Decalcomania

Decalcomania (pronounced dih-kal-kuh-mey-nee-uh or dih-kal-kuh-meyn-yuh)

(1) The process of transferring designs from specially prepared paper to cardboard, paper, wood, metal, china, glass etc.

(2) A design so transferred (always rare).

1864: From the French décalcomanie, the construct being décalc- (representing décalquer (to trace, transfer (a design)) the construct being dé- (in the sense of “off”) + calquer (to press) + the interfix “-o-” + -manie (–mania).  Decalcomania is a noun; the noun plural is decalcomanias (the plural in French was decalcomania).  Disappointingly, the noun decalcomaniac is non-standard.

The French prefix dé- partly was inherited from the Middle French des-, from the Old French des-, from a conflation of Latin dis- (apart) (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European dwís).  In English, the de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix)).  It imparted the sense of (1) reversal, undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) derived from; of off.  In French the dé- prefix was used to make antonyms (as un- & dis- function in English) and was partially inherited from the Old and Middle French des-, from the Latin dis- (part), the ultimate source being the primitive Indo-European dwís and partially borrowed from Latin dē-.  In English de- became a most active word-forming element, used with many verbs in some way gained French or Latin.  The frequent use in Latin as “down, down from, from, off; down to the bottom & totally (hence “completely” (intensive or completive)) came to be reflected in many English words.  As a Latin prefix it was used also to “undo” or “reverse” a verb's action; it thus came to be used as a pure privative (ie “not, do the opposite of, undo”) and that remains the predominant function as a living prefix in English such as defrost (1895 and a symbol of the new age of consumer-level refrigeration), defuse (1943 and thus obviously something encouraged by the sudden increase in live bombs in civilian areas which need the fuses to be removed to render them safe) and de-escalate (1964, one of the first linguistic contributions of the political spin related to the war in Vietnam).  In many cases, there is no substantive difference between using de- or dis- as a prefix and the choice can be simply one of stylistic preference.  Calquer (to press) was from the Italian calcare, from the Latin calcāre (to tread on; to press (that sense derived from calx (heel)).

The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  The use of the suffix “-mania” in “decalcomania” may appear a curious use of an element in a word describing a process in graphical or decorative art given usually it’s appended to reference a kind of obsession or madness (kleptomania, bibliomania, megalomania et al) but here it’s used in a more abstract way.  The “-manie” in the French décalcomanie was used to suggest a fad or craze (the latter in the sense of something suddenly widely popular) and was not related to the way “mania” is used by mental health clinicians.  So, it was metaphorical rather than medical rather as “Tulipmania” came to be used of the seventeenth century economic bubble in the Netherlands which was centred on the supply of and demand for tulip bulbs.

TeePublic’s Lindsay Lohan decals (page one).

The noun decal (pronounced dee-kal or dih-kal) was in use by at least 1910 as a clipping of decalcomania, a process which came into vogue in France as early as the 1840s before crossing the channel, England taking up the trend in the early 1860s.  As a noun it referred to (1) the prepared paper (or other medium) bearing a image, text, design etc for transfer to another surface (wood, metal, glass, etc) or (2) the picture or design itself.  The verb (“to decal” and also as decaled or decaling) described the process of applying or transferring the image (or whatever) from the medium by decalcomania.  The noun plural is decals.  In the US, the word came to be used of adhesive stickers which could be promotional or decorative and this use is now common throughout the English speaking world.  The special use (by analogy) in computer graphics describes a texture overlaid atop another to provide additional detailing.

Variants of the transfer technique which came to be called decalcomania would for centuries have been used by artists before it became popularized in the mid-eighteenth century.  The method was simply to spread ink or paint onto a surface and, before the substances dried, it was covered with material such as such as paper, glass, or metallic foil, which, when removed, transferred the pattern which could be left in that form or embellished.  Originally the designs were deliberate but the innovation of the Surrealists was to create imagery by chance rather than conscious control of the materials.  The artistic merits of that approach can be discussed but young children have long taken to it like ducks to water, splashing colors on one side of a piece of paper and then folding it in half so, once pressed together, the shape is “mirrored”, creating what is called a “butterfly print”, something like the cards used in the Rorschach tests.

Although an ancient practice, it is French engraver Simon François Ravenet (1706–circa 1774) who is crediting with give the technique its name because he called it décalquer (from the French papier de calque (tracing paper) and this coincided with painters in Europe experimenting with ink blots to add “accidental” forms of expression into their work.  Ravenet spent years working in England (where usually he was styled Simon Francis Ravenet) and was influential in the mid century revival of engraving although it was in ceramics decalcomania first became popular although the word didn’t come into wide use until adopted by the Spanish-born French surrealist Óscar Domínguez (1906–1957).  It was perhaps the German Dadaist and Surrealist Max Ernst (1891–1976) who more than most exemplified the possibilities offered decalcomania and it was US philosopher turned artist Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) who said of him: “Like every consequential modern painter, Max Ernst has enforced his own madness on the world.”  Motherwell was of the New York School (which also included the Russian-born Mark Rothko (1903–1970), drip painter Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and the Dutch-American Willem de Kooning (1904–1997)) so he was no stranger to the observation of madness.  Condemned by the Nazis variously as an abstractionist, modernist, Dadaist and Surrealist, Ernst fled to Paris and after the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) he was one of a number of artistic and political figures who enjoyed the distinction of being imprisoned by both the French and the Gestapo; it was with the help of US art patron and collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) he in 1941 escaped Vichy France and fled to the US.

