Pit

Pit (pronounced pit)

(1) A naturally formed or excavated hole or cavity in the ground.

(2) A covered or concealed excavation in the ground, serving as a trap for animals.

(3) In extractive mining, an excavation made in exploring for or removing a mineral deposit (also known (at scale) as “open-cut” as opposed to “underground” (although in casual use sometime used also of the mineshafts used in underground operations.  It can in mining slang also refer to an entire mine site, regardless of the mode of extraction.

(4) The stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, plum etc) and technically, the hard, inner layer (the endocarp) of certain drupes.

(5) The abode of evil spirits and lost souls; hell; the depths of Hades.

(6) In slang (as “the pits”) an extremely unpleasant, boring, or depressing place, condition, person, etc; the absolute worst (used also as a clipping of armpits).

(7) A hollow or indentation in a surface (in substances like glass or when referring to surfaces (paint, varnish etc), treated usually as an imperfection).

(8) In physiology, natural hollow or depression in the body, organ, structure or part; fossa (used most often of the small of the back).

(9) In medicine, a small, indented scar, as one of at the site of a former pustule after smallpox, chicken pox or similar diseases; a pockmark.

(10) In music, a section of the marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to march, such as the tam tam; the area on the side-lines where these instruments are placed.

(11) In botany, any of various small areas in a plant cell wall that remain un-thickened when the rest of the cell becomes lignified (used especially of the vascular tissue).

(12) In archaeology, a hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artefact revealed may be established by precise measurement.

(13) An enclosure, usually below the level of the spectators, as for staging fights between dogs, cocks, or, formerly, bears (as cockpit later extended to aircraft, cars, boats etc).

(14) In physical markets (such as a commodity exchange), a part of the floor of the exchange where trading is conducted (known in some places as “as open outcry pits” because transactions were done by traders shouting offers & acceptances at each other).

(15) In architecture, all that part of the main floor of a theatre behind the musicians (in UK use also the main floor of a theatre behind the stalls); sometimes used as “orchestra pit” (the area that is occupied by the orchestra in a theatre, located in front of the stage)

(16) In a hoist-way, a space below the level of the lowest floor served.

(17) In motorsport, an area at the side of a track, for servicing and refueling the cars (the use later adopted by cycle racing).

(18) In ten-pin bowling, the sunken area of a bowling alley behind the pins, for the placement or recovery of pins that have been knocked down.

(19) In track athletics,  the area forward of the take-off point in a jumping event, as the broad jump or pole vault, that is filled with sawdust or soft earth to lessen the force of the jumper's landing.

(20) In casinos, the area or room containing gambling tables.

(21) In aviation, the part of the aircraft (usually the bottom of the fuselage) given over to freight; a luggage hold.

(22) In American football, the centre of the line.

(23) In hospital slang, the emergency department.

(24) Literally, the bottom part (lowest point) of something; figuratively an undesirable location (especially if dirty, dangerous etc).

(25) In military slang, a bed (some evidence also of civilian (presumably ex-military) use).

(26) In nuclear physics, the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.

(27) To mark or indent with pits or depressions.

(28) In medicine, to scar with pockmarks.

(29) In physiology (of body tissue) temporarily to retain a mark of pressure, as by a finger, instrument, etc.

(30) To place or bury something in a pit, as for storage.

(31) To set in opposition or combat, as one against another (usually in the forms “pit against” or “pitted against”).

(32) In motorsport, to exit from the track, entering the pits, to permit the pit-crew to effect a pit-stop.

(33) To remove the stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, or plum), sometimes with the use of a pitter (if something done vocationally, by a pitter, usually with the use of a pitter).

Pre 900: From the Middle English noun pit, pittle, pite, pute, put & putte, from the Old English pytt (natural or man-made depression in the ground, water hole, well; grave (the Kentish variation was “pet”), from the Proto-West Germanic puti, from the Proto-Germanic putt- (pool, puddle) which was the source also of the Old Frisian pet, the Old Saxon putti, the Old Norse pyttr, the Middle Dutch putte, the Dutch put, the Old High German pfuzza and the German Pfütze (pool, puddle), an early borrowing from Latin puteus (pit, trench, shaft) (etymologists noting the phonetic difficulties which exist also in the speculated relationship between puteus and the primitive Indo-European root pau- (to cut, strike, stamp).  Because the short u makes it unlikely puteus was from paviō (to strike), it might instead be linked to putāre (to prune) but the distance between the meanings makes etymologists just as sceptical and some suggest puteus may be a loanword though the spelling might be mysterious.  The use in the context of stone fruit was an Americanism dating from 1841, from the Dutch pet (kernel, seed, marrow), from the Middle Dutch pitte & pit (kernel, core (and cognate with pith)), from the Proto-Germanic pittan (the dialectal German Pfitze (pimple) was an oblique of the Proto-Germanic piþō), from the Proto-Germanic pithan- (source of pith).  Like the use in other contexts, each instance of the verb was derivative of the noun.  Pit is a noun & verb, pitter is a noun and pitted & pitting are verbs; the noun plural is pits.

Ford GT40 pit-stop, Sebring 12 Hours, International Championship for Makes, Sebring, March 1966.

