Virtual

Virtual (pronounced vur-choo-uhl)

(1) Being as specified in power, force, or effect, though not actually or expressly such; having the essence or effect but not the appearance or form.

(2) In optics, of an image (such as one in a looking glass), formed by the apparent convergence of rays that are prolonged geometrically, but not actually (as opposed to a real image).

(3) Being a focus of a system forming such images.

(4) In mechanics, pertaining to a theoretical infinitesimal velocity in a mechanical system that does not violate the system's constraints (applied also to other physical quantities); resulting from such a velocity.

(5) In physics, pertaining to a theoretical quality of something which would produce an observable effect if counteracting factors such as friction are disregarded (used often of the behavior of water if a factor such as friction were to be disregarded.

(6) In physics, designating or relating to a particle exchanged between other particles that are interacting by a field of force (such as a “virtual photon” and used also in the context of an “exchange force”).

(7) In digital technology, real, but existing, seen, or happening online or on a digital screen, rather than in person or in the physical world (actually an adaptation of an earlier use referring to political representation).

(8) In particle physics, pertaining to particles in temporary existence due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

(9) In quantum mechanics, of a quantum state: having an intermediate, short-lived, and unobservable nature.

(10) In computing (of data storage media, operating systems, et al) simulated or extended by software, sometimes temporarily, in such a way as to function and appear to the user as a physical entity.

(11) In computing, of a class member (in object-oriented programming), capable of being overridden with a different implementation in a subclass.

(12) Relating or belonging to virtual reality (once often used as “the virtual environment” and now sometimes clipped to “the virtual”) in which with the use of headsets or masks, experiences to some degree emulating perceptions of reality can be produced with users sometimes able to interact with and change the environment.

(13) Capable of producing an effect through inherent power or virtue (archaic and now rare, even as a poetic device).

(14) Virtuous (obsolete).

(15) In botany, (literally, also figuratively), of a plant or other thing: having strong healing powers; a plant with virtuous qualities (obsolete).

(16) Having efficacy or power due to some natural qualities; having the power of acting without the agency of some material or measurable thing; possessing invisible efficacy; producing, or able to produce, some result; effective, efficacious.

1350–1400: From the Middle English virtual & virtual (there were other spellings, many seemingly ad hoc, something far from unusual), from the Old French virtual & vertüelle (persisting in Modern French as virtuel), from their etymon Medieval Latin virtuālis, the construct being the Classical Latin virtū(s) (of or pertaining to potency or power; having power to produce an effect, potent; morally virtuous (and ultimately the source of the modern English “virtue” from the Latin virtūs (virtue)) + -ālis.  The Latin virtūs was from vir (adult male, man), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European wihrós (man) (the construct of which may have been weyh- (to chase, hunt, pursue) + -tūs (the suffix forming collective or abstract nouns)).  The –alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an intensified meaning.  The suffix -ālis was added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the semantic field.  If the root word ends in -l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris).  The alternative spellings vertual, virtuall and vertuall are all obsolete.  Virtual is a noun & adjective, virtualism, virtualist, virtualism, virtualness, virtualization (also as virtualisation) & virtuality are nouns, virtualize (also as virtualise) is a verb and virtually is an adverb; the noun plural is virtuals.  The non virtualosity is non-standard.

The special use in physics (pertaining to a theoretical infinitesimal velocity in a mechanical system that does not violate the system’s constraints) came into English directly from the French.  The noun use is derived from the original adjective.  Virtual is commonly used in the sense of being synonymous with “de facto”, something which can now be misleading because “virtue” has become so associated with the modern use related to computing.  In the military matters it has been used as “a virtual victory” to refer to what would by conventional analysis be thought a defeat, the rationale being the political or economic costs imposed on the “winner” were such that the victory was effectively pyrrhic.  It was an alternative to the concept of “tactical defeat; strategic victory” which probably was a little too abstract for some.

"Virtual art galleries" range from portals which enable works to be viewed on any connected device to actual galleries where physical works are displayed on screens or in some 3D form, either as copies or with a real-time connection to the original.   

