Spot

Spot (pronounced spot)

(1) A rounded mark or stain made by foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink etc; a blot or speck, differing usually in colour or texture from its surroundings.

(2) A small blemish, mole, or lesion on the skin or other surface (popularly associated with pimple, zits, blackheads etc).

(3) A small, circumscribed mark caused by disease, allergic reaction, decay, etc.

(4) A comparatively small, usually roundish, part of a surface differing from the rest in color, texture, character etc.

(5) A place or locality (used also in the plural, often to describe places of entertainment, sightseeing locations, historic sites etc and also used of things like parking spots).

(6) In organisational structures, a specific position in a sequence or hierarchy.

(7) In playing cards, one of various traditional, geometric drawings of a club, diamond, heart, or spade indicating suit and value.

(8) A pip, as on dice or dominoes.

(9) In slang, a piece of paper money (5 spot=$5 etc).

(10) As a clipping of “spot illustration”, a small drawing, usually black and white, appearing within or accompanying a text.

(11) A small quantity of anything.

(12) In ichthyology, a small croaker (Leiostomus xanthurus) with a black spot behind the shoulders and fifteen oblique dark bars on the sides, the habitat of which is the US east coast; the southern redfish, or red horse (Sciaenops ocellatus), which has a spot on each side at the base of the tai; both popular as food fish.

(13) As a clipping of “spot market”, the informal terms for commodities (grain, oil, wool et al) sold for immediate delivery and payment at a price quoted at the point of sale.

(14) A slang term for a spotlight.

(15) To stain or mark with spots:

(16) In dry cleaning, to remove a spot or spots from clothing, prior to processing.

(17) In any context, to make a spot; to become spotted.

(18) In the military (often as target spotter or spotting), law enforcement or among criminals etc, to serve or act as a spotter.

(19) In billiards, a clipping of “spot ball” the white ball that is distinguished from the plain by a mark or spot; the player using this ball.

(20) To look out for and note; to observe or perceive suddenly, especially under difficult circumstances; to discern.

(21) In informal use (US) in some games and sports, to yield an advantage or concession to one's opponent.

(22) In zoology, a term used to describe various dot-like patterns (ladybirds, leopards et al) seen on the skin, wings, coats etc of some animals.

(23) In sports, an official determination of placement (where a referee or umpire places a ball, sets the point at which a penalty kick is to be taken etc).

(24) In broadcasting (radio & television), brief advertisement or program segment.

(25) In gymnastics, dance & weightlifting, one who spots (supports or assists a manoeuvre, or is prepared to assist if safety dictates); a spotter.

(26) A variety of the common domestic pigeon, so called from a spot on its head just above the beak.

(27) In the jargon of financial trading, the decimal point (used to ensure no ambiguities in oral exchanges).

(28) In physics, a dissipative soliton (a stable solitary localized structure that arises in nonlinear spatially extended dissipative systems due to mechanisms of self-organization); known also as a pulse.

(29) In slang (US), to loan a small amount of money to someone.

(30) In analogue & digital photograph editing, to remove minor flaws.

(31) In ballet, to keep the head and eyes pointing in a single direction while turning.

(32) To cut or chip timber in preparation for hewing.

(33) In naval aviation, to position an aircraft on the deck of an aircraft carrier ready for launch by catapult.

(34) In rail transport, to position a locomotive or car at a predetermined point (typically for loading or unloading).

1150-1200: From the Middle English spot & spotte (a moral blemish), partially from the Middle Dutch spotte (spot, speck, mark), and partially a merging with the Middle English splot, from the Old English splott (spot, speck, plot of land).  It was cognate with the East Frisian spot (speck), the North Frisian spot (speck, piece of ground), the Low German spot (speck) and the Old Norse spotti (small piece) and the Norwegian spot (spot, small piece of land); it was related also to splotch.  Describing originally some flaw of character, the idea of a “speck, stain left by something on a surface” emerged in the mid-fourteenth century, picked up from the Old English splott.  The late Middle English verb spotten (to stain, mark) was a derivative of the noun.  Variations of the form are common in Germanic languages but the nature of the spread and evolution remains murky.  From the early fourteenth century it was used to describe “a patch or mark on the fur of an animal while the sense of a “particular place, small extent of space (on a body, etc”) dated from the late 1300s, the general figurative use "a blemish, defect, distinguishing mark emerging at the same time, concurrent with the now familiar use to refer to pimple, zips etc, soon to be celebrated in the medical literature as “an eruption on the skin”.  The adjective spotless was from the late fourteenth century spotless (without flaw or blemish; pure).  The adjective spotty was from the mid-fourteenth century spotti, (marked with spots (of the skin, etc)) and it entered figurative use in the sense of “unsteady, irregular, uneven, without unity” in 1932.  Spot is a noun, verb & adjective, spotter & spotlessness are nouns, spotlike, spotless’ spotty & spottable are adjectives, spotting & spots are nouns & verbs, spotlessly is an adverb and spotted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is spots.

The early nineteenth century use of “spotty” in art criticism was originally a critique and unrelated either to the later technique of divisionism (sometimes called chromoluminarism), most associated with Neo-Impressionist painting and defined by the colors being separated into individual dots or daubs or the “dot paintings” associated with some forms of Indigenous Australian art.  The meaning “short interval in a radio broadcast for an advertisement or announcement” dates from 1937, an extension of the earlier use in live theatre to describe “an act's position on a bill”, noted since as surprisingly late 1923.  Although it’s likely to have been longer in oral use, in 1901 it noted in the US as a term for a prison sentence (5 spot=5 years etc).

