Phalanx

Phalanx (pronounced fey-langks or fal-angks)

(1) In Hellenic Greece, a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping.

(2) A body of troops in close array.

(3) A compact or closely massed body of persons, animals or things, usually united or aligned for a common purpose.

(4) A radar-controlled 20mm Gatling-type gun deployed on US Navy ships as a last line of defense against cruise missiles.

(5) In Fourierism, a group of about 1800 persons, living together and holding their property in common.

(6) In anatomy and zoology, any of the bones of the fingers or toes (the related adjective phalangeal).

(7) In printing, to arrange the distribution of work in a production house as evenly as possible.

(8) In botany, a bundle of stamens, joined together by their stalks (filaments).

(9)A form of vegetative spread in which the advance is on a broad front, as in the common reed.

1550s: From the Latin phalanx from phalangis & phalangem (compact body of heavily armed men in battle array) derived from Greek phalanx (genitive phalangos) (line of battle, battle array).  The origin of the use as a descriptor of finger or toe bone (originally "round piece of wood, trunk, log”) is unknown, most often thought to be from the from Old English balca (balk), from the primitive Indo-European root bhelg (plank, beam).  In anatomy, a phalanx was originally the whole row of finger joints, which fit together like infantry in close order.  The rare adjectival forms were phalangeal & phalangic.  The figurative sense of "number of persons banded together in a common cause" is attested from 1600, the most recent adaptation probably the 1937 Spanish Falangist, (a member of the fascist organization founded in 1933), from the Spanish Falange (Española) (Spanish), from the Latin phalanx.

Phalanx terminology.

The Macedonian military formation known as a phalanx consisted in theory of fifty close files, sixteen ranks deep, the men clad in armor, bearing shields, armed with swords and spears between 21 - 24 feet (6.4-7.3 m) in length.  In array, the shields formed a continuous bulwark, the ranks placed at such intervals that five spears which were borne pointed forward and upward protected every man in the front rank.  Properly handled, on level ground and with its flanks and rear adequately protected, the phalanx was a formidable formation but was cumbrous and slow in movement, and if once broken could only with great difficulty be reformed.  It was thus dependent on high-quality leadership and highly-trained troops and was notably vulnerable when, as inevitably happens under battlefield conditions, it was assembled, sometimes hastily, with whatever resources were available.

Phalanx live fire test, USS Monterey, November 2008.

Designed essentially to meet any incoming missile with a “wall of metal”, the Phalanx CIWS began life as a close-in weapon system installed on naval warships as defense against anti-ship missiles. Developed and manufactured by the General Dynamics Corporation’s Pomona Division (now a part of Raytheon), it’s based around a radar-guided 20 mm (0.79 in) Vulcan cannon mounted on a swiveling base and is used by more than a dozen navies on every class of surface combat ship.  The reliability and flexibility attracted wider interest and a land based variant known as C-RAM has been developed, deployed in a short range missile defense role to counter incoming rockets and even artillery fire.  The early models were (hydraulic driven) with a fire rate of 3,000 rounds per minute (rpm) and the magazine drum had a capacity of 989 rounds while the later, pneumatically driven modes fire at a rate of 4,500 rpm from a 1,550-round magazine.  Each round costs about US$30 and typically between 100-200 are expended during each targeting.  A combination of the appearance of the distinctive, barrel-shaped, radar dome (radome) and the automated operation, meant the Phalanx CIWS units soon attracted the nicknamed "R2-D2", named after the droid from the film Star Wars (1977).

Lindsay Lohan's fractured Phalanx

During an Aegean cruise in October 2016, Lindsay Lohan suffered a finger injury.  In this dreadful nautical incident, the tip of one digit was severed by the boat's anchor chain but details of the circumstances are sketchy although there was speculation that upon hearing the captain give the command “weigh anchor”, she decided to help but, lacking any background in admiralty jargon, misunderstood the instruction.

Detached chunk of a distal digit was salvaged from the deck and expertly re-attached by a micro-surgeon ashore, digit and the rest of the patient said to have both made full recoveries.  Despite the injury, Ms Lohan still managed to find a husband so all's well that ends well.