The meaning “abode of evil spirits, hell” dates from the late twelfth century, one of the many means in the medieval world of referring to hell.  The meaning “very small depression or dent in the surface of an object” was in use by the early 1400s, the anatomical sense of “natural depression or hollow in some part of the body” from more than a century earlier.  The “pit of the stomach” was in the literature by the 1650s and it was so-called from the slight depression there between the ribs; the earlier terms used by doctors were the late fourteenth century breast-pit and heart-pit from circa 1300.  The meaning “part of a theatre on the floor of the house, lower than the stage” was known by the 1640s while in market trading, the sense of “that part of the floor of an exchange where business is carried on” was first documented in 1903 as a coining in US English.

One of the high-water marks of the analog era: cockpit of the Anglo-French Concorde.

The phrase money-pit in the sense of “an edifice or project requiring constant outlay of cash with little to show for it” is quite modern, dating only from 1986 and assumed derived from the popular movie of the same name of the same name released that year (though it’s not impossible it had earlier been in regional use).  The prior use had been in the 1930s when it was used of the shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia which legend suggested would lead one to treasure buried by Captain Kidd or some other pirate.  Popular Mechanics magazine in September noted wryly the term might better refer to the millions spent trying to get the treasure out than the hoard of gold itself and in 2022, entrepreneurial engineer Elon Musk (b 1971) produced a variation, describing the factories in Europe building the electric Tesla cars as “money furnaces”.  The ash-pit (repository for ashes, especially the lower part of a furnace) dates from 1797 and it replaced the earlier (1640s) ash-hole, reflecting the implications of industrialization as forges and furnaces grew larger.  The venomous snake the pit-viper was so-named in 1872 because of the characteristic depression between the eyes and nose.  In commercial forestry, the pit-saw was first described in the 1670s, referring to a large saw operated by two men, one (the pit-sawyer) standing in the pit below the log being sawed, the other (the top-sawyer) standing atop.  Pitman was one of a wealth of vocationally-derived surnames which began to appear late in the twelfth century and it referred to one who dwelled literally “in or by a pit or hollow”, the use to describe someone who “works in a pit or mine” not documented until 1761.  Pitman shorthand, a popular form of hand-written transcription of spoken-word text which could later be read by a typist (often the “shorthand-taker) came into use in the 1860s, having been devised by English teacher & publisher (and devoted vegetarian) Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897) in 1837.  The phrase “flea-pit” dates from the 1920s and was used of cinemas, an allusion to the seats being infested with fleas or other bugs.

A Lindsay Lohan pit-stop from the blooper tape, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

The noun armpit was a mid-fourteenth century description of the “hollow place under the shoulder” and it ran in parallel with the earlier arm-hole although the latter use faded as it came to be used of clothing and as an anatomical descriptor it was obsolete by the mid seventeenth century.  There was also the early fifteenth century asselle, from the Old French asselle, from the Latin axilla but armpit prevailed.  The colloquial phrase “armpit of the nation” was used as a term of derision for any place thought ugly and disgusting and it’s not clear when it emerged but it was well-documented from the early 1960s.  The general term “the pits” was a variation and from late in the twentieth century applied to anything or anyone thought the worse possible of their type (ie based on something hairy, smelly and ugly).  Infamously, it was used by the US tennis player John McEnroe (b 1959) who at Wimbledon in 1981 called an umpire “the pits of the world” during one of their discussions.  The noun pitter (curved instrument for removing stones from cherries and other fruit” appeared in 1868 when pitters were made available as a commercial product (doubtlessly they had for centuries been improvised or adapted from other utensils) and where they were used vocationally, the user was also called a pitter, the same linguistic process which produced the dual use of shucker in the oyster business (the termed adopted also by others).  Pit-a-pat & pitter-pat, being imitative, are wholly unrelated and date from the 1520s, the noun emerging in 1580.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner cockpit.

The original cockpits were first described in the 1580s and were a “pit or enclosed space for fighting cocks”, the use soon extended to any space in which animals were set to fight to the death, the audience betting on the outcome.  From this came the verb use “to pit against” which meant “to put or set in or into a pit” and this soon extended to boxing; by the eighteenth century in figurative use it was used on any conflict, argument or rivalry.  The general verb use (make pits in; form a small pit or hollow) had been in used (as pit, pitted & pitting) by the late fifteenth century.  The dog breed pit-bull dates from 1922 and was short for pit-bull terrier (first registered in 1912), a type noted for its aggression a fighting abilities.  Cockpit was used of ships early in the eighteenth century of midshipmen's compartment below decks and in some cases was later applied also to the enclosed cabins located towards the centre of the deck began to replace the steerage systems at the stern (later universally known as the “bridge”).  It was picked up for the pilot’s compartment in aircraft in 1914 and (by extension) was used in racing cars in the 1930s.  The word cesspit was created in the 1860s because advances in plumbing meant something was needed to distinguish more modern systems handling sewerage from the earlier cesspool, in use since the 1670s.  The mid fourteenth century pitfall (concealed hole into which a person or animal may fall unawares) was a description of a physical danger which came into figurative in the early 1600s to refer to “any hidden danger or concealed source of disaster.  In mining, a pitfall could also be literally a collapse of the internal structure of a mineshaft, sometime because of the catastrophic failure of pit-props (the timbers which provided the structural integrity of a shaft).  Sometimes a mile or more deep, pitfalls frequently were fatal and the death-toll among miners was high, the phrase “pit-hell” often heard.

The original pits at the Indianapolis Speedway, 1913. 