1971 Ford Mustang Boss 351.  Even when standing still the thing undeniably had a presence but the sheer volume of the rear coachwork created blind spots and the dramatic roofline (said to be highly aerodynamic) restricted rearward visibility, the glass close to horizontal.

The term “blind spot” began in optics in 1864 describing a “spot within one's range of vision but where one cannot see” which in 1872 was described scientifically as “the point on the retina insensitive to light (where the optic nerve enters the eye”.  The figurative use (of moral, intellectual matters etc) dates from 1907 while the literal (a field of vision blocked by some fixed object) was used by 1912, originally of those suffered by omnibus drivers and later it became familiar when describing defects in the visibility offered by the design of early automobiles.  Dating from 1888, “hot spot” was originally a term from dermatology which referred to the focal point of a skin irritation and was literal, the temperature at the (usually reddish) site slightly higher.  In 1931 it was use of “nightclubs or other entertainment venues" (which after 1936 were “nightspots” generally) while it came into use in fire-fighting in 1938 after research indicated the most effective way to prevent spread or lower intensity was to find the points of highest temperature.  It 1941, it came to be applied to “a place of international conflict”.  The famous g spot (also a g-spot and short for Gräfenberg spot, named for German gynecologist Ernst Gräfenberg (1881-1957)) entered English in 1981 although the doctor had described it in a paper published in 1950 but similar finding are in documents dating back centuries.  He also developed the intra-uterine device (IUD) but despite these notable contributions to science he died in obscurity.

The noun spotter (one who makes spots; one who observes things for some purpose) was first used in 1876 as a slang for “a detective”, picking up from the verb in the secondary sense of “catch with the eye” and by 1903 it was used in the general sense of a “look-out”, adopted with apparently equal enthusiasm by police and criminals alike.  It was a designated position in hunting and target practice by 1893 but the military appear not to have picked it up until the World War I (1914-1918) although such tasks had existed for centuries, pre-dating even artillery, batteries of archers supported by an observer who reported their accuracy of fire.  In the navy, they were also called “sighters” and the use of “spotter” for this purpose has even extended to electronic hardware.  The sunspot in 1818 was again from dermatology and referred to “a spot on the skin caused by exposure to the Sun”, the term picked up in 1849 by the early heliophysicists to describe the “spots on the surface of the Sun”.

Spotlights (actually anti-aircraft searchlights) used to create the Lichtdom (literally "Cathedral of Light") effect at the Nazi's Nuremberg Rallies during the 1930s.

The spotlight (source of artificial light casting a narrow, relatively intense beam) was first described in 1904 as a piece of theatrical equipment with the figurative sense dating from 1916 where it could carry either negative or positive connotations (unlike the companion “limelight” which was always positive).  The military did use the term spotlight but the “searchlight” was a more frequent entry in lists of materiel.  The hobby (which for some seems either a calling or obsession) of train-spotting was first documented in 1959 (the train spotter having been mentioned the previous year) and referred to those who observed, collected and collated the numbers of railway locomotives, one’s status in the field determined by the number of unique entries in one’s list.  The habit caught on and there are also car spotters, truck spotters, bus spotters and plane spotters, the last once causing an international incident when a group were arrested outside a Greek military airfield by police who confiscated their notebooks and cameras, accusing them of spying.  The matter was resolved.

Hitting the spot: Crooked Hillary Clinton enjoys a shot of Crown Royal Bourbon Whiskey, Bronko's restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana, Saturday 12 April, 2008.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “hit the spot” (satisfy, be what is required) was first document in 1857 while the companion “spot on” doesn’t seem to have been used until 1920.  Earlier, “on the spot” by the 1670s meant “at once, without moving or delay” and a decade later “in the precise place and time” hence to be “on the spot” implied one “doing just what is right and needed”, a form noted since 1884.  The term “man on the spot” assumed some importance in diplomatic and military chains of command in the times before modes of communications were global, convenient and real-time, a recognition the one best equipped to make a decision was “the man on the spot”; then all certainly were men.  To “put someone on the spot” or “leave them in “a bit of a spot (or a “tight spot”)” was to “place them in a difficult situation”, use dating from 1928 and 1929 respectively.  The “spot check” (an inspection of a sample chosen at random) was first described (though doubtless a long-established practice) in 1933 and was used as a verb by 1944.  The term “sweet spot” is a mid-twentieth century formation which means “the optimal point and is used to describe (1) in acoustics the point of optimal sound delivered by the positioning of speakers, (2) in economics the optional outcome in a cost-benefit analysis, (3) in sporting equipment the location on a tennis racquet, baseball bat etc which produces the most satisfactory effect on the ball, (4) in phonetics the state of harmonic resonance in the larynx which produces the perfect sound and (5) as a euphemistic, the clitoris, G-spot or other source of sexual pleasure.  Generally, it’s used to mean “any ideal location or situation.

In zoology, the nomenclature can mislead non-specialists: The black spotted estuary cod (left) is a fish with black spots whereas the black spotted pond turtle  (right) is a black amphibian with white spots.