Indefatigable

Indefatigable (pronounced in-di-fat-i-guh-buhl)

Incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.

1580-1590: From the French indefatigable, from the Latin indēfatīgābilis (untiring; that which cannot be wearied).  The construct was in (in the sense of "not") + defatigare (to tire out) from de- (utterly, down, away) + fatigare (to weary).  A dictionary of 1656 has an entry for defatigable which does seem to have been used in the seventeenth century before going extinct; a revival in 1948 was a jocular back-formation (a la "gruntled" or "combobulated") from indefatigable and one which never caught on.  Indefatigable is an adjective, indefatigableness & indefatigability are nouns and indefatigably is an adverb; the noun plural is indefatigabilities.  It seems indefatigable may have been a back-formations of the adverb indefatigably, the latter recorded as being in use in the mid-sixteenth century.

HMS Indefatigable, a Royal Navy battlecruiser launched in 1909 and sunk while part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's (1871-1936) battlecruiser fleet in the 1916 Battle of Jutland.  Santa Cruz Island, the most populous and second-largest island in Ecuador's Galápagos Islands is also known as Indefatigable Island, the Admiralty bestowing the name in honor of HMS Indefatigable, a ship of the line with a distinguished battle record during Napoleonic Wars and later saw service in the Royal Navy's South America squadron.

Battlecruisers were essentially battleships with less armor, therefore gaining speed at the cost of greater vulnerability.  The theory was they would have the firepower to out-gun all but the battleships and those they could out-run with their greater speed.  The concept seemed sound and in December 1914, at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, two Royal Navy battlecruisers vindicated the theory when they chased and destroyed the German East Asia Squadron.  However, in 1916, the performance of the battlecruisers in the Jutland engagement forced the Admiralty to re-consider.  Jutland was the closest thing to the great battle of the fleets which had been anticipated for decades but proved anti-climatic, both sides ultimately choosing to avoid the decisive encounter which offered the chance of victory or defeat.  What it did prove was that the naval theorists had been right; the battlecruiser could not fight the battleship and if their paths threatened to cross, the less-armored vessel should retreat and rely on greater speed to make good her escape.  There were technical deficiencies in the British ships, without which perhaps three of their battlecruisers wouldn’t have been lost, but what happened at Jutland made it clear to the admirals that uneven contests between the big capital ships were to be avoided.

For naval architects, warship design was a three-way tussle between speed, firepower and armor; to add to one was to detract from at least one of the others.  That was difficult enough when constrained only by physics and economics but after the First World War, international agreements limited the maximum tonnage of the big ships so the choice became either to compromise the design or cheat.  Some countries did the former, some the latter but all seemed to agree the battlecruiser was extinct and indeed, after Jutland, no battlecruiser was laid down for over sixty years.  The pocket-battleships of the 1930s, although similar, were a different breed.

Before the fall: Soviet nuclear-battlecruiser Kirov at anchor in the Baltic, a Krivak I-class guided-missile frigate in the background, December, 1989.  Later re-named the Admiral Ushakov, she and the Admiral Lazarev (ex-Frunze) are now in the throes of being scrapped.

It was thus a surprise when the Soviet navy announced the commissioning of five Kirov class battlecruisers, four of which were built, launched during the 1980s and 1990s.  Although the official Russian designation of the ship-type is heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser (тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер), admiralties in the West, still nostalgic about the big ships, choose to revive the old name "battlecruisers".  They’re the largest conventional warships launched since World War II; only aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships have been of greater displacement.  Expensive to operate, only the Pyotr Velikiy (ex-Yuriy Andropov) remains in operational service and, according to recent NATO bulletins, she has been at sea as part of a fleet exercise as recently as mid-2021.  Although the Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) is currently undergoing a refit and is now scheduled to re-enter service in 2023, the re-commissioning date has shifted many times and NATO sources remain sceptical she will ever return to the active list.

Many adjectives have been applied to Lindsay Lohan; indefatigable is probably under-used.

Prandial

Prandial (pronounced pran-dee-uhl)

Of or relating to a meal, especially dinner (sometimes affected, jocose or facetious).

