(3) Something strange and surprising; a cause of surprise, astonishment, or admiration.

(4) The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration.

(5) A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon.

(6) As a modifier, exciting wonder by virtue of spectacular results achieved, feats performed etc; wonder drug; wonder horse; seven wonders of the ancient world etc.

Pre 900: A Middle English nouns wonder & wunder from the Old English wundor (marvelous thing, miracle, object of astonishment), from the Proto-Germanic wundrą.  It was cognate with the Scots wunner (wonder), the West Frisian wonder & wûnder (wonder, miracle), the Dutch wonder (miracle, wonder), the Low German wunner & wunder (wonder), the German Wunder (miracle, wonder), the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish under (wonder, miracle), the Icelandic undur (wonder) and the Old Norse undr (wonder).  In Middle English, by the late thirteenth century, it came also to mean the emotion associated with such a sight.  The original wonder drug (1939) was Sulfanilamide, one of the first generation of sulfonamide antibiotics and best known as M&B (after the British manufacturer May & Baker); it was later largely superseded by penicillin and other sulfonamides.  The verb (derivative of the noun), was from the Middle English wondren & wonderen, from the Old English wundrian (be astonished; admire; make wonderful, magnify), from the Proto-Germanic wundrōną.  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian wunnerje, the West Frisian wûnderje, the Dutch wonderen, the German Low German wunnern, the German wundern, the Old High German wuntaron and the Swedish & Icelandic undra.  The sense of "entertain some doubt or curiosity" dates from the late thirteenth century.

Exactly or vaguely synonymous are conjecture, meditate, ponder, question, marvel, surprise, amazement, bewilderment, awe, scepticism, reverence, fascination, confusion, shock, admiration, doubt, astonishment, curiosity, uncertainty, surprise, fear, phenomenon, oddity, miracle, spectacle & speculate.  The noun wonderment is a noun has been in use since the 1530s while wonderful was drawn from the late Old English wunderfoll and wondrous emerged circa 1500, derived (it would seem) from the Middle English adjective wonders which was first noted in the early fourteenth century, originally genitive of the noun wonder, the suffix altered by the influence of such as marvelous etc; it existed as an adverb from the 1550s, the evolution related to wondrously & wondrousness.  Wonder is a noun & verb, wonderer & wonderment are nouns, wonderless is an adjective, wondrous is an adjective & adverb, wonderful is an adjective & adverb (and a non-standard noun) and wondrously is an adverb; the noun plural is wonders. 

The Wonderbra

The “wonder” in the portmanteau word Wonderbra underwent a bit of a meaning shift, decades after the product was released.  Although best-known for the illusory enhancement the structural engineering made possible, “wonder” was originally an allusion to the comfort offered compared with the usually more uncompromising alternatives of the time.  Wonderbra, marketed with an emphasis on the practicality and comfort made possible by innovations in construction, was first trademarked in 1939 by the Canadian Lady Corset Company and was for some years available only in Canada.  Not trademarked in the US until 1955, it wasn’t until 1961 (with the model 1300) that the now familiar, gravity-defying, design was released.

Even then, although the 1300 became the brand’s most popular product, it was thirty years before worldwide success was realized; although it had been on sale in the UK since 1964, sales boomed only in 1992, a success repeated in Europe the next season.  The Wonderbra was launched in the US in 1994 and, assisted by a minimalist advertising campaign featuring Czech model Eva Herzigová (b 1973), became not only a best-seller but part of the cultural lexicon.  The engineering of the Wonderbra wasn’t difficult to emulate and other manufacturers released clones, each with a portmanteau at least as suggestive of “wonder” as it had come to be understood in this context, Gossard offering an Ultrabra and Victoria's Secret a Miracle Bra.  Wonderbra responded to the competition with a novel technical innovation, the Air Wonder, inflatable for "high altitude cleavage".  Included with the Air Wonder was a mini-pump, small enough to fit in a handbag and be thus available for adjustments as circumstances demanded.

Wonderment: Lindsay Lohan as an enhanced Hermione Granger (a fictional character in JK Rowling's (b 1965) Harry Potter series), Saturday Night Live (season 29 episode 18), 1 May 2004.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The pyramid today: it's the only of the seven wonders which still stands.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in 2570 BC and still stands, debate continuing about how it was built, how long the construction took and how many workers were required.  Built as a tomb for the fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu, it was part of a complex which included temples and many smaller pyramids.  Originally, the outermost stones were a highly polished white limestone, many of which were loosened by an earthquake some 600 years ago and over time, all were removed and used in the structures of cities and mosques.  As well as being of interest to architects, Egyptologists and archaeologists in general, the Great Pyramid has attracted cosmologists and mathematicians because of references to the Moon, the Orion constellation, continental gravity and other features of the heavens.  Each side of the pyramid is almost perfectly aligned with the four cardinal points of the compass while the dimensions convert to a ratio that equates to 2π with nearly perfect accuracy.