Spot in its original sense a taint, stigma, stain or blemish on the character of a person is still used to suggest some moral flaw and is related to “can’t change one’s spots” & “a leopard can’t change its spots”, the implication being character flaws are inherent.  A “weak spot” is a specific deficiency and a “soft spot” is a “particular sympathetic affection or weakness for a person or thing” which should not be confused with the “soft underbelly”; such is a vulnerability.  To “hit the spot” is an acknowledgement a need has perfectly be satisfied (typically used to mean hunger has been sated or thirst quenched.  In the matter of the weather, if it’s “just spotting”, the rain is light.  A “black spot” is something bad or dangerous while a “bright spot” is a highlight or something positive in a sea of bad news.  The use of the phrase “X marks the spot” has expanded somewhat but originally meant “one will find what one is looking for under an obvious sign”.  Spotted fever was a term for a number of tropical diseases (the reference to the symptoms which appeared on the skin) dating from the 1640s.  The spotted dick (suet pudding with currants and raisins) appeared in recipe books in 1849 although the date of its creation is uncertain.

Spotted dick (sometimes known as spotted richard) with custard.

In June 2018, it was reported the Strangers' Dining Room the UK’s House of Commons in Westminster had changed the name of “Spotted Dick” to “Spotted Richard” although in other parts of the country, the suet & dried fruit sponge dessert remained on sale under the traditional name.  Derided by many as “wokeness” or “political correctness gone mad” the restaurant staff confirmed the change had been made in case anyone found the conjunction of spotted and dick “confronting”.  There’s no suggestion any complaints had been received which might have prompted the change but ideas soon flowed about the way people might be protected from other culinary micro-aggressions: Apple crumble was thought to be potentially offensive to those diagnosed with anxiety disorders so it might better be called apple support while the extra virgin olive oil offered with breads could be triggering for the Incels (involuntary celibate men).  Perhaps such oil could be labelled young because one certainly doesn’t wish to trigger the Incels.  The sight of Cock-a-leekie soup on a menu would be challenging for both the incontinent and those recovering from certain STIs (sexually transmitted infections which were once known as STDs (sexually transmitted diseases and before that venereal disease (VD)) so it would be better to play it straight and re-brand as chicken & leek soup.  It wasn’t until the 1970s VD began to be replaced by STD (VD thought to have to have gained too many specific associations) but fortunately for AT&T, in 1951 they renamed their STD (Subscriber Toll Dialing) service to DDD (Direct Distance Dialing), apparently for no better reason than the alliterative appeal although it's possible they just wanted to avoid mentioning “toll” with all that implies.  Many countries in the English-speaking world continued to use STD for the phone calls, even after the public health specialists had re-purposed the initialization.

Famous for his sartorial daring: Tennis player Roger Federer (b 1981), Wimbledon, July 2023.

A long-standing orthodoxy in fashion is (1) stripes and spots should never be mixed, (2) either should be worn only with a solid and (3) there's the added caveat care should be taken with color choices.  However, neither all stripes nor all spots are created equal; dimensionality matters so if small enough and in the right color combination, either can for these purposes work as solids and thus be available for mix & match.  To illustrate the technique, style guru Elisabeth McKnight explains pattern mixing with polka dots:

(1) Pick a color palette: Black and white is an easy starter palette, but even if adding color, stick to only a few.  Find patterns with the same colors in them or keep it easy by mixing colors of the same tone together (pastels with pastels or jewel tones with jewel tones, for example).

(2) Mix patterns of different scales: Pair a small print with a large and avoid prints of the same size. If using only one print (like a tiny polka dot skirt) with a very small print, essentially it acts as a neutral.  So, when wearing polka dots and stripes together, ensure dots are small if the stripes are bold.  Alternatively, if the print of the stripe is small, it can be paired with bigger dots.  As a rule of thumb, use the “ten foot rule”.  At that distance, to the naked eye, the fabric with small dots or strips should be had to distinguish from a solid.

(3) Mix textures for added dimension: Although it can be a dramatic look, especially with statements like red or purple, interest can be added if different fabrics are used for top and bottom garments.

How it's done: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates how spots and stripes work best with solids.

Tremulous

Tremulous (pronounced trem-yuh-luhs)

(1) Of persons, the body etc, characterized by trembling, as from fear, nervousness, or weakness.

(2) Timid; timorous; fearful.

(3) Of things, vibratory, shaking, or quivering.

(4) Of writing, done with a trembling hand.

(5) Faltering, hesitant, wavering

1605–1615: From the Latin tremulus (shaking, quivering), from tremere (to shake, quake, quiver, tremble), from tremō (I shake).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek τρέμω (trémō) (tremble).  In Latin, the construct was trem(ere ) + -ulus (the Latin adjectival suffix).  In music, the tremulous effect is the tremolo, an 1801 coining from the Italian tremolo, from the Latin tremulus.  The quaver is from the early fifteenth century quaveren (to vibrate, tremble, have a tremulous motion), probably a frequentative of the early thirteenth century cwavien (to tremble, shake, be afraid) which is perhaps related to the Low German quabbeln (tremble), and possibly of imitative origin.  The meaning "sing in trills or quavers, sing with a tremulous tone" is noted from the 1530s; the related forms are quavered & quavering.  In optics, a tremulous light is a shimmer (1821) and in physiology, a shiver (1727), from shiver, "the shivers" in reference to fever chills dating from 1861.  Tremulous is an adjective, tremulously is an adverb and tremulousness is a noun; the noun plural is also tremulousness.