1810-1820: From the Late Latin prandialis or the Classical Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch), perhaps from the primitive Indo-European pr̥hemós (first), from prehe- + -edere (to eat) (originally, the primitive Indo-European ed- root (to eat) meant originally "to bite") + the Latin -ium (the suffix forming nouns), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -yós (suffix forming adjectives from noun stems) +‎ -al (the suffix forming adjectives).  It’s never been clear why the meaning shift from the Classical Latin meaning (late breakfast; lunch) to the later (dinner) happened.  Now, prandial is used almost exclusively as (a usually jocular or affected) pre-prandial or post-prandial (often plural), a reference to before or after-dinner drinks (ie the various forms of "prandial" have become code for "drinking alcohol").  Prandial is an adjective and prandially is an adverb.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying a pre-pradial.

The first use of the adjective postprandial (now usually as post-prandial) seems to have been by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) in 1820 to convey the meaning "happening, said, done etc; after dinner".  The first known instance of preprandial (also pre-prandial) (before dinner) is in a letter of 1822 by the poet Charles Lamb (1775–1834) to Coleridge: “Why you should refuse twenty guineas per sheet for Blackwood’s or any other magazine passes my poor comprehension. But, as Strap says, you know best.  I have no quarrel with you about præprandial avocations—so don’t imagine one.”

Prandial, pre-prandial & post-prandial now belong to the roll-call of words described variously as "useless", "potentially misleading" or "pretentious".  To invite one's dinner companion to a "post-prandial is harmless if it's between linguistically consenting adults but because many educated people would have no idea what was be suggested, an offer of an "after-dinner drink" is usually a better idea.  Despite all that, for some word nerds, the the adverbs preprandially (in a preprandial manner; before a meal, especially dinner) & postprandially (in a postprandial manner; after a meal; especially, after dinner) may prove irresistible. 

Henry Fowler’s list of working & stylish words.

The stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) included an entry which listed examples of “working & stylish words” which opened with the passage: “No one, unless he has happened upon this article at a very early stage of his acquaintance with this book, will suppose that the word “stylish” is meant to be laudatory.”  He went on to say there was a place for such forms “…when they are used in certain senses…” but made it clear that for most purposes the plain, simple “working word” is the better choice.  He offered the example of “deem” which in law has a precise and well understood meaning so is there essential but it’s just an attempt at stylishness if used as a substitute for “think”.  Other victims of his disapproving eye included “viable” which he judged quite proper in the papers of biologists describing newly formed organisms but otherwise a clumsy way of trying to assert something was “practicable” and “dwell” & “perchance” which appeared usually as “…conspicuous, like and escaped canary among the sparrows.”  Henry Fowler liked stylish phrases but preferred plain words.  Fowler completed his text by 1925 and things have since changed, some of the “stylish” cohort seemingly having become “working” words, possibly under the influence of the use in computing and other technologies, their once specialized sense migrating into general use because the language of those industries became so common.  Although he did twenty years before the first appeared, one suspects he’d not have found Ferraris “stylish” and would probably have called them “flashy” (in the sense of “vulgar ostentation” rather than “sparkling or brilliant”); dating from the mid sixteenth century, “flashy” would seem to have a suitably venerable lineage.

Octopus

Octopus (pronounced ok-tuh-puhs)

(1) Any cephalopod mollusc of the genera Octopus, Eledone etc, having a soft oval body with eight long suckered tentacles and occurring at the sea bottom; the order is Octopoda (octopods).

(2) Something likened to an octopus, as an organization with many forms of far-reaching influence or control.

(3) An alternative name for a spider (archaic).

1758: From the New Latin octopūs from the Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous) (literally "eight foot"), the construct being ὀκτώ (oktṓ) (eight) + πούς (poús) (foot), from the primitive Indo-European root ped (foot).  The surviving evidence seems to hint the word more usually used in Greek discourse was polypous (also as pōlyps), the construct being poly-, from the Ancient Greek πολύς (polús) (many, much), from the primitive Indo-European polhús (much, many) + πούς (poús) (foot) but of this etymologists have suggested non-Hellenic folk origins.