In computing, although “virtual reality” is the best known use, the word has for some time been used variously.  “Virtual memory” (which nerds insist should be called “virtual addressing” is a software implementation which enables an application to use more physical memory than actually exists.  The idea dates from the days of the early mainframes when the distinction between memory and storage space often wasn’t as explicit as it would later become and it became popular in smaller systems (most obviously PCs) where at a time when the unit cost of RAM (random access memory) hardware was significantly higher than the default storage media of the HDD (hard disk drive).  Behaving as static electricity does, RAM was many orders of magnitude faster than the I/O (input/output) possible on hard disks but allocating a portion of free disk space to emulate RAM (hence the idea “virtual memory”) did make possible many things which would not run were a system able to work only with the installed physical RAM and rapidly it became a mainstream technique.

There’s also the VPN (virtual private network), a technology which creates a secure and encrypted connection over a public network (typically the Internet) and use is common to provide remote access to a private network or to establish a secure tunnel between two networks using the internet for transport.  The advantage of VPNs is they should ensure data integrity and confidentiality, the two (or multi) node authentication requirement making security breaches not impossible but less likely.  Widely used by corporations, VPNs are best known as the way traditionally used to evade surveillance and censorship in certain jurisdictions as diverse as the PRC (People’s Republic of China), the Islamic Republic of Iran and the UK although this is something of an arms race, the authorities with varying degrees of enthusiasm working out way to defeat the work-arounds.  VPNs often use an IP tunnel which is a related concepts but the IP tunnel is a technique used to encapsulate one type of network packet within another type of network packet to transport it over a network that wouldn't normally support the type of packet being transported.  IP tunnels are particularly useful in connecting networks using different protocols and (despite the name), the utility lies in them being able to transport just about any type of network traffic (not just IP).  A modular technology, not all IP tunnels natively provide authentication & encryption but most support “bolt-ons” which can add either or both.  So, while all VPNs use some form of tunnelling (however abstracted), not all tunnels are VPNs.

Microsoft really wanted you to keep their Java Virtual Machine.

Then there are “virtual machines”.  In personal computing, the machine came quickly to be thought of as a box to which a monitor and keyboard was attached and originally it did one thing at a time; it might be able to do many things but not simultaneously.  That situation didn’t long last but the idea of the connection between one function and one machine was carried over to the notion of the “virtual machine” which was software existing on one machine but behaving functionally like another.  This could include even a full-blown installation of the operating systems of several servers running on specialized software (sometimes in conjunction with hardware components) on a singles server.  What made this approach practical was that it is not unusual for a server to be under-utilized for most of its life (critically components often recording 2-3% utilization for extended periods, thus the attraction of using one physical server rather than several.  Obviously, the economic case was also compelling, the cost savings of having one server rather than a number multiplied by reductions in electricity use, cooling needs, insurance premiums and the rent of space.  There was also trickery, Microsoft’s JVM (Java Virtual Machine) an attempt to avoid having to pay licensing fees to Sun Microsystems (later absorbed by Oracle) for the use of a Java implementation.  The users mostly indifferent but while the hardware was fooled, the judges were not and the JVM was eventually declared an outlaw.

Operating a computer remotely (there are few ways to do this) rather than physically being present is sometimes called “virtual” although “remote” seems to have been become more fashionable (the form “telecommuting” used as early as 1968 is as archaic as the copper-pair analogue telephone lines over which it was implemented although “telemedicine” seems to have survived, possibly because in many places voice using an actual telephone remains a part).  In modern use (and the idea of virtual as “not physically existing but made to appear by software” was used as early as 1959), there are all sorts of “virtuals” (virtual personal trainers, virtual assistants et al), the idea in each case is that the functionality offered by the “real version” of whatever is, in whole or in part, emulated but the “virtual version”, the latter at one time also referred to as a “cyberreal”, another word from the industry which never came into vogue.  “Virtual keyboards” are probably the most common virtual device used around the world, now the smartphone standard, the demise of the earlier physical devices apparently regretted only by those with warm memories of their Blackberries.  Virtual keyboards do appear elsewhere and they work, although obviously offer nothing like the tactile pleasure of an IBM Model M (available from ClickyKeyboards.com).  The idea of “a virtual presence” is probably thought something very modern and associated with the arrival of computing but it has history.  In 1766, in the midst of the fractious arguments about the UK’s reaction to the increasing objections heard from the American colonies about “taxation without representation” and related matters (such as the soon to be infamous Stamp Act), William Pitt (1708-1778 (Pitt the Elder and later Lord Chatham); UK prime-minister 1766-1768) delivered a speech in the House of Commons.  Aware his country’s government was conducting a policy as inept as that the US would 200 years on enact in Indochina, his words were prescient but ignored.  Included was his assertion the idea of “…virtual representation of America in this house is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of man and it does not deserve serious refutation.”  However, refute quite seriously just about everything his government was doing he did.  Pitt’s use of the word in this adjectival sense was no outlier, the meaning “being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact” dating from the mid-fifteenth century, an evolution of the sense of a few decades earlier when it was used to mean “capable of producing a certain effect”.  The adverb virtually was also an early fifteenth century form in the sense of “as far as essential qualities or facts are concerned while the meaning “in effect, as good as” emerged by the early seventeenth.