Becoming tremulous: Hitler’s signature: 1933-1945.

Between 1943-1945, Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) handwriting suffered and, towards the end, it took some effort even to etch his name, a process which happened in conjunction with a physical decline noted in many contemporary accounts.  The reason for this deterioration has been discussed by doctors, historians and popular authors, most recently in 2015 by Norman Ohler (b 1970) in Der totale Rausch: Drogen im Dritten Reich (The Total Rush: Drugs in the Third Reich), published in English in 2017 as Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany (Penguin, ISBN: 9780141983165).  Blitzed is a study of the use of methamphetamine stimulants in German society, the military and Hitler himself during the Nazi years with a focus especially on the relationship between the Führer and his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morell (1886–1948) who prescribed and administered a variety of drugs and vitamins between 1936-1945.  It’s the use of opioids and psychoactive drugs that is of most interest.

A best seller, Ohler wrote a lively work in a jaunty style which made his book readable but did attract criticism from the academic and professional historians never happy with journalistic trespassing on their carefully trimmed turf.  While there’s always sensitivity to authors injecting elements of humour and pop-culture references into anything about Hitler and the Third Reich, these essentially stylistic objections matter less than the substantive concerns about presenting as proven fact inferences drawn from incomplete or inconclusive sources.  That critique of scholarship should be noted but Blitzed needs to be read as just another text interpreting the documents of the era and in that, if read in conjunction with other accounts of the time, Ohler’s thesis is in places compelling while sometimes contradicted by multiple other sources.  The argument that the drugs had no effect Hitler’s decline and increasingly erratic behavior were due to stress and the onset of Parkinson’s disease is as dogmatic a position as many accuse Ohler of taking.  There are interesting aspects in the accounts from 1943-1945: the unexpected way Hitler’s physical tremors briefly vanished in the aftermath of the explosion during the assassination attempt in July 1944 and the various clandestine analysis of Morell’s preparations, some of which revealed a strong opioid and some harmless concoctions with barely a pharmacological effect.  While clearly not a conventional work of history, Blitzed seems a valuable contribution.

Hitler and Dr Morell.

The fault in Blitzed is probably that habitual journalistic tendency to exaggeration.  That stimulants were widely available and demonstratively popular in Germany doesn’t mean the entire workforce, every hausfrau and all servicemen in the Wehrmacht were habitual or even occasional users of amphetamines although, given the documentary evidence and the observational accounts of behavior, the case for Hitler’s addictions (or at least dependence) is stronger.  Critics felt also compelled to run the usual objection to anything which could be constructed as some sort of exculpatory argument; the idea that being stupefied by psychoactive drugs could somehow absolve individual or collective guilt.  Among those who lived the Nazi experience, long has been established the guilt to one degree or another of the many and the innocence of a few.  That said, there seems little doubt the rapidity of the Wehrmacht's advances in 1939-1941 were at least partially attributable to the soldiers being supplied amphetamines which enabled a heightened level of alertness and performance for sometimes thirty hours without need for sleep.  It was a most effective force multiplier.  Other factors, notably (1) the revolutionary approach to deploying tanks as armored spearheads, (2) the used of dive-bombers, (3) the ineptness of the Allied response and (4) luck were more significance but the speed did make a contribution.

Not tremulous: Lindsay Lohan and block capitals, Los Angeles, 2010.

Graphology (the analysis of handwriting to determine personality traits) did once enjoy quite wide acceptance in many places including being admissible as evidence in some courts but has in recent years come to be regarded as at least scientifically dubious while other condemn the whole thing as a pseudoscience deserving about the same status as astrology.  However, there are aspects of it which seem helpful in comparing the differences in the handwriting of individuals at various times and anyway, it's often fun to read, even if only to confirm our prejudices.  During Lindsay Lohan’s court appearances, she was known to take notes so, when the opportunity presented itself, a photographer snapped an image and it was provided to graphologist Bart Baggett (b 1969; founder of the Handwriting University, a distance learning school) who wrote an analysis.  He’d actually assessed her handwriting when younger and the style adopted then was different from the all block printing exhibited in 2010.  While he cautioned he wasn’t convinced the sample could provide any insight “…into her psyche” the change between the two was interesting:

”Despite her youth and tendency to find trouble I did see a high level of intelligence in her handwriting.  But, intelligence does not always translate into good behavior or emotional stability.  I will say this: the handwriting shown on this page is not that of an erratic, scattered drug addict.  It is the handwriting of a focused individual; with a high degree of perfectionism.  The straight baseline reveals an overall anxiety at things not going right; someone who loves order and structure.

In graphology, anytime somebody consistently blocked prints it’s seen as a huge (but common) defense mechanism.  Often this is a positive defense mechanism such as extreme masculinity.  I would say most individuals would find it difficult to distinguish between this handwriting and that of a military strategist or perhaps even an engineer who clock prints everything.  The one thing graphologists do agree on is that when someone only block prints, they don’t want people to know their most innermost thoughts and feelings, they are putting up a shield and protecting their intimacy.  Therefore you can bet she now has some major trust and privacy issues and has a guard up.  Who would blame her for having guard up, considering everything that you write is published and everywhere you go someone is snapping a picture of you? I think I would become a block printer too.”