It was difficult and expensive (and often impossible) to lift heavy machinery to allow mechanics to work on engines or other components so, where possible, it was better to construct a pit underneath from which people could work.  The concept was well documented in workshops by 1839 and the term was by 1912 picked up in motorsport to describe the “area at the side of a track where cars are serviced and repaired” and the early pits were often holes in the ground with waist-high surrounds in which the crew could stand.  They were used also to store spare tyres, parts lubricants etc.  As the sport boomed, the pits quickly became fully enclosed service areas and even garages, built along pit-lane.  When a driver brought his car into the pits (located on the stretch of track called pit-straight), they were said to be pitting to be worked on by the pit crew who might during the pit-stop make repairs, re-fuel or change tyres, either in front of or behind the pit-wall.  Pit crew became a popular term beyond the tracks, used of airline baggage handlers, sea-port staff etc.

The pit-babes from the era of (obvious) sponsorship by tobacco companies: Coming or going, they always looked good.

In motorsport, a pit-babe is an attractive young lady who is in the pits for some reason, not necessarily directly related to the competition.  The companion term was Grid-Girl, equally attractive specimens with the role of (1) looking good and (2) appearing on the grid while the cars were assembled prior to the start, shielding the driver from the elements with a large umbrella, festooned with corporate logos.  It was nice work if you could get it but the Grid-Girls are now rarely seen in Formula 1.  In 2017, Liberty Media (owners of Formula 1) announced that with the coming of the 2018 season, the Grid-Girls would be replaced by “Grid-Kids” (boys and girls competing in junior and “entry level” categories such as karting, the explanation being the practice of using Grid-Girls was “not aligned with modern societal norms and F1's brand values.”)  F1’s “brand values” are however underpinned by “dollar values” and in the years since, Grid-Girls (officially "promotional personnel") have sometimes been allowed to adorn the grid.

Comrade Grid-Girls, Hungarian Grand Prix, 1986.  

Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) once recalled his most pervasive memory of life behind the iron curtain being one of “dull grayness and the smell of boiled cabbage”.  Clearly, old Henry didn’t get a pit pass to the 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix where things were bright and colourful.  The 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix was notable because it was the first such event in the country for half a century and the first as a top-flight race, the 1936 Grand Prix not being part of the European championship and run under Formula Libre rules (there should be more Formula Libre events).  Not in Hungry or anywhere else in 1936 were there pit-babes or Grid-Girls but on that sunny June day, a woman had been entered for the event, England’s Eileen Ellison (1910–1967) listed for the field driving a 3.0 litre, straight-8 Maserati 8CM.  Unfortunately, there was what would now be called a “supply chain interruption” and her Maserati was a DNA (Did not Appear) so Ms Ellison appears in the race record as a DNS (Did not Start).

End of an era: Grid-Girls in Marlboro livery at the Hungarian Grand Prix, 2005.

In 1936 it turned out to be a bad day for the Mercedes-Benz team, the W25 which had in 1934 been revolutionary now outclassed and all three were DNFs (Did not Finish), the race won by the mercurial Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953) in a 3.8 litre straight-8 Alfa Romeo 8C 35, entered by Scuderia Ferrari.  Held in August as the eleventh race of the 1986 series, that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix was the first in the country since 1936 and the first Formula 1 World Championship (contested since 1950) race to be held behind the Iron Curtain; it was attended by some 200,000 spectators (drawn substantially from around the Eastern Bloc), a number not seen since the inter-war years and a mark not exceeded until the 1995 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.  The race was won by Nelson Piquet (b 1952; Formula One Champion 1981, 1983 & 1987) in a Williams Honda FW11.  The Hungarian Grand Prix returned to the record books in 2005 when the “XXI Marlboro Magyar Nagydij” became the last Grand Prix to be sponsored by a tobacco company, half the field running in the livery of the tobacco industry, West, Mild Seven, Lucky Strike, Malboro and Benson & Hedges all colourfully represented.  With the EU’s (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) ban of tobacco advertising coming into force on 31 July, 2005 (race day!), there ended over four decades of cigarette sponsorship in Formula 1, most teams keeping the livery until the last possible moment, the stickers appearing during qualifying and peeled off only shortly before the machines were wheeled to the starting grid (although Ferrari, Renault and Jordan rebelled and kept the logos without consequences).  Of course, the EU’s law-change meant the pit-babes and Grid-Girls also got new outfits although cunningly, the designs often featured shapes and colors recalling the distinctive packaging used for cigarette cartons so the message got through, and ways were explored to find techniques so the cars could also continue as moving billboards.    

Anadrome

Anadrome (pronounced an-uh-drohm)

(1) A word which forms a different word when spelled backwards.

(2) In pre-modern medical jargon, the upward path of various elements (pain, blood etc) (obsolete).

Circa 1961 (in this context): The construct was ana- +‎ -drome.  Ana was from the Ancient Greek ἀνα- (ana-), from ἀνά (aná) (backward in direction, reversed) and drome was from the Ancient Greek δρόμος (dromos) (running; racetrack); the surface analysis of anadrome thus can be understood as “going backwards”.  Confusingly however, the Greek prefix aná was appended also to convey the notion of “up, above, upward”, (2) “again”, (3) “thoroughly”, (4) “against”, (5) “distal, away from” and (6) “to grow or change in place; functionally similar”.  So, a deconstruction alone would not be definitive and the meaning is established through context.  The longest accepted anadrome in English is believed to be the pair desserts/stressed but among the dozens which exist, it is god/dog which seems most to amuse students.  The coining (or possibly a re-purposing of the earlier medical jargon) of anadrome was credited to Martin Gardner (1914–2010) who is said to have added it in a 1961 re-publication of Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature (1875) by Charles C. Bombaugh (1828-1906) but the word doesn't appear in at least some of the 1961 editions and at least the spike in use may better be attributed to the reclusive and eccentric Dmitri Borgmann (1927–1985) a German-American author regarded still as something of the “high priest of recreational linguistics”.  In his introduction, Mr Gardner does pay tribute to Mr Borgmann as one of the “outstanding creators of word puzzles”.  Anadrome & anadromy are nouns and anadromous & anadromic are adjectives; the noun plural is anadromes.

