Pox

Pox (pronounced poks)

(1) In human & animal pathology, a disease characterized by multiple skin pustules, as smallpox, associated with the pockmarks left by the purulent skin eruptions.

(2) Historically, a reference to syphilis and sometimes to other venereal diseases (now called sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)) (archaic).

(3) In plant pathology, a disease of sweet potatoes, characterized by numerous pitlike lesions on the roots, caused by a fungus, Streptomyces ipomoea (also called soil rot and distinct from the condition root rot).

(4) In idiomatic use (usually as "a pox on (someone or something)"), an interjection to express distaste, rejection, aversion etc and thus a synonym of curse; the adjective poxy is a variation of the idea.

(5) As the acronym POx, variously Pulse Oximetry, Pressure Oxidation, Partial Oxidation, Point of Exit, Plain Old XML & Purgeable Organic Halogens.

(6) As the acronym POX (or PoX), proof of X.

Circa 1480s: A spelling variant of pocks, the plural of pock, from the plural of the Middle English pocke.  Pox in the sense of “a disease characterized by eruptive sores" emerged in the late fifteenth century, a spelling alteration of pocks & pockes (used since the late thirteenth century in this context), the plural forms of the Middle English pocke (pustule).  From the sixteenth century, it became the common word with which to refer to syphilis.  Pock (pustule raised on the surface of the body in an eruptive disease) was from the Middle English pok, from the Old English poc & pocc (pock; pustule; ulcer), from the Proto-Germanic pukkaz & pukkǭ (pock; swelling) and puh & puhh (to swell up; blow us), from the primitive Indo-European beu & bew- (to grow; swell).  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch pocke, the Dutch pok, the East Frisian pok, the dialectal German Pfoche, the Low German & German Pocke, the French pocque was also from Germanic sources.  The present participle is poxing and the past participle poxed; the noun plural is poxes.

As surnames, Pox & Pocks both long pre-dated the use in pathology and were of Germanic origin, recorded in Bavaria & Austria as a variant Of the Bavaria Böck) and the North German Beck (Baker).  Pox may in some cases have been an alternative spelling of these but is documented as a nickname for a “short man”, from the Low German Pōk (young child; Dwarf).  In some regions it may have been a Germanized form of both the Hungarian Pók and the Slovenian & Croatian Pok common in the Balkans.  In the US, Pox appears to have been an Americanized version of Pocks, most prevalent in the north-eastern states during the nineteenth century.  Coincidently, the Proto-Turkic bok means “dirt, dung” and was cognate with the Turkish bok & Chuvash пӑх (păh); in vulgar slang used predictably in the same sense as “shit” (solid excretory product evacuated from the bowel); the word persists in modern Azerbaijani.  The now idiomatic deprecatory adjective poxy entered English in the late nineteenth century as terms of distaste and disapprobation, having been in the medical literature sin 1853 in the sense of “infected with pox; pocked-marked”.  The noun pock-mark (pockmark later prevailed) dates from the 1670s and was used to describe “the scar or pit left by a pustule" after an infection, particularly after smallpox where the effects were most severe and it was noted as a verb & adjective after 1756.  The earlier word in this sense was the mid-fifteenth century pokbrokyn.  Pock-marked was used by astronomers to refer to the craters visible on the surface of the moon.

Cow-pox (also cowpox), was a disease of cattle, noted from the 1780s and the fluid of the vesicles made it transmissible to humans.  It played an important role in the history of inoculation because it was noted milkmaids (with much exposure to cowpox) enjoyed an almost complete immunity to smallpox.  Chicken-pox was first described circa 1730 and the name is thought either an allusion to the mildness of the condition (compared to syphilis (the pox) or smallpox) or it being most associated with children, or the resemblance of the lumps on the skin to chick-peas.  In medical Latin, the circa 1765 varicella (chicken-pox) was an irregular diminutive of variola, the adjectival form varicellous.  Smallpox, the acute, highly contagious disease and frequently (fatal in a quarter to a third of unvaccinated cases) deadly disease was first so named in the 1510s, as small pokkes, which distinguished the symptoms from the great pox (syphilis).

The famous exchange…

“You sir shall die either on the gallows or of the pox (ie from a STD)”.

“That sir, will depend on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress”.

.. has been attributed to many over the last two centuries odd so the ultimate source is uncertain but the first known record of what may anyway have been an apocryphal exchange appears to have been published in 1784 the London periodical The European Magazine.  Supposedly, protagonist and antagonist were the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) and Samuel Foote (1720-1777) who met at a dinner held in his house by Sir Francis Blake Delaval. (1727–1771).

In the decades which followed, frequently the tale was re-told, sometimes with different participants (although Lord Sandwich was often named) and although occasionally embellished, what’s more interesting is that euphemisms and niceties were sometimes adopted; “the halter” replacing references to nooses and gallows and “p-x and “certain disease” substituting for pox.  Whether the changes reflected editorial taste or changes in what readers thought acceptable in print isn’t clear but by the early nineteenth century the anecdote was published with the punch-line but not the setup sentence.  That may however have been because, being well-known, by then a mere allusion was probably more funny still, a technique used to effect in the House of Commons as recently as 1968.  Whether or not the exchange ever happened or between who will never be known with certainty but the rejoinder is of such voltairesque quality it’s been attributed to more than half-a-dozen political notables.

