Caffeine

Caffeine (pronounced ka-feen, kaf-een or kaf-ee-in)

A white, crystalline, bitter alkaloid with the chemical compound C8H10N4O2.

1830: From the French caféine, the construct being café (coffee) + ine (the chemical suffix).  The earlier German was kaffein, from kaffee (coffee); the adjective is caffeinic.  Technically, caffeine is a trimethyl-derivative of xanthine, a coining as Kaffein in 1830, from German Kaffein, by German analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1794–1867).  He chose the name because the alkaloid was found in coffee beans; its presence accounting for the stimulating effect of coffee and tea.  The noun caffeinism was coined as medical jargon in 1880 to describe the "morbid state produced by prolonged or excessive exposure to caffeine" although the condition had for centuries been noted by doctors and others.

Of coffee

Caffeine's molecular structure.

Methyltheobromine (or caffeine) is a central nervous system stimulant and the most widely consumed psychoactive drug which works, inter alia, by reversibly blocking the action of adenosine on its receptor and consequently prevents the onset of adenosine-induced drowsiness.  Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline purine, a methylxanthine alkaloid, chemically related to the adenine and guanine bases of DNA and ribonucleic acid RNA.

Human caffeine consumption is said to date from circa 3000 BC when, according to Chinese legend, the mythological Emperor Shennong (Divine Farmer) serendipitously invented tea, a story derived from an early book on the history of tea.  Coffee drinking first became common in the mid-fifteenth century in the Sufi monasteries of Yemenin Arabia and it spread first to North Africa and by the sixteenth century was widely consumed throughout the Middle East, Persia and Asia Minor.  The first European coffee houses were in Italy and they soon became common throughout the continent.

Voltaire (1760) by Théodore Gardelle (1722–1761); he doubtlessly agreed with de Fontenelle.

In its pure form, caffeine can be fatal in tiny quantities although in the form usually enjoyed, coffee, one would need to drink over a hundred cups in a day to approach toxicity.  Voltaire (1694–1778), often at the Café de Procope in Paris, drank sometimes as many as forty cups a day, enjoying it so much he ignored the advice of his doctors to stop.  He lived to eighty-four but there’s no evidence the often attributed quotation: “It may be poison, but I have been drinking it for sixty-five years, and I am not dead yet” was his.  The more likely source is French author Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) whose actual words were: “I think it must be [a slow poison], for I’ve been drinking it for eighty-five years and am not dead yet.”   Fontenelle died a month short of his hundredth birthday.

Depiction of seventeenth century London coffee house.

Whatever the concern about coffee the drink, the coffee house the place attracted its own concerns.  There’s some evidence coffee houses were welcomed by the authorities when first they became popular in seventeenth century London because they seemed a desirable alternative to the ale house where men would drink beer and later gin, leading to all the notorious social ills.  However, it seemed soon to kings and ministers that while having drunken men brawl or beat their wives was hardly good, it was a more manageable problem than having them cluster, share the newly available cheap newspapers and pamphlets, talk and think.  Men taking and thinking might lead to them getting ideas which was worse than them fighting in the street and government made repeated attempts to suppress the coffee shops.  Ultimately, caffeine prevailed.

Johann Sebastian Bach (circa 1760) by Johann Eberhard Ihle (1727–1814).

On the continent, the Habsburgs were no more impressed than the Stuarts in England, the government there encouraging the idea of coffee was a subversive societal vice and there was something of a minor moral panic among good citizens disturbed at the corrupting influences of such places.  This didn’t amuse a German composer famously associated with the late Baroque, JS Bach (1685–1750) who was fond of taking his frequent shots in his favorite coffee shops and, although never noted for his light-heartedness, he took an amusing poem mocking the public’s concerns, written by his frequent collaborator Christian Friedrich Henrici (1700–1764; pen name Picander), and set it to music as Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be still, stop chattering).  Composed between 1732-1735, it’s usually called the Coffee Cantata, although, it’s really a comic operetta.  A satirical commentary, the work makes fun of the concerns respectable folk had about coffee and coffee houses.  In Vienna as in London, caffeine triumphed.

Despite the joys of a Bach cantata and the persuasive (if misattributed) endorsement of Voltaire, the killjoy editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) weren’t sure ordinary folk could be trusted to decide how many cups of coffee daily to enjoy and declared more research was needed.  They often conclude more research is needed.  Strangely, the DSM’s editors appear to be less trusting than most clergy, caffeine a drug to which even normally condemnatory priests, rabbis and mullahs don’t object, the only famously abstemious among the major faiths being the Church of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Rastafarians, the last perhaps a surprise given how well a long black complements some good weed.

Simple pleasure: the long black.

Widely consumed, caffeine is a psychoactive drug which produces its psychomotor stimulant and reinforcing effects through antagonism at adenosine receptors and indirect effects on dopaminergic neurotransmission.  The editors of DSM-5 (2013) were prepared to concede consumption of caffeine at recommended dietary doses is usually at least harmless and may even have some benefits such as the enhancement of analgesia but do caution some may experience caffeine-related health effects and functional impairment and that this can manifest in different people at different levels of consumption.  Higher doses can produce dysphoric subjective effects and caffeine intoxication, including restlessness, nervousness, insomnia and an irregular heartbeat.  It’s also associated in some with gastrointestinal problems, urinary incontinence and anxiety, use during pregnancy said to be associated with especially poor outcomes.

Lindsay Lohan leaving Coffee Bean, Los Angeles, December 2007.