Lindsay Lohan's 2021 predictions of the US$ value of Bitcoin (BTC) & Ethereum (ETH).  By April 2024 the trend was still upward so the US$100,000 BTC may happen.  

In general use, the terms “cybercurrency”, “cryptocurrency” & “virtual currency” tend to be used interchangeably and probably that has no practical consequences, all describing electronic (digital) “currencies” which typically are decentralized, the main point of differentiation being that cryptocurrencies claim to be based on cryptographic principles and usually limited in the volume of their issue (although the decimal point makes this later point of little practical significance)  Whether they should be regarded as currencies is a sterile argument because simultaneously they are more and less, being essentially a form of gambling but for certain transactions (such as illicit drugs traded on various platforms), they are the preferred currency and in many jurisdictions they remain fully convertible and it’s telling the values are expressed almost always in US$, “cross-rates” (ie against other cryptocurrencies) rarely quoted.  However, to be pedantic, a “virtual currency” is really any not issued by a central government or authority (in the last one or two centuries-odd usually a national or central bank) and they can include in-game currencies, reward points and, of course, crybercurrencies.  The distinguishing feature of a cryptocurrency is the cryptotography.

Although the term is not widely used, in Christianity, "virtuality" was the view that contrary to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the bread & wine central to Holy Communion do not literally transform into flesh and blood but are the medium or mechanism through which the spiritual or immaterial essence of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ are received.  Within the Church, those who espoused or adhered to the heresy of virtuality were condemned as "virtualists.  In philosophy, the concept of virtuality probably sounds something simple to students but of course academic philosophy has a “marginal propensity to confuse”, the important distinction being “virtual” is not opposed to “real” but instead to “actual”, “real” being opposed to “possible”.

Rationale

Rationale (pronounced rash-uh-nal)

(1) The fundamental reason or reasons serving to account for something.

(2) A statement of reasons.

(3) A reasoned exposition of principles, especially one defining the fundamental reasons for a course of action or belief; a justification for action.

(4) A liturgical vestment worn by some Christian bishops of various denominations (now rare), the origin of which is the breastplate worn by Israelite high priests (a translation of λογεῖον (logeîon) or λόγιον (logion) (oracle) in the Septuagint version of Exodus 28)).  The French spelling (rational) of the Latin ratiōnāle was used in Biblical translations.

(5) In engineering, a design rationale is the explicit documentation of the reasons behind decisions made when designing a system; it was once used of what now would be described as a set of parameters.

1650-1660: From the Late Latin ratiōnāle (exposition of principles), nominative singular neuter of ratiōnālis (rational, of reason).  After some early inventiveness, the modern sense "fundamental reason, the rational basis or motive of anything" became standardised during the (1680s).  In the nature of such things, many rationales are constructed ex post facto.  Rationale is a noun; the noun plural is rationales or rationalia.

Prince Metternich & Dr Rudd: illustrating rationale & rational

Portrait of Prince Metternich (1822), miniature on card by Friedrich Lieder (1780-1859).

Rationale and rational are sometimes confused.  A rationale is a process variously of explanation, reason or justification of something that need not be at all rational (although many fashioned ex post facto are re-formulated thus).  To be rational, something must make sense and be capable of being understood by the orthodox, accepted methods of the time.  That something may subsequently be shown to be irrational does not mean it did not at some time appear rational; one can construct a rationale for even something irrational.  To construct a post-Napoleonic Europe, Prince Metternich (Prince Klemens of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein (1773–1859); foreign minister of the Austrian Empire 1809-1848 & chancellor 1821-1848) built a rationale for the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) that was well understood.  It was vision of a Europe, divided between the great powers, in which was maintained a perpetual balance of power which would ensure peace.  That in the two centuries since, the Congress has attached much criticism, largely for imposing a stultifying air of reaction on the continent, does not render the structure irrational nor detract from Metternich’s rationale.  Some historians have come to regard the congress more fondly and while it’s not true the consequence was a century of peace in Europe, it created a framework which meant a good number of decades in that time were notably less blood-soaked than what came before and certainly what followed.