Monkeypox

Little political energy could be summoned in the West to deal with climate change while it appeared to afflict only Africans, Arabs, Asians and animals (those inhabiting the places Mr Trump would have called “shithole countries”).  It took Europe & North America roasting, flooding and burning to focus minds.  Similarly, monkeypox (a zoonotic virus in the genus Orthopoxvirus) although for decades endemic in parts of Africa, attracted little interest in the West until outbreaks in 2022 and most people had probably never heard of it until a rapid spread of cases began to be reported in the UK, Europe and the US.  On 23 July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with cases reported in 77 countries and territories, similar declaration in the past issued for Swine flu, polio, Ebola, Zika and Covid-19.

Monkeypox movement out of Africa 2022 tracked by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Monkeypox gained its name in 1958 when scientists in Denmark isolated the virus in laboratory monkeys in 1958, when two outbreaks of the disease occurred in monkey colonies.  It’s since become clear that a number of rodents are much more efficient vectors of transmission and the virus is neither exclusive too nor most prevalent in monkey populations but, in the way of these things, the name stuck.  This is not a new phenomenon; the famous Spanish flu linked to the pandemic of 1918-1920 picked up the name only because cases there were reported in the press in 1918 whereas news of those already detected in the US, Europe and the UK were suppressed by wartime censorship which wasn’t applied in neutral Spain.  Another case is Rubella which came to be known as “German” measles, simply because it was scientists in that country which identified and first describe the cause and there are many more, most associated with countries not the source of the disease which bears the name.  It’s not known where and where a person first was infected but a human case of monkeypox was first documented in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1970.  Since then, the DRC has always recorded the majority of infections although between then and 2022, it had spread to a number of African countries, cases beyond the continent rare until 2022.

Example of regional variations in reported transmission: Nigeria 2017-2022.

Other associations linked to the name monkeypox have also become controversial and the WHO announced it is to receive a new name, noting comments from scientists and public health officials that the current name is "discriminatory and stigmatizing" and it’s also inaccurate to name versions of the virus after parts of Africa.  Accordingly, the WHO has already renamed two clades (from the Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos) (shoot, branch, family) of the virus to avoid the stigma associated with geographical names: The variant formerly known as “Congo Basin'' will now be referred to as “Clade I” and the “West Africa” variant will be known as “Clade II”.  The first suggestion of a new name is hMPXV, to denote the human version of the monkeypox virus and rather than anything geographic locations, letters and numbers should be used, based on order of discovery. In that system, the lineage behind the current international outbreak would be dubbed hMPXV-B1.  Some local authorities have acted preemptively, Chicago public health authorities for example using the bland “MPV”.  Whatever it ends up being called however, in the West, like COVID-19, monkeypox may be here to stay.

Take-off point of 2022 spread charted by the Lancet.

One aspect of the epidemiology of monkeypox in the West is that some 95% of those diagnosed are gay or bi-sexual men (“men who have sex with men” now the preferred and most accurate terminology).  Activists from the relative LGBTQQIAAOP faction are among those advocating a change of name although this is unlikely to remove the stigmatization based on the rate of transmission among men who have sex with men; presumably a stigmatization associated with hMPXV-B1 (or whatever) must be thought less offensive than one linked with monkeypox, probably because  an alpha-numeric string is a step removed from any link with animals and thus the slur of bestiality.  In the 1980s, that was one of the complaints once it was revealed HIV/AIDS was probably a mutated monkey virus from Africa and, even in the pre-internet era, unsubstantiated theories soon circulated that the entry of the virus into the human system was linked to men having sex with monkeys, a slur on both African men and the gay community who at the point constituted the bulk of infections, almost all as a result of sexual contact.  The consensus now is that HIV/AIDS entered human circulation (perhaps even as long ago as the nineteenth century) because of blood-blood mixing while monkeys were being butchered as part of the bush-meat trade.  The monkeypox vector may have been the same.

Naming virus species is the responsibility of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) (the expert group which brought us COVID-19) but the WHO has decided to ask for the public’s help, announcing an “…open consultation for a new disease name for monkeypox.  Anyone wishing to propose new names can do so”.  A portal will soon be provided.

Mermaid

Mermaid (pronounced mur-meyd)

(1) In folklore, a female marine creature, having the head, torso, and arms of a woman and the tail of a fish.  The less well-known masculine equivalent is a merman.

(2) Slang term for a highly skilled female swimmer.

