Dysmorphia

Dysmorphia (pronounced dis-mor-fiah)

(1) In clinical anatomy, characterized by anatomical malformation.

(2) In general medicine, having or exhibiting an anatomical malformation.

(3) In psychology and psychiatry, the perception of anatomical malformation; any of various psychological disorders whose sufferers believe that their body is wrong or inadequate, such as anorexia, bulimia, and muscle dysmorphia (bigorexia).

(4) As Dismorphia astyocha, a butterfly in the family Pieridae, found in both Argentina & Brazil.

From Ancient Greek δυσμορφίᾱ (dusmorphíā) (misshapenness, ugliness), the construct being δυσ- (dus-) (hard, difficult, bad) + μορφή (morphḗ) (shape, form) + -ίᾱ (-íā).  The prefix dys- was from the New Latin dys-, from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-), (hard, difficult, bad”) and was used to convey the idea of being difficult, impaired, abnormal, or bad.  Morph was a back-formation from morpheme & morphism, attested since the 1950s, from the Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) (shape, form) and related to the German Morph, from Morphem (although dating only from the 1940s).  It’s probably now most familiar in (1) formal grammar & linguistics as a physical form representing some morpheme in language (it exists as a recurrent distinctive sound or sequence of sounds), (2) in linguistics as an allomorph (one of a set of realizations that a morpheme can have in different contexts) and (3) in digital image processing where shapes are changed from one form to another with the use of specialized software, a popular type being that which wholly or (especially) partially blends two images.  The plural is dysmorphias and, in clinical use, the synonym is dysmorphosis.

The word dysmorphia first appeared in the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484–circa 425 BC) when he referred to the myth of the “ugliest girl in Sparta”.  Herodotus, even in his lifetime, was criticized for making an insufficient distinction between legend and historical fact but the veracity of much of his work, subject to forensic analysis by modern archeologists and archivists, has been established.  The story of the “ugliest girl in Sparta” however, Herodotus acknowledges as “a magical myth” in which a baby girl, born in Sparta, was terribly disfigured (which he described as dysmorphia (meaning “misshapenness” or “ugliness”).  Fortunately, she was from a well-connected family and her nanny suggested taking her to the shrine of Helen of Troy on hilltop of Therapne, and there pray for a cure.  There the nurse sat with the baby and while praying before the agalma (a carved image of Helen), from nowhere a apparition of Helen appeared and smiling, laid her hand upon the child’s head.  As the years passed, the disfigured infant would grow to become the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder.  It’s defined as an individual’s obsession with the idea that some aspect of their appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or rectify the offending part(s).  In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined and if some minor imperfection exists, its importance is severely exaggerated.  Sufferers find the symptoms of BDD pervasive and intrusive, symptoms including excessive attention to the perceived defect, social avoidance, camouflaging with cosmetics or apparel, the seeking of verbal reassurances, avoiding mirrors, repetitively changing clothes or restricting eating.

Italian physician Enrico Morselli (1852-1929) in 1886 reported a disorder he termed dysmorphophobia, a term still sometimes used in European literature to describe BDD.  Use spiked in academic literature in the 1950s although it wasn’t until 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognized the condition in the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III).  The APA classified it as a distinct somatoform condition (characterized by symptoms suggesting a physical disorder but for which there are no demonstrable organic findings or known physiological mechanisms) and in 1987 replaced dysmorphophobia with body dysmorphic disorder as the preferred descriptor.

With the 1994 publication of DSM-IV, the APA noted BDD was a preoccupation with an imagined or trivial defect in appearance, one causing social or occupational dysfunction, and not better explained as another disorder such as anorexia nervosa but in DSM-5 (2013), it was reclassified as an obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorder, adding diagnostic criteria including repetitive behaviors and intrusive thoughts.  Although the World Health Organization's (WHO) current International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10 (1994)) described BDD as just another hypochondriacal disorder, the revised ICD-11 (2019) aligned for all functional purposes with the DSM-5.

The DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BDD requires the following:

(1) A preoccupation with appearance: The individual must be preoccupied with one or more nonexistent or slight defects or flaws in their physical appearance and “Preoccupation” is usually defined as thinking about the perceived defects for (in aggregate) at least an hour a day.  A distressing or impairing preoccupation with real and obvious flaws in appearance (anything easily noticeable such as obesity) is not diagnosed as BDD, being instead classified with “Other Specified Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders.”

(2) Repetitive behaviors: Repetitive and compulsive behaviors must manifest in response to the concern with appearance.  These compulsions can be behavioral and thus observed by others (such as either excessively standing before or avoid a looking-glass, frequent grooming, skin picking, reassurance seeking or repeatedly changing clothes.  Other BDD compulsions include mental acts, the most often diagnosed being an individual frequently comparing their appearance with that of other people.  The DSM-5 included the note for clinicians cautioning that subjects meeting all diagnostic criteria for BDD except this one are not diagnosed with BDD; they are diagnosed with “Other Specified Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorder.”

(3) Clinical significance: The preoccupation must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important aspects of functioning.  This criterion was included to differentiate the disorder BDD, which requires treatment, from more normal appearance concerns that typically do not need to be treated with medication or therapy.  This has been one of the more controversial revisions because of concerns it may exclude from helpful treatment some who have developed better coping mechanisms while still suffering from the underlying condition.

(4) Differentiation from an eating disorder: If the appearance preoccupations focus on being too fat or weighing too much, it may be that the appropriate diagnosis is an eating disorder and this applies especially if the subject’s only concern with their appearance focuses on excessive weight; provided the diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder are otherwise met, that should be the diagnosis, not BDD.  If not, BDD can be diagnosed, as concerns with fat or weight in a person of normal weight can be a symptom of BDD and it’s not uncommon for subjects to have both an eating disorder and BDD.

There are specifiers to BDD and following diagnosis, the subject should be sub-classified using the two (DSM-5) BDD specifiers:

(1) Muscle dysmorphia: Muscle dysmorphia is the (predominately male) concern that the build of their body is too small or insufficiently muscular, something which not untypically manifests with preoccupations with other body areas; the muscle dysmorphia specifier should still be used in such cases.  Studies have shown that among those diagnosed with BDD, those with muscle dysmorphia suffer the highest rates of suicidality and substance use disorders, as well as poorer quality of life.  Accordingly, the DSM-5 notes their treatment regimes may require some modification.

(2) Insight specifier: This specifier indicates the degree (not directly frequency although this is a factor in the analysis) of a subject’s insight regarding their BDD beliefs (eg “I look ugly”; “I look deformed”), an expression of how convinced the subject is that their beliefs about the appearance of the disliked body parts is true.  The DSM-5 levels of insight are (2a) with good or fair insight, (2b) with poor insight and (3), with absent insight/delusional beliefs (which are to be diagnosed as BDD, not as a psychotic disorder.

BDD has often been misdiagnosed, most often as one of the following disorders:

(1) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: If preoccupations and repetitive behaviors focus on appearance (including symmetry concerns), BDD should be diagnosed rather than OCD.

(2) Social anxiety disorder (social phobia): If social anxiety and social avoidance are due to embarrassment and shame about perceived appearance flaws, and diagnostic criteria for BDD are met, BDD should be diagnosed rather than social anxiety disorder (social phobia).

(3) Major depressive disorder: Unlike major depressive disorder, BDD is characterized by prominent preoccupation and excessive repetitive behaviors. BDD should be diagnosed in individuals with depression if diagnostic criteria for BDD are met.

(4) Trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder): When hair tweezing, plucking, pulling, or other types of hair removal is intended to improve perceived defects in the appearance of body or facial hair, BDD should be diagnosed rather than trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder).

(5) Excoriation (skin-picking disorder): When skin picking is intended to improve perceived defects in the appearance of one’s skin, BDD should be diagnosed rather than excoriation (skin-picking disorder).

(6) Agoraphobia: Avoidance of situations because of fears that others will see a person’s perceived appearance defects should count toward a diagnosis of BDD rather than agoraphobia.

(7) Generalized anxiety disorder: Unlike generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety and worry in BDD focus on perceived appearance flaws.