Canthus

Canthus (pronounced kan-thuhs)

The angle or corner on each side of the eye, formed by the natural junction of the upper and lower lids; there are two canthi on each eye: the medial canthus (closer to the nose) and the lateral canthus (closer to the ear).

1640–1650: From Ancient Greek κανθός (kanthós) (corner of the eye) (and also an alternative spelling of cantus (in music, sung, recited, sounded, blew, chanted etc)), which became conflated the New Latin canthus, from the Classical Latin cantus (the (iron) rim of a wheel)).  The term describing the “iron rim of a wheel” was ultimately of Gaulish origin, from the Proto-Celtic kantos (corner, rim) and related to the Breton kant (circle), the Old Irish cétad (round seat) and the Welsh cant (rim, edge).  The Greek form was borrowed by Latin as canthus and with that spelling it entered English.  In the medieval way of such things, canthus and cantus became conflated, possibly under the influence or regional variations in pronunciation but some etymologists have noted there was tendency among some scribes and scholars to favor longer Latin forms, for whatever reason more letters being thought better than fewer.  The most familiar descendent in music is the canto (a description of a form of division in composition with a surprisingly wide range of application).  Canthus is a noun and canthal is an adjective; the noun plural is canthi (pronounced kan-thahy).

One word in English which has long puzzled etymologists is the late fourteenth century cant (slope, slant) which appeared first in Scottish texts, apparently with the sense “edge, brink”.  All dictionaries list it as being of uncertain origin and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes words identical in form and corresponding in sense are found in many languages including those from Teutonic, Slavonic, Romanic & Celtic traditions.  Rare in English prior to the early seventeenth century, the meaning “slope, slanting or tilting position” had been adopted by at least 1847 and may long have been in oral use.  The speculation about the origin has included (1) the Old North French cant (corner) which may be related to the Middle Low German kante or the Middle Dutch kant, (2) the New Latin canthus, from the Classical Latin cantus (the (iron) rim of a wheel), (3) the Russian kutu (corner) and (4) the Ancient Greek κανθός (kanthós) (corner of the eye).  To all of these there are objections are the source remains thus uncertain.

The metrics of the attractiveness of women

PinkMirror is a web app which helps users optimize their facial aesthetics, using an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to deconstruct the individual components an observer’s brain interprets as a whole.  Because a face is for these purposes a collection of dimensions & curves with certain critical angles determined by describing an arc between two points, it means things can be reduced to metrics, and the interaction of these numbers can used to create a measure of attractiveness.

Positive, (left), neutral (centre) & negative (right) eye canthal tilt.

Perhaps the most interesting example of the components is the eye canthal tilt, a positive tilt regarded as more attractive than a negative.  The eye canthal tilt is the angle between the internal corner of the eyes (medial canthus) and the external corner of the eyes (lateral canthus) and is a critical measure of periorbital (of, pertaining to all which exists in the space surrounding the orbit of the eyes (including skin, eyelashes & eyebrows) aesthetics.  The eye canthal tilt can be negative, neutral, or positive and is defined thus:

Positive: Medial canthus tilt between +5 and +8^o below the lateral canthus.

Neutral: Medial canthus and lateral canthus are in a horizontal line.

Negative: Medial canthus tilt between -5 to -8^o below the lateral canthus.

Pinkmirror cites academic research which confirms a positive canthal tilt is a “power cue” for female facial attractiveness and while it’s speculative, a possible explanation for this offered by the researchers was linked to (1) palpebral (of, pertaining to, or located on or near the eyelids.) fissure inclination being steeper in children than adults (classifying it thus a neonatal feature) and (2) it developing into something steeper still in females than males after puberty (thus becoming a sexually dimorphic feature).  Pinkmirror notes also that natural selection seems to be operating to support the idea, data from Johns Hopkins Hospital finding that in women, the intercanthal axis averages +4.1 mm (.16 of an inch) or +4^o, the supposition being that women with the advantage of a positive medial canthus tilt are found more attractive so attract more mates, leading to a higher degree of procreation, this fecundity meaning the genetic trait producing the characteristic feature is more frequently seen in the population.  Cosmetic surgeons add another layer to the understanding, explaining the canthal tilt is one of the marker’s of aging, a positive tilt exuding youth, health, and exuberance where as a line tending beyond the negative is associated with aging, this actually literally product of natural processes, the soft tissue gradually descending under the effect of gravity, as aspect of Vogue magazine’s definition of the aging process: “Everything gets bigger, hairier & lower”.

With people, medial canthus tilt is thus an interaction of (1) the roll of the genetic dice and (2) the cosmetic surgeon’s scalpel.  With manufactured items however, designers have some scope to anthropomorphize objects and few visages are as obviously related to a human’s eyes than the headlamps on a car.

The positive, neutral & negative: 1965 Gordon-Keeble GK-1 (left), 1958 Edsel Corsair Hardtop (centre) & 1970 Maserati Ghibli Roadster (right).

When headlamps were almost universally separate circular devices, the creation of a medial canthus tilt really became possible in the mid-1950s after dual units were first made lawful in the US and then rapidly became fashionable.  Overwhelmingly, the designers seemed to prefer the neutral and where a positive tilt was use, it was exaggerated well beyond that found in humans.  Instances of the negative were rare, which would seem to support the findings of attractiveness in humans but they were sometimes seen when hidden headlamps were used and there they were necessitate by the form of the leading edge under which they sat.  The suspicion is that designers found a negative slant acceptable if usually they were hidden from view.