Dr Rudd at the ceremony to be conferred DPhil, University of Oxford, September, 2022.

By 2009, Kevin Rudd ((b 1957); Prime Minister of Australia 2007-2010 & June-September 2013), having realised being prime-minister was a squandering of intellectual talent, embarked on a re-design of relationships in the Asia-Pacific, structured in a way to suit what was self-evidently obvious: he should assume regional leadership.  These things do happen when folk get carried away.  Not discouraged by the restrained enthusiasm for his good idea, Mr Rudd penned one of his wordy rationales which, to him, must have sounded rational but less impressed was just about everybody else in the region including his own cabinet and it’s difficult to recall any hint of interest from other countries.  Mr Rudd quibbled a bit, claiming his use of the word community was just diplomatic shorthand and he wasn’t suggesting anything like what the EU ever was or had become but just better way of discussing problems.  Anyway, it for a while gave him a chance to use phrases like “ongoing and continuing discussions” and “regional and sub-regional architecture” so there was that.  By 2010 the idea had been allowed quietly to die and he had more pressing problems.

Attaining the premiership was Rudd’s mistake.  Had he never achieved to position he’d probably be spoken of as “the best prime-minister Australia never had” but instead he’s among those (and of late there have been a few) remembered as the Roman historian Tacitus (circa 56–circa 120) in the first volume of his Histories (circa 100) wrote of Galba (3 BC–AD 69; Roman Emperor 68-69): "...omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset" (everyone would have agreed he was qualified for governing if he had not held the office).  His background was as a senior public servant who provided advice to others so they could make decisions and he enjoyed a solid career which was clearly well-suited to his skills.  Unfortunately, when occupying the highest political office in the land, he proved indecisive and too often inclined to refer to committees matters which he should have insisted came to cabinet with the necessary documents.  His other character flaw was he seemed unable to understand there was a difference between “leadership” and “command”, unable to realise there was a difference between the structured hierarchy of the public service and the swirling clatter of politics.  His career in The Lodge (the prime-minister’s official residence in Canberra) can be recalled as the Italian historian and politician Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) noted of Pope Clement VII (1478–1534; pope 1523-1534): “…knowledgeable and effective as a  subordinate, he fell victim when in charged to timidity, perplexity and habitual irresolution.”  With that, the Italian writer Piero Vettori (1499–1585) concurred, writing: “From a great and renowned cardinal, he was transformed into a little and despised pope”, a sentiment familiar in the phrase repeated in militaries around the world (outstanding major; average colonel; lousy general) to describe that truism in organizational behaviour: “Everyone gets promoted to their own level of incompetence”.

That aphorism was from The Peter Principle (1970), written by Raymond Hull (1919–1985) and based on the research of Laurence Peter (1919–1990), the idea being someone who proves successful in one role will be promoted and if competent there, they will be promoted again.  However, should they fail, within the hierarchy, that is the point of their incompetence, the implication being that the tendency is, as time passes, more and more positions within a corporation will be filled by the incompetent.  The exceptions of course are (1) those competent souls who for whatever reason decline promotion and (2) the habitually successful who will in theory continue to be promoted until they reach the top and, if they prove competent there, this results in the paradox of the typical corporation being run by someone competent but staffed substantially by the incompetent.  In politics, reaching the top means becoming prime-minister, president or some similar office and as Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) described it: "...if he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not wantonly be disturbed. If he is no good he must be poleaxed.  In one of the more amusing recent episodes in politics, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) decided Dr Rudd had been promoted to the relevant point and poleaxed him, a back-stabbing which remains one of the best organized and executed seen in years.  Subsequently, the party concluded his replacement was even more of a dud and restored Dr Rudd to the job, a second coming which lasted but a few months but that was long enough for him to revenge himself upon the hatchet men responsible for his downfall so there was that.       