In the absence of evidence, artists can make of the gardens what they will.

According to legend, the Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built in 600 BC and stood until destroyed by earthquake in 226 BC but among historians there has long been debate about (1) whether the gardens ever existed and (2) if they did could they possibly have been the form usually described.  None of that ever bothered medieval story-tellers or poets, some of whom embellished the legend as they went.  Most tales recount how they were by King Nebuchadrezzar II because his wife missed the lush, green gardens of her home and in the medieval imagination they were represented sometimes as a cascading series of rooftops and sometimes dangling from structures built into the walls of the royal palace.  A more recent theory, noting the difficulties which would have existed in creating an irrigation system speculate that the myth may be based on gardens planted not in Babylon but close to Sennacherib at the eastern bank of the river Tigris.

Zeus: Because of the well documented contemporary descriptions, the renditions since are at least conceptually accurate.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia (Δίας μυθολογία) was built in 430 BC and was destroyed by fire in 426 AD. Carved from ivory, on a throne of cedarwood, the statue in its right hand held a life-size statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in its left a large sceptre topped with an eagle. Said to be some 12 metres (40 feet) tall, contemporary accounts say it occupied the whole width of one of the temple’s aisles, its head reaching to the ceiling.  Debate has long surrounded the fate of the statue, some saying the structure was lost in the fire while others had it moved to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) where if remained for decades before being destroyed.  Evidence about its appearance is fragmentary and unreliable; although there’s no doubt many copies at various scales were created during the 800-odd years it stood, none are known to have survived.

Before the fire: The Temple of Artemis is a popular model for modern re-creations.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (Ἀρτεμίσιον) was built in 550 BC and was destroyed by fire in 356 BC though as was the practice then, the structure was rebuilt several times over the centuries.  Unusually by the architectural conventions of the time, it was built substantially of marble and glittered with gold. The scale was impressive: from the high platform over a hundred sculptured columns supported the roof and being at least twice the size of the Parthenon, it was so breathtaking it was said to “rise to the clouds” which literally was rarely true but an example of how exaggeration in social media is nothing new.  The temple functioned also as an art gallery but the centrepiece was of course the statue of Artemis and if the legends are believed it was covered with gold and colourful stones, the legs adorned with carving of bees and animals with the top of the body adorned with breasts, symbolizing fertility.  It was destroyed in an act of arson by a malcontent called Herostratus who wished to secure a place in history by any means and the word herostatic (one who seeks fame at any cost) has endured.  Although made of marble, like the steel & glass Crystal Palace in London, the structure was packed with flammable materials and oils so it burned well.  There exists also a conspiracy theory that the act was a kind of inside job by the temple’s priests who had their own reasons for wanting a new building but neither that nor a reference to the writings of Aristotle which offers a lightning strike as the catalyst for the conflagration have much support among historians.

How to be remembered: The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Μαυσωλεῖον Ἁλικαρνασσεύς), built as a tomb for Mausolus, a governor in the Persian Empire, was constructed in 352 BC and destroyed by earthquake in 1404 AD.  Said to be extravagant even by the standards of personal aggrandizement known throughout antiquity, the work included sculptural reliefs for each of the four sides of the building, commissioned from the leading Greek architects and artists; these soon became something of a tourist attraction.  Almost perfectly square and some 14 stories tall, the base covered some 10,000 square feet (900+ m²) while on each side of the tomb stood nine massive columns supporting a stepped pyramid on which stood by a four-horse marble chariot in which sat carvings of Mausolus and his Artemisia (who supervised the construction).  So famous was the tomb that Mausolus's name became the root for the word for large tombs in many languages.

Pleasing lines: The Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria (ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας) was built in 280 BC and was destroyed by earthquake in 1323 AD.  It sat on the island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria and was the world’s first “famous lighthouse” although it was architecturally different to modern structures, built in three stages, all sloping inward.  Built with marble blocks suing lead as mortar, the lowest was square, the middle octagonal and the top cylindrical.  Within the lighthouse was a ramp and “dumb-waiter” used to transport the wood for the fire which burned during the night.  On the lantern floor, a large, curved mirror reflected the sunlight during the day and the fire at night and in clear weather it’s said seafarers could see the light even at a distance of 50 kilometres (30 miles).  The earth’s curvature makes this seem improbable but under certain atmospheric conditions (such as the light reflecting from clouds), it may have been possible.  Also plausible is the legend the light generated by the mirror was so bright and hot it could be used as a weapon of coastal defense to set fire to an enemy’s ships.  Under controlled conditions, because such ships were sometimes coated with flammable, tar-like substances (for water-proofing & timber preservation), it might have been possible but it would have been challenging to achieve this against a moving target.  Such was the power of the legend of the Pharos that the word remains the root for “lighthouse” in a number of languages.