2005 Porsche 911 Turbo S (996) (left), 2016 Ford (Australia) Falcon XR8 (FG) (centre) & 2000 Ferrari 550 Maranello.

As the interest in aerodynamics grew and there were advances in shaping glass and plastic economically to render compound shapes, headlights ceased to be merely round (though rectilinear shapes did start to appear in the 1960s) and took on abstract forms.  The demands of aesthetics however didn’t change and designers tended still to neutral or positive tilts.  Care needed still to be taken however, the derided “poached egg” shape on the 996 generation of the Porsche 911 (1997-2006) not popular with the obsessives who buy the things, their view being each update should remain as devoted to the original (1963) lines as themselves.  One of the closest to a flirtation with a negative tilt showed up on the Ferrari 550 Maranello (1996-2001) and the factory hasn’t repeated the experiment.

Deconstructing Lindsay Lohan

The Pinkmirror app exists to quantify one’s degree of attractiveness.  It’s wholly based on specific dimension and thus as piece of math, is not influenced by skin tone although presumably, its parameters are defined by the (white) western model of what constitutes attractiveness.  Users should therefore work within those limitations but the model would be adaptable, presumably not to the point of being truly cross-cultural but specifics forks could certainly be created to suit any dimensional differences between ethnicities.  Using an industry standard known as the Photographic Canthal Index (PCI), one’s place on Pinkmirror’s index of attractiveness is determined by the interplay of (1) Nose width, (2) Bi-temporal to bi-zygomatic ratio, (3) chin length, (4) chin angle, (5) lower-lip height & (6) eye height.

Lindsay Lohan scored an 8.5 (out of 10), was rated as “beautiful” and found to be “very feminine, with great features of sexual dimorphism”, scoring highly in all facets except lower lip height and eye height.  Her face shape is the heart, distinguished by a broad forehead and cheekbones, narrowing in the lines of down to the jaw-line, culminating in a cute pointy chin.  Pinkmirror say the most attractive face shape for women has been found to be the triangle, scoring about the same as the oval while the heart, round, diamond, rectangle and square are also attractive to a lesser degree.  Within the app, pears and oblongs are described as “not typically seen as attractive” and while the word “ugly” isn’t used, for the unfortunate pears and oblongs, that would seem the implication.

Whisk

Whisk (pronounced wisk or hwisk)

(1) To move with a rapid, sweeping stroke.

(2) To sweep (dust, crumbs etc, or a surface) with a whisk broom, brush, or the like.

(3) To draw, snatch or carry etc; a generalized term meaning to move or do something nimbly or rapidly (often as “whisked away”, “whisked off” etc).

(4) To whip (eggs, cream etc.) to a froth using a whisk or other beating device.

(5) The an act of whisking; a rapid, sweeping stroke; light, rapid movement.

(6) As whisk broom, a device topped with a small cluster of grass, straw, hair or the like, used especially for brushing.

(7) A kitchen utensil, in the form of a bunch of (usually metal wire, plastic strands or (in the Far East) bamboo) loops held together in a handle and used for beating, blending or whipping eggs, cream; making souffles etc.  Modern whisks can also be electro-mechanical and “non-stick” whisks use a Teflon coating.

(8) The by-product of something which has been “whisked away”.

(9) A special plane used by coopers for evening a barrel’s chimes (the curved, outermost edge or rim at the top and bottom ends of the barrel, typically wider and thicker than the rest of the staves (the vertical wooden planks that form the sides)).

(10) In fashion, a kind of cape forming part of a woman's dress (sometimes detachable).

(11) In some card games, the act of sweeping the cards off the table after a trick has been won.

1325–1375: From the Middle English & Scots wysk (rapid sweeping movement), from the earlier Scots verbs wisk & quhisk, from the Old English wiscian (to plait) & weoxian (to clean with brush), from a Scandinavian source comparable to the Old Norse & Norwegian visk (wisp), the Swedish viska besom & wisp (to whisk (off)) and the Danish visk & viske (to wipe, rub, sponge) and related to the Middle Dutch wisch, the Dutch wis, the Old High German wisken (to wipe) & wisc (wisp of hay), the German Wisch, the Latin virga (rod, switch) & viscus (entrails), the Czech vechet (a wisp of straw), the Lithuanian vizgéti (to tremble), the Czech vechet (wisp of straw) and the Sanskrit वेष्क (veṣka) (noose) all thought from the Proto-Germanic wiskaz & wiskō (bundle of hay, wisp), from the primitive Indo-European weys- or weis (to turn; to twist).  The un-etymological wh-, noted since the 1570s, probably developed because it was expressive of the sound typically generated by the act of “whisking” something; the same evolution was noted in whip and the onomatopoeic whack and whoosh.  The device used in preparing food (implement for beating eggs etc) was first documented as “a whisk” in the 1660s although cooks had presumably been using such things for many years.  The verb developed in the late fifteenth century, the transitive sense from the 1510s while the familiar meaning “to brush or sweep (something) lightly over a surface” dates from the 1620s.  Whisk & whisking are nouns & verbs and whisked is a verb; the noun plural is whisks.

Variations on a theme of whisk.