Mid-1300s: From the Middle English mermayde (maid of the sea), the construct being mere + maid. From the Middle English mere, from the Old English mere (sea; inlet; lake), from the Proto-Germanic mari derived from the primitive Indo-European móri. It was cognate with the West Frisian mar, the Dutch & Low German meer and Norwegian mar (only used in combinations, such as marbakke).  It was related to the Latin mare, the Breton mor and the Russian мо́ре (móre).  Maid is from the Middle English mayde or maide, an abbreviation of maiden. Ultimate source is the Proto-Germanic magaþs (maid, virgin) and there were links to the Dutch meid & Magd.  The fourteenth century image of the "fabled marine or amphibian creature having the upper body in the form of a woman and the lower in the form of a fish, with human attributes" appeared most often in conjunction with the idea of a creature "usually working harm, with or without malignant intent, to mortals with whom she might be thrown into relation".

Along with meremenn, meremennen & meremenin, Old English had the equivalent merewif (water-witch (related is the modern “wife”)) and meremenn (mermaid, siren) which were cognate with the Middle Dutch meer-minne and the Old High German meri-min which, circa 1200, became the Middle English mere-min, shortened in the early thirteenth century to mere (siren), the later mermaid probably a re-expansion of this.  Interestingly, where similar forms existed in northern Europe, they were tail-less; the fishy form a medieval influence from classical sirens, mermaids said sometimes to lure sailors to destruction with song.

An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as mermaid.

Mermaids became a popular sign displayed by taverns and inns (and not just those in ports or coastal towns) in the early fifteenth century and Mermaid pie, first sold in the 1660s, was a sucking pig baked whole in a crust and documented from 1825 was the mermaid's purse (the baked egg-case of a skate, ray, or shark), a dish (an aquatic take on the culinary tradition of haggis) thought of Scottish origin.  The merman (fabulous sea-creature, man above and fish below (literally "man of the sea)) dates from circa 1600; the gender-neutral merpeople from 1849 and merfolk (inhabitants of the sea with human bodies and fish-like tails) from 1846.  The recent male gender formations never caught the public imagination in quite the same way and seem pointless add-ons to the myth, al la Barbi's Ken.

Садко в Подводном царстве (romanized as Sadko v Podvodnom tsarstve) and commonly called Sadko although known also as Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876), oil on canvas by Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844–1930), Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.  

Repin painted Sadko (an imposing 127 in × 90.6 inches (3.225 x 2.3m)) while living in France.  The artist was inspired by an epic-length Russian poem, depicting the merchant and musician Sadko who must choose for his wife one of the daughters of the Underwater King.  Biographers have noted the subject an uncharacteristic one for Repin and have suggested his choice of a tale from Russian folklore may have reflected the homesickness he felt after three years in self-imposed exile although it exhibits too the influences of the artistic and social milieu of Paris's Montmartre.  At the time, Repin was ambivalent about the state of Russian art and for some time, Sadko sat abandoned in his studio but the society painter Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov (1824–1896) thought it so compellingly Russian he prevailed upon Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich (1845-1894; the future Tsar Alexander III (1881-1894)) to commission it, prompting Repin to finish the work.

The bylina (an oral epic poem) which inspired the painting was from north-west Russia and recounts how Sadko had been brought to the realm of the Underwater King to perform a recital which went well, so well the king danced with such delight that he caused a devastating storm.  To show his appreciation, the king offered Sadko the choice of one of his mermaid daughters to take as his wife but following the advice of a saint, Sadko refuses three times three hundred daughters before accepting the last, named Chernavushka.  In the painting, Sadko appears at the right, watching the mermaids flow past his gaze, the unchosen at the front of the procession looking more disappointed than the fish John West rejects.  Chernavushka, last in the aquatic queue is shown glancing at her man.  At the time, the work received a mixed reaction.  All acknowledged the technical skill displayed in the execution but it appealed only to Russian traditionalists, those critics who moved in more liberal circles and were attracted more to realism than a mystical allegory of an undersea kingdom thought it sentimental "folk-art" and urged Repin to return to the naturalistic style with which he'd established his early reputation.

Nice work if you can get it: The Disneyland mermaids.

In summer, between 1959-1967, women dressed as mermaids were employed to splash around four hours a day, operating from a coral reef in the middle of the Submarine Lagoon at the Disneyland Resort in California.  The criteria to qualify for selection as a Disney mermaid included having long hair and being able to swim, the other qualifications not listed on the advertisements but presumably implied by the nature of the appointment.  Those lucky enough to succeed in the first stage of the recruitment process needed to prove their prowess in the hotel pool and, upon demonstrating adequate aquatic adeptness, were given a job which included their tails.  The weekly salary was US$65 which was above average for the time, their other perk being the right to swim in any of the park's many pools (without their tails).

For a few weeks, prior to the opening in June, the mermaids practiced in Submarine Lagoon, surrounded by construction activity, neither the lagoon or the Matterhorn yet complete and were warned to keep their distance from the submarine, since there was no barrier and the installation contained what were described, ominously, as "moving parts".  After opening, the mermaids would swim around the submarine, giving guests a memorable experience under and above the surface, performing tricks such as flips and turns with their tails.  Their costumes consisted of a starfish top and a remarkably life-like neoprene tail which could be seen shimmering in the water by those aboard the monorail which transported guests between the park and the Disneyland Hotel.