Cold turkey may not be the solution either, the editors documenting withdrawal symptoms which some may experience if abruptly discontinuing regular use, including headaches, fatigue, irritability, a depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, and even flu-like symptoms, the DSM-5 codifying the conditions as (1) caffeine intoxication, (2) caffeine withdrawal, (3) caffeine-induced anxiety disorder and (4), caffeine-induced insomnia.  These are listed as the potential diagnoses when symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment and, because some individuals report an inability to reduce their consumption despite clinically significant problems even after seeking treatment, caffeine consumption can be said to lead to substance dependence.

Caffeine is an essential part of the recommended pro ana breakfast.

Thus the DSM-5 proposed three necessary diagnostic criteria for caffeine use disorder: (1) a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to reduce or control caffeine use, (2) continued caffeine use despite knowledge of (it’s not specified if an explicit acknowledgment is needed) having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by caffeine and (3), withdrawal, as manifested by the characteristic withdrawal syndrome for caffeine, or caffeine or a closely related substance being taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms. Six additional diagnostic criteria included in other substance use disorders, such as craving, tolerance, and taking caffeine in larger amounts or over a longer period of time than intended, were also included as markers for greater severity beyond the three key criteria for caffeine use disorder.  Because caffeine is so widely consumed, to reduce any potential for over-diagnosis, the proposed diagnostic strategy for caffeine, despite sounding onerous, is actually more conservative than for other substances.

One can see the attraction of energy drinks.

The editors did note the paucity of data relating to the prevalence and clinical significance of caffeine use disorder and the suspicion is the interest may have been triggered not the usual suspect, coffee, but the newer generation of energy drinks and diet supplements.  Previous research was apparently too focused on specific, small-subsets rather than the general populations, some of the studies so specialized as to be thought unrepresentative of the general population.  One (very small) study of caffeine use disorder in the United States (reported in the DSM-IV (1994)) found that 30% of caffeine consumers fulfilled the generic DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence as applied to caffeine but this fell to 10% under (the supposedly more realistic) DSM-5 criteria, a hint the concerns of clinical over-diagnosis do need to be taken seriously.  Again, the point was made that more research is required, the extent to which caffeine use disorder is associated with markers of clinical significance such as self-reported caffeine-related distress or impairment, psychological distress, sleep problems, or other drug use is wholly unknown.

The documented study the editors reviewed was the most thorough evaluation yet conducted of the prevalence, clinical significance and correlates of meeting proposed criteria for caffeine use disorder yet it was extensive enough only to inform future research and considerations regarding risk and differential diagnosis, technical points about the parameters of control group populations especially noted.  Despite the apparent lack of robustness, the editors were persuaded the findings did support the inclusion of caffeine use disorder in future editions of the DSM.  Although only a small percentage of sampled caffeine consumers met the proposed key diagnostic criteria, where the standards were met, there were clinically meaningful effects.

All reputable authorities recommend a caffeine intake of not more than 400 mg a day, or two long black coffees.  Many coffee fiends exceed this before breakfast is over.

Caffeine has become more interesting as a drug because of the late twentieth-century phenomenon of the energy drink, the interest not so much in the caffeine content which, can be much more or much less than a cup of coffee but because the pattern of consumption is, in certain sub-groups, so associated with strong alcohol, often on a 1:1 (ie 30-60 ml spirits to 250 ml energy drink) basis, a pattern well known with long-established mixers like Coca-Cola but now in both much greater volume and a much higher caffeine content.  It’s difficult to tell whether a problem has emerged because while the deaths associated with the combination attract attention, the aggregate numbers, impressionistically, seem small and may not be statistically significant.  There's even been the suggestion extreme variations in ambient temperature may have been an at least contributory factor in some deaths.

Diet

Diet (pronounced dahy-it)

(1) Food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health.

(2) A particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease.

(3) Such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight.

(4) The foods eaten, as by a particular person or group.

(5) Food or feed habitually eaten or provided.

(6) Anything (food and otherwise) habitually provided or partaken of.

(7) To regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition.

(8) Legislative bodies of certain countries.

(9) The general assembly (Reichstag) of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire.

(10) In the law of Scotland, the date fixed by a court for hearing a case.

(11) In the law of Scotland, a single session of a court.

(12) In microbiology, the abbreviation of Direct Interspecies Electron Transfer.

1175-1225: From the Middle English diete or dieten (pittance, fare) and the Old French diete (diet, pittance, fare), from the Medieval Latin dieta (parliamentary assembly (also "a day's work”; daily food allowance, food) from diaeta (prescribed way of life) from the Ancient Greek díaita (way of life, regimen, dwelling), from diaitan & diaitasthai (separate, select (food and drink) which later had the sense “to direct or lead one's life”), frequentative of diainysthai (take apart), the construct being dia (apart) + aita (akin to aîsa share, lot) from ainysthai (take), from the primitive Indo-European root ai- (to give, to allocate).

As a verb, diet began its evolution to the current modern meaning from the late fourteenth century with a range of meanings such as “customary way of eating", "food considered in relation to its quantity and effects" & "a course of food regulated by a physician or by medical rules", the latter often a restriction of food or certain foods, hence the sense of “putting someone on a diet” which was attested by the 1650s in the sense of the specific meaning "to regulate oneself as to food" and applied especially against growing fat; from here came “dieted” & “dieting”.  A long obsolete word for this was banting (an early system for weight loss through diet control, named after its inventor, William Banting (1797-1878), the English undertaker(!) who self-tested the programme and advertised it in his 1863 pamphlet: Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public").  The undertaker lived a long life and was inspired to enter the embryonic field which would become such a huge industry because, in the course of his work, he noted, impressionistically, a striking correlation between obesity and those who died young.  Because of the linguistic coincidence, although the word is a surname, it was used as a verbal noun as in “she needs to start banting".  The system was similar to some modern diet advice in that it advocated eating lean meats and limiting the intake of fat, starch, and sugar.