Octopus has since at least 1882 been used figuratively of powers having far-reaching influence (usually as considered harmful and destructive). To the ancients, the octopus was crafty and dangerous, thrifty (stores food in its nest), and proverbial of clever and adaptable men, based on the animal's instinct of changing color when frightened or for disguise.  When speaking of politics, the word octopus is often used in the sense of "those whose tentacles reach many places" and this is sometimes applied to the activities of sprawling corporations.  In antiquity, such was the suspicion attached to the creature that it was thought to be amphibious, climbing trees near the shores to steal grapes and olives (the giant ones were said to raid whole warehouses).  Later historians link the myth to their eggs which resemble ripe olives.

The plural: Octopi, octopuses and octopodes

Although often used, there’s no etymological basis for Octopi.  The form was created by English speakers who mistakenly believed octopus was originally Latin and thus pluralized with an -i suffix, the assumption being the -us in octopūs is a Latin second declension ending; it’s actually the third declension noun.  The historic plural octopodes follows the Greek: ὀκτώποδες (oktṓpodes).  Although octopus came to English via scientific Latin (one of the late varieties that kept the language alive long after it had died out as a living tongue), it was never a native Latin word and didn’t exist in that language until scientists borrowed it from Greek in the eighteenth century.  Latin scholars also enjoy pointing out even were it a Latin word, it would take a different form and would not be pluralized with the -i ending)

Southern Blue-Ringed Octopus.

Pedants insist therefore either (1) the original Greek plural is correct or (2) it has over the centuries become an English word and thus the usual convention should be followed and the plural is octopuses.  In modern use, there’s also the general anomaly of culinary matters.  Although typically served by the dozen, when describing octopus the dish, the singular form is always used.  Among the lexicographers, Merriam-Webster is octopi-permissive but their modern dictionaries tend now to the descriptive; popularity prevails over etymology.  Both the online Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Fowler's Modern English Usage demands “octopuses”, the OED listing the plurals (in order of popularity): octopuses, octopi, and octopodes, noting the rarity of the last.  The online Oxford dictionary states (1) the standard plural is octopuses, (2) octopodes remains occasionally used and (3) octopi is incorrect.  It may be decades before the classists accept octopi as a genuine invention of Modern English.  Hopefully none of this will encourage adoption of "diplodoci" as the plural of dinosaur; one can make a case for octopi but dinosaurs is fine.

Baffled: Lindsay Lohan as a judge on The Masked Singer, an Australian game show in which performers appear in disguise and the panel tries to guess their identity.  Given she'd never heard of any of the contestants, she was certainly impartial but, not unexpectedly, was baffled by the octopus.  Ms Lohan was paid to be there but others actually willingly sat through several seasons of what appears to have been among the worst examples of television programmes.

A ballerina being trained in China.  This is how ballerinas are trained so we can go and watch Swan Lake.  For the pleasure of that, it seems a small price for them to pay.

Ballerina is another word in English which, by virtue of the history of use, maintained an alternative (if rare outside the profession and the notes in the programmes sometimes provided at performances) plural form.  Ballerina was from the Italian ballerina, the feminine equivalent of ballerino (dancer).  In English, a male performer is usually called a “ballet dancer” and the alternative is danseur (the plural form danseurs).  Ballerina is also used as a name for what is more often called a “ballet slipper” or “ballet flat” although the latter should be avoided because the term is used by the footwear industry for street shoes in this style (somewhat confusingly also known in some markets as “ballet pumps”).

Redact

Redact (pronounced ri-dakt)

(1) In publishing, to put into suitable literary form; revise; edit (professional technical use only).

(2) To draw up or frame a statement, proclamation etc (rare, mostly in historic references).

(3) To hide or remove (confidential parts of a text) before publication or distribution, or to examine (a text) for this purpose.