An integral and important part of the lagoon’s design was a centrally-located rock which was artificially heated, vital because the water was cold and on cooler days, the mermaids really needed the warmth.  The rock became the hangout spot for the mermaids to warm up in the sun and chat amongst themselves, itself something of a tourist attraction and one of the park’s more photographed scenes although the volume of the crowds gathered to enjoy the view did create congestion.  That was manageable but the programme had to be closed in 1967 after a number of mermaids were found to be suffering illness, caused by a combination of prolonged exposure to diesel submarine's exhaust fumes and the highly chlorinated water.  After an absence of many years, mermaids can again be seen in the lagoon but, unlike the flesh, blood and neoprene originals, today’s creatures are animatronic creations.

Bureau

Bureau (pronounced byoor-oh)

(1) A chest of drawers, sometime with a mirror atop.

(2) A division of a government department or an independent administrative unit.

(3) An office for collecting or distributing news or information, coordinating work, or performing specified services; agency; typically a travel or news bureau.

(4) A desk or writing desk with pigeonholes, drawers etc, against which the writing surface can be closed when not in use, the best known form of which is the roll-top (historically chiefly British but now widely used in the international antiques trade).

1710-1720 (some sources claim instances from the 1690s): A borrowing from the French bureau, the earlier meaning of which was "coarse cloth (as desk cover), baize", from the Old French burel (woolen cloth), and a diminutive of bure (related were the Middle French bure (coarse woolen cloth) and the French bourre (hair, fluff)) from the Late Latin burra (wool, fluff, shaggy cloth, coarse fabric).  It was akin to the Ancient Greek βερβέριον (berbérion) (shabby garment) and a doublet of burel and borrel, taken from the Old French.  The Latin burra remains of unknown origin.  Bureau desks were once common office furniture of offices, rather the cubicles of their day and the meaning expanded by 1720 to "office or place where business is transacted" and by 1796 to "division of a government."  The meaning "chest of drawers for clothes etc" dates from 1770, said to be American English but was most associated with British use.  Bureau is a noun and the modern view is bureaus & bureaux (both pronounced byoor-ohz) are both accepted noun plural forms but the former seems preferred by most.

Lindsay Lohan's page at the All American Speaker's Bureau.

Squabbles on the Wilhelmstrasse; the German Foreign Ministry and the Ribbentrop Bureau

Most historical analysis of the Third Reich has understandably focused on the evil and the damage done but for structuralists, the nature of the bureaucratic state and those with is an interesting study.  Although assuming office in 1933, the Nazis didn’t immediately become the totalitarian regime familiar in later years because there were too many other power centres over which their control was either incomplete or non-existent.  For that reason, the party, while attempting to take control of the machinery of the state, within a numbers of sphere of activity, also sometimes maintained one or more party institutions in a competition for influence, something which reflected the Hitlerian world-view.  Sometimes these organizations would run in parallel, sometime in opposition.

Although the Nazi hierarchy was beset by internecine hatreds and jealousies, one of the few things on which most agreed was the stupidity, incompetence and unsuitability for his role of Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946), foreign minister between 1938 and the end of the war.  Propaganda Minister Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), ever ready with a memorable phrase, noted in his diary that Ribbentrop “...bought his name, married his money and swindled his way into office.”  Historians don't dispute Ribbentrop's ineptitude but some are prepared to concede the blame should be shared and he should be thought "not competent" rather than "incompetent", a distinction which the more generous might be prepared to make of plenty of failed politicians.  In other words, a champagne salesman should no more have been appointed foreign minister that a sybaritic, bemedaled fighter ace should have been put in charge of the "four-year plan" (a sprawling apparatus which aimed to make Germany self-sufficient in essential raw materials (autarky), reduce unemployment through a public works programme, increase military production and reform the agricultural sector).  Hitler however, was an admirer (Ribbentrop's sycophancy a particular attraction) and in 1934 permitted him to create a party organization called the Büro Ribbentrop (later the Dienststelle Ribbentrop (Dienststelle best translated as office or department)) which, bizarrely, operated as a kind of alternative foreign ministry.

Illustration by Noel Sickles (1910–1982) in Life magazine, 28 October 1946, depicting the moments before von Ribbentrop was hanged, Palace of Justice, 16 October 1946.  The temporary gallows was erected in the prison gymnasium.

The Büro Ribbentrop also operated as a dirty-tricks outfit with some effort devoted to undermining the authority of the Foreign Ministry which, in a nice touch, operated from offices on Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse, just over the road from the Buro.  The Buro and its back-channel communications served as Hitler’s personal tool for the implementation of his foreign policy (which can be summed up as "lies, lies and damned lies"), the traditional institutions and diplomatic protocols often side-lined although, Ribbentrop himself had to fend of intrusions from yet more party units with interests in international affairs.  Ribbentrop however prevailed and was appointed foreign minister in 1938, serving in the position until the end of hostilities; convicted of planning & waging aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity, he was hanged in 1946.

Victorian (circa 1870) English cylinder roll-top writing bureau: mahogany with burr walnut fitted interior and a trio of leather skivers.