As a noun applied to legislative bodies (assembly of delegates, etc., held from day to day for legislative, political, or other business), it came into use in the fifteenth century, the Medieval Latin diēta (public assembly) apparently the same word as Latin diaeta, from the Ancient Greek diaita (way of life, regimen, dwelling) but associated with Latin dies (day).  Technically, diēta was a variant of diaeta (daily office of the Church) most often translated as daily duty or an assembly or meeting of counsellors.  In Latin diēta meant also "a day's work, diet, daily food allowance", derived from diaeta (prescribed way of life), from the Greek diaita and the best-known early assemblies were the German and Austrian of the Holy Roman Empire, “diet” used as a descriptor by both French and English authors.  The (now rare) adjective dietal (pertaining to a diet in the “assembly” sense) entered the language in 1845.

Product placement: Diet Coke in Mean Girls (2004).

The verbal noun “dieting” from the verb diet was first noted circa 1400 and the first practicing (or at least one advertised as such) dietician (one who practices some theory of diet) dates from 1845, from the noun diet on the model of physician, replacing the older dietist from circa 1600 although it seems curious dietist hasn’t been picked up as an Instagram niche; one can hardly think of a better tag for many an influencer.  The adjective dietary (pertaining to diet) is from the 1610s, from the Medieval Latin dietarius, from the Classical Latin diaetarius.  The old adjectives are listed by dictionaries thus: diætetic (archaic), dietetical (dated) and dietetic (obsolete).  All meant “pertaining to the rules for regulating the kind and quantity of food taken” and again were from the diaeteticus, from the Ancient Greek διαιτητικός (diaitētikós).  The adjective “diet” as a trade-name meaning (or at least implying) “slimming, having reduced calories” was first used in the US in 1958 when the Diet Rite soft drink was released, its novelty being sugar-free and the Coca-Cola Company responded in 1963 with the similar Tab which remained available in a gradually dwindling number of markets until 2020.  Interestingly, the Coca-Cola Company which since 1983 had been selling Diet Coke, discovered from its extensive market research that “diet” was off-putting to male consumers and thus in 2005 released Coca-Cola Zero though they must have though consumers just didn’t get it because in 2017 it was re-named Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.

Japanese Diet: Upper (2013 & 2016) and Lower House (2017) Election Results

Elections for the lower house (House of Representatives) of the Japanese diet became rambunctious sometime in the 1950s but those for the upper house (House of Councillors) were usually rather sleepy affairs which seemed to matter little until, in retrospect, the polls of 2013 and 2016 seemed to assume an unexpected importance after the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) unexpectedly decisive victory in the 2017 (lower house) general election.  What the 2017 landslide meant was that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s (b 1954; Prime Minister of Japan 2006-2007 & 2012-2020) LDP suddenly enjoyed a two-thirds majority in both houses, a type of control of the legislature called a supermajority, giving Mr Abe the legal means, if perhaps not a mandate, to attempt to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution which had been a long-held ambition of members of certain LDP factions.

Adopted in 1947 when Japan was under US occupation, the constitution has ensured Japan’s so-called Self-Defense Forces have never been deployed in combat although successive LDP administrations have for decades stretched policy well-beyond what the constitution technically permits.  The critical matter is Article 9 of the constitution which prohibits war as a means to settle international disputes and its repeal would be controversial in the region where the conduct of Imperial Japan’s military remains in living memory.  Nor is it universally popular at home, some fearing a government might be tempted by risky military adventurism.  However it’s analyzed, the people of post-war Japan have done very well out of their “pacifist” constitution and even with his double-chamber supermajority, constitutional revision was no simple thing, a change requiring a national referendum and the opinion polls indicated there was no certainty voters would approve what would have been the be the first change to the document which has been the nation’s basic law for some seventy-five years.  It is now the world’s oldest, un-amended constitution.

Under the terms of Article 9, the Japanese people “…forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes".  That would seem to make illegal the waging of offensive war, confirmed by the phrase “The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized” but Article 9 also stipulates "…land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained".  Article 9 needs obviously to be read in conjunction with more recent documents, given the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) consists of: Ground Self-Defense Force (Rikujou Jieitai, GSDF; includes aviation), Maritime Self-Defense Force (Kaijou Jieitai, MSDF; includes naval aviation), Air Self-Defense Force (Koukuu Jieitai, ASDF); Japan Coast Guard (Ministry of Land, Transport, Infrastructure and Tourism) (2021) with an establishment of approximately 240,000 active personnel (145,000 Ground; 45,000 Maritime; 45,000 Air; 4,000 Joint Forces); 14,000 Coast Guard (2021).

JSDF helicopter carrier Hyūga (DDH-181) on exercises with a US carrier strike group.  Listed as an escort ship according to JSDF naming conventions, the two Hyūga-class carriers are the largest largest ships commissioned by the Japanese navy since the Second World War.