Still, after his political career (which can be thought a success because he did did reach the top of the “greasy pole” and the delivered the ALP a handsome election victory although their gratitude was short-lived (a general tendency in democracies noted (sometimes gleefully) by many political scientists)) he has been busy, even if the secretary-generalship of the United Nations (UN) (an office which is an irresistible lure for a certain type) proved elusive.  Recently he became Dr Rudd, awarded Doctorate of Philosophy (DPhil) by the University of Oxford.  His 420 page thesis, written over four years, explores the world view of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) and the relationship of his ideology to both the direction taken by the CCP and the links with the thoughts (and their consequences) of Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976).

Dr Rudd says his thesis argues “…there has been a significant change in China’s ideological worldview under Xi Jinping compared with previous ideological orthodoxies under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao [and summarises] Xi’s worldview as a new form of ‘Marxist-Leninist Nationalism’”.  Dr Rudd says he preferred “Marxist Nationalism” because “the term contains within it three core propositions”: (1) “Xi’s Leninism has taken both the party and Chinese politics in general to the left” (and he defines “left” for these purposes as “…the reassertion of the power of the party over all public policy as well as elevating the position of the individual leader against the rest of collective leadership”), (2) “Xi’s notion of Marxism has similarly taken the centre of gravity of Chinese economic thought to the left” ("left" in this aspect defined as “…a new priority for party-state intervention in the economy, state-owned enterprises over the private sector and a new ideology of greater income equality”) and (3) “Xi has also taken Chinese nationalism to the right (“right” here meaning “a new assertion of Chinese national power as reflected in a new array of nationalist ‘banner terms’ that are now used in the party’s wider ideological discourse.”)  Dr Rudd views these three forces as “…part of a wider reification of the overall role of ideology under Xi Jinping. This has been seen in the fresh application of Marxist Leninist concepts of dialectical materialism, historical materialism, the primary stage of socialism, contradiction and struggle across the range of China’s current domestic and international challenges. The role of nationalism has also been enhanced within Xi’s new ideological framework. This hybrid form of Marxist Nationalist ideology is also being increasingly codified within the unfolding canon of Xi Jinping thought.” 

“Finally, the thesis argues there is a high degree of correlation between these ideological changes on the one hand and changes in the real world of Chinese politics, economic policy and a more assertive foreign policy on the other - including a different approach to Chinese multilateral policy as observed by diplomatic practitioners at the UN in New York.  The thesis concludes these changes in Xi Jinping’s ideological worldview and its impact on Chinese politics and public policy is best explained by a theoretical framework that integrates Authoritarian Resilience Theory, the realist and constructivist insights of the English School of International Relations Theory, and Foreign Policy Analysis.”  Clearly, Dr Rudd thinks the CCP has come a long way since comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) casually dismissed Maoist theory as “ideologically primitive”.

Since March 2023, Dr Rudd has served as Australian Ambassador to the United States, the announcement of the appointment attracting some speculation there may be a secret protocol to the contract, providing for him to report to the prime-minister rather than the foreign minister.  It was mischievous speculation and there has been little but praise for the solid work he has been doing in the Washington embassy.  Dr Rudd’s role attracted headlines in March 2022 when a interview with Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) was broadcast in which the former president was acquainted (apparently for the first time) with some uncomplimentary assessments Dr Rudd had made of him including describing him “the most destructive president in history” and “a traitor to the West”.

Having doubtless heard and ignored worse over the years, Mr Trump seemed little concerned but did respond in his usual style, observing he didn’t know much about Dr Rudd except he’d heard he was “a little bit nasty” and “not the brightest bulb”, adding “he’d not be there long” if hostile to a second Trump presidency.  Trumpologists analysing these thoughts suggested the mildness of the reaction indicated the matter was unlikely to be pursued were he to return to the Oval Office, noting his habit of tending to ignore or forget about anything except actual threats to his immediate self-interest.  After taking office in 2017, when asked if he would pursue the legal action he’d during the campaign threatened against Bill (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) & crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) (mostly on the basis of crooked Hillary’s crooked crookedness), he quickly brushed it off saying: “No, they’re good people” and moving on.  It’s thought Dr Rudd won't end up in the diplomatic deep-freeze, the most severe version of which is for a host nation to declare a diplomat "persona non grata" (the construct being the Latin persōna (person) + nōn (not) + grāta (from grātus (acceptable)), the consequence of which is an expulsion from the territory and the worst fate he may suffer is not receiving an invitation to a round of golf (something unlikely much to upset him).  Others however should be worried, in a second Trump White House, there will be vengeance.