That “help” involved their marriage, hurriedly arranged shortly after the pair landed in New York but although in the technical sense a “marriage of convenience”, she does seem genuinely to have been fond of Ernst and some romantic element wasn’t entirely absent from their relationship although it’s acknowledged it was a “troubled” marriage. A divorce was granted in 1946 but artistically, she remained faithful, his work displayed prominently in her New York gallery (Art of This Century (1942–1947)), then the city’s most significant centre of the avant-garde.  Through this exposure, although he never quite became integrated into the (surprisingly insular) circle of abstract expressionists, Ernst not only became acquainted with the new wave of American artists but contributed also to making European modernism familiar to Americans at a time when the tastes of collectors (and many critics) remained conservative.  He was an important element in her broader mission to preserve and promote avant-garde art despite the disruption of war.  So, the relationship was part patronage and part curatorial judgment and historians haven’t dwelt too much on the extent it was part love; even after their divorce, Guggenheim continued to collect pieces by Ernst and they remain in her famous “Venice Collection” at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.  As a wife she would have had opinions of her husband but as a critic she also classified and never said of Ernst as she said of Pollock: “...the greatest painter since Picasso.”

Untitled (1935), Decalcomania (ink transfer) on paper by André Breton.

For Ernst, the significance of decalcomania was not its utility as a tool of production (as it would appeal to graphic artists and decal-makers) but as something which would result in a randomness to excite his imagination.  What he did was use the oil paint as it ended up on canvas after being “pressed” as merely the starting point, onto which he built elements of realism, suggesting often mythical creatures in strange, unknown places but that was just one fork of decalcomania, Georges Hugnet (1906–1974) rendering satirical images from what he found while André Breton (1896–1966 and a “multi-media” figure decades before term emerged) used the technique to hone surrealism, truly decalcomania’s native environment.

Decalcomania in psychiatry and art: Three of the ink-blot cards (top row) included by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1885-1922) in his Rorschach Test (1927), a projective psychological tool in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed with psychological interpretation or historical statistical comparison (and now, also AI (artificial intelligence)) and three images from the Pornographic Drawing series by Cornelia Parker (bottom row).

Nor has decalcomania been abandoned by artists, English installation specialist Cornelia Parker (b 1956) producing drawings which overlaid contemporary materials onto surfaces created with the decalcomania process, the best known of which was the series Pornographic Drawing (1996) in which an inky substance extracted from pornographic film material was applied to paper, folded in half and opened again to reveal the sexualised imagery which emerged through the intervention of chance.  Although it’s speculative, had Ms Parker’s work been available and explained to the Nazi defendants at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) when they were considering the Rorschach Test cards, their responses would likely have been different.  Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) would have been disgusted and become taciturn while Julius Streicher (1885–1946; Nazi Gauleiter of Franconia 1929-1940) would have been stimulated to the point of excitement.

Europe after the Rain II, 1940-1942 (Circa 1941), oil on canvas by Max Ernst.

Regarded as his masterpiece, Europe after the Rain II (often sub-titled “An Abstract, Apocalyptic Landscape”) was intended to evoke feelings of despair, exhaustion, desolation and a fear of the implications of the destructive power of modern, mechanized warfare.  It was a companion work to an earlier to the earlier Europe after the Rain I, (1933), sculpted from plaster and oil on plywood in which Ernst built on a decalcomania base to render an imaginary relief map of Europe.  It was in 1933 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) gained power in Germany.

Europe after the Rain I, (1933), oil & plaster on plywood by Max Ernst.

Even the physical base of Europe After the Rain I was a piece of surrealist symbolism, the plywood taken from the stage sets used for the film L'Âge d'or (1930) (The Age of Gold or the Golden Age depending on the translator's interpretation).  Directed by Spaniard Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), L'Âge d'or was a film focused on the sexual mores of bourgeois society and a critique of the hypocrisies and contradictions of the Roman Catholic Church's clerical establishment.  While one of France's first "sound films", it was, as was typical during what was a transitional era, told mostly with the use of title cards, the full-screen explanatory texts which appeared between scenes.

Snow Flowers (1929) oil on canvas by means of frottage & grattage by Max Ernst.

Technically, Ernst was an innovator in Decalcomania, in 1925 using the technique of frottage (laying a sheet of paper over a textured surface and rubbing it with charcoal or graphite).  The appeal of this was it imparted the quality of three dimensionality and Ernst liked textured surfaces as passages in a larger composition.  He also employed grattage (frottage’s sister technique) in which an object is placed under a piece of paper, which is then covered with a thin layer of pigment and once the pigment is scraped off, what is revealed is a colorful imprint of the object and its texture.

1969 Chrysler (Australia) VF Valiant Pacer 225 (left), 1980 Porsche 924 Turbo (centre) and cloisonné Scuderia Ferrari fender shield on 1996 Ferrari F355 Spider (right).

There was a time when decals on cars were, by some, looked down upon because they were obviously cheaper than badges made of metal.  That attitude changed for a number of reasons including their use on sexy, high-performance cars, the increasing use of decals on race cars after advertising became universally permitted after 1968 and the advent of plastic badges which, being cheaper to produce and affix, soon supplanted metal on all but the most expensive vehicles.  By the mid 1970s, even companies such as Porsche routinely applied decals and the Scuderia Ferrari fender shield, used originally on the cars run by the factory racing team, became a popular after-market accessory and within the Ferrari community, there was a clear hierarchy of respectability between thin, “stuck on” printed decals and the more substantial cloisonné items.