The emphasis admittedly is certainly on self-defense because the official overseas deployment in January 2022 stood at 175, all attached to the US base in Djibouti (2021).  Still, most analysts rate the JSDF as the fifth most powerful (in non-nuclear capability) military on the planet so the idea that “…land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained” clearly needs a bit of mental gymnastics to be understood.  Indeed, in the years immediately after Japan regained its sovereignty in 1954, some black-letter law judges in lower courts felt compelled to declare the JSDF unconstitutional but appellate courts found a number of ways to rationalize matters and have always regarded it as a political matter, declining to be involved and in recent years it’s never been tested.  Political it certainly is, the US, authors of Article 9 (in the years before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conquered mainland China), soon began to review its position, re-equipping the embryonic forces which would become the JSDF, the constitutional constraints apparently no impediment.  In the years since, the US has more than once encouraged Japan to amend Article 9, the Pentagon not unhappy at the thought of the JSDF’s impressive capabilities being able to augment US forces in overseas deployments.  Those capabilities may be more impressive still, some analysts claiming the country has the capacity to commission and equip existing delivery systems with nuclear warheads within weeks or even days, depending on who is running the numbers.  According to some, lurking deep in (the inevitably secret underground) bunkers, the warheads lie in an almost complete state, awaiting only the placement of the weapons-grade plutonium.  A marvelous conspiracy theory, no evidence has ever been presented other than the circumstantial matters of technical capability and a supposed ability use the capacity of the local nuclear industry for the purpose.  It became an especially interesting theory after the passage of a “Regional Affairs” law in 1999 which permitted Japan automatically to participate as "rear support", were the US to be engaged in armed conflict involving "regional affairs”.  Nobody has ever suggested the South China Sea is anything but a “regional affair”.

Neither Beijing nor Seoul have suggested Tokyo is planning a second attempt at an East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere but a change meaning Japan can again declare or wage war remains controversial at home and abroad although given how the force has evolved since 1954 and the doubtless ability of Japanese governments to be most expansive in just what “regional” means, the status of Article 9 may be less significant than once it appeared.  As things transpired, the implications of Mr Abe’s rare dual chamber supermajority remained unexplored and he retired from office in 2020 as Japan’s longest-serving prime-minister.

In praise of dieting: Lindsay Lohan before and after.

Foxbat

Foxbat or fox-bat (pronounced foks-bat)

(1) NATO reporting name for the MiG-25 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25) high-altitude supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft.

(2) A common name for members of the Megachiroptera (the Pteropus (suborder Yinpterochiroptera), a genus of megabats), some of the largest bats in the world.

Fox is from the Middle English fox, from the Old English fox (fox), from the Proto-West Germanic fuhs, from the Proto-Germanic fuhsaz (fox), from the primitive Indo-European púḱsos (the tailed one), derive possibly from puḱ- (tail).  It was cognate with the Scots fox (fox), the West Frisian foks (fox), the Fering-Öömrang North Frisian foos, the Sölring and Heligoland fos, the Dutch vos (fox), the Low German vos (fox), the German Fuchs (fox), the Icelandic fóa (fox), the Tocharian B päkā (tail, chowrie), the Russian пух (pux) (down, fluff), the Sanskrit पुच्छ (púccha) (source of the Torwali پوش‎ (pūš) (fox) and the Hindi पूंछ (pūñch) (tai”).

Bat in the context of the animal was a dialectal variant (akin to the dialectal Swedish natt-batta) of the Middle English bake & balke, from the North Germanic. The Scandinavian forms were the Old Swedish natbakka, the Old Danish nathbakkæ (literally “night-flapper”) and the Old Norse leðrblaka (literally “leather-flapper”).  The Old English word for the animal was hreremus, from hreran (to shake) and it was known also as the rattle-mouse, an old dialectal word for "bat", attested from the late sixteenth century.  A more rare form, noted from the 1540s, was flitter-mouse (the variants were flinder-mouse & flicker-mouse) in imitation of the German fledermaus (bat) from the Old High German fledaron (to flutter).

In Middle English “bat” and “old bat” were used as a (derogatory) term to describe an old woman, perhaps a suggestion of witchcraft rather than a link to bat as "a prostitute who plies her trade by night".  It’s ancient slang and one etymologist noted the French equivalent hirondelle de nuit (night swallow) was "more poetic".  To “bat the eylids” is an Americanism from 1847, an extended of the earlier (1610s) meaning "flutter (the wings) as a hawk", a variant of bate.

The term fox-bat or flying fox, (genus Pteropus), covers some sixty-five bat species found on tropical islands from Madagascar to Australia and noth through Indonesia and mainland Asia.  Most species are primarily nocturnal and are the largest bats, some attaining a wingspan of 5 feet (1.5 m) with an overall body length of some 16 inches (400 mm).  Zoologists list fox-bats as “Old World fruit bats” (family Pteropodidae) that roost in large numbers and eat fruit and are thus a potential pest, many countries restricting their importation.  Like nearly all Old World fruit bats, flying foxes use sight rather than echolocation, a physiological process for locating distant or invisible objects (such as prey) by means of sound waves reflected back to the emitter by the objects) to navigate, despite the largely nocturnal habit of most species.  In the database maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), about half of all flying fox species are listed as suffering declining populations, 15 said to be vulnerable and 11 endangered. The fox-bats were previously classified in the suborder Megachiroptera, but most researchers now place them in the suborder Yinpterochiroptera, which also contains the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, a diverse group that includes horseshoe bats, trident bats, mouse-tailed bats, and others.

MiG-25 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25).

Once the most controversial fighter in the skies, there was so much mystery surrounding the MiG-25 that US, British and NATO planners spent years spying on it with a mixture of awe, fear and dread.  Conceived originally by USSR designers to counter the threat posed by Boeing’s B-70 Valkyrie bomber, development continued even after the B70 project, rendered redundant by advances in missile technology, was cancelled.  First flown in 1964 and entering service in 1970, nearly 1200 were built and were operated by several nations as well as the USSR.  Able (still) to outrun any other fighter, only the US Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was faster but fewer than three dozen of those were built and those were configured only for strategic reconnaissance.  When first the West became aware of the Foxbat, it caused quite a stir because, combining stunningly high speed with high altitude tolerance and a heavy weapons load, it did appear to be the long-feared platform which would render Soviet airspace immune from US penetration.  It was the threat the Foxbat was thought to pose which was influential in the direction pursued by US engineers when developing the McDonnell Douglas F15.