Vaguely plausible rendering of how The Colossus of Rhodes may have appeared.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a very big statue, erected somewhere near the port of the city of Rhodes, the biggest settlement on what is the one of the larger Greek islands of the same name which lies off what is now Turkey’s Aegean coast.  Taking a dozen years to complete, the statue, construction of which began in 292 BC, was erected to honor Elios, the God of the Sun, who brought the inhabitants victory over Demetrius Poliorcetes (Demetrius I of Macedon; “The Besieger" 337–283 BC) who laid siege to Rhodes in 305-304 BC.  It stood for only sixty-odd years, collapsing during a severe earthquake which struck in 226 BC, contemporary reports indicating the structure fractured at both knees before toppling.  Remarkably, the mostly bronze wreckage was left substantially undisturbed for some eight-hundred years, becoming something of a tourist attraction before, in 654, it was salvaged by Arab invaders under the Muslim caliph Mu'awiya I (معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; circa 600–680) who sold it to someone described as “a Jewish merchant from Damascus” who is said to have carted it off on a camel train of almost “a thousand beasts”.

Demetrios the Besieger had a scandalous private life but had a flair for military matters, noted too for innovations in engineering such as the machines and devices built by his armies as siege engines.  However, even the forces he was able at deploy in 305-304 BC weren’t sufficient to defeat the fortifications of Rhodes and eventually, Demetrios was compelled to retreat, abandoning the siege machinery on the island.  To give thanks to the Sun God, the Rhodians granted the commission to build a triumphal statue to Helios to the sculptor Chares of Lindos (Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, circa 330 BC-circa 280 BC), a pupil of Lysippos (Λύσιππος; fourth century BC) and, in the dozen years between 304-292 BC, he supervised the construction.

Logo of Lindsay Lohan's Beach House at Rhodes.

Structurally, the build was executed along the well-understood engineering principles of the age, the base of white marble first installed to which were affixed the feet and ankles, an iron and stone framework gradually formed as scaffolding and structure proceeded in unison upwards.  To permit the workers to reach the highest levels, an earth ramp was built because the heights involved meant a free-standing system of scaffolding would lack the needed stability; when the work was complete, the earth ramp was demolished and the soil carted off.  While the superstructure was built, workers cast the outer skin in bronze using plates, the metal formed with copper melted in large ovens, to which iron, making 10-20% of the mix, was added.  Then the mouton metal mixture was moved in large ladles to be distributed in clay molds, flat structures used to form sheets varying in thickness according to need. Once cast, the rough edges were ground away and the plates polished before they were transported to the building site where they were hammered to the desired shape to be attached to the iron structure,  The thickest and heaviest plates were those rendered for the feet and ankles, complex in the shape of their curves and needing more mass to afford greater stability.  Thus for a dozen years, the thin bronze skin was added to the growing body of stone, each plate fixed to the iron frame and then to the neighboring plate.  Once finished, it was polished to reflect the rays of the Sun so it would shine as intensely as possible, better to honor Helios. 

How engineers would today build a 122 m (400 feet) high Colossus using modern techniques of structural engineering.  An interesting exercise although the Greek exchequer may have other fiscal priorities.

From the laying of the first stone to its toppling, building its destruction lies a time span of but sixty-seven years but the Colossus ranks as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world with Great Pyramid of Giza which still stands after almost five-thousand.  Such was the scale of the Colossus that the ruins still impressed, “…even lying on the ground, it is a marvel" wrote Pliny the Elder (24-79) who noted few men could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and each finger alone would have stood taller than most other statues.  The earthquake which so damaged the city 226 BC broke the Colossus at its narrowest and thus weakest points, the knees, and given the mass which existed above, there was no chance it could survive.  Although it would be centuries before the list of the seven wonders would exist as the codified canon now familiar, the stature was already famous and the an offer to the pay the cost of restoration was extended by Ptolemy III Euergetes (Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemy the Benefactor; circa 280–222 BC) of Egypt.  However, an oracle was consulted and their judgement forbade any re-construction so the offer was declined.  Details of the oracle’s pronouncement are lost but it’s speculated the conclusion may have been the earthquake was the act of a wrathful Helios and the ruins should be left where they fell, lest anger again be aroused.  There is no otherwise compelling explanation to account for why so much valuable bronze wouldn’t for centuries be recycled.

A (fanciful) engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes (circa 1540) by Martin Heemskerck (1498-1574).