(4) To bring together in one unit; to combine or bring together into one; to bring an area of study within the comprehension capacity of a person; To reduce to a particular condition or state, especially one that is undesirable; to reduce something physical to a certain form, especially by destruction (all of which became obsolete between the sixteenth & eighteenth centuries).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the Old French redacter from the Latin redāctus (past participle of redigere (to lead back)), the construct being red- (from metanalysis of re- in verbs) + āctus (past participle of agere (to lead; to drive)) and perfect passive participle of redigō (drive, lead, collect, reduce), that construct being re- (back) + agō (put in motion, drive).  Redact is a verb, redaction & redactor are nouns and redactional is an adjective; the common noun plural is redactions.  One curious convention of use is that the verb unredact means "to remove a redaction and restore the original content" while when used as an the adjective "unredacted" can either describe such a document or one which had never had any redactions.

An example of a redacted document with the "plain black block" method using the redaction tool in Adobe Acrobat DC.

Lindsay Lohan's conquest list, 2013, partially redacted.

Traditional forms of redaction were as simple as crossing-out with a black pen or smudging entries to the point of illegibility and these methods can be emulated by the software tools but software houses caution that if undertaken in the simpler image editors, it is sometimes possible to reverse engineer the process of "smudging" or "swirling", making things appear in their original form.  In 2014, In Touch magazine published a partially redacted list of three-dozen names compiled by Lindsay Lohan.  Written in a Beverley Hills hotel room in 2013, the 36 names were those said to be Ms Lohan's "conquests" although it wasn't clear if the list was selective or exhaustive and it produced reactions among those mentioned ranging from "no comment" to a Clintonesque "I did not have sex with that woman".  Points of interest included Ms Lohan's apparently intact short & long-term memory and her commendably neat handwriting.  She seems to favor the "first letter bigger" style in which the style is "all capitals" but the first letter (in each word in the case of proper nouns such as names) is larger.  In typography, the idea is derived from the "drop cap", a centuries-old tradition in publishing where the opening letter of a sentence is many times the size of the rest, the text wrapping around the big letter.  In many cases, a drop cap was an elaborate or stylized version of the letter.   

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia (pronounced mes-uh-puh-tey-mee-uh)

An ancient region of West Asia between the lower and middle reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; the site of several ancient civilizations including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites and Assyrians.

Pre AD: From the Classical Latin Mesopotamia, from the Koine Greek Μεσοποταμία (Mesopotamía), a feminine substantive form of the adjective μεσοποτάμιος (mesopotámios) (between rivers), from the Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos) (between) + ποτᾰμός (potamós) (river) + -ιος (-ios), so called because Mesopotamia is located between the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers.  It was also used as a translation of the Biblical Hebrew נַהֲרַיִם‎ (naharáyim), the dual form of נָהָר‎ (nahár) (river).  The Arabic forms were بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن‎‎ (Bilād ar-Rāfidayn) or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن‎ (Bayn an-Nahrayn), the Persian was میان‌رودان‎ (miyân rudân), and the Syriac ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ‎ (Beth Nahrain) (land of rivers) also come from the ancient Greek root words mesos and potamos, translating to “land between rivers”.  It was used throughout the Greek Septuagint (circa 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim but an even earlier Greek usage is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander, written in the late second century AD, but specifically referring to sources from the time of Alexander the Great.  In the Xenophon’s (circa 430 BC-354 BC) Anabasis (circa 370 BC), Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.

The Aramaic term biritum (or birit narim) corresponded to a similar geographical concept but Mesopotamia later came generally to be applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey, the neighboring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains also often included.  A further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia.  Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran.  In modern academic use, Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation, used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazira, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date although some revisionist critics argue these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the milieu of the nineteenth century colonial and other Western encroachments.

The Mandate for Mesopotamia

The Mandate for Mesopotamia (الانتداب البريطاني على العراق‎ in the Arabic) was a proposed League of Nations mandate to cover Ottoman Iraq (Mesopotamia); it would have been entrusted to the British but was superseded by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty, an agreement with some similarities to the proposed mandate.  The proposed mandate was not formalised and although in accordance with the Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916; negotiated between English politician Colonel Sir Mark Sykes (1879–1919) & French Diplomat François Georges-Picot (1870–1951), was never documented or defined beyond a draft paper prepared by the UK's Colonial Office (and an exhaustive publication of those would run to several volumes).

The proposed Mandate for Mesopotamia (a 1920 map from the archives of the UK's Colonial Office).