Like "diplomatic toothache" and "null & void", the phrase "persona non gratia" has become part of general language, the utility being in few words describing what would otherwise take many more.  Impressionistically, it would seem "troubled starlets" are more than most declared "persona non gratia".

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 et al.

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.

Spook

Spook (pronounced spook)

(1) In informal use, a ghost; a specter; an apparition; hobgoblin.

(2) A person whose appearance or conduct is thought “ghost-like”.

(3) In philosophy, a metaphysical manifestation; an artificial distinction or construct.

(4) In slang, a ghostwriter (one who writes text (typically columns, autobiography, memoir) published under the name of another,

(5) In slang, an eccentric person (now rare).

(6) In disparaging and offensive slang, term of contempt used of people of color (historically African-Americans).

(7) In slang, a spy; one engaged in espionage.

(8) In slang, a psychiatrist (originally US but now more widespread under the influence of pop culture.

(9) In the slang of blackjack, a player who engages in “hole carding” by attempting to glimpse the dealer's hole card when the dealer checks under an ace or a 10 to see if a blackjack is present.

(10) In southern African slang any pale or colorless alcoholic spirit (often as “spook & diesel”).

(11) To haunt; inhabit or appear in or to as a ghost or spectre.

(12) To frighten; to scare (often as “spooked”).

(13) To become frightened or scared (often as “spooked”); applied sometimes to animals, especially thoroughbred horses.

1801: A coining of US English, from the Dutch spook (ghost), from the Middle Dutch spooc & spoocke (spook, ghost), from an uncertain Germanic source (the earliest known link being the Middle Low German spōk (ghost), others including the Middle Low German spôk & spûk (apparition, ghost), the Middle High German gespük (a haunting), the German Spuk (ghost, apparition, hobgoblin), the Danish spøg (joke) & spøge (to haunt), the Norwegian spjok (ghost, specter) and the Swedish spok (scarecrow) & spöke (ghost).  The noun spook in the sense of “spectre, apparition, ghost” seems first to have appeared in a comical dialect poem, credited to “an old Dutch man in Albany” and printed in Vermont and Boston newspapers which credited it to Springer's Weekly Oracle in New London, Connecticut.  The regional diversity in language was then greater and evolutions sometimes simultaneous and the word also appeared in US English around 1830 as spuke & shpook, at first in the German-settled regions of Pennsylvania, via Pennsylvania Dutch Gschpuck & Schpuck, from the German Spuk.  Spook & spooking are nouns & verbs, spooker & spookery are nouns, spooktacular is a noun & adjective, spooktacularly is an adverb, spooked is a verb & adjective, spookery is a noun, spooky, spookiest & spookish are adjectives; the noun plural is spooks.

Spooked: Lindsay Lohan in I Know Who Killed Me (2007).

A “spook show” (frightening display) was a term in use by 1880 and in the sense of a “popular exhibition of legerdemain, mentalism or staged necromancy” it was documented by 1910.  The spook house (abandoned house) was in use in the 1850s, the expression meaning “haunted house” emerging in the 1860s.  The meaning “superstition” had emerged by 1918, presumably an extension from the earlier sense of “a superstitious person”, documented around the turn of the century although it probably existed longer in oral use.  In the 1890s, “spookist” (described variously as “jocular” and “a less refined word” was used to refer to spiritualists and medium (and in those years there were a lot of them, their numbers spiking after World War I (1914-1918) when many wished to contact the dead.  Spooktacular (a pun on “spectacular” developed some time during World War II (1939- 1945).  The meaning “undercover agent” or “spy” dates from 1942 (inducing “spookhouse” (haunted house) to pick up the additional meaning “headquarters of an intelligence operation”, a place presided over by a “spookmaster” (“spymaster” the preferred modern term).  In the same era, in student slang a spook could be an unattractive girl or a quiet, diligent, introverted student (something like the modern “nerd” but without any sense of a focus of technology).