Perpetual

Perpetual (pronounced per-pech-oo-uhl)

(1) Continuing or enduring forever; lasting indefinitely; continuing or continued without intermission or interruption; ceaseless.

(2) In horticulture, blooming almost continuously throughout the season or the year; a perennial plant.

(3) As "perpetual motion machine", a hypothetical device which, which, once set in motion, will continue forever unless stopped by some external force.  Dating from the 1590s, however "constructed", it would violate either or both the first or second laws of thermodynamics and is thus a physical impossibility and now thought of as an engineer's version of alchemy.

1300–1350: From the late Middle English perpetual & perpetuall (everlasting, unceasing, existing indefinitely, continuing forever in future time), from the twelfth century Old French perpetual (without end; uninterrupted), from the Latin perpetuālis (universal ("permanent" in the Medieval Latin)), from perpetuus (continuous, universal), from perpetis, genitive of the Old Latin perpes (lasting; continual).  The construct of perpetu(us) was per (through), from the primitive Indo-European root per (forward (hence "through")) + pet (to fly, to rush), the root of petere (to seek; reach for; go towards; aim at) + -uus (the deverbal adjectival suffix (deverbal nouns are nouns derived from verbs or verb phrases, but that behave grammatically purely as nouns, not as verbs)).  The English forms were a direct borrowing from the Old French perpetual and the spellings perpetuall and perpetual co-existed in Middle English.  The synonyms include ceaseless, constant, perennial, unceasing, continuous, eternal, persistent, never-ending, incessant, unending, permanent, enduring, infinite, interminable, endless, recurring, continued, abiding, everlasting, immortal and uninterrupted.  The spelling perpetuall is obsolete.  Perpetual is a noun & adjective, perpetuality, perpetualness & perpetuity are nouns, perpetuate is a verb & adjective and perpetually is an adverb; the noun plural is perpetuals.

In the matter of Mary

Wall painting (unknown artist), circa 1870, in Saint Laurentius Church in Voorschoten, the Netherlands, painted to commemorate Pastor aeternus.  It depicts Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) holding his book Summa Theologica (1265-1274), Jesus Christ (with the Vatican in the background which was a nice touch) and Pope Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878).

The Roman Catholic Church’s dogma of papal infallibility holds that a pope’s rulings on matters of faith and doctrine are infallibility correct and cannot be questioned.  When making such statements, a pope is said to be speaking ex cathedra (literally “from the chair”).  Although ex cathedra pronouncements had been issued since medieval times, as a point of canon law, the doctrine was codified first at the First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (Vatican I; 1869–1870) in the document Pastor aeternus (shepherd forever).  Since Vatican I, the only ex cathedra decree has been Munificentissimus Deus (The most bountiful God), issued by Pius XII (1876–1958; pope 1939-1958) in 1950, in which was declared the dogma of the Assumption; that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory".  Pius XII never made explicit whether the assumption preceded or followed earthly death, a point no pope has since discussed although it does seem of some theological significance.

Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, there had been decrees issued ex cathedra.  In Ineffabilis Deus (Ineffable God (1854)), Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an important point because of the theological necessity of Christ being born free of sin, a notion built upon by later theologians as the perpetual virginity of Mary.  It asserts that Mary "always a virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus Christ", explaining the biblical references to brothers of Jesus either as children of Joseph from a previous marriage, cousins of Jesus, or just folk closely associated with the Holy Family.

In general use, "perpetual" is used typically in the sense of something constant and unchanging although it's used often as a deliberate exaggeration; a term of emphasis.

Concierge

Concierge (pronounced kon-see-airzh or kawn-syerzh (French))

(1) A person who has charge of the entrance of a building and is sometimes the owner's representative; a doorkeeper.  Historically, the role is most associated with residential buildings in large French cities but the role is increasingly common in both residential and commercial buildings in many countries.

(2) A member of a hotel staff in charge of certain services for guests including (1) those provided for a fee by third parties including securing tickets for the theatre, tours or other entertainment, taxis, airport transfers etc and (2) internal hotel matters such as baggage handling, delivering and collecting laundry, providing directions etc.  Many do offer certain services such as hire-cars (and most famously prostitution) on the basis of secret commissions.

(3) An employee stationed in an apartment house lobby who screens visitors, controls operation of elevators, accepts deliveries to the tenants, etc.

(4) A custodian or warden of a prison (obsolete).

(5) As concierge medicine (also known as retainer medicine), pertaining to or being medical care for which the patient pays the doctor an annual fee, either for special or additional services or to guarantee priority attention when required.

(6) A synonym of conciergerie or concergius (obsolete).

(7) As shopping concierge, a part of the gig-economy which offers personal assistance in shopping in a particular area, additionally providing services (such as international shipping) which may not be offered by a retailer.  Shopping concierges charge usually either by time or a percentage of the transactions effected (or a combination of both) and it's assumed secret commissions are also paid by retailers.  In an informal sense, the idea has been extended to the finance sector where concierge is sometimes used as slang to describe brokers.