A video clip explaining why a Scuderia Ferrari fender shield costs US$14,000 if it's painted in the factory.

However, many of the cloisonné shields were non-authentic (ie not a factory part number), even the most expensive selling for less than US$1000 and there was no obvious way to advertise one had a genuine “made in Maranello” item.  Ferrari’s solution was to offer as a factory option a form of decalcomania, hand-painted by an artisan in a process said to take about eight hours.  To reassure its consumers (keen students of what the evil Montgomery Burns (of The Simpsons TV cartoon series) calls “price taggery”), the option is advertised (depending on the market) at around US$14,000.

Frisbee

Frisbee (pronounced friz-bee)

(1) A brand of plastic concave disk, used for various games by sailing it through the air, thrown by making it spin as it's released with a flick of the wrist.

(2) By extension & genericization (without an initial capital), a disk-shaped gliding toy of any brand.

(3) The sport or pass-time involving flying disks.

1957: The brand name Frisbee was trademarked in 1959 and later acquired by Wham-O.  Frisbee was an alteration of Frisbie, the name applied to the disk game by students who tossed the pie plates which came with the “Mrs Frisbie’s Pies” from the Frisbie Pie Company which operated from the Frisbie Bakery in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Frisbie supplied pies to Yale University and it was at Middlebury College in Vermont during the 1930s a campus craze started for tossing empty pie tins stamped with the company's logo, the aeronautical qualities apparently uniquely good (students at both Yale and Princeton claiming to have discovered the aerodynamic properties).  The spelling of the name was changed on legal advice and frisbee is a genericization of the trademark.  Frisbee is a noun & verb and frisbeeing & frisbeed are verbs; the noun plural is frisbees.  The adjectives frisbesque & frisbeeish are both non standard.

Lindsay Lohan carrying her frisbee in its protective case.

The family name Frisbie exists in English records from 1226, from a place name in Leicestershire (Frisby on the Wreak), attested from 1086, from the toponym attested 1086 in Frisby on the Wreak, Leicestershire, from the Old Danish Frisby (Frisian village; farmstead or village of the Frisians), from the Old Norse Frisa, genitive plural of Frisr.  Not unusually for the age, there were two hamlets in county Leicestershire called Frisby but genealogists seem certain the origin of the family name is associated with Frisby on the Wreak.  In the parish records of 1239 there is a priest named de Frysby who was vicar of the church at Welham, a village about 13 miles (21 km) south-east of the city of Leicester, England and he may be the same Roger de Frysbey who in 1246 was curate of the church at Barkestone, ten miles (16 km) north of Melson Mowbray.  As a geographical name, the now lost Frisbys were two of many in the British Isles which derived their names from the Old Norman frisir (someone from the area of Frisia or Friesland).  The names were illustrative of the vast movement of people from Europe after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.  A multitude of spelling variations characterize Norman surnames, many because the Old and Middle English lacked definite spelling rules and in an age of limited mobility, regional evolutions were common and gave rise to many dialectical forms (the introduction of Norman French to England also had an effect, as did the court languages of Latin and French).  It was not unknown for one person’s name to be spelled several ways during their single lifetime and Frisbie was just one of many including Frisbie, Frisby, Frisbee, Frisebie, Frisebye & Friseby.  The Frisbie motto was Semper fidelis (Always faithful).

Serial stalkers from Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) News Corp found US singer Billie Eilish (b 2001), wearing a Siouxsie and the Banshees T-Shirt and tossing a frisbee while on tour, Sydney, Australia, March 2025.  Siouxsie and the Banshees were an English post-punk band active between 1976-1966 (there was a 2002-2003 revival), the name from the lead singer Siouxsie Sioux (Susan Janet Ballion, b 1957).

At much the same time students in the north-east US were tossing Mrs Frisbie’s pie tins to each other, a young couple were enjoying similar fun with a popcorn can lid but, unlike the students, they had an entrepreneurial streak and began selling the cardboard bases sold to cake makers for five times the cost, changing only the labeling.  World War II (1939-1945) interrupted business between 1942-1945 but, once hostilities ceased, the designer applied to the re-purposed disk some lessons learned from service with the US Army Air Force (USAAF), improving the aerodynamic properties.  The zeitgeist of the late 1940s was also influential.  In June 1947, a commercial pilot claimed to have seen nine "flying discs" zipping across Washington state at a speed he estimated at 1,200 mph (1931 km/h) and, without waiting for verification, the Associated Press (AP) wire service distributed the story.  The Hearst press ran the piece with a "flying saucers" headline and that phrase went viral about as quickly as things now spread on social media.  Saucer-mania had begun and soon there were hundreds of reported sightings, a trend which continued, spiking in response to events such as the launch of the USSR’s Sputnik satellite in 1957.  Taking advantage, the prototype Frisbee, by then mass-produced in plastic, was renamed from Whirlo-Way to Flyin' Saucer.

Ms Effie Krokos, this time in black jacket.