(8) Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder: BDD-related psychotic symptoms (ie delusional beliefs about appearance defects or BDD-related delusions of reference) reflect the presence of BDD rather than a psychotic disorder.

(9) Olfactory reference syndrome: Preoccupation with emitting a foul or unpleasant body odor is a symptom of olfactory reference syndrome, not BDD (although these two disorders have many similar characteristics).

(10) Eating disorder: If a normal-weight person is excessively concerned about being fat or their weight, meets other diagnostic criteria for BDD, and does not meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder, then BDD should be diagnosed.

(11) Dysmorphic concern: This is not a DSM diagnosis, but it is sometimes confused with BDD.  It focuses on appearance concerns but also includes concerns about body odor and non-appearance related somatic concerns, which are not BDD symptoms.

One aspect of the condition BDD is that it’s not uncommon for subjects to be reticent in revealing their concerns or BDD symptoms to a clinician because of embarrassment or being negatively judged as vain or too concerned with trivial matters.  Case notes do suggest there is a pattern of subjects hinting at their issues and clinicians should thus be encouraged to respond by explicitly asking about BDD symptoms.

Although the brand-name is, strangely, no longer used, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chubbettes was a fashion-house supplying “slenderizing designs… designed to make girls 6 to 16 look slimmer” and therefore become “as happy and self-assured as her slimmer schoolmates”.  With a target market including those with eating disorders or BDD as well as the naturally chubby, Chubbettes helpfully offered with its fashion catalog a free booklet, Pounds and Personality.  Intended for parents of a chubby girl and written by Dr Gladys Andrews of New York University’s School of Education, it was packed with helpful hints about “understanding her problems, talent development, shyness, tactless remarks & the “game” of dieting etc.).  Chubettes’ clothing range was said to be “available, coast to coast at stores that care”; the parent company was L Gidding & Co Inc, 520 Eighth Avenue, New York City.

Times certainly have changed and with them the perception of body shapes.  Parents who would now regard young ladies of the type pictured in the Chubbette advertisements as being chubby might now be suspected of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP).  In the mind of the girl herself, a similar perception wouldn't necessarily alone be enough for a diagnosis of BDD but might be considered in the context of other behaviors.  

Crooked Hillary Clinton, the Hamptons, August 2021.

Paradoxically, although in the early twenty-first century there’s a larger than ever market for what Chubbettes once served as a niche, the brand is long gone and a revival seems unlikely.  Many factors including more sedentary lifestyles and a higher consumption of processed food, the sugar content of which has risen alarmingly, means demand for more accommodating clothing will likely continue to increase but many manufacturers have stepped into the Chubbette void and customers enjoy a wide choice.

Poop

Poop (pronounced poop)

(1) In naval architecture, as “poop deck”, a structure at the stern of a vessel.

(2) In nautical jargon, (1) as of a wave, to break over the stern of a ship or (2) to take to take seas over the stern (especially repeatedly).

(3) As “pooped”, a slang term expressing exhaustion or fatigue; has been used as a noun in this context as “an old poop”.

(4) As “pooped out”, a slang term applied usually to machinery which has failed.

(5) As “poop sheet”, military slang for information updates circulated on paper; later adopted as “get the real poop” (get the true facts on something).

(6) As a noun, excrement; as a verb, the act of defecation, both described by most dictionaries as informal and often childish; also recorded as a child’s expression of disappointment; was also used as a euphemism for flatulence, apparently as a more polite replacement for the earlier fart. 

(7) As “party pooper”, a stupid, fussy, or boring person.

(8) As onomatopoeia, to make a short blast on a horn.

Circa 1350: Origin uncertain but possibly from the Middle English powpen, popen & poupen (to make a gulping sound while drinking, blow on a horn, toot) and perhaps influenced by the Dutch poepen (to defecate) and the Low German pupen (to fart; to break wind”); the English adoption of the latter sense dating from 1735–1745.  The sense of information began as the US Army slang “poop sheet” to refer to anything on paper, distributed by the authorities, one of many ways soldiers had to disparage military intelligence, this one comparing official documents to toilet paper, presumably used.  The sense of “information collated on paper” continued in US journalism circles as “get the poop” in the post-war years but was later displaced by other slang as technology changed.  “Party pooper” was first recorded in 1910–1915 which some suggest is derived from nincompoop but not all etymologists are convinced.  The sense from which the poop desk of ships evolved happened independently, although in parallel with, the various onomatopoeic meanings.  Dating from 1375-1425, it was from the Middle English poupe & pope, from the Old French pope, poupe & pouppe, from the Italian poppa, from the Vulgar Latin puppa, from the Classical Latin puppis, all meaning “stern of a ship”.  All alternative spellings are long obsolete.  Poop & pooping are nouns & verbs and pooped is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is poops. 