1640-1650: From the twelfth century French concierge (caretaker, doorkeeper of a hotel, apartment house, prison etc; porter of uncertain origin.   It may have been from the Old French cumserges, which may be from the Vulgar Latin conservius, from the Latin conservus (fellow slave), an assimilated form, the construct being con- (from com-) (with, together) + serviēns, present participle of servīre (to serve) and related both to servius (slave) and the modern “serve”.  The con- prefix was from the Middle English con-, from the Latin con-, from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo- European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ(n) (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning.  Servus was from the Proto-Italic serwos (guardian), from the primitive Indo-European serwos (guardian) which may be related to ser- (watch over, protect); it was cognate with servō and the Avestan haraiti (he heeds, protects).  In Latin, over the years, servus (genitive servī, feminine serva) could be used to mean servant, serf or slave.  The suggestion, attributed to nineteenth century French novelists, that concierge is a contraction of comte des cierges (a servant responsible for maintaining the lighting and cleanliness of medieval palaces (literally “count of candles”) is considered a figment of the literary imagination.  Like English, some languages (such as German and Portuguese adopted the French spelling while others produced variants including the Catalan conserge, the Russian консье́рж (konsʹjérž), the Serbo-Croatian консијерж (konsijerž) and the Spanish conserje.  Concierge is a noun; the noun plural is concierges.

In historic documents, concierge appears sometimes to be a synonym for a number of roles but many of these are historically (and sometimes geographically) specific including castle-keeper, lodge-keeper of a château and jailor (or keeper) in a prison.  Even in modern use, there’s some overlap in function and a caretaker, custodian or janitor will perform some of the roles associated with a concierge but not all.  The greatest degree of overlap occurs in city hotels, the larger having clear distinctions between the duties undertaken by commissioners (doormen), porters and a concierge proper but these demarcations blur or disappear in smaller operations.  Concierge can be a concept as well as an individual, some hotels having concierge departments but staffing them without using anyone with the exact title.  In the France of L'Ancien Régime, the title was once attached to a high royal official of the household.  When the spellings (the original Latinized forms) were concergius or concergerius, the role was that of the guardian of a house or castle and in the later middle ages it came to be used for the court official who acted as the custodian of a royal palace.  In Paris, circa 1360, as the Palais de la Cité ceased to be a royal residence and became the seat of the courts of justice, the Conciergerie was turned into a prison, an institution for which L'Ancien Régime sometimes had great need. As late as the year leading up to World War I (1914-1918), in Europe it was common for a hotel's concierge to be referred to as a a "Suisse", reflecting the frequency with which men from Switzerland filled the role.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or

Escutcheon of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or is the international organization of hotel lobby concierges.  Now with chapters in many countries, it was registered originally in Paris in 1929 as the Union Internationale des Concierges d'Hôtels (UICH) and this identity was maintained formally until 1995 when, at the 42^nd International Congress held in Sydney, Australia, a resolution was passed changing the name to Union Internationale des Clefs d'Or (UICO).  The international membership now exceeds 4000.  Properly pronounced as lay-clay-door, the literal translation from French is keys of gold, reflected in their membership symbol, most frequently seen as the twinned lapel pins worn by members, something remarkably similar to the escutcheon of the Holy See and neither the Vatican nor the Les Clefs d’Or has ever denied that a relationship may exist.  To become a member of Les Clefs d’Or, one must be at least twenty-one years of age, of good moral character and active within their concierge community.  Additionally, they must be employed by hotels in the usual sense of the word (not corporate or residential buildings) and have been employed thus for a minimum of five years (two if that service has been under the supervision of a member).  Also, the desk at which they work must have a sign that includes the word “concierge.”  Approval of membership is subject to the provision of documents, sponsorship by two existing members and a formal interview process.

Promotional poster for Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter (1974)), directed by Liliana Cavani (b 1933).  Note the crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or on the lapel.

Novelists and film makers have often been fond of concierges, presumably because they can be used as a quasi-narrator or linkage device between protagonists, the dramatic and comedic potential frequently (though not always convincingly) explored.  The best film in this sub-genre remains the cult favourite The Night Porter (1974), set in the high cold war Vienna of 1957 and starring Dirk Bogarde (1921–1999) as former Nazi concentration camp officer and Charlotte Rampling (b 1946) who had been one of his youthful inmates and one upon whom he imposed a sadomasochistic relationship.  Although not without flaws in its editing, The Night Porter is memorably evocative of the era and is more highly regarded now than at the time of its release.  In 2018 it was one of the films included in the Venice Classics at the Venice International Film Festival.

Dirk Bogart in The Night Porter with the paired crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or on the lapels.

Most concierges aren’t sadomasochistic (as far as is known) but they can still be involved in bizarre stuff.  One former member of the secret society is Australian Elvis Soiza (concierge at 111 Eagle Street, Brisbane) who says he can procure anything (as long as it's legal).  No longer a member because the Les Clefs d’Or restricts its rolls to those working in hotels, he notes there’s remarkably little difference between what’s done in a corporate building and a luxury hotel, the concierge still the “human face to a property” and one there to “offer advice, sooth, inform, entertain and organise”.  He sums up such buildings as “a hotel without bedrooms” (although Elon Musk may have blurred things a bit).