In 2019, Ms Effie Krokos (b 1999) and her fiancé were in the front yard of his house in Loveland (a wonderful name), 40 miles (64 km) north of Denver, enjoying some frisbee tossing.  Because it was a hot day, she removed her shirt and continued to play while topless.  Several hours later, a Loveland police officer (there are comedic possibilities in that) arrived and issued an indecent-exposure citation, invoking a city ordinance prohibiting exposure in public places or places open to public view.  Ms Krokos told the officer of a recent circuit court ruling against the public nudity ordinance in the neighboring city of Fort Collins but the officer maintained the ruling didn’t apply in Loveland.

Loveland Police cruiser.

Denver civil rights attorney David Lane (b 1954) agreed to take the case as part of the #FreetheNipple movement, explaining the Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in February 2019 that Fort Collins’ public nudity ordinance, which had no restrictions on male toplessness but prohibited women from baring their breasts, was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  Free the Nipple v City of Fort Collins (17-1103 (10th Cir. 2019)) established that ordinances based on gender are unconstitutional.  “Anywhere it’s legal for a man to appear in public topless, it’s legal for a woman to do the same” Lane said.  Loveland accepted the offer of a US$50,000 settlement in Krokos’ case in to prevent a federal lawsuit.  The case was dismissed with prejudice (meaning that it cannot be reintroduced in another lawsuit) and the city suspended enforcement of the provision, pending a review.  Ms Krokos said she wants to show that "it isn’t fair for women to be treated differently than men by law enforcement" and hopes that the case will make more women aware of their rights.

Boston University's women’s "Ultimate Frisbee" team (the Lady Pilots), ran an "I Need Feminism Because..." campaign.  The campaign was an effort to draw attention to the need for gender equity, apparently prompted by crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) loss in that year’s presidential election to a man whose reported comments about women would have ended the political career of anyone else.  Each of the players wrote their own message on the underside of a frisbee.

By the mid 1950s, the design had been refined to the form which exists to this day and had the changes were judged sufficiently innovative to be granted a US design patent; this was the product released as the Pluto Platter and the final evolution of the name came in 1957 when the named Frisbee was applied.  Remarkably, it had taken until then for the knowledge of the casual student game of the 1930s to become known to the manufacturers after an article appeared in a newspaper which revealed students were calling the Pluto Platter the Frisbie.  It was clearly a catchier name and it caught on, persuading the manufacturers to adopt the name to Frisbee, the change in spelling on legal advice, lest the pie makers object though that would soon become moot, the Frisbie Pie Company ceasing operations in 1958, something apparently unrelated to flying disks and attributed to the sharp US recession of that year.

Paige Pierce about to execute a backhand drive.

Because Frisbee is a registered trademark, the name isn’t use in formal competition.  The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) applied to the Olympic Organizing Committee, seeking inclusion in the program of the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles but didn’t make the short list which was restricted to baseball, softball, break dancing, cricket, flag football, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsport and squash.  WFDF expressed disappointment, noting that “Flying Disc sports is actively practiced on a competitive level in 103 countries in the world and appeared to satisfy all of the objective criteria agreed between the IOC and LA28. These criteria included not adding cost and complexity to the games by utilizing full venue sharing on the beach or grass stadium, having total gender equality with our gender-balanced mixed format, having youth appeal, and ensuring that the top athletes were involved. There are few other sports that can boast an equivalent Californian DNA as frisbee and we felt our Ultimate 4s format requiring a total athletes’ quota of only 48 would fit well given the overall cap on the Games. We are also strongly convinced that our sport is unique in upholding integrity and fairness with our self-refereeing concept of Spirit of the Game.”  The WFDF have indicated they’ll make representations to be included in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia.  The game is certainly growing and a tiny elite are already finding Flying Disk a lucrative pursuit, the top athletes attracting sponsorship deals from disk manufacturers.  Paul Mcbeth’s (b 1990) contract is worth a reported US$10 million over five years while the highest paid woman is Paige Pierce (b 1991), earning US$3 million over three years.  Both are under contract to Discraft.

1973 Maserati Bora 4.9 with the early (1971-1975) aluminium wheels fitted with "frisbee" (not dogdish) hubcaps (left), 1977 Maserati Bora 4.9 with the later (1975-1978) aluminium wheels without frisbees (centre) and 1974 Maserati Merak 3.0 (right), a model never frisbeed.

Between 1971-1975, the mid-engined Maserati Bora (Tipo AM117; 1971-1978) was equipped with removable, polished stainless steel hubcaps (which the Maserati cognoscenti call frisbees) on its 7½ x 15 inch (190.5 x 381 mm) Campagnolo aluminium wheels.  Although structurally different, the less expensive Merak (Tipo AM122; 1972-1983) used a similar body but was equipped with 2.0 & 3.0 V6 engines rather than the Bora’s 4.7 & 4.9 litre V8s, the smaller engines meaning the Merak was able to be fitted with two rear seats (most suitable for small children or contortionists).  The Merak used wheels in the same style without the frisbees and after 1975 this configuration extended to the Bora.  Rarely has there been a hubcap plainer than the those used on the Bora but anyone calling it a “poverty cap” (slang in the US for the least elaborate hubcaps) would be shocked by the price they command as used parts; on the rare occasions they’re available, they've been listed at US$700-2000 apiece.  Unlike the Merak which was named after a star in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Bora borrowed its name from a wind which blows along the Adriatic coast, the company over the years having used the names of a number of (usually hot) winds from North Africa and the Middle East including Ghibli, Khamsin, Shamal and Karif.