An young anadromous Atlantic salmon, still resident in the freshwater in which it was born.  The young salmon are called smolts after they gain a silvery hue and migrate to the ocean.

The adjectival form is used in ichthyology, the term “anadromous fish” describing those species born in freshwater rivers or streams that migrate to the ocean to mature and forage, subsequently returning to freshwater to spawn.  First appearing in scientific papers in 1753, the construct of anadromous was ana- (used here in the sense of “up, above, upward”) + dromos (a running), from dramein (to run).  Though the usual natural processes, anadromous fish have evolved with an environmental adaptation called osmoregulation which enables them seamlessly to adapt to changing salinities; that’s what makes it possible for them to live in both aquatic habitats (salt & freshwater).  The process is dynamic as it must be because while some notional freshwater species might move into a sea or ocean only for weeks, others can stay there for years because that’s where they undergo most of their growing cycle.  Remarkably, and using a mechanism not wholly understood (use of the Earth’s magnetic field an intriguing theory), after perhaps years the fish return to their exact natal streams to reproduce.  For freshwater ecosystems, the behaviour is not a mere zoological curiosity because as schools return from their time in saltwater, they bring with them marine-derived phosphorus & nitrogen, “topping up” the elements on which the health of the spawning grounds depends.  Anadromous fish are thus listed as keystone species, some salmon the best known examples.  An anadromic fish swimming to or from the ocean could be said to be proceeding anadromically but the adverb is non-standard.

A catadromous freshwater American eel, slithering out of a pipe, possibly heading back to the ocean, catadromically (again, a non standard adverb).

The companion term is “catadromous fish”, describing species born in salt water that mature in fresh water and return to the sea to spawn, certain eels the best known.  The mysterious European eel exerted a particular fascination upon the natural scientists of Antiquity, Aristotle (384-322 BC) writing the earliest known study although the findings truly were speculative, his novel idea being the creatures were born of “earth worms” which, he suggested, were formed of mud, growing from the “guts of wet soil”.  In the absence of any better theory or observational data, the notion for some time held sway and not for centuries was spontaneous generation disproven.  It wasn’t until the eighteenth century researchers perfected their techniques of dissection and confirmed eels really are fish although, while in recent years it has been possible to effect breeding of eels in captivity, because of the difficulty of replicating at scale the multi-aquatic environment needed for the life-cycle, it’s unlikely any time soon to become commercially viable.  Largely because of demand from the Far East (especially Japan) the European freshwater glass eel has become threatened with smuggling rife, the decline in availability encouraging a trade in the American eel, something which has created problems because of the involvement of transnational crime groups.

25 Franc postage stamp, issued to mark the independence of Upper Volta, 1960.

Although in a sense belonging to the discipline of structural linguistics, the word anadrome (in this context) seems in this context to have come into use (“re-invented” as it were) only in the mid twentieth century and it emerged not from academia but recreational wordplay: It was a “fun word” which migrated to reference books when editors and compliers noticed it appearing in published word games and puzzle culture.  While having no place in formal linguistic theory, it is used as a teaching aid, apparently on the basis of “training the mind to be flexible”, the model believed to be the better known “palindrome” (a word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc reading the same backward as forward), in use since the 1630s.  In logology (recreational linguistics, ie puzzles, word-games and such), there is a great satisfaction in having a coined word “succeed” in the sense of even a limited, specialized acceptance which is why the community has come up with synonyms including: (1) semordnilap (“palindromes” spelled backwards) (2) levidrome (the “Levi” element from the given name of the coiner), (3) reversgram and (4) heteropalindrome (the hetro- prefix a learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros) (other, another, different).  There was a suggestion such words should be called a "volta" (from the Italian volta (which can be used to mean "to turn")) but the idea never caught on.

H.R. Haldeman (1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973 right) and Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974) doing paperwork (ie shredding evidence) in the White House.

The word did however find a place in geopolitical history.  Flowing south into the West African nation of Ghana from the highlands of Burkina Faso, the Volta River was in the late fifteenth century named by Portuguese gold traders.  Because it was their furthest extent of exploration before returning, the name was appropriate, volta being Portuguese for “turn” or “twist”, thus the common term “river of return”.  As part of the unravelling of the French colonial empire, the République de Haute-Volta (Republic of Upper Volta) was in 1958 created as a self-governing state within the French Community; previously it had been part of the French Union in West Africa as the French Upper Volta.  Independence was granted in 1960 and in 1984 the nation's name was changed to Burkina Faso.  When president, Richard Nixon sarcastically would use “Upper Volta” as a reference to any “unimportant country”, especially if compelled by the conventions of diplomacy to spend time exchanging “pointless pleasantries” with the dignitaries in their visiting delegations.  Sometimes, when someone from the State Department displeased him (a not infrequent happening), darkly he would mutter about having them posted as “ambassador to Upper Volta”, a place Nixon thought a kind of “diplomatic Gulag”.