The Foxbat however never realized its apparently awesome implications. Because the original design brief was to produce a device which could combat the fast, high-flying B-70, many of the characteristics desirable in a short-range interceptor were neglected in the quest for something which could get very high, very quickly.  At that it was a breathtaking success but there were compromises, the fuel burn was epic and, with a very high take-off and landing speed, it could operate only from the longest runways.  Still, at what it was good at it was really good and its very presence meant the US had to plan any mission within range of a Foxbat, cognizant of the threat it was thought to present.  Unbeknown to the West, at lower altitudes it presented little threat and was no dog-fighter; it was essentially a dragster built for the skies, faster than just about anything in a straight line but really not good at turning.

It wasn’t until 1976 when a Soviet defector landed a new Foxbat in Japan in 1976 that US engineers were able to examine the airframe and draw an understanding of its capabilities.  What their analysis found was that the limitations in Soviet metallurgy and manufacturing techniques had resulted in a heavy airframe, one which really couldn’t maneuver at high speeds, and handled poorly at low altitudes. The surprisingly primitive radar was of limited effectiveness in conventional combat situations against enemy fighters, which, combined with the low altitude clumsiness meant that its drawbacks tended to outweigh the advantage it had in sheer speed at altitude, something which meant less to the US since missiles had replaced the B-70 strategic bomber.

In its rare combat outings, those advantages did however confer the occasional benefit.  In 1971, a Soviet Foxbat operating out of Egypt used its afterburners to sustain Mach 3 for an extended duration, enabling it to outrun three pursuing Israeli F4-Phantoms and one downed a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet during the first Gulf War (1991).  During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Iraqi Air Force found them effective against old, slow machinery but sustained heavy losses when confronted with the Iran’s agile F-14 but most celebrated was probably the Foxbat’s success during the Gulf War in claiming both of the last two American aircraft lost in air-to-air combat.  Otherwise, the Foxbat has at low altitude proved vulnerable, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) shooting down several in the war over Lebanon (1981) although they have of late been used, most improbably, in a ground attack role in the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Arab Air Force, lacking a more appropriate platform, pressing the Foxbats into a ground support role, in at least one case using air-to-air missiles to attack ground targets.

The Soviet designers took note of the operating environment when developing the Foxbat’s successor, the MiG-31 (NATO reporting name Foxhound), a variant which sacrificed a little of the pure speed and climb-rate in order to produce a better all-round fighter.

Minor modification: 1960 Jaguar XK150 3.4 Shooting Brake (“Foxbat”).

What is claimed to be the planet’s only extant Jaguar XK150 shooting brake was built by industrial chemist and noted Jaguar enthusiast, the late Geoffrey Stevens, construction undertaken between 1975-1977.  It was made by combining a donor XK150 fixed-head coupé (FHC) and a Morris Minor Traveller of similar vintage.  Quite why Mr Stevens gave his project the name “Foxbat” isn’t known but it was in 1976, during the build, that a Soviet air force pilot defected to Japan (arriving with his MiG-25 Foxbat).  Whatever the reason, the name appears to have been deliberately chosen, a hand-cut “Foxbat” badge matching the original Jaguar script added to the tailgate.  Said still to be a matching-numbers example with the FHC’s original drive-train, the chassis number is S825106DN, the engine number V7435-8.

Pragmatic

Pragmatic (pronounced prag-mat-ik)

(1) Of or relating to a practical point of view or practical considerations.

(2) Advocating behavior that is dictated more by practical consequences than by theory or dogma

(3) In philosophy, of or relating to pragmatism.

(4) Of or relating to pragmatics.

(5) In historiography, treating historical phenomena with special reference to their causes, antecedent conditions, and results.

(6) Of or relating to the affairs of state or community (archaic).

(7) An officious or meddlesome person, especially a priest (archaic).

(8) In logic, the branch of semiotics dealing with the causal and other relations between words, expressions, or symbols and their users.

(9) In linguistics, a sub-field in which the analysis of language in terms of the situational context within which utterances are made, including the knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and the relation between speaker and listener.

1580-1590: From the Middle French pragmatique, from Late Latin prāgmaticus (relating to civil affair and in Latin (as a noun) used to describe a person versed in the law who furnished arguments and points to advocates and orators (a kind of attorney although also used in general of “practical men” (as opposed to theoreticians)), from the Ancient Greek πραγματικός (pragmatikós) (active, versed in affairs), from πρᾶγμα (prâgma) (a thing done, a fact) which, in the plural was πράγματα (prágmata) (affairs, state affairs, public business etc (something like the modern “current events”)) from πράσσω (prássō) (to do) of which the Modern English “practical” is the descendent).  Pragmatic is a noun & adjective, pragmatist is a noun & adjective, pragmatize, pragmatizing & pragmatized are verbs, pragmaticality, pragmaticalization, pragmatism & pragmaticalness are nouns, pragmaticistic is an adjective and pragmatically is an adverb, the noun plural is pragmatics (pragmatisms & especially pragmatists the more commonly used). 

Shoes can be "pragmatic".  Who knew?  Lindsay Lohan's promotion for the collaboration between German fashion house MCM & Crocs, introducing the "pragmatic" Mega Crush Clog.