Zoanthropy

Zoanthropy (pronounced zoh-an-thruh-pee)

In clinical psychiatry, a mental disorder; a delusion in which the patient believes themselves transformed into one of the lower animals; historically treated as a form of insanity in which one imagines themselves to be another type of beast.

1845: From the French zoanthrope (one who suffers from zoanthropy) or directly from the Modern Latin zoanthropia, the construct being zo-, from the Ancient Greek ζῷο (zôion) (animal, beast), from the Proto-Hellenic ďṓyyon, from the Pre-Hellenic gwyōwyon, from the primitive Indo-European gwyeh₃w-y-om, from gwei (to live) + anthrōpos (man); the use in English can thus be analyzed as zo(o)- + -anthropy.  The Greek ζώο (the plural ζώα)) translated literally as “animal, beast, creature” but among citizens was used as an insult to label someone was “a brute; stupid”.  In modern zoological use, it’s used to refer to mammals.  Zoanthropy is a noun and zoanthropic is an adjective; the nous plural is zoanthropies.

The modern terms (covering all animal-delusions and apparently extending to alien life-forms) are Species Identity Disorder & Species Dysphoria, sub-sets of the category Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) while the historic companion terms of Zoanthropy were Lycanthropy & Boanthropy.  Lycanthropy was from the Ancient Greek λυκανθρωπία (lukanthrōpía), from λυκάνθρωπος (lukánthrōpos) and in the mythology of Antiquity it described the state of being a lycanthrope (or werewolf), one who could shape-shift between being human and wolf, something often claimed to happen involuntarily during a full moon; werewolfdom has for centuries been a staple of writers of things supernatural.  In mythology, by extension, the word was used also to describe those able to shape-shift between the form of a human being and an animal, whether or not a wolf.  In modern psychiatry, it’s sometimes used to refer to the delusion in which one believes oneself to be a wolf or other wild animal.  Boanthropy is the delusion one is an ox or cow, the word derived from bovine, from the Late Latin bovīnus (relating to cattle), from the Classical Latin bōs (ox).  The terms Species Identity Disorder & Species Dysphoria are useful for clinicians who no longer have to deal with the proliferation of species-specific labels for the syndrome including Cynanthropy (dogs) & Ophidianthropy (snakes).  Presumably, while there might be behavioral variations between patients (one believing themselves to be a horse should move differently to one thinking they’re a frog), the treatment regimes will little differ so the names are really of more interest to word nerds than clinicians who have recorded, inter-alia, instances of delusional bees, cats, foxes & chickens.           

Reviews of the literature suggest Zoanthropy is a rare delusion.  There are countless folk who identify with animals and regard them as their spirit being (charismatic creatures like dolphins, eagles and the big cats being popular choices) but a zoanthrope actually believes themselves to be an animal, at least on occasions.  In the last two-hundred odd years, it seems there have been only a few dozen documented cases, three-quarters of whom also suffered some other mental disorders including schizophrenia, psychotic depression & bipolar disorder (the old manic-depression).  Patients suffered both permanent and transitory afflictions which could last only minutes or endure for decades.

Zoanthropic NFT: Lindsay Lohan's Furry canine (some suggested it was wolf-like) was rendered in dolichocephalic form.  The Lohanic fursona was first mentioned in September 2021 but not minted until October.

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (2013)) noted (1) it was an inherently psychotic delusion because human metamorphosis into an animal is not possible (as opposed to other delusions which may seem bizarre but which are physically possible) and it seemed overwhelmingly to be associated with instances of monomania (excessive interest or concentration on a singular object or subject; a pathological obsession with one person, thing or idea; an excessive interest with a single subject).  Monomania (the plural monomanias or monomaniæ) was from the French monomanie or the Modern Latin monomania, the construct being mono-, from the Ancient Greek μόνος (mónos) (alone, only, sole, single) +‎ mania.  The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can be used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, basket weaving et al”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.

Bizarre delusions have traditionally been associated with conditions such as Schizophrenia but the DSM-5 cast a wider net, noting with interest the frequency with which the metaphorical and symbolic language of biblical and other religious texts were mentioned by patients, especially in the specific type of zoanthropy known as boanthropy, the delusion which causes a patient to believe themselves to be a bovine, the fate of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.  According to the Biblical prophet Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was punished by God and lost his sanity for a period of 7 years:

“Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.” (Daniel 4:33)

There has had been speculation Nebuchadnezzar’s behavior may have been a manifestation of clinical Lycanthropy (the delusion of being a wolf) and the Bible makes 13 references to wolves, usually as metaphors for greed and destructiveness although what’s in scripture appears to be more consistent with Boanthropy and that would more align with the agricultural and historical contexts, cattle more common than wolves in the religious motifs and presumably also more numerous in ancient Babylon.