62¢ postage stamp issued in 2015 by Deutsche Post (The German post office, now a brand of DHL Group) to mark the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the “Second Reich”) 1871-1890).

Among politicians, the phenomenon of an at least affected indifference to the affairs of countries in which no matters of national interest seem obvious is well documented.  His eyes darting east & west, Otto von Bismarck claimed he “never troubled to read the mailbag from Constantinople” although he of course at least glanced at every paper.  While the famous phrase attributed to him: “I shall not live to see the Great War, but you will see it, and it will start in the East.” is likely apocryphal, what is verified he did say: “One day the great European war will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”  Confidently it may be asserted he read the telegrams from the embassy in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye (Turkey)).  While predicting squabbles in the Balkans hardly demanded great statesmanship, his vision of a “big” European war was remarkably prescient although the chain of events which in 1914 triggered the spread of what could have been yet another localized Balkan war was a consequence of the legacy of inter-locking treaties he'd crafted, his successors less adept in their handling.  Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician to Winston Churchill 1940-1965) in his diary (The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (1966)) on more than one occasion noted Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) unconcern about places which had never piqued his interest.  An entry from April 1953 recorded him saying: “‘I have lived seventy-eight years without hearing of bloody places like Cambodia.’  With a whimsical look he strung out half a dozen strange-sounding names.  ‘They have never worried me, and I haven’t worried them.'”  A year on, revisiting his thoughts, when told of troubles in Central America he thought tiresome, Churchill complained: “I’d never heard of this bloody place Guatemala until I was in my seventy-ninth year.” 

Google Ngram

Google Ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their Ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, Ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts (typically a scanner might misread an “f” for a long “s” or a “u” for an “n”) of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI (artificial intelligence) should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

As Google’s Ngram attests, “anadrome” was in use in the nineteenth century, the earliest citation dating from 1840, the use a classic illustration of “lexical overlap” a phenomenon which delights word nerds (an easily delighted lot).  In the mid-late 1800s, anadrome (often written as anadromé, reflecting both the Greek roots and the backgrounds of those using the word) was a technical term seen mostly in botanical and medical publications; it was direct borrowing of the Ancient Greek anadromē (ἀναδρομή) (“an ascent”; “running up”).  Medical dictionaries in the era weren’t new but revised editions were common because advances in observational technologies and techniques meant new entries constantly were required and anadrome seems first to have been used of a variety of “physiological ascents” including (1) Ascending Pain: physical pain starting in the lower limbs or torso and migrating upward, (2) The “upward determination of blood: A rush of blood toward the head or upper body and, best of all (3) Globus Hystericus: The “lump in the throat” sensation described at the time also as the “ascent of the womb”.  While scientifically inaccurate, it was memorable and dated from the era (which lasted well into the twentieth century) when the condition “hysteria” was part of the diagnostic toolkit for physicians assessing female patients.  In botanical use, the meaning was most analogous with the idea of blood flow, botanists describing “upward sap flow” (the ascent of sap through a plant’s vascular system).  What the Ngram has in this case captured is a genuine heteronym (a word that looks the same but has a completely different meaning and subtly different lineage).

Between consenting players only: More than 11 points but don’t try insisting on it in competition or you’ll be blackballed; the Scrabble crew neither forgive nor forget.

The proliferation of synonyms of a word which is little more than a curiosity is an example of why the English language has so many words, most of which are never or rarely used.  The estimates notoriously are vague because there exists no consensus on just what is the definition of a “real word” (which sounds silly but in language there’s no concept like the “real number” in mathematics and, at the margins, disputes are legion).  If one is most accommodating of the definitional spectrum, there may in English be as many as a million words but only 15-20% are thought to be in regular or occasional use.  However, although it has appeared in many lists (often of the strange or obscure), "anadrome" has not received the imprimatur of the major sanctioning bodies setting the rules for the game of competitive Scrabble.  It never appeared in the Collins SOWPODS (an anagram of the two abbreviations OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) & OSW (Official Scrabble Words)) or the replacement CSW (Collins Scrabble Words) and nor is it in the NASPA’s (North American Scrabble Players Association) NWL (NASPA Word List).  Quite why Collins replaced the wonderful "SOWPODS" with the dreary "CSW" remains a mystery; more than most, they would know English speakers usually will be pulled to a word with two syllables if the alternative is one of five.  The NASPA Dictionary Committee does accept submissions so anadrome advocates can pursue that course but as a non-standard form, the adverb anadromically definitely has no good prospects.  Those playing at home can of course tolerate a bit of linguistic promiscuity and, provided all players agree, if used, "anadrome" would yield a face value of 11 points (before any double/triple letter or word bonuses) but because there are not eight sequential blank squares on a standard Scrabble board, at least one letter always will attract a multiplier.  For word nerd dissidents unhappy with the dictatorial ways of Scrabble’s ruling ancien régime, there is the scrabblesque (also not a “real word”) “Anadrome the Game” in which "anadrome" is lawful and welcomed.

A brunette era Lindsay Lohan wearing Nahol dress in a black and white rose print by Masai of Copenhagen, rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.  The anadrome of “Lohan” is “Nahol”.