The exact location remains uncertain but the notion the Colossus straddled the entrance to Rhodes harbor with ships passing between its legs was a figment of medieval imagination, a thing famously vivid.  Given its method of construction, such a thing would have collapsed under its own weight even before it was complete and, had it stood over the water, not only would construction have been challenging but when it fell, it would have blocked the entrance to the Mandraki harbor.  Despite that, in the early 1980s when a large piece of rubble was discovered in the water, there were still romantics who hoped this might vindicate the medieval theory.  There’s little doubt the story of a 60m (200 feet) tall Colossus straddling the entrance to the harbor was the work of opportunist poets and artists, the engineers and architects of the time sufficiently acquainted with physics and metallurgy to have assured all of the impossibility of their vision yet it seems long to have captured the medieval imagination.  Despite all that, it still influenced many even at the dawn of modernity, being one of the inspirations for the Statue of Liberty but that was designed in a way to ensure greater strength and stability, the weight distribution and the dimensions of the base entirely different.  There’s no doubt the statue stood somewhere in the proximity of Rhodes harbor but archaeological excavations have thus far revealed nothing, not unsurprising given the footprint of a vertical structure is much less than a temple or other building, and the urbanization of Rhodes over two millennia mean the site may long ago have been built-over.  The Colossus though would have shared one noted characteristic with the Statue of Liberty: When copper rubs on iron, it creates electricity, especially in a costal environment with salty air.  Like Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes made its own electricity.

Colossus

Colossus (pronounced kuh-los-us)

(1) A statue of gigantic size.

(2) Anything colossal, gigantic, or very powerful.

(3) The internal name for Google's file system, introduced in 2010 and optimized for use in big-machine databases stored in multiple server clusters.  

1350-1400: From the Middle English, from the Latin colossus (statue larger than life), from the Ancient Greek κολοσσός, (kolossós) (statue or image, origin uncertain but thought most likely from a pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language) and the word was used by Herodotus to describe large Egyptian statues.  The figurative sense "anything of awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794, taken from the adjective colossal (of extraordinary size, huge, gigantic), in use since 1712 although, colossic in the same sense is noted from circa 1600 and there are instances of colossean in the seventeenth century, both from the French colossal, from colosse, all forms from the Latin colossus from the Greek kolossós. The noun Colosseum dates from the 1560s, replacing the earlier Coliseum, the name in Medieval Latin for the classical Amphitheatrum Flavium (begun circa 70), noun use of the neuter of the adjective colosseus (gigantic), thought perhaps a reference to the big statue of Nero that for so long stood nearby. Colossus is a noun' the noun plural is colossi or colossuses.

The plural of colossus doesn't often come up in conversation but when it does, the choice is between colossi and colossusus, the latter there to be used by anyone who finds unwelcome, for whatever reason, the adoption in English of classical plural forms.  Not all words from Greek with a Latinised ending -us take the same pluralisation and there's no objection either to colossuses or the Latinized colossi; those who object to either probably suffer the condition known as hyper-correctionism and it is a real phenomenon (the squabble about octopuses, octopodes and the charming octopi) and is ongoing.  All that can be recommended is consistency; in a document, either adopt the English plural forms or use the classical form but don't mix.

Vaguely plausible rendering of how The Colossus of Rhodes may have appeared.

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  It was a very big statue, erected somewhere near the port of the city of Rhodes, the biggest settlement on what is the one of the larger Greek islands of the same name which lies off what is now Turkey’s Aegean coast.  Taking a dozen years to complete, the statue, construction of which began in 292 BC, was erected to honor Elios, the God of the Sun, who brought the inhabitants victory over Demetrius Poliorcetes (Demetrius I of Macedon; “The Besieger" 337–283 BC) who laid siege to Rhodes in 305-304 BC.  It stood for only sixty-odd years, collapsing during a severe earthquake which struck in 226 BC, contemporary reports indicating the structure fractured at both knees before toppling.  Remarkably, the mostly bronze wreckage was left substantially undisturbed for some eight-hundred years, becoming something of a tourist attraction before, in 654, it was salvaged by Arab invaders under the Muslim caliph Mu'awiya I (معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; circa 600–680) who sold it to someone described as “a Jewish merchant from Damascus” who is said to have carted it off on a camel train of almost “a thousand beasts”.

Demetrios the Besieger had a scandalous private life but had a flair for military matters, noted too for innovations in engineering such as the machines and devices built by his armies as siege engines.  However, even the forces he was able at deploy in 305-304 BC weren’t sufficient to defeat the fortifications of Rhodes and eventually, Demetrios was compelled to retreat, abandoning the siege machinery on the island.  To give thanks to the Sun God, the Rhodians granted the commission to build a triumphal statue to Helios to the sculptor Chares of Lindos (Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, circa 330 BC-circa 280 BC), a pupil of Lysippos (Λύσιππος; fourth century BC) and, in the dozen years between 304-292 BC, he supervised the construction.

Digitally generated image of statue of Zeus by Phidias,

Before the Colossus, Rhodes had long been famous for its statues, the contemporary accounts probably as unreliable as any Roman histories but even if Pliny’s count of some three-thousand was an exaggeration, the writing of others do suggest there were doubtlessly a lot, many in stone, some in bronze, but nothing on the scale of the Colossus had even been attempted.  There was a titanic statue, as they’re now known, in Olympus, a chryséléphantine (one made from Gold and ivory) study of Zeus some 13 m (42 feet) high, another of the seven wonders although the sculptor Phidias (Φειδίας, circa 480–430 BC) had avoided the fragility inherent in a standing figure by having Zeus sit in a chair.  He had also built a chryshephantine statue of the goddess Athena but that stood but 9m (30 feet) high; by any standards, the titanic Colossus was truly colossal.