There are variations on the syndrome.  One man in Japan spent a reputed ¥2 million (US$13,500) on a bespoke dog costume to fulfill his desire to “become an animal”.  Known only as Toco, he has a YouTube channel (with some 56,000 subscribers and 3 million views) with footage of him being taken for a walk in a park, rolling on the ground, playing fetch and sniffing other dogs.  He also does a little twerking which will probably disturb as many as it delights.  Toco said he felt some nervousness before his first venture outside but that he’d since become more confident because of the warmth shown to him by people and, interestingly, (some) other dogs.  He added that he enjoys “doing things that only dogs do” without expanding on the comment.  There are practical difficulties Toco has faced including care of the costume which the specialist supplier Zeppet (best-known among film directors for creating sculptures and models for film, television commercials) took some weeks to fabricate before delivery in 2022.  Styled to look like a collie because that was his favorite breed, when outside he wears sandals to protect the feet from wear and stop the “fur” from getting too dirty.  Better to render his experience as a canine more “dog-like”, in February 2023, he acquired a cage and rather than wandering the house at night, Toco is locked in the cage although apparently not on a leash.  Had a leash been used however, that probably wouldn't have been thought an aspect of another syndrome because it was being used only in the context of "dogginess" rather than anything BDSM related.

Dog san: Part of an “interview” by German TV station RTL, 2022.

Predictably, his lifestyle choice has attracted both supporters and detractors but it appears not to be a case of zooanthropy (specifically Cynanthropy) because Toco describes his behavior as “play-acting like a collie”.  He those doesn’t believe himself to be a dog; he just enjoys appearing as one and interacting with others (people and dogs) on that basis, adding it was his “hobby”, one which “makes me happy and other people happy, too.” And what he does is notably less invasive than those who have undergone plastic surgery to give them the characteristic features of various creatures.  In an interview, Toco revealed he had been “dreaming of transforming into a dog since he was a child” so the interesting question is whether he should be considered a harmless eccentric or someone with some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder though clearly not classical zoanthropy.

Non-zoanthropic role-playing.  One astronaut took a gorilla-suit to the ISS (International Space Station).

Satyriasis & Nymphomania

Satyriasis (pronounced sey-tuh-rahy-uh-sis or sat-uh-rahy-uh-sis)

(1) In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in men in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many women as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

(2) A disease involving swelling around the temples, causing the victim to resemble a satyr, based on the depiction in Hellenic art of satyriatic men as horned goats.

1650s: A creation of Medical Latin, from the Late Latin satyriasis, from the Ancient Greek στυρ́ησς (saturíēsis) (excessively great venereal desire in the male), from satyros, accusative plural of satyrus, from the Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos) (satyr-like).  The construct was στράω (saturiáō) +‎ -σις (-sis).  The –sis suffix was from the Ancient Greek -σις (-sis) and was used to forms noun of action), often via Latin but increasingly also from French; it had exactly the same effect as the Latin –entia and the English -ing.  Historically, the use in terms borrowed from Ancient Greek was comparatively rare but there are many modern coinages based on Ancient Greek roots, reflecting to ongoing reverence for the ancient languages.  Satyriasis, satyriasist, satyromaniac, satyrization & satyr are nouns, satyriatic is an adjective; the common noun plural is satyriasist.

In Greek mythology, a satyr was a deity or demigod, male companion of Pan or Dionysus, represented as part man and part goat, and characterized by riotous merriment and lasciviousness, depicted sometimes with a perpetual erection.  Although that’s the same symptom as the condition of priapism (morbidly persistent erection of the penis), a sufferer is not of necessity also satyriatic.  The noun priapism was from the Late Latin priapismus, from the Greek priapismos (lewdness), from priapizein (to be lewd), from Priapos (the god of male reproductive power).  In Roman mythology satyr was a synonym of faun and, by extension, a lecherous man.  In modern casual use, it’s referred to also as Don Juanism, an allusion to the fictional fourteenth century Spanish nobleman Don Juan, whose sexual exploits became a thing of legend.  The term satyriasis (if not the condition) is largely archaic although still used in literature and by clinicians with a sense of history, the more popular form being satyromania, a coining in Modern Latin from 1759 which first appeared in dictionaries of English in 1889.

Don Juan (circa 1911), oil on canvas by Charles Ricketts (1866–1931).

Nymphomania (pronounced nim-fuh-mey-nee-uh or nim-fuh-meyn-yuh)

In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in women in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many men as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

1775: From the New (Medical) Latin as nymphomania (morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire in women), from the Classical Latin nympha (labia minora), the construct thus nympho- +‎ -mania.  The first known instance of publication in English was in a translation of Nymphomania, or a Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1771) by French physician Jean Baptiste Louis de Thesacq de Bienville (1726-1813) on the model of the Ancient Greek nymphē (bride, young wife, young lady) + -mania (madness) and may have been influenced by the earlier French nymphomanie (a frenzied state of (usually erotic) emotion, especially concerning something or someone unattainable).  The adjective nymphomaniac was used first in 1861 in the sense “characterized by or suffering from nymphomania”, the specific reference to “a woman who is afflicted with nymphomania” first noted in medical literature in 1867.  In pre-modern medicine, the synonyms were the now obsolete furor uterinus and œstromania which, curiously, is said still to be mentioned in some textbooks.

Nymph was from the Middle English nimphe, from the Old French nimphe, from the Latin nympha (nymph, bride), from the Ancient Greek νύμφη (númphē) (bride) and a doublet of nympha.  The alternative spelling nymphe is archaic except as a poetic device.  In Greek & Roman mythology, a nymph was any female nature spirit associated with waterways, forests, grottos, the breezes etc and is common use was applied to beautiful or graceful young girls (often as nymphet or nymphette) although the specialized use in entomology to refer to (1) the larva of certain insects and (2) any of various butterflies of the family Nymphalidae is analogous with the nymphs of antiquity only in relation to fragility and gracefulness rather than anything specifically female.  The modern equivalent (Lolita & lolita) is decidedly “of youthful femininity”).  The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  Nymphomania is a noun, nymphomaniac is a noun & adjective and nymphomaniacal is an adjective; the usual noun plural is nymphomaniacs.