Masai describes the Nahol as “a loose, oversized, and comfortable midi-dress, characterized by a V-neck, ¾-length length sleeves, side pockets and an elasticized hem creating a slight balloon effect.”  That it has pockets may be enough of a selling point for women, many designers loath to include them in women’s clothing because any additional bulk might “spoil the line”.  Made with what the manufacturer describes as a “sustainable” (a word that has become the industry’s “new black”) mix of 15% polyamide blend & 85% viscose (said “often” to be FCS (Forest Stewardship Council) certified), the material had a “crinkled” finish in black or printed designs.  It does look comfortably accommodating and, on the move, would "swish" nicely.

Nahol as a proper noun (surname): Dalia Nahol.

While not a recognized word in English or other European languages, Nahol is a proper noun and the village of Nahol (bp) (नहोल (bp)) is in the Shimla District of Himachal Pradesh State, India.  In the anthropological record, it seems most often mentioned as used a name in PNG (Papua New Guinea) and East Africa although many of those texts were derived from oral histories so what was recorded as a phonetic “Nahol” may in some cases have been variants.  Whether there’s any link in origin between the uses in PNG & East Africa isn’t known and as a relatively simple (five letter, two syllable) form, it is likely Nahol came independently to be used as a name in more than one place.  The best documented origin is from Ethiopia where the name Naol often was transliterated as Nahol, Nawol or Naoll; it’s a masculine form from Oromo culture meaning “one who brings the peace” or “peaceful”. 

Nahol as a proper noun (surname): Isaac Amu Nahol.

There is an ancient linkage between Jewish traditions and Ethiopia but there’s no evidence the surname Nahols (most prevalent in Eastern Europe, notably among Jewish communities in Poland and Ukraine) has any connection with the Oromo culture; the similar form Nahal (or Nahaul) from the Hebrew (נחל) (nahal) meaning “stream, brook, valley” (and, by extension, “inheritance” (the idea of an estate “flowing” to the descendants)).  Nahols may have been derived from a Yiddish or Hebrew personal name (on the model of English names such as Stevenson (ie the son of Steven)).  In Arabic, the cognate root yielded Nahel & Nahil which although often understood as “generous” or “successful”, was linked also to “bees & honey”, the latter perhaps accounting for why one Bangladeshi (the old post-partition East Pakistan) source cited the name Nahol meaning “the queen of bees”.

Nova Sky: Yasdnil, Star Of (2021) by Yasdnil (Lindsay Ferraro).

The anadrome of “Lindsay” is “Yasdnil”.  As a surname, Yasdnil is astonishingly rare, the genealogy sites listing only a few dozen instances with the origin, although uncertain, thought to be Persian and from the Yazd region (in modern, Central Iran).  The name is thought drawn from Yas, a type of desert flower, thus the symbolic link of the name with beauty and nature.  Genealogists note the rarity and suspect at least some names with similar spellings may be variant forms.  In the Actinobacteriophage Database, Yasdnil is listed as an Actinobacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) in the phylum Actinobacteria; it was found in North Texas in 2018 “…in a soil sample that was dark, dry and had organic material (wood-chips, branches etc).”  The researcher reported the phage was named after “…an individual who was important to me, a lot of time was invested into the phage just as a lot of time was invested into that individual.  Naming the phage after them seemed appropriate as it commemorates commitment and good memories.”  It wasn’t revealed whether the inspiration was a “Yasdnil” or an anadromic “Lindsay”.  Yasdnil is also used as a pseudonym (presumably usually as an anadrome of Lindsay) and the best known may be author and advocate Lindsay Ferraro, who published the poetry collection Nova Sky: Yasdnil, Star Of (2021).  Less encouragingly, NRS (normally reliable source) Urban Dictionary has a listing for yasdnil as meaning “the Devil’s daughter”.

Almach

Almach (pronounced elle-mak)

(1) In astronomy, a second-magnitude quadruple star, telescopically visible as an apparent double star composed of an orange bright giant and a fifth-magnitude blue-white triple star, marking the left foot of the chained woman in the northern constellation of Andromeda.

(2) In astronomy, Gamma Andromedae, specifically the brightest star of the Almach star system.

Late 1500s (in English): From the Arabic العناق الأرض (al-ʿanāq al-arḍ) (desert lynx or caracal).  The construct of the original Arabic was al- (the (the Arabic definite article)) + ʿanāq (a small wild animal, often glossed as lynx, caracal, or desert fox) + al-arḍ (“the earth” or “the ground”).  The process by which “al-ʿanāq al-ard” became “Almach” was a familiar one, the transmission into medieval Latin astronomical texts often was accomplished via translations of works by writers from Antiquity such as the Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer & astrologer Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemy, circa 100–170), filtered sometimes through the writings of Arabic scholars who contributed much to pre-modern science.  These processes appears to have been lineal (though not necessarily in a single path because variations in spelling and use continued with alternatives running in parallel) and the evolution essential was al-ʿanāq → al-anach → almach.  The “-mach” element was a not untypical corruption of the guttural consonants (ʿayn and qāf) so familiar in Arabic that didn’t map neatly into pronunciation in Latin or later European languages.  While not a “meaningful” word in European languages Almach endures as fossilized misreading of an Arabic descriptive name, preserved (as modified) through the long transmission chain of classical astronomy, a not unique linguistic phenomenon because other names of places in the Cosmos (such as Rigel and Betelgeuse) went through similar Arabic to Latin distortions and these types, although outwardly different, in structural linguistics, the patterns are said to be consistent.

Caracel HD wallpaper from Alphacoders.