Whisk is (almost) wholly unrelated to whisky & whiskey.  Dating from 1715, whisky was a variant of usque,an abbreviation of usquebaugh, from the Irish uisce beatha (water of life) or the Scots Gaelic uisge-beatha (water of life), ultimately a translation of the Medieval Latin aqua vītae (water of life (originally an alchemical term for unrefined alcohol)).  The form whiskybae has been obsolete since the mid eighteenth century.  The Scots and Irish forms were from the Proto-Celtic udenskyos (water) + biwotos (life), from biwos(alive).  The Old Irish uisce (water) was from the primitive Indo-European ud-skio-, a suffixed form of the root wed- (water; wet); bethu (life), from the primitive Indo-European gwi-wo-tut-, a suffixed form of gwi-wo-, from the root gwei- (to live). The noun plurals are whiskies & whiskeys.  Although iskie bae had been known in the 1580s, it appears unrelated to usquebea (1706), the common form of which was uisge beatha which in 1715 became usquebaugh, then whiskeybaugh & whiskybae, the most familiar phonetic form of which evolved as “usky”, influencing the final spellings which remain whisky & whiskey.  Wisely, the Russians avoided the linguistic treadmill, the unchanging vodka freely translated as “little water”.  The exception was the “whisky”, a small carriage (technically a “light gig” to coach-builders) which was from the verb whisk, the idea being something in which one was “whisked quickly around” the lightweight carriages being faster than most.  Chefs also caution home cooks not to confuse “whisky butter” (A concoction made of whisky, butter & sugar) with “whisked butter” which is butter which has been whisked.

Lindsay Lohan Oreos

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998).

Whether it was already something widely practiced isn’t known but Lindsay Lohan is credited with introducing to the world the culinary novelty Oreos & peanut butter in The Parent Trap.  According to the director, it was added to the script “…for no reason other than it sounded weird and some cute kid would do it."  Like some other weirdnesses, the combination has a cult following and for those who enjoy peanut butter but suffer arachibutyrophobia (the morbid fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth), Tastemade have provided a recipe for Lindsay Lohan-style Oreos with a preparation time (including whisking) of 2 hours.  They take 20 minutes to cook and in this mix there are 8 servings (scale ingredients up to increase the number of servings).

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (plus more for dusting)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¼ cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Filling Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup unsweetened smooth peanut butter
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of kosher salt (omit if using salted peanut butter)

Filling Instructions

(1) With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, the butter & peanut butter until creamy.

(2) Gradually add powdered sugar and beat to combine, then beat in vanilla and salt.

Whisking the mix.

Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

(2) In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder & salt.

(3) In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the vanilla extract. With the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined (it should remain somewhat crumbly).

(4) Pour mixture onto a work surface and knead until it’s “all together”; wrap half in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

(5) Lightly dust surface and the top of the dough with a 1:1 mixture of cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

(6) Working swiftly and carefully, roll out dough to a ¼-½ inch (6-12 mm) thickness and cut out 2 inch (50 mm) rounds.  Transfer them to the baking sheets, 1 inch (25 mm) apart (using a small offset spatula helps with this step). Re-roll scraps and cut out more rounds, the repeat with remaining half of the dough.

(7) Bake cookies until the tops are no longer shiny ( about 20 minutes), then cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack completely to cool.

(8) To assemble, place half the cookies on a plate or work surface.

(9) Pipe a blob of filling (about 2 teaspoons) onto the tops of each of these cookies and then place another cookie on top, pressing slightly but not to the extent filled oozes from the sides.

(10) Refrigerate for a few minutes to allow the filling to firm up.  Store in an air-tight container in refrigerator.

The manufacturer embraced the idea of peanut butter Oreos and has released versions, both with the classic cookie and a peanut butter & jelly (jam) variation paired with its “golden wafers”.  As well as Lindsay Lohan’s contribution, Oreos have attracted the interest of mathematicians.  Nabisco in 1974 introduced the Double Stuf Oreo, the clear implication being a promise the variety contained twice crème filling supplied in the original.  However, a mathematician undertook the research and determined Double Stuf Oreos contained only 1.86 times the volume of filling of a standard Oreo.  Despite that, the company survived the scandal and the Double Stuf Oreo’s recipe wasn’t adjusted.

Scandalous in its own way was that an April 2022 research paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids wasn’t awarded that year’s Ig Nobel Prize for physics, the honor taken by Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji & Atilla Incecik, for their admittedly ground-breaking (or perhaps water-breaking) work in explaining how ducklings manage to swim in formation.  More deserving surely were Crystal Owens, Max Fan, John Hart & Gareth McKinley who introduced to physics the discipline of Oreology (the construct being Oreo + (o)logy).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  Oreology is the study of the flow and fracture of sandwich cookies and the research proved it is impossible to split the cream filling of an Oreo cookie down the middle.

An Oreo on a rheometer.

The core finding in Oreology was that the filling always adheres to one side of the wafer, no matter how quickly one or both cookies are twisted.  Using a rheometer (a laboratory instrument used to measure the way in which a viscous fluid (a liquid, suspension or slurry) flows in response to applied forces), it was determined creme distribution upon cookie separation by torsional rotation is not a function of rate of rotation, creme filling height level, or flavor, but was mostly determined by the pre-existing level of adhesion between the creme and each wafer.  The research also noted that were there changes to the composition of the filling (such as the inclusion of peanut butter) would influence the change from adhesive to cohesive failure and presumably the specifics of the peanut butter chosen (smooth, crunchy, extra-crunchy, un-salted (although the organic varieties should behave in a similar way to their mass-market equivalents)) would have some effect because the fluid dynamics would change.  The expected extent of the change would be appear to be slight but until further research is performed, this can’t be confirmed.  The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will (as a webcast) happen on Thursday 14 September 2023, at 18:00 pm (US eastern time).