Fairly or not, Lindsay Lohan may in 2013 have cemented a reputation as a nymphomaniac when, in a Beverley Hills hotel room, she complied a list of three dozen "conquests" although it wasn't clear if the list was selective or exhaustive and it produced reactions among those mentioned ranging from "no comment" to a Clintonesque "I did not have sex with that woman".  In partially redacted form, the list was in 2014 published by In Touch magazine and points of interest included Ms Lohan's apparently intact short & long-term memory and her commendably neat handwriting.  She seems to favor the "first letter bigger" style in which the style is "all capitals" but the first letter (in each word in the case of proper nouns such as names) is larger.  In typography, the idea is derived from the "drop cap", a centuries-old tradition in publishing where the opening letter of a sentence is many times the size of the rest, the text wrapping around the big letter.  In many cases, a drop cap was an elaborate or stylized version of the letter.

Sex doesn't appear in the annals of psychiatry with quite the frequency suggested by the volume of material published for popular consumption but it's certainly a significant part of the development of the discipline and Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) thoughts on sex are better known even than his dream analysis.  Few would doubt that sexual behaviours are integral to some psychiatric diseases and while women are thought not ordinarily prone to nymphomania, it has been treated as expression of delusional disorder (which some, controversially, call late-onset paranoia, a rare condition which may be under-diagnosed because research suggests sufferers seem to avoid treatment.  It's of particular interest because while women with delusional disorder appear often develop a powerful sexual fixation, men's fixations arise usually in the absence of anything which could be diagnosed as a delusional disorder.  Such caveats aside, the profession has always been interested in the phenomenon of persistent, socially deviant sexual behavior accompanied by an excessive sexual appetite that may be maladaptive for the individual and the terms “compulsive sexual behavior”, “sex addiction”, “Don Juanism”, “satyriasis” & “nymphomania” are all expressions of “hypersexuality”.  Despite the long and well-documented history, when the editorial committee of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) met to discuss amendments and additions to the fifth edition (DSM-5, 2013), the members decided not to introduce hypersexual disorder as a distinct diagnostic category, apparently because of what was said to be a paucity of research on valid diagnostic criteria.

Nymphomaniacs, hysteria and steam-induced parosysm

The gender-neutral form of satyriasis and nymphomania is erotomania (abnormal exaltation of the sexual appetite which, perhaps surprisingly, predates the modern culture wars, noted in the medical literature since 1875.  The construct of erotomania was eroto- +‎ -mania, eroto from the Ancient Greek ἐρωτικός (erōtikós) (related to love), from ἔρως (érōs) (passionate or sexual love).  There were however in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, echoes of the culture wars because physicians were known to diagnose nymphomania in women they deemed “to enjoy sex too much”.  Some physicians however were sympathetic practical as well as sympathetic.  While they might diagnose women as “hysterical” (then an orthodox part of medicine without the exclusively “loaded” meaning of today, some were prepared to stimulate the vagina until "parosysm" (the then preferred terminology for orgasm) was achieved.   For the doctor however, it could be a tiring business, some taking longer to climax than others although (officially) the treatment was offered only to unmarried women, reducing the patient load, so there was that.

Dr Taylor’s steam-powered Manipulator. Still, hands and wrists must quickly have tired, thus the attraction of the vibrator, a device which pre-dates the use of electricity, crank-driven models (resembling a very specialised egg-beater) first produced in 1734 and the early, powered, vibrators of the nineteenth century were a deviation from the engineering practices of the day which were really a collection of techniques designed to optimize specific efficiencies.  By contrast, the early vibrators required inefficient motors.  While all motors have moving parts and will vibrate, engineers use precise tolerances to achieve balance, ensuring the vibrations are minimized because vibrations are just wasted energy.  However, by definition a vibrator needs to vibrate and at the time, the easy way to achieve this with an inefficient motor, thus the steam-powered Manipulator invented by US physician George Taylor (1821-1896) in 1869.  Steam-powered, it certainly vibrated as needed but was big and noisy, the steam engine installed in an room adjoining the surgery, the apparatus protruding through the wall.  However, as a proof-of-concept exercise it worked and Dr Taylor reported good results.   Since then the devices have evolved to be smaller, quieter and battery-powered and although electrical power has become ubiquitous, one innovation proved a cul-de-sac, the Electro-Spatteur (which augmented its vibrations with electric shocks) lacking sales appeal.  The un-powered devices however didn’t entirely disappear and early in the twentieth century, the Pulsocon was advertised in the Sears mail-order catalog (the amazon.com of the age) and as recent examinations (it’s not clear if the tests were practical) confirmed, it worked well as a vibrator, its promoters jailed in 1913 only because the other claims they were making for its efficacy (curing just about every ailment known) were variously unproven, unsustainable, unbelievable or simply lies.

The Pulsocon.

Latibulate & Dysania

Latibulate (pronounced la-tib-oo-layt)

To go to or stay in a latibulum (a concealed hiding place; a burrow, lair, or hole).