Senator Rebecca Ann Felton (1835–1930, left) and Senator Mitch McConnell (b 1942; US senator (Republican-Kentucky) since 1985; Senate Minority Leader since 2021).  The spooky resemblance between Senator Fulton (who in 1922 served for one day as a senator (Democratic-Georgia), appointed as a political manoeuvre) and Senator Mitch McConnell has led some to suggest he might be her reincarnated.  Some not so acquainted with history assumed the photograph of Senator Felton was Mitch McConnell in drag.

The sense of spook as “a black person” is listed by dictionaries of US slang as being documented by 1938 (the date of origin uncertain) and it seems to have begun in African-American (hep-cat) slang and it was not typically used with any sense of disparagement, nor was it thought in any way offensive word.   However, by 1945 it had picked up the derogatory racial sense of “black person”, defined specifically as “frightened negro” and it became a common slur in the post-war world, probably because that even by then the “N-word” was becoming less acceptable in polite society.  That was the “linguistic treadmill” in practice but spook had also deviated earlier: In 1939 it is attested as meaning “a white jazz musician” and is listed by some sources as a disparaging term for a white person by 1947.  Spook also developed a curious fork in military aviation although one probably unrelated to the informal pilot’s jargon of the 1930s, a “spook” a “novice pilot” of the type who “haunt the hangers”, hiring air-time and learning to fly for no obvious practical purpose other than the joy of flying.  During the early 1940s, the US Army Air Force (USAAF) began the recruitment of black athletes for training as pilots, conducted at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama; the group (1940-1948) was known as the Tuskegee Airmen and during World War II (1939-1945) they gained a fine reputation when deployed as combat units.  However, they also suffered prejudice and when first posted to Europe were often called the “Spookwaffe” (a play on Luftwaffe, the name of the German air force) although as happened decades later with the by then infamous N-word, some black pilots “re-claimed” the name and used it as a self-referential term of pride.

Left to right: Spook, the Bacterian ambassador, Benzino Napaloni, Diggaditchie of Bacteria (a parody of Benito Mussolini), Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler) and Field Marshall Herring (Hermann Göring).  The satirical film The Great Dictator (1940) was very much a personal project, Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) writing, producing & directing as well as staring as Adenoid Hynkel, Phooey of Tomainia.  The rather cadaverous looking Spook was the Bacterian ambassador.

Seventy years of spooks.

On 9 September 2019, the Royal Australian Mint released a 50 cent coin to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the domestic spy agency (similiar in function to the UK's MI5 (Security Service)).  The issue was limited to 20,000 coins and each featured an encrypted code, similar in structure to those used by spooks during the Cold War.  At the time of the release, the Mint ran a competition inviting attempts to "solve the code", the prize the only proof commemorative coin in existence.  The competition was won by a fourteen year old who is apparently still at liberty, despite having proved him or herself a threat to national security.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) gave the word a few memorable phrases but one of the most evocative is a calque of the German spukhafte Fernwirkung (rendered by Einstein as spukhafte Fernwirkungen (spooky actions at a distance) in a letter of 3 March 1947 to the physicist Max Born (1882–1970)).  Einstein used “spooky actions at a distance” to refer to one of the most challenging ideas from quantum mechanics: that two particles instantaneously may interact over a distance and that distance could be that between different sides of the universe (or if one can’t relate to the universe having “sides”, separated by trillions of miles.  Known as “quantum entanglement”, it differs radically from some of the other (more abstract) senses in which everything in the universe is happening “at the same time”.

This aspect of quantum mechanics has for a century-odd been one of the most contested but the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists who designed experiments which tested the theories, their results contradicting Einstein and discovering the seriously weird phenomenon of quantum teleportation.  Quantum entanglement is a process in which two or more quantum particles are in some way connected so any change in one causes a simultaneous change in the other, even if they are separated by vast distances.  Indeed those distances could stretch even to infinity.  Einstein was one of many physicists not convinced and he didn’t like the implications, calling the idea “spooky action at a distance” and preferred to think the particles contained certain hidden variables which had already predetermined their states.  This was neat and avoided the need for any teleportation.  However, what the 2022 Nobel Laureates found that the fabric of the universe should be visualized as a sea of wave-like particles that affect each other instantaneously, distance as conventionally measured being irrelevant.  What that seems to mean is that nothing has to travel between the two particles (the speed of light therefore not a limitation) because the two are in the same place and that place is the universe.  The English physicist Sir Arthur Eddington (1882–1944) was surely correct when he remarked “…not only is the universe queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine.”