Logo of Lindsay Lohan's Rhodes Beach House.

Beach Structurally, the build was executed along the well-understood engineering principles of the age, the base of white marble first installed to which were affixed the feet and ankles, an iron and stone framework gradually formed as scaffolding and structure proceeded in unison upwards.  To permit the workers to reach the highest levels, an earth ramp was built because the heights involved meant a free-standing system of scaffolding would lack the needed stability; when the work was complete, the earth ramp was demolished and the soil carted off.  While the superstructure was built, workers cast the outer skin in bronze using plates, the metal formed with copper melted in large ovens, to which iron, making 10-20% of the mix, was added.  Then the mouton metal mixture was moved in large ladles to be distributed in clay molds, flat structures used to form sheets varying in thickness according to need. Once cast, the rough edges were ground away and the plates polished before they were transported to the building site where they were hammered to the desired shape to be attached to the iron structure,  The thickest and heaviest plates were those rendered for the feet and ankles, complex in the shape of their curves and needing more mass to afford greater stability.  Thus for a dozen years, the thin bronze skin was added to the growing body of stone, each plate fixed to the iron frame and then to the neighboring plate.  Once finished, it was polished to reflect the rays of the Sun so it would shine as intensely as possible, better to honor Helios. 

How engineers would today build a 122 m (400 feet) high Colossus using modern techniques of structural engineering.  An interesting exercise although the Greek exchequer may have other fiscal priorities.

From the laying of the first stone to its toppling, building its destruction lies a time span of but sixty-seven years but the Colossus ranks as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world with Great Pyramid of Giza which still stands after almost five-thousand.  Such was the scale of the Colossus that the ruins still impressed, “…even lying on the ground, it is a marvel" wrote Pliny the Elder (24-79) who noted few men could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and each finger alone would have stood taller than most other statues.  The earthquake which so damaged the city 226 BC broke the Colossus at its narrowest and thus weakest points, the knees, and given the mass which existed above, there was no chance it could survive.  Although it would be centuries before the list of the seven wonders would exist as the codified canon now familiar, the stature was already famous and the an offer to the pay the cost of restoration was extended by Ptolemy III Euergetes (Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemy the Benefactor; circa 280–222 BC) of Egypt.  However, an oracle was consulted and their judgement forbade any re-construction so the offer was declined.  Details of the oracle’s pronouncement are lost but it’s speculated the conclusion may have been the earthquake was the act of a wrathful Helios and the ruins should be left where they fell, lest anger again be aroused.  There is no otherwise compelling explanation to account for why so much valuable bronze wouldn’t for centuries be recycled.

A (fanciful) engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes (circa 1540) by Martin Heemskerck (1498-1574).

The exact location remains uncertain but the notion the Colossus straddled the entrance to Rhodes harbor with ships passing between its legs was a figment of medieval imagination, a thing famously vivid.  Given its method of construction, such a thing would have collapsed under its own weight even before it was complete and, had it stood over the water, not only would construction have been challenging but when it fell, it would have blocked the entrance to the Mandraki harbor.  Despite that, in the early 1980s when a large piece of rubble was discovered in the water, there were still romantics who hoped this might vindicate the medieval theory.  There’s little doubt the story of a 60m (200 feet) tall Colossus straddling the entrance to the harbor was the work of opportunist poets and artists, the engineers and architects of the time sufficiently acquainted with physics and metallurgy to have assured all of the impossibility of their vision yet it seems long to have captured the medieval imagination.  Despite all that, it still influenced many even at the dawn of modernity, being one of the inspirations for the Statue of Liberty but that was designed in a way to ensure greater strength and stability, the weight distribution and the dimensions of the base entirely different.  There’s no doubt the statue stood somewhere in the proximity of Rhodes harbor but archaeological excavations have thus far revealed nothing, not unsurprising given the footprint of a vertical structure is much less than a temple or other building, and the urbanization of Rhodes over two millennia mean the site may long ago have been built-over.  The Colossus though would have shared one noted characteristic with the Statue of Liberty: When copper rubs on iron, it creates electricity, especially in a costal environment with salty air.  Like Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes made its own electricity.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911–2005; Premier of Queensland 1968-1987) (left), Russ Hinze (1919–1991; Minister for this and that in Queensland state government, 1974-1988) (centre) & Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) (right).  Russ Hinze was a politician who served in the state parliament of Queensland, Australia between 1966-1988.  He held many portfolios, often simultaneously, one of which was minister for roads.  In honor of his impressive girth, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads.

Wartime photograph of Colossus.