In the sense of the meddlesome priest, use dates from circa 1610 in the sense of “meddling; impertinently busy" and was either short for earlier pragmatical, or from the fifteenth century French pragmatique, from the Latin pragmaticus (skilled in business or law) from the Ancient Greek pragmatikos (fit for business, active, business-like; systematic) from pragma (genitive pragmatos) (a deed, act; that which has been done; a thing, matter, affair," especially an important one; also a euphemism for something bad or disgraceful; in plural, "circumstances, affairs" (public or private, often in a bad sense, "trouble"), literally "a thing done") from the stem of prassein & prattein (to do, act, perform), related to the modern practical.  From the 1640s, pragmatic came to be used in the sense of "relating to the affairs of a state or community" and the modern sense of "matter-of-fact, treating facts systematically and practically" is from 1853; influenced by the use in nineteenth century German philosophy of pragmatisch.  The noun pragmaticism, which as late as 1865 could be used to mean "officiousness", by 1905 had been adopted by American philosopher CS Peirce (1839-1914) to refer to the doctrine that abstract concepts must be understood in terms of their practical implications; he coined the use to distinguish his philosophy from pragmatism.  The 1540s adjective pragmatical (pertaining to material interests of a state or community) by the 1590s had extended to "concerned with practical results", the formation from the Latin pragmaticus.  It was, during the 1600s & 1700s often applied in the negative (unduly busy over the affairs of others) which is how pragmaticism same to be associated with “intrusive officiousness” and meddling from the 1610s, the layer of "busy over trifles” or “self-important" noted in 1704.  The noun pragmatism had by 1825 assumed something like its modern sense, then meaning “matter-of-fact treatment" borrowed from the Greek pragmat- (stem of pragma) as "that which has been done".  As a philosophical doctrine, it was used in the English language by 1898 and generally accepted as a borrowing from the 1870s German Pragmatismus.  Despite that, it wasn’t accepted as the name a political theory until 1951 although the historical record can be misleading, a pragmatist being a "busybody" from circa 1630 yet by 1892, noted as an "adherent of a pragmatic philosophy”.

Pragmatics in Theoretical Linguistics

Pragmatics exists in what practitioners in the field call the symbiosis of linguistics and semiotics; essentially the study of the ways in which context either is or can be vital to understanding the meaning(s) of text.  Highly technical, it has built a number of models (sometimes called codes) which, if (sometimes cumulatively, sometimes lineally) applied, can determine meaning(s) which may not be obvious or confused by ambiguity.  Pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the structural and linguistic knowledge of both speaker and listener, but also on the context in which the words are used, all pre-existing knowledge of those involved, and matters of implication and inference.  Properly applied, the ability to understand another intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.  Word nerds are especially pleased by the word grammaticopragmatic (of or relating to grammar and pragmatics).

Basically the product of squabbles between academics anxious to become dominant in some aspect of the suddenly sexy discipline of linguistics, pragmatics was created in reaction to the structuralist linguistics models of the 1960s.  Pragmatics both borrows from structuralism and builds its own critique, especially from the way structuralism tended towards finding all meaning at least can come purely from the abstract space language creates.  It probably was a useful discussion to have but it’s never been entirely clear where semantics ends and pragmatics begins or if that’s even a helpful way to think about meaning.  The discipline seemed never to move in the direction of making pragmatics a toolbox of use to those beyond the field.  Instead, there emerged mysterious forks such as indexicals, intuitionistic semantics and computational pragmatics, all of which appear weird beyond immediate understanding.

The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713

Archduchess Maria Theresia (1727) by Andreas Møller (1684–circa 1762), oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

There have been quite a few pragmatic sanctions, the first known to be that issued in Constantinople in 554 by Justinian I (Justinian the Great, 482-565; Byzantine emperor 527-565).  Nearly twelve centuries later, the Sanctio Pragmatica (Pragmatic Sanction) was an edict issued in 1713 by Charles VI (1685-1740; Holy Roman Emperor 1711-1740); it was a device to ensure the Habsburg hereditary possessions, could be inherited by his eldest daughter, the sanction necessitated by the lack of a male heir and a law which precluded female inheritance.  However, for Charles to promulgate the sanction was one thing, having it respected by others was another and, immediately upon the accession to the throne in 1740 of his daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa (1717-1780), the predicted War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) began.  Had the pretext of female succession not existed, the desire of other European states, notably France, Bavaria and Prussia, anxious to gain territorial and commercial advantage over the Habsburgs, conflict would likely soon anyway have arisen.  The British became involved because of their geopolitical interests and the Dutch because they wished to rid themselves of French hegemony; as the war widened, Spain, Sardinia, Saxony, Sweden and Russia became involved in what was soon a multi-theatre affair on land and at sea.  It was a textbook case of mission-creep.

Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (circa 1707) by Francesco Solimen (1657–1747), oil on canvas, in a private collection.

The war was concluded by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.  Maria Theresa was recongised as Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary but, regardless of the impressive but isolated tactical victories which typified European wars of the era, so inconclusive had been the battlefield that, except for the Royal Navy’s notable success in the blockade of French ports, things ended in such a series of stalemates that most of the treaty’s signatories were hardly content with the terms.  Even Maria Theresa, whose throne had been the ostensible reason for the spilling of so much blood, resented having to cede what she did though was mollified by the horse-trading of the Treaty of Füssen (1745) which permitted her husband to be elected Holy Roman Emperor as Francis I (1708-1765).  The British, although satisfied with the commercial rights gained, would spend years glumly counting the cost.