Lindsay Lohan usurping the escutcheon of the Les Clefs d'Or (digitally altered image).

During his years in hotels, Mr Soiza received many interesting requests but the most remarkable came in London during the 1980s when a Middle Eastern sheik asked him to arrange a pink elephant as a birthday surprise for his wife.  Thinking he needed a large stuffed toy he began to peruse the Harrods’ catalogue, only to be told the sheik wanted a real elephant, painted pink.  It took some doing, requiring Mr Soiza to coordinate a local circus, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), local government (it's not clear which one, the Greater London Council (GLC, 1965-1986) was in 1986 dissolved by the Thatcher government with its responsibilities assigned to existing borough councils), the Indian High Commission and the Metropolitan Police but, within twelve hours, he’d secured an elephant, had it painted pink, obtained the required permit and, with a police escort, had the beast led to the hotel in time for the birthday party.  Quite remarkable.

The original image (left), the photoshopped fake (centre) and an actual African pink elephant (a form of partial albinism).

Pink elephants are of course hard to find in London but they're rare anywhere.  On the internet, there have been claims the creatures can be found in parts of India, the color the result of the red soil in the environment, the creatures spraying dust on their hides to protect themselves from biting insects.  However, it turned out to be fake news, the supporting evidence created with Photoshop and wildlife experts that while elephants cover themselves in mud, this doesn’t change the colour of their skin.  It's true there is a rare genetic disorder (technically a form of albinism) which can result in the skin of young African elephants displaying a slight pink hue but it's nothing like the vivid hot pink in the Photoshopped fake news.

Bliss

Bliss (pronounced blis)

(1) Perfect happiness; supreme joy or contentment.

(2) In theology, the ecstatic joy of heaven.

(3) A cause of great joy or happiness (archaic).

(4) A name used for a wide variety of locational, commercial and artistic purposes.

Pre-1000: From the Middle English blys, blice, blisce, blise, blesse & blisse, from the Old English bliss (bliss, merriment, happiness, grace, favor), from a variant of earlier blīds, blīþs & blīths (joy, gladness), from the Proto-West Germanic blithsjo & blīþisi (joy, goodness, kindness), the construct being blīthe (blithe) + -s, source also of the Old Saxon blizza & blīdsea (bliss), the construct being blithiz (gentle, kind) + -tjo (the noun suffix).  The early use was concerned almost exclusively with earthly happiness but, because of the fondness scholars in the Medieval Church felt for the word, in later Old English it came increasingly to describe spiritual ecstasy, perfect felicity and (especially), the joy of heaven.  In that sense as a verb it remains in common use in evangelical churches (especially in the southern US) to suggest the “attaining and existing in a state of perfect felicity”.  The adjective blissful was from the late twelfth century blisfulle (glad, happy, joyous; full of the glory of heaven).  Synonyms in a general sense include euphoria, happiness & joy while in a theological context there’s paradise, beatitude, blessedness, elicity, gladness, heaven & rapture; there is no better antonym than misery.  Bliss & blissfulness are nouns, blissy, blissed & blissless are adjectives, blissful is a noun & adjective and blissfully is an adverb; the noun plural is blisses.

The unrelated verb bless was from the Middle English blessen, from the Old English bletsian & bledsian and the Northumbrian bloedsian (to consecrate by a religious rite, make holy, give thanks), from the Proto-Germanic blodison (hallow with blood, mark with blood), from blotham (blood) and originally it meant the sprinkling of blood on pagan altars.  The pagan origins didn’t deter the early English scribes who chose the word for Old English bibles, translating the Latin benedicere and the Greek eulogein, both of which have a ground sense of "to speak well of, to praise," but were used in Scripture to translate Hebrew brk (to bend (the knee), worship, praise, invoke blessings).  In late Old English, the meaning shifted towards "pronounce or make happy, prosperous, or fortunate" under the influence of the etymologically unrelated bliss, (the resemblance obviously a factor in this) and by the early fourteenth century it was being used in religious services to mean "invoke or pronounce God's blessing upon" and is unusual in that there are no cognates in other languages.

State of bliss.  Lindsay Lohan embraces her inner Zen, Phuket, Thailand, 2017.

In idiomatic use, a "bliss ninny" is (1) one unrealistically optimistic (a Pollyanna, which, in Marxist theory, can align with the concept of "false consciousness), (2) one who prefers to ignore or retreat from difficult situations rather dealing with the problem (sometimes expressed as a "state of blissful ignorance") or (3) a student of theology intoxicated with the spiritual aspects of the teachings, but ignorant of the underlying scholarship.  A "bliss out" is the experience of great pleasure, often analogous with a "love rush" and the state in which one can be said to be "blissed up".  In economics, a "bliss point" is quantity of consumption where any further increase would make the consumer less satisfied (as opposed to the law of diminishing returns where increases deliver pleasure in decreasing increments; a classic example is alcohol.  It's used also in cooking as the measure of certain critical ingredients (fat, salt, sugar etc) at which point palatability is optimized.  To follow one's bliss is a notion from pop-psychology and the new age which advocates using one's awareness of what causes one to experience rapture as a guide for determining what constitutes authentic and proper living.