The related variant (referring to the same star) is Alamak, a closer phonetic attempt at the Arabic original.  Alamak may be thought a less-corrupted sibling of Almach with both traced back to the same Arabic source, the difference being in the in transliteration of ʿanāq, approximated as anak or amak.  So “Alamak” represents a more faithful attempt to emulate the phonetic practice in Arabic with the consonants (especially the final qāf) rendered in something close to the original but whether this happened as a deliberate attempt at “authenticity”, through the offices of an Arabic-speaking scholar or a native speaker of the tongue isn’t known.  That of course poses the question of why, when Arabic astronomical, scientific or mathematical texts were translated into Latin in medieval Spain or elsewhere, there was no standardized system for either preserving multi-word (or element) names or representing guttural consonants.  Etymologists caution modern conventions and conditions cannot be mapped onto earlier eras with transliterations and translations a good example.  In Europe, scholars, separated often by hundreds of miles, sometimes were working with the same ancient or foreign texts and it wasn’t unknown for them for years or even decades to be unaware of the work of others, the modern concepts of “publishing” and “distribution” then centuries away.  That’s also why so many errors of translation for so long endured into the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and Modernity, a mistake which gained critical mass (especially if widely printed) being accepted as orthodoxy.  Sometimes the errors were mistakes or misunderstandings but there’s long been evidence medieval scribes weren’t above “making stuff up” to “fill in the gaps” so what the early versions of consumer-level generative AI (artificial intelligence) products (ie, the ones we’re living with in the mid-2020s) sometimes do is not novel, as the recent "experiment" publishing "data" about the "condition" bixonimania demonstrated. 

Almach's place in Andromeda from the BBC's Sky at Night.  The lines drawn on the chart illustrate the romantic origin of the link with the caracal (lynx or desert fox).

Both “Almach” & “Alamak” (or “Almak” entered English through the highly productive medieval–early modern pipeline of Arabic to Latin to become part of the vernacular of astronomy but use stabilized at different times.  Almach came first to English, appearing late in the sixteenth century in “star catalogues” (some of which carefully were illustrated with commendable accurately) and by the early 1600s, it had been accepted as the standard form in English astronomical works, remaining the dominant use for Gamma Andromedae well into the modern period.  The variants “Alamak” & “Almak” came later, there being no evidence of use prior to the mid-eighteenth century and the more phonetically informed transliteration probably was influenced by an improved European knowledge of Arabic phonology, the shift from “-ch” to “-k” representing a closer rendering of the Arabic ق. (qāf).  While that “authenticity” made it a more “difficult” word for those in the West, there were scholars wo took pride in wherever possible respecting original forms and although mistakes may have come from “source documents”, it was accepted practice to “correct” things verified as wrong.  “Almak” however was not an “error”; it was a variant spelling of “Alamak” simplified by dropping the medial vowel.  Today, “Almach” remains the orthodoxy in astronomy, while “Almak” survives as a recognized but less common variant.  In the layered lexicon of astronomy, the synonym of Almach is Andromedae and the holonym (in philosophy & semantics, philosophy a term that denotes the whole of which another term's referent is a part) is Andromeda.  Almach is a proper noun.

Despite the similarity, there is no connection between the use of “Alamak” in astrometry and the Malay word alamak (an interjection meaning something like “Oh dear” (in the sense of an expression of shock or dismay)?  While the former ultimately was the result of transliteration drift (an attempt to correct an imperfect rendering of a Latinized Arabic), the Malay word comes from a wholly separate linguistic stream.  The Malay interjection alamak! deconstructs as al- (the Arabic definite article (the) which was absorbed into Malay through Islamic and literary influences + amak (colloquial Malay for “mother”).  So alamak! (Literally “oh, mother!”) is understood as an exclamatory construction expressing surprise, alarm, or dismay and in that it may be thought functionally similar to English expressions such as “oh dear!” or “oh my!” or “oh goodness!”, such fragments doubtless parts of just about every language, serving as “polite” or “socially acceptable” ways of expressing emotions other “oh xxx!” forms do in earthier, more vulgar ways (in English there are more than a dozen of these).  The Malay use is thought probably to have originated as a contracted form of Al(lah) (God) +‎ mak (mother) with the Arabic al- (“the”) an “official” substitute element to avoid using the name of God for a purpose which might in some circumstances have been judged “a profanity or blasphemy”.  There may have been some Portuguese influence (from the common expression Kristang alamah (Mother of God) or even the Christian expression “Mary, mother of God” but modern Malaysian scholars have suggested the Malay term may be contracted from the Arabic اللَّهُ مَعَكَ (al-lahu maʕaka), a traditional phrase meaning “May God be with you”.  Whatever the origin, it survived into the modern era as an exclamation or expression of alarm about a problem, error or crisis.

Four star system (cosmology).

Gamma Andromedae is a multiple star system in the northern constellation of Andromeda and the third-brightest in the constellation, after Alpheratz and Mirach; it is some 390 light-years distant from Earth.  Believed by the astronomers of Antiquity to be a single star, using the more advanced telescopes which had become available, German physicist Johann Tobias Mayer (1752–1830) in 1778 determined the object to be a “double star system”, the brighter member, Andromedae the “primary” component and thus designated Andromedae A (officially “Almach”), used as the traditional name of the whole system seen by the naked eye as a single object.  The fainter secondary was called Andromedae B and it was only later (when optics improved further) that Andromedae was observed to be “triple system” and what appears to the naked eye as a “single star” is thus a “four star system”.  That compelled the the renaming of Andromedae B to Andromedae Ba & Andromedae Bb.