Late 1500s: From the Latin latibulāri, from latibulum (plural latibula) (hiding place).  The construct in the Latin was late(ō) +‎ -bulum.  Latēō was from the Proto-Italic latēō (to be hidden), from the primitive Indo-European lehz- (to hide) and related to the Doric Greek λᾱ́θω (lā́thō) (to escape notice), a variant of the Ancient Greek λανθάνω (lanthánō).  In the Ionic Greek λάθρῃ (láthrēi) meant “secretly, by stealth; unbeknownst to”.  The suffix -bulumn (genitive -bulī) which also had the alternative forms -brum, -bra (by dissimilation) & -bula was from the primitive Indo-European -dhlom and was an instrumental suffix, applied as a noun suffix denoting (1) the instrumental sense, (2) a vessel or place and (3), (rarely) a person.

The related forms are latibule, latibulize latibulation & latibulum and while never widely used, do occasionally appear in zoological literature, use fading after the early nineteenth century.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) still lists latibulate in its unabridged editions so while certainly rare and archaic, it seems not yet obsolete.  Use did spike during the COVID-19 pandemic but only on word-nerd sites offering different ways of describing the conditions imposed by lockdowns and there’s little to suggest any revival of use.

Dysania (pronounced dis-a-nee-ah)

The state of an unwillingness to get out of bed.

Mid 1900s: Although nominally part of the language of medicine, dysania is not an accepted part of the literature and, on the rare occasions it has attracted comment from the profession, it’s been treated as a symptom of those suffering from a major depressive disorder rather than a diagnosable condition as such.  It has been noted as an entry in a 1958 medical dictionary and it seems to have been coined as a jocular term used between physicians to describe those habitually and obsessively disinclined to do whatever was recommended or prescribed (in the sense of “dis” + “mania”).  How that evolved into a specific descriptor of an unwillingness to get out of bed isn’t known.  It may that a chronic inability to leave was the manifestation of the symptoms most (and apparently often first) reported by those diagnosed with a depressive disorder.

The prefix dys- was from the From New Latin dys-, from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus) (hard, difficult, bad).  The English prefix dis- is from the Middle English did-, borrowed from Old French des from the Latin dis, ultimately from the primitive Indo-European dwís.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)). 

The suffix –mania (tendency towards compulsion or obsession) is an adaptation of the noun mania, from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (manía) (madness).  In clinical medicine, a mania can manifest as (1) a violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity, (2), excessive or unreasonable desire; an insane passion or fanaticism or (3) (and exclusive to psychiatry), the state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels.  Political scientists and sociologists also note the state of a “collective mania” but this is used in a less exacting fashion than in medicine.

The alternative to dysania is clinomania (An excessive desire to remain in bed; morbid sleepiness), the construct being clino- +‎ -mania.  Clino- is from the Ancient Greek κλίνω (klínō) (to lean; slope or angle; bed; reclining).  It’s often used in conjunction with hypnopompic (referring to the state of consciousness before becoming completely awake) and uhtceare, an Old English word that refers to anxiety experienced just before dawn.  In modern use it’s used to describe the state of waking up too early and being unable to fall back to sleep because of worries about the day to come but evolutionary biologists suggest it may be an inherited characteristic, part of a defensive mechanism linked to the dangers associated with the pre-dawn.

Uhtceare was an inflection of ūhtcaru, the construct being ūhta (the alternative form was ūht) +‎ caru.  Uhta (the last part of the night, before dawn; the time or service of nocturns was from the Proto-Germanic unhtwǭ and was cognate with the Old Saxon ūhta, the Old High German ūhta, the regional German Uchte (midnight mass), the Old Norse ótta, the Norwegian Bokmål otte, (in enhanced form), the Dutch ochtend (morning).  The Old English Caru (worry, anxiety, care, sorrow, grief) was from the Proto-West Germanic karu, from the Proto-Germanic karō. It was cognate with the Old Saxon kara, the Old High German kara, the Old Norse kǫr (sickbed) and the Gothic (kara).

In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 2013), the category “Insomnia Disorder” replaced “Primary Insomnia” as it had been listed in the fourth edition (DSM-IV, 1994) and there were a number of refinements to the diagnostic criteria.  The main change was instead of being a defined condition if experienced for one month, the sleep difficulty had to manifest for at least three months and occur at least three nights per week, it being still a requirement that there be clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, educational, academic, behavioral, or other important areas of functioning.

The changes in DSM-5 to sleep-wake disorders were made to improve the clinical utility of the definitions and diagnostic criteria and some of the conditions separately listed in the DSM-IV were re-grouped in clusters while others were divided, reflecting the increased understanding of the pathology triggering certain disorders or their underlying neurobiological and genetic factors.  Part of that understanding was an appreciation that disorders have been shown to be mutually exacerbating so to assist in capturing the dynamic relationship between sleep-wake disorders and certain mental or medical conditions, a greater emphasis was given to examining how they interact and impact each other.

The general theme of the DSM-5, a greater specificity of co-existing conditions certainly applied to the revisions undertaken on sleep conditions and the editors also explained the replacement of primary insomnia (DSM-IV) with insomnia disorder (DSM-5) as a means to avoid the primary/secondary designation when this disorder co-occurs with other conditions and to reflect changes throughout the classification.

Lindsay Lohan in bed.  The correct use would be to suggest a case of dysania or clinomania, Lindsay Lohan taking her latibulation, latibulizing in her latibulum.