A costal carpet python pooping.

In humans and other animals, although the general principle remains (if not exactly accurately) “What goes in, must come out”, there are a number of variables involved in the parameters of poop production, most obviously diet.  This coastal carpet python was seen on the Sunshine Coast in the state of Queensland, Australia and experts in such things commented there was nothing unusual in the behavior.  As they explained: “Carpet pythons will usually eat one big meal, such as a possum”, the meal lasting “...a while as slowly it's digested..." whereas “...smaller snakes, like tiger snakes, eat smaller prey like frogs.  So they will relieve themselves more regularly and with smaller stools.”  Ophiologists (those dedicated to the study of snakes) note also that there's not of necessity any direct correlation between the size of a snake and the volume of their poop, factors such as diet, climate and age all influencing the outcome and observational studies in zoos have concluded that some snakes seem simply to prefer to poop more often than others.  Now we know. 

The Poop Deck

In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck which forms the roof of a cabin or other enclosure built in the aft (rear) of a ship’s superstructure.  On larger vessels, the cabin was usually called either the “poop cabin” or “navigation cabin”.

The significance of the poop desk is that it was from here the ship was sailed; it was for centuries the highest point of a ship’s main structure and so offered the best visibility.  The captain or officer of the watch would from the poop desk instruct the helmsman how to steer with the rudder and relay instructions to those trimming the sails, to change both speed and direction.  The helmsman turned the rudder using a big wheel mounted on the quarter deck, adjacent to and within earshot of the captain on the poop deck.  The placement of poop and quarter decks was dictated by the need for the wheel to be directly above the rudder’s controls because there was no electronic or hydraulic assistance; movements of the wheel acted on the rudder through a system of ropes and pulleys so distances between the two had to be kept as short as possible.

On modern, motorized ships, the navigational functions once directed from the poop deck have been moved to the bridge, usually located towards the bow (front).  Poop desks still exist on some naval and commercial vessels and it's not merely as a term of naval architecture because many ships (such a tankers and other bulk carriers) continue to be constructed with the bridge located in the stern area.  There's no longer the need for the bridge to be so close to the rudder but the older architecture is used to maximize the space available for cargo.  On larger pleasure craft such as the big yachts billionaires like, the poop deck is usually allocated variously as a viewing area (sometimes with a diving platform), an entertainment space or a helicopter pad.

Lindsay Lohan on the poop deck of a yacht cruising of the coast of Sardinia, July 2016.

Poop porn: A scorpion having a poop.

Tit

Tit (pronounced tit)

(1) Any of numerous small active old world songbirds of the family Paridae, especially those of the former genus Parus.

(2) Medieval slang for a girl or young woman thought something of a minx.

(3) A small, worthless or worn-out poor horse; a nag (archaic).

(4) Slang for a despicable or unpleasant person (archaic).

(5) Slang for a teat (used in agricultural and other circles).

(6) As tit-bit, a small morsel of food.

(7) One of the many vulgar slang terms for the human female’s breast (mammary gland).

Circa 1600: From the mid sixteenth century Middle English titte, from the pre 1100 Old English titt and cognate with the Middle Low German & Middle Dutch titte, the German as zitze, the Icelandic tittr and the Norwegian titta.  The Scandinavian forms applied to small birds and the Old English titt was a variant of teat.  The modern slang variation, attested from 1928, seems to be a recent reinvention from teat, used apparently without awareness it’s a throwback to the original form although the form is on record from 1746 as an English and Irish diminutive of teat, used in nurseries.