Four star system (Hollywood).

The Mean Girls (2004) crew (Regina George (Rachel McAdams, b 1978)), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert, b 1982)), Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried, b 1985)) and Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan, b 1986)), pictured at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards ceremony.  Barbara “Barbra” Streisand (b 1942) starred in the movie Funny Girl (1968) and, after completing the sequel (Funny Lady (1975)), joked that in a few decades she expected to hear from Columbia Pictures “…offering her the title role in Funny Old Hag.”  Whether there will be a Mean Ladies isn’t known but one day, definitely there should be a Mean Old Hags.

Four star system (military).

Portrait of General George S. Patton (1945), oil on canvas by Boleslaw Jan Czedekowski (1885-1969), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.  Four star US Army General George Patton (1885-1945) was steeped in military history and thought in millennialist terms.  During World War II (1939-1945) thought of the Germans as “the Prussians” and the Soviets as the “the Mongols”.  After the war ended, so concerned was the US State Department about General Patton’s openly expressed hostility towards the Soviet Union they feared he might do something which would trigger conflict; even if brief and localized, that would have been unwelcome so the diplomats asked the Army to have their psychiatrists “keep a discrete eye on him”.  Patton was seriously injured in a traffic accident early in December 1945, dying some two weeks later.

The use of “star” to describe the hierarchy of senior military ranks is now well-established and is useful for those not well-acquainted with the nomenclature.  For example a three star (lieutenant) general out-ranks a two star (major) general by a grade despite a major out-ranking a lieutenant by two notches.  The reasons for the apparent anomaly are historic but is an indication why for non-experts it easier to “think stars” than titles.  Surprisingly, in the United States military, the system was finalized only this century and prior to 1944, the matter of stars and titles for generals had been a little confused, the whole order of precedence in the army since the Declaration of Independence only properly codified with some retrospective creations in 1976 and 2024.  Historically, the most senior rank in the US Army had been lieutenant general and it was as one George Washington (1732–1799; first POTUS, 1789-1797) retired from the military.  The first major change came in the post Civil War (1861-1865) era when the rank of “General of the Army” was gazetted and while nominally a four star appointment, structurally, it was the equivalent of what would in 1944 be formalized as five star rank.  However, in 1866, the significance of the title “General of the Army” was it reflected the appointee being the general with authority over the whole army which meant there could be only ever be one in active service.  In other words, that meant the four star general was commander-in-chief of the army and the paperwork had years earlier been prepared for Washington to be raised thus but this was never done because of concern among lawyers it might set a precedent and be seen to impinge upon a president’s authority as commander in chief.  Indeed, although later the US military would use titles such as “Commander in Chief, US Pacific Command”, Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) in 2002 ended the practice (and use of the acronym CINC) by re-asserting there was in the US: “only one commander in chief in America - the president”, spelled out in Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."  The matter of civilian authority over the military was one of the founding principles of the republic.

The next change came when General John "Black Jack" Pershing (1860–1948) who had commanded the US expeditionary forces in World War I (1914-1918) was appointed to the then unique rank of General of the Armies of the United States.  At the time, the war was known as the "World War" (a suggestion by Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; POTUS 1913-1921)), the vast and bloody conflict already regarded as “the war to end all wars” and the feeling was the conflict had in scale and awfulness been unique so some special recognition was deserved.  Pershing however remained a four star general and confusingly, when the spate of five star appointments was made between 1944-1950, the old wording “General of the Army” was revived with the pecking order based on the gazetted date of appointment to the rank which no longer implied an individual having authority over the entire army.  There have since been no five star creations (although many other armies have continued to appoint field marshals which is the equivalent).  In the US, some historians and many in the military fretted over the untidiness of it all and in 1976, George Washington formerly was gazetted “General of the Armies of the United States with rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present”, meaning he will for all time be the US Army’s senior officer.

1995 Mercedes-Benz E 320 Cabriolet (A124) in Polar White over Black Leather with 16 inch Alamak wheels.  The A124 (1992-1997) was a variant of the W124 (1985-1995) and was the factory's first four-seat cabriolet since the W111 (1961-1971).    

The Alamak wheel design by Mercedes-Benz is also sometime referred as the “8-hole” which is accurate, if brutish.  The name comes from the alternative spelling of the common name for Gamma Andromedae and is one of a number of examples of the factory turning to the lexicon of cosmology to dub wheel designs, others in the celestial theme including Adharaz (a star in Canis Major), Alcor (a star in Ursa Major), Mizar (a star in Ursa Major) and Toliman (Alpha Centauri).  The Alamaks were most often fitted to the W126 (1976-1991), W201 (1982-1993), W124 (1985-1997), R129 (1989-2001) and W140 (1991-1999) ranges.  Among students of such things the Alamaks were thought among the factory’s most accomplished designs (some of what followed, notably on the W210 (1994-2003) were inexplicably ugly) but dissenting from the admirers were the AMG fanboys who, whenever possible, sought to replace the Alamaks fitted to the early build 500 E models (1991-1995) with some flavour of AMG’s Monoblock wheels, a design which attracted a cult-like following.   Late in the run of the R129, a less aesthetically pleasing variant of the Alamak’s theme appeared as the Albireo, a "six-hole" design; they were fitted as standard equipment on Silver Arrow edition R129s.  Albireo is a double star system in the Constellation Cygnus.