Psychopath

Psychopath (pronounced sahy-kuh-path)

(1) A person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships and an extreme egocentricity with a complete inability to feel guilt.  The condition is associated with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, carelessness, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse.  Such individuals can be particularly prone to destructive behavior (which can include violence and criminality although such people are a small percentage of the total number).

(2) In figurative use, a person with no moral conscience who perpetrates especially gruesome or bizarre violent acts (not accurate in a clinical sense but widely portrayed in popular culture).

(3) A person diagnosed with antisocial or dissocial personality disorder.

(4) A person diagnosed with any mental disorder (obsolete but something to be noted when handling historic medial notes).

1800s: The construct was psycho + path, a back-formation from psychopathic, used originally in German medical texts and most associated (and first noted in 1885) in the field of criminal psychology but later found to have pre-existed amongst spiritualists although in another sense.  Technically, it was an English borrowing from the German psychopatisch, the construct being psycho, from the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (mind, spirit, consciousness; mental processes; the human soul; breath of life; literally, “that which breathes” or “breathing”) + πάθος (páthos) (suffering).  An 1885 Russian murder case was briefly notorious in the English-speaking world and brought the word into currency in the modern sense but it had been used in German medical literature from the early-nineteenth century.  Psychopath, psychopathography & psychopathy are nouns, psychopathic is a noun & adjective, psychopathological is an adjective and psychopathically is an adverb; the noun plural is psychopaths.

In popular culture the word "psycho" (the added -o- used to create a form meaning “person with characteristic”) is an informal reference which suggests someone is a psychopath or exhibits psychopathic tendencies.  Some sources list it as "offensive or disparaging" and it certainly is used in that sense but it's applied also in a jocular or affectionate manner.  Rarely, one suspects, are those thus described even close to being psychopaths in the clinical sense and it's often treated as a synonym for “highly strung”.  Among those either self-aware or rather dramatic, “psycho” is also used to self label.

Towards a standardized definition

Between the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), there have always been differences although during the last two decades, there has been a general convergence in an attempt to render them at least broadly comparable.  The DSM is an interesting study in mission-creep, the 1952 slim original of 65 pages growing, by 2022’s DSM-5-TR, to a hefty tome of 1120, having morphed from a convenient tool for state hospital statistical reporting into a definitive codification of the mental condition in the form of diagnostic criteria.

Are you a psychopath or sociopath?  Complete this test

Although DSM-1 had what would now be thought a surprisingly broad category on sociopathic personality disturbances, including conditions now normalized, DSM-5 doesn’t include either psychopathy or sociopathy in their systems of categorization.  Instead, while both manuals make references to psychopaths and sociopaths, the ICD groups them in a category called dissocial personality disorder (DPD) while the DSM adopted antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).  Revisions to the DSM are compiled by a committee of clinicians which includes not only psychiatrists and psychologists but others such as sociologists.  The sociological faction argued empathy was not something that could be quantified by a doctor, that it was too subjective and that sticking to the overt traits which had been agreed upon for the ASPD definition was what should be all that is offered.  Psychopathy was therefore included under the ASPD diagnosis.

Between editions of the DSM, neither the diagnostic changes, nor the methods of decision are anything new or unusual and re-labelling is common, reflecting an increasing interest in attempts to de-stigmatize conditions.  Thus manic depressive disorder became bipolar disorder and intellectual disabilities are no longer termed mental retardation, a reaction to the abuse of clinical language in popular culture.  There is usually at least a small change in the diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis when the diagnostic label is changed but that’s just a glossy scientific veneer; ASPD is essentially the same as psychopathic personality disorder or sociopathic personality disorder, with only small changes to diagnostic criteria over the last several decades.

Curiously there is evidence to suggest the public take more care when making distinctions in the use of the terms psychopath & sociopath than many clinicians, the words by them used sometimes interchangeably to describe individuals with antisocial personality traits.  That’s not universal and while some professionals use them as synonyms, others make subtle differences in emphasis:

(1) Emphasis on Internal Factors: Some suggest psychopathy is primarily associated with innate personality traits such as lack of empathy, superficial charm, and a sense of the grandiose.  Underlying this is the argument psychopaths are born with these traits which at least implies the condition is largely biologically determined; a thing of nature.  By contrast, sociopathy is thought influenced more by external factors, such as upbringing, environment, and social learning; a thing of nurture.

(2) Focus on Antisocial Behaviors: Another school of thought suggests psychopathy is characterized by a manipulative and predatory nature, psychopaths often engaging in calculated, premeditated acts of harm and in this they tend often to be adept at mimicking emotions to manipulate others for personal gain. Under this model, sociopathy reflects more erratic and impulsive behaviors, sociopaths acting instinctually in response to immediate urges or emotional reactions and not of necessity planning their actions.

However, between clinicians there are those who find such distinctions helpful, those who find them interesting and those who think them merely speculative or even pointless.  In clinical practice, the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is typically used to encompass both psychopathy and sociopathy, as defined by the diagnostic criteria outlined in the DSM.