In geopolitical terms however, the consequences were profound.  In what came to be known as the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, the central dynamics in European affairs became the alliances between Austria and France and between Prussia and Great Britain, creating a template for the shifting military and political relationships which would be maintained, adjusted and sundered all through the eighteenth century in an attempt to maintain the balance of power.  The newly built coalitions, with Russia augmenting the Austro-Franco alliance, would fight the Seven Years War (1756-1763) in which Britain and Prussia would prevail, only because of something of a Prussian miracle and the Royal Navy’s control of the seas.  Under Germanic linguistic influence, the word assumed a handy role as a kind of political shorthand; article seven of the 1712 Croatian Constitution being remembered to this day as the Pragmatic Sanction.  The clause permitted a Habsburg princess to become hereditary Queen of Croatia despite, in a typical Balkan squabble, opposition from both the Hungarian parliament and royal court.  Considered ever since a symbol of Croatian independence, the Pragmatic Sanction is included still in the preamble of the Constitution of Croatia.

Eurodollar

Eurodollar (pronounced yoor-oh-dol-er)

A US dollar deposited in or credited to an offshore (originally a European) bank.

1958: A compound word, Euro + dollar.  Euro is a contraction of Europe, from the Ancient Greek Εὐρώπη (Eurṓpē), now used often as Europa; the Eurodollar concept has no relationship to the latter-day (eurozone) currency.  Dollar is attested since circa 1500, from the early Dutch daler or daalder, from German Taler & Thaler, from the Sankt Joachimsthaler (literally “of Joachimstal”) the name for coins minted in German Sankt Joachimsthal (St. Joachim's Valley, now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic); the construct being Joachim + tal (valley) and cognate with the Danish daler.  Initially (in 1957) Eurodollars were known as “Eurbank dollars”, so named after the telex address of one of the first banks involved in the sanction-busting transactions (in the days of tightly regulated capital and forex (foreign exchange) markets, many thing were possible (even with notionally non-convertible currencies) but only a few had access to the mechanisms).  Eurodollar is a noun; the noun plural is Eurodollars (it's not uncommon for it to be used without the initial capital).

Eurodollars

Eurodollars are US dollars on deposit at banks outside the United States.  They’re thus a part of the US money supply not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Reserve (the Fed, the US central bank) and, because of the special role of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, are interesting in that they’re subject to oversight by a number of central banks which are national and not international institutions.  The term was originally coined for US dollars in European banks but soon came to refer to all offshore deposits.  Eurodollar is entirely a technical term of the money markets and has no connection with the latter-day currency of the Eurozone although, in the general population, there was some early confusion in the early days of the physical Euro, some mistakenly describing the new paper as Eurodollars.  Within the specialized world of the currency traders, the euro-prefix is sometimes used to refer to any currency held offshore so there’s also the Euroyen, the Europound and even the Euroeuro which, in a charming linguistic paradox, can exist anywhere except within the Eurozone.

In the years immediately following World War II (1939-1945), there was a worldwide shortage of US dollars, the quantity of which outside the US began significantly to increase only as Marshall Plan money began to recapitalize European economies and imports rose in the US, soon to become the largest consumer market of the post-war years.  Another important factor driving the deposits of US dollars into European banks were the pre-emptive moves by the major communist powers, the USSR and the PRC (communist China) to shift their assets from US banks to avoid Washington’s sanctions.  Peking acted in 1949 at the start of the Korean War (1950-1953); Moscow in 1956 after their "invasion" of Hungary.

Eurodollars grew in volume also as offshore banks began to offer higher yields on deposits than were available from US institutions; by the early 1970s some US$400 billion (when a billion dollars really was a lot of money) was booked offshore in both short and long-term deposits.  It’s now measured in multiples of trillions (at least for now, a trillion dollars is still a lot of money) but the most important development in the Eurodollar world came in 1981 with the introduction of Eurodollar futures contracts.  Eurodollar futures are an interest rate product, unlike currency futures where contracts are built around actual buying and selling of the commodity; they’re thus a derivative instrument where players bet on interest rate movements and are thus treated by traders as a form of gambling; back the right horse and one wins, back the wrong horse and one loses.  Beginning in 1981, during the early days of the neo-liberal de-regulation project, they were the first of the products which took advantage of the rules of casinos being applied to capital markets and none of the market crashes since 1987 would have been possible without derivatives.  That instability is inherent to the operation of a neo-liberal economy and not an unintended consequence; Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) & Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) understood that in a dynamic economy there would be winners and losers and viewed that as an indication of the healthy competition of free-market capitalism.  Their (publicly un-stated) argument was that the existence of a "social safety net" which would (at least temporarily) support the losers in a state just above starvation would be sufficient to guarantee social stability (ie stop the peasants revolting).    

Eurodollar futures traders who use the market to track short-term US interest rate expectations have for some time been pricing in a rate hike by the Fed by Q3 2022, quite an acceleration on what their earlier charts suggested but increasing uncertainty about the Fed’s reaction to US inflation numbers has seen some traders expect a tightening even earlier.  Some traders have had their Eurodollar fingers burnt before, watching the Fed maintain their existing position and sticking to their long-standing mantra that the US economy needs to achieve certain employment and inflation marks before interest rates will move but the view is now hardening that inflation numbers will force the issue.