Charles O'Rear's original 1996 photograph, licenced in 2000 by Microsoft which used it as the desktop wallpaper for the Windows XP operating system.  Much time was spent in Microsoft's compatibility labs working out what would be the most "blissful" opening music (the "startup chime") to accompany the images' appearance upon boot-up. 

There are claims that Bliss, the default desktop wallpaper used in Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system, is the most viewed photograph of all time.  It was taken in 1996 by Charles O'Rear (b 1941) at Sonoma County, a viticultural region in California, using a Mamiya RZ67 film camera and as used by Microsoft, was barely changed, just cropped to better suit the shape of computer screens, the green hues slightly more saturated to render the image more “wallpaper-like”.

Quite how often bliss has been viewed isn’t known.  Economists and others use a variety of mathematical models and equations to calculate numbers where exact or even indicative records either don’t exist or can’t be relied upon, a famous example of which is the “piano tuner” problem posed by Italian-American nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) for his students to ponder.  The challenge for the students was to create a formula to estimate the number of piano tuners in Chicago, based only on the known population of the city.  It would thus be a task of extrapolation, using one constant and a number of assumptions.  Fermi deconstructed his equation thus:

(1) Chicago has a population of 3 million.

(2) Assume an average family contains four members so that the number of families in Chicago must be about 750,000.

(3) Assume one in five families owns a piano, meaning there will be 150,000 pianos in Chicago.

(4) Assume the average piano tuner services four pianos a day and works a for five day week, taking an annual two week vacation.

(5) Therefore, in his (50 week) working year, a tuner would tune 1,000 pianos. The formula is thus 150,000 divided by (4 x 5 x 50) = 150.  There must be around 150 piano tuners in Chicago.

The method obviously doesn’t guarantee an exactly correct result but it does provide an indicative number might be off by no more than a factor of 2-3 and almost certainly within a factor of 10-12 so it’s reasonable to conclude there will be neither 15 nor 1,500 piano tuners.  A number with a factor error of even 2-3 in most cases is probably not a great deal of help (except to cosmologists for whom a factor of 10 error remains “within cosmological accuracy” but the piano tuner problem does illustrate how the concept can work and the more (useful) constants which are known, the more accurate the result is likely to be achieved.

Bliss, a little greener and cropped to fit on computer monitors.

Even so, it’s probably impossible to estimate how often bliss has been viewed, even were one to assemble as many constants and assumptions as are available such as:

(1) Number of copies of Windows XP sold.

(2) Number of copies of Windows XP in use in each year since it was introduced.

(3) Number of users per copy of Windows XP.

(4) Number of instances which retained bliss as wallpaper.

(5) Number of times per day each user saw bliss.

However, even with those and as many more assumptions as can be imagined, it’s doubtful if a vaguely accurate number could be derived, simply because data such as the number of users who changed their wallpaper (or have such a change imposed on them by corporate policies) isn’t available and there’s no rational basis on which to base an assumption.  However, although any estimate will almost certainly be out by millions or even billions, the bliss viewing number will be a big number and it being the world’s most viewed photograph is not implausible.

One of the reasons for the big number was the unexpected longevity of Windows XP which proved more enduring than two of its intended successors, the somewhat misunderstood Windows Vista and the truly awful Windows 8, the ongoing popularity of the thing meaning Microsoft repeatedly extended the end-date for support.  Introduced later in 2001, with a final substantive update made in 2008, support for Windows XP was intended to end in 2012 but such was the response that this was shifted in one form or another to 2014 for the mainstream products while for specialist installations (such as embedded devices), it lingered on until 2019.  That extension appealed to the nerd after-market which quickly provided hacks (with titles like “XP Update Extender”) to allow users to make XP on their desktop or laptop appear to Microsoft’s update services as one on the devices still supported.  Microsoft could have stopped this at any time but never did which was a nice courtesy.

More productive but less blissful: the scene in Sonoma County, 2006 after the land was given over to a vineyard. 

Another aspect of XP where “bliss point” could be used was that the users interface proved for many something of an ideal, combining the basic design of the model introduced when the object-oriented GUI (graphical user interface) was offered on Windows 95 (and subsequently bolted to Windows NT4) along with a few colorful embellishments.  So compelling was this that when, inexplicably, Microsoft introduced something less usable for Windows 8, the nerd after-market quickly mobilized and many “classic menus” appeared, the best of which remains “Open-Shell” (previously called “Classic Shell” & “Classic Start”) and there are those still so nostalgic for the ways of XP that some add it to their Windows 10/11 systems, even though the menu structures of those are a genuine improvement.  How many also add the bliss wallpaper (which remains widely available) isn’t known but Microsoft certainly haven’t attempted to suppress the memory, the Office 365 team including it in 2021 in a set of historical images for use with their Teams communication platform.

Microsoft Windows XP: The startup chime.