Colossus was the name of the world’s first electronic device which truly could be described a computer (being programmable, electronic and digital although the instructions were effected by switches, not stored programs).  It was built by the British in 1943 to break German military codes and was one of the mechanisms which provided the allies with the ultra decrypts, the importance of which to the war effort was of critical significance or merely helpful depending on the historian consulted.  During the war, twelve of the machines were assembled (which functioned independently; clusters and farms then an engineer's dream) but two didn't become functional until after the end of hostilities.  Colossus and the whole code-breaking operation remained a well-kept secret until the mid-1970s and the revelation induced some re-assessment of the strategic and tactical acuity of a number of political and military leaders, many of their decisions once through based on intuition or brilliance now understood as merely the use of good intelligence (ie "reading the enemy's mail").

Jumbo

Jumbo (pronounced juhm-boh)

(1) An informal descriptor for a very large person, animal, or thing, applied especially to an unusually large version of something usually smaller.

(2) In commerce, a term (sometimes interpolated into a brand) used to suggest a large version of something.

(3) A general term for wide-bodied passenger airplanes although historically most associated with the Boeing 747 (1969).

(4) In (mostly in the US) nautical use, a forestaysail having a boom (jumbo boom) along its foot, used especially on schooners; a sail used in place of a course on a square-rigged ship, having the form of an isosceles triangle set apex downward.

(5) In engineering & mining, as drilling jumbo, a platform-mounted machine used to drill rock.

(6) As mumbo-jumbo, a historic term used of paganism, originally referring to deities or other supernatural beings worshipped some West African peoples (usually in the form of an idol representing such a being). It was later adopted to describe any speech which was either technical jargon understood only by specialists or anything genuinely meaningless or incomprehensible.

1800–1810: Of uncertain origin but there is evidence the first use of the word by English-speakers was as an imperfect echoic of what was heard by European explorers or colonists in Africa.  It entered popular use after Jumbo, an East African elephant (1860-1885) was in 1882 exhibited by PT Barnum (1810-1891) of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus.  The name may be derived from either the Swahili jambo (matter, thing) or jumbe (chief, headman) although some sources cite the Sanskrit जम्बु (jambū or jambul) (rose apple).  Most convincing comes from the anthropological record of west-Africa where jumbo was used to describe a "clumsy, unwieldy fellow" (1823), itself possibly from a word for elephant in a West African language, perhaps the Kongo nzamba.  As a modifier (formally & informally) to impart the sense of largeness, jumbo is appended as required: jumbo jet (and jumbojet), jumbo mortgage, jumbomania, jumbo slice, superjumbo, jumbo sandwich, jumbo cigar, jumbo burger, jumbo cola etc.  Walt Disney’s musical cartoon Dumbo (1941) influenced the adoption of dumbo to mean “someone not intelligent”, the use documented by 1951 but the oral use probably pre-dates that.  Jumbo is a noun & adjective, jumboization (and jumboisation) are nouns, jumboize (and jumboise) are verbs; the noun plural is jumbos.

PT Barnum's publicity materials were created prior to "truth in advertising" laws.

The original Jumbo (the elephant) was an exhibit in London Zoo, the institution having purchased the beast from French explorers who were said to have captured it as a calf in Abyssinia in 1861.  Barnum purchased Jumbo in 1862 (much to the displeasure of the English) and immediately began in the US one of his typically extravagant advertising campaigns which emphasised both what a coup he’d achieved by wresting it from the British Empire and what an extraordinary size the creature was.  His circus toured the country with Jumbo a star attraction until in September 1885 it was killed near Saint Thomas, Ontario when struck by a freight train.

Perhaps curiously, the noun mumbo-jumbo seems not to have fallen from the linguistic treadmill, despite its origin and early colonial associations.  It entered English in 1738, based on an account of an incident in 1732 which occurred near Sami (in modern-day Gambia).  In the publications of the time, the Mumbo Jumbo was described as a costume “idol” used by men to frighten others and as coercive tool to regulate behaviour; it was used especially against women to induce their submission.  In hours of daylight, the costume was mounted on a stick placed at the outskirts of the village while by night a man would dress in it, visiting the homes of women or others deemed a problem, disputes “settled” and punishments bestowed.  Other spellings noted in the eighteenth century include Munbo Jumbo, Numbo Jumbo and Mumbo Chumbo and the original account ascribed the practice to Mandingo but linguistic anthropologists have never been able to trace an obvious Mandingo term which might be the source, the suggestions including mama dyambo (pompom-wearing ancestor) and mamagyombo (magician who exorcises troubled ancestor spirits).  It may have been borrowed from another Niger-Congo language and the European colonial transcriptions were the French moumbo-dioumbo & moumbo-ioumbo and the Portuguese mumban-jumban.  On the basis of the colonial-era accounts, the tradition (of uncertain age) must have been widespread with all settlements in the region was said to have a Mumbo Jumbo and by the mid-nineteenth century it had in English become a byword for a “superstitious object of senseless worship”, evolving by the 1890s to describe any speech which was either technical jargon understood only by specialists or anything genuinely meaningless or incomprehensible, use presumably reinforced and encouraged by some perception of association with “mumble”.  In that sense, it somewhat differed from the pseudo-Latin “hocus-pocus” which described words or incantations wholly fake and intended to deceive.  Despite the history, mumbo jumbo seems still acceptable in English and why it hasn’t yet been condemned as racist or cultural appropriation isn’t clear.