The Fed’s position seems to belong to the pre-Omicron world which feels now such a distant memory.  The futures are a bet on the direction of the short-term London interbank offered rate (LIBOR), one of the most widely used interest rate benchmarks in global financial markets.  Investors hedge interest rate risk in the Eurodollar market and in early December 2020, the September 2023 Eurodollar futures contract showed an implied yield of 0.50%, suggesting traders were expecting the Fed to deliver a 25 basis-point hike by then.  Since then the world has changed so much that predictions for the inflation outcome seem enough for the Fed to reconsider the “Greenspan put” (named after Dr Alan Greenspan (b 1926; Chair of the US Federal Reserve 1987-2006) and the actions he took in ensuring sufficient liquidity remained in the US system for business to continue as close to "normal" as possible; now often called the "Fed put"), in place (off and on) for over thirty years, despite recent declines in US stocks and other risk assets, the tech-heavy Nasdaq having fallen over 10%.  That’s how much the specter of inflation can spook central bankers and the Eurodollar futures suggest the traders have priced-in a quarter-point rate rise for March and perhaps a full percentage point by the end of calendar year 2022.  Despite that, traders still are not writing an obituary for the Greenspan put, noting it has been debatably the most influential tool in the Fed’s century-long history and, as an essentially reactive institution, it’s revival to deal with even a few local difficulties will not be unexpected.

Bosnywash

Bosnywash (pronounced baws-nee-wosh, bos-nee-wash or boz-nee-wawsh (varies in the US by locality))

An informal noun describing the densely populated conurbation extending from Boston to Washington, encompassing New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

1971 (1967 for Boswash):  The construct was Bos(ton) + n(ew) y(ork) + wash(ington) and the form was always either Bosnywash or bosnywash, boswash following the same convention.  The constructs come from the age of the typewriter and not only would BosNYWash have been harder to type and read, the use of initial capitals in the elements of portmanteaus, blends or contractions was not a practice which came into wide use in English until the 1980s, under the influence of the IT industry which was searching for points of differentiation.

It’s debatable whether Bosnywash is a portmanteau or a contraction.  A portmanteau word is a blend of two or more words or parts of words, combined to create a new word.  A contraction is a word created by joining two or more words which tend in normal use to appear in sequence.  The stems of words which comprise a contraction are not truncated so on which side one sits in this doubtlessly pointless debate hangs on whether one regards the accepted short forms Bos, NY & Wash as “words” for the technical purpose of construction.  The rules of structural linguistics complicate things further because if a portmanteau is created by using already shortened compounds, they result can also be defined a clipped compound.  Quite what interpretation would apply to Boswash been derived from Bosnywash would thus presumably be less certain still but most regard both as portmanteaus.

BosWash and Bosnywash mean exactly the same thing: a densely populated conurbation extending from Boston in the north to Washington in the south, encompassing New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.  The concept of cities expanding to envelop an entire surrounding land mass to exist as one vast megalopolis was the vision of US systems theorist Herman Kahn (1922–1983) who in 1967 coined the word Boswash for one of his essays speculating about the future.  While the word Boswash was novel, the idea that part of the north-eastern US might develop into the one, contiguous populated area had been discussed by urban geographers for almost a decade and it was just one of several places urban area had The idea of vast and expanding cities had been noted as a demographic phenomenon for centuries but the sudden acceleration of the global population, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century (the cause: (1) the wide deployment of modern Western medical techniques which simultaneously lowered the infant mortality rate & lengthened the typical human lifespan, (2) the installation of sanitation systems which reduced disease, (3) vaccinations against disease and (4) increases in agricultural output (the so-called “green revolution)) focused the attention of economists and urban geographers who, extrapolating historic and contemporary trends, developed the concept of the modern mega-city.  Bosnywash (phonetically, probably a more attractive word) appeared half-a-decade after Boswash in The Bosnywash Megalopolis: A Region of Great Cities (1971) by Leonard Arthur Swatridge (b 1931) and was likely an exercise in legitimization, folk in NYC never likely to take much notice of anything which doesn’t include their city.  There, if it didn't happen in New York, it didn’t happen.

South-east Queensland (Australia) and the trend towards the Gold Coast-Brisbane-Sunshine Coast megalopolis.

The idea has been applied to many areas of high population growth and increasing urbanization (globally, the dominant trend of the last seventy-five years) where cities and towns grow towards each other.  The south-east corner of the Australian state of Queensland is noted as an instance of what was one as transport corridor tended to develop into a megalopolis, stretching from the southern border of the Gold Coast to the northern extremes of the Sunshine Coast.  The word megalopolis was from 1832, the construct being the Ancient Greek megalo- (great), from megas (genitive megalou) +‎ -polis (city).  It was used to describe a big, densely populated urban complex and during Antiquity was an epithet of the great cities (Athens, Syracuse, Alexandria); it was also was the name of a former city in Arcadia.  The rarely used descriptor of an inhabitant was megalopolitan.

Herman Kahn is remembered as a futurist but he built his early career as a systems theorist and, while at the RAND Corporation, was prominent in constructing the theoretical framework on which the US political-military establishment constructed the strategies which dictated the scope and form of the nuclear arsenal and the plans for its use.  Perhaps the highest stakes version ever undertaken of what came to be known as scenario planning under the application of game theory, Khan’s models were among those which, in a reductionist process, led to some awful yet elegant expressions such as “mutually assured destruction (MAD)” which triggered a generation of specialists in the Pentagon and the Kremlin counting missiles as the basis of high Cold War politics.  Kahn was reputedly one of the figures who served as an inspiration for the title character in Stanley Kubrick's (1928-1999) dark satire Dr Strangelove (1964) and, unsurprisingly, Sidney Lumet (1924-2011) noted the character of Professor Groeteschele in his more somber film of nuclear war, Fail Safe (1964).

Bosnywash personified: Lindsay Lohan (with former special friend Samantha Ronson), Estate Nightclub, Boston, January 2009 (left), shopping in New York City, September 2013 (centre) & at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Washington DC, April 2012 (right).