In ornithology, tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds found mostly in Africa and the more temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and Africa.  Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus and in the English-speaking the terms chickadee & titmice tend to be used in North America while its tits elsewhere.  The creatures are mainly small, stocky, woodland species with short, stout bills, some with crests and ranging in length between 4-9 inches (100-220 mm), they have a mixed diet including seeds and insects and have adapted well to co-habitation with humans in urban environments.  It’s a charming linguistic coincidence that ornithological taxonomy has given English the black-breasted tit (Periparus rufonuchalis), the cinnamon-breasted tit (Melaniparus pallidiventris) and the stripe-breasted tit (Melaniparus fasciiventer).

A pair of small tits (Pseudopodoces humilis; left) and pair of great tits (Parus major; right).

The smallest of the tits is the golden-breasted tit (or small tit) (Pseudopodoces humilis).  Genuinely tiny, in some places it’s known also as the ground tit or Hume's ground tit and measures usually between 100-130 mm (4-4.9 inches) in length, weighing around (.56 oz).  The largest of the tits is the widely distributed great tit (Parus major) which measures usually between 135-155 mm (5.3-6.1 inches) in length and weighs between 16 to 21 grams. (6-.81 oz).

The origin of familiar use of “tit” as slang for “breast, human female mammary gland” (now also as "tittie" or "titty" although they also enjoyed other meanings) lies in the Old English titt (teat, nipple, breast), used as a variant of teat or from the dialectal and nursery diminutive plural variant “titties”.  Perhaps surprisingly, it appears the modern slang use in this context (predictably, almost always in the plural) dates only from 1928 (oral use may have pre-dated this) and the adoption (actually a re-invention) is thought unrelated to the original form.  The tradition was however long because in the Middle English the singular was often tete or tate, often used figuratively to mean both “source of (spiritual) nourishment” and by the late fourteenth century, an “object of erotic attraction”.  In modern slang use, it appears the use of “tits” was almost exclusively male until the 1970s when it became of the words “reclaimed” by feminists as a political statement although, as a general principle women seem still to prefer “boobs” although there seems more acceptance of "fake tits" as a critique.

By the 1540s “tit” was used for a small or unproductive horse, the sense of something “diminutive” transferring over later centuries to other small creatures, most enduringly in birds such as the titmouse, tom-tit, titlark, titling, tit-babbler et al although not all survived to be added to modern taxonomy such as the late nineteenth century titty-todger (a wren).  In the Nordic nations, the Icelandic tittr, the Norwegian tita and the Old Norse titling were all used of small birds but etymologists are uncertain about the connection, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggesting the link was of either something small rather than anything specific to birds or even onomatopoeic, drawn from the “chip-chipping” sound of small songbirds.  At least by 1706 it was common slang for “titmouse” and by 1734 was used figuratively of persons but between the sixteenth & eighteenth centuries a “tit” could be a “girl or young woman” and while that could be merely descriptive, it was applied often in the deprecatory sense of “a hussy or minx” (though apparently not actually a prostitute).

The form “tit-bit” (small, delicate snack of food; a sweet morsel) was in use by the 1630s and was synonymous with “tidbit” which was in concurrent use, the coining of that thought to be the dialectal tid (fond, solicitous, tender (itself perhaps influenced by the relevant sense of “tit”)) + bit (in the sense of “a morsel”).  Also surviving into modern use is “tit for tat”, an expression indicating “a retaliatory return), first documented in the 1550s and from this ultimately came “titfer” which appeared in UK dictionaries of rhyming slang as a substitute for “hat” (in from the “that” element).  “Tit for tat” may have been a variant of the earlier “tip for tap” (blow for blow) which carried the same implication.  The game tick-tack-toe (noughts & crosses) was so named at least by 1892 but according to oral historians, decades before that it had been known as tit-tat-toe (by 1852, in reminiscences of earlier years), the names thought derived from the sound made by the pencil on the slate with which it originally was played by schoolboys.  The modern slang “taking the bull by the tits” is an absurdist variant of “taking the bull by the horns” (confronting a problem and dealing with it in a manner prompt, resolute & effective”); it suggests someone is doing something wrong or has misunderstood (ie they have NFI).

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.