Jambo!  Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls.

Much has changed in the twenty-first century and it’s doubtful all of “You got your freshmen, ROTC Guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly Black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst.  Beware of The Plastics.” would appear were the Mean Girls (2004) script to be written today, mere mention of ethnicity now often deconstructed as some level of racism.  Cady (the white protagonist raised (somewhere) in Africa) uses the Swahili greeting "jambo" (from -amba (to say) which linguistic anthropologists say was probably derived from the Proto-Bantu (there’s a similar term in Zulu)) to introduce herself to a table of “Unfriendly Black Hotties”.  The script never makes explicit just where in Africa Cady may have spent her youth but this, along with another couple of cultural and linguistic clues do hint it may have been among sub-Saharan ethnic groups although whether that was intentional isn’t documented.  However, “jambo” is one of several similar words used on the continent linked both to the later evolution in English of jumbo and mumbo jumbo and it may be jumbo was either a direct phonetic spelling recorded by Europeans or just a mis-heard rendition.

The prototype of first jumbojet (Boeing 747) on show on the forecourt at the Boeing’s factory in Seattle, Washington, 1968 (left), at the Paris Air Show in 1969 with a Concorde in the background (centre) and the last 747 (a freighter), also on the Boeing forecourt, November 2022.

End of the line: The last of the 1574 Boeing 747s built over 54 years leaves the assembly line.

Jumbo was a big elephant and the word was soon used to describe large examples of other things.  In commercial use, the first use seems to have been Jumbo Cigars, sold in 1886.  The best known use in the modern age is probably jumbo-jet (also appears jumbojet), probably first used by Boeing engineers circa 1960 although the first documented reference is from 1964.  It replaced the earlier Boeing engineering-slang jumbo-707, probably because a three syllable phrase is always likely to prevail over one with seven.  In the narrow technical sense, jumbo-jet came to refer to all wide-bodied (ie multi-aisled) passenger airplanes built since the late 1960s, but, being first, it tends most to be associated with Boeing’s 747.  Thus, when in the early 2000s, the even larger Airbus 380 took to the skies, the term superjumbo (and super-jumbo) was used by some, the airframe’s point of visual differentiation from the 747 being the Boeing’s famous hump being extended along the fuselage to the tail section, creating a double-decker.  The term (which had earlier been used of the stretched 747s) however never quite caught on in the same way because the 380 was unique and a class of superjumbos thus never emerged to demand a descriptive generic term.  As it was, economics conspired against the A380 and the circumstances in which it flew were very different to those envisaged in the late 1980s when first the project was conceived for not only had advances in engineering and materials allowed a new generation of twin-jet jumbos to operate at a much lower passenger cost per mile but airports, their systems and physical infrastructure optimized around the 747’s capacity, proved unwilling to make the changes needed to accommodate higher peak demand.  After little more than a dozen years of assembly, Airbus in 2021 ceased production of A380 after some 250 had been built.

One of NASA’s Boeing 747s, adapted as a heavy-lift platform to “piggy-back” the US Space Shuttles (left).  The Soviet Union (and briefly the Russians) used the one-off Antonov An-225 Мрія (Mriya (dream or inspiration)) to piggy-back its  Буран (Buran (Snowstorm or Blizzard)), the USSR's space shuttle (right).  The An-225, with the largest wingspan and heaviest take-off weight of any aircraft ever to enter operational service, was destroyed in the early days of the Russian invasion (the 2022 "Special Military Operation”) of Ukraine.

The 747 proved more enduring a successful and was a machine which was truly revolutionary in its social consequences.  Just as Boeing’s earlier 707 (1958) had been instrumental in making trans-Continental air travel a viable and reliable means of transport for a small number of people, the economics of scale made possible by the 747 meant such trips became accessible for many more.  Between 1968 and 2022, almost 1600 were built in a variety of lengths and configurations and it was for decades the faithful workhorse of many airlines, but it ultimately fell victim to the same financial squeeze that doomed the A380, twin-engined aircraft able to carry almost as many passengers at a significantly lower cost.  By 2016 it was clear demand had dwindled and most of the production thereafter was for freight operators still attracted by the 747’s unique combination of capacity, reliability and range.  As passenger 747s progressively are retired, many will be converted to freighters, an relatively simple operation envisaged even during the design process in the 1960s.  Many flyers however noted the 747’s demise with some regret.  None denied the advantages of airframes built from composite materials nor the enhanced economy of the twin-engine configuration but for those who flew for hours above 30,000 feet (9000+ m), knowing one was in a metal cylinder with the redundancy of four engines imparted great confidence.

Lindsay’s Olives in sizes to suit.  Black olive martinis are a cult.

In commercial use, obvious comparative terms like “small”. “medium” & “large” are commonly used and “extra” is often appended to “small” & “large”.  In the sizing of clothing, “extra” is used in multiples, labelled usually as XL XXL XXXL etc to indicate ascending graduations of large (L).  With the “Extra Large”, this is on the model of the DD, DDD, FF etc bra cup descriptors used by some manufacturers although the use varies, a DD sometimes the same as an E and sometimes something between a D & E.  However, at the other end of the size range, the multiple letters work the other way, an AAA cup smaller than an AA which is smaller than an A.  Linguistically, that does make sense because with bras the multiple letters are synonymous with “extra”, the AA being extra small and the DD extra large.  The alpha-numeric nomenclature used (30A, 32D etc) is maintained presumably because something like a "Jumbo" or "Colossal" bra might lack sales appeal.  Where manufactures want to use descriptors which indicate a larger size beyond something like extra large, they’ll trawl the alphabet, thus product packaging described as “jumbo”, “super” “mega”, colossal” “super”, “maxi” etc.  Unlike S-M-L, there’s no defined ascendant order so it might be that where one manufacturer’s jumbo is larger than their colossal while with some it may be the other way round.

Lyndon Johnson in mansplaining mode.  His wife Claudia (1912-2007) was styled Lady Bird Johnson and his two children were Lynda Bird Johnson (b 1944) and Luci Baines Johnson (b 1947); old Lyndon was most pleased he'd contrived for his whole family to wear the initials “LBJ”.

Lyndon Johnson's (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) conversation was sprinkled with vulgarities, some of which entered the political vernacular.  His own nickname for his penis was “jumbo” although had he studied the descriptive hierarchy used in the packaging of olives, he might have preferred “colossus”; the tales of him describing, discussing and displaying the organ are legion.  At least at the anatomical level, the presidential penis wasn’t much in the news between LBJ and the public filing in 1994 by Paula Jones (b 1966) of a document deposited pursuant to her action against Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) citing sexual harassment, dating from his time as governor of Arkansas.  Ms Jones alleged an Arkansas State Police Trooper instructed her to report Mr Clinton's hotel room in the Excelsior (now the Little Rock Marriott) where Mr Clinton propositioned her, during which he exposed his penis.

Penthouse magazine, December 2000.  The covergirl & centerfold Pet of the Month (PotM) was Suzette Spencer (b 1979).  The edition contained the interview titled: Paula Jones Uncovered! How The Far Right Used And Abused Her To Destroy Clinton.

The sentence in the filing which captured the media’s attention was that Ms Jones indicated she was able to prove the validity of at least part of her claim because she could describe certain “distinguishing characteristics” of Mr Clinton’s penis.  Sadly, 1994 was a time before memes and the web was in its infancy so the wealth of speculative depictions which would these days be inevitable never appeared.  Sadly for political junkies, just what were those “distinguishing characteristics” remains a mystery because the judge issued an order barring her from elaborating on the matter prior to the trial and, though appetites were whetted and expectations high, unfortunately the matter never reached trial so the only statement on the record is the one issued by Mr Clinton’s legal team: “…in terms of size, shape, direction, whatever the devious mind wants to concoct, the president is a normal man.”  There are no blemishes, there are no moles, there are no growths.”

Jumbo spark plugs.  This was actually advertising the strength of the spark rather than the plug, some of the Jumbo line of plugs physically smaller than than some offered by the competition.  The need for higher-performance spark plugs arose as higher octane gas (petrol) permitted compression ratios to rise.

David Lloyd George (left) while Chancellor of the Exchequer (the UK’s finance or treasury minister) with Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), the Home Secretary (interior minister), London, 1910.

Of course, Monica Lewinsky (b 1973) must have had some “special knowledge” but it was something she seemed disinclined to discuss and in the hearings conducted prior to her appearance before the grand jury, the most prosecutors could elicit was that she “didn’t agree” with the description filed three years earlier by Ms Jones.  Given Ms Jones words can be construed only as an indication Mr Clinton’s penis was in some way (or ways) “abnormal”, the implication in what Ms Lewinsky said (or failed to say) was that things, anatomically, were “normal”.  Curiously, Ken Starr (1946–2022; independent counsel investigating the Clinton-era Whitewater affair and other matters) chose not to force Ms Lewinsky clarify things by listing the intimate details (the “nuts & bolts” as it were); it was a rare example of restraint in his pursuit of the Clintons.  When Albert James (A.J.) Sylvester (1889–1989; principal private secretary (PPS) to Lloyd George, 1923-1945) in 1947 published The Real Lloyd George, drawn from his diaries, the entry which drew most comment an admiring comment about the Welsh Wizard’s penis: “…the biggest I have ever seen.”  Disappointing some, Mr Sylvester didn't burden his readers with the details or extent of the observational history which made his comparison possible but it's presumed he was on some basis an empiricist.  Sylvester pre-deceased the social media age so was spared being asked whether the Lloyd George appendage would best be described as a "jumbo" or "colossus".