London’s plans included the annexation of Mesopotamia to India "as a colony of the Indians” and of course included the typically cynical British colonial fix: support for the minorities: the Jewish community in Baghdad, the notables in Baghdad and Basar, the rich landowning Arabs and Jews, and the Shaikhs of sedentary tribes.  The British Empire might have been theft on history's grandest scale achieved by the splutter of musketry, but along the way, by means of mutual back-scratching, some others did OK and as an afterthought, Mosul was bolted on to the British sphere of influence, the spoils of a deal between French prime minister Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and his British counterpart, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922).  The mandate was never established as unrest overtook Iraqi so the Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq (الانتداب البريطاني على العراق‎) (al-Intidāb al-Brīṭānī ‘Alá al-‘Irāq) was instead created, pursuant to the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1922), full independence granted in 1932.  The sweep of territories from Rangoon to the Rock of Gibraltar continue to reverberate from the lines the colonial powers drew on maps.

Proxy

Proxy (pronounced prok-see)

(1) The agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another.

(2) The person so authorized; substitute; agent.

(3) An authorization, usually in writing, empowering another person to vote or act for the signer, as at a meeting of stockholders.

(4) An ally or confederate who can be relied upon to speak or act in one's behalf.

(5) In computing, short for proxy server.

(6) In computing, as proxy server, an interface for a service, especially for one that is remote, resource-intensive, or otherwise difficult to use directly; technically a proxy server is a piece of software but in casual use the term is often applied also to the hardware on which it’s run.

(7) In the administration of the courts of canon law, the written appointment of a proctor in suits in the ecclesiastical courts.

(8) In science, a measurement of one physical quantity that is used as an indicator of the value of another.

(9) In munitions, a slang term for a proximity device (a mine, torpedo, missile etc) which explodes when in proximity to the target, rather than having to make physical contact.

(10)In geopolitics, as proxy war, a conflict between two or more state or non-state actors conducted on behalf of or with extensive support from other parties not directly participating in the hostilities except as “advisors”

(11) In psychiatry, as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), a mental disorder in which a factitious disorder imposed on another for the purpose of gain the attention of medical professionals.  Now technically known as 

1400–1450: From the late Middle English prokesye, proccy & procusie (agency of one who acts instead of another, office or authority of a substitute; letter of power of attorney), a contraction of the Anglo-French procuracie and the Anglo-Norman procuracy & procuration, from the Medieval Latin procuratia, from the Latin prōcūrō (I manage, administer) & prōcūrātiō (a caring for, management) from procurare (manage).  The present participle was proxying, the simple past and past participle proxied and the noun plural proxies.

The meaning "person who is deputed to represent or act for another" is from 1610s whereas of things, "that which takes the place of something else" dates from the 1630s.  The practice of proxy voting has a long history but the term appears first to have been used Rhode Island in 1664 although then it described voters sending written ballots rather than attending the election, as opposed to would now be thought a “true” proxy system, as had be used in the assembly elections of 1647.  Proxy wars date from antiquity but the term seems first to have been used in 1955, during the high Cold War.  In computing, following the proxy server, there exists a whole ecosystem of related products & protocols including caching proxy, closed proxy, complexity-hiding proxy, dynamic proxy, firewall proxy, forward proxy, open proxy, protection proxy, remote proxy, smart-reference proxy, surrogate proxy, synchronization proxy etc.  In just about any field, there seem to be proxy somethings, including proxy statement, proxy indicator, proxy measurement, proxy abuse, proxy battle, proxy bullying, proxy card, proxy marriage, proxy murder, proxy pattern, proxy voting etc.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP)

Although the American Psychiatric Association (APA) insist the condition has been re-named factitious disorder in another (FDIA), most still prefer the more poetic Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP).  It also once was called factitious disorder imposed on another FDOA) or factitious disorder by proxy (FDP) but most agree MSbP is best.  Its primary characteristic is the production or feigning of physical or psychological symptoms in another person (usually a young child or sometimes but the proxy subject can be an adult or even an animal) under the care of the person with the disorder. The symptoms are problems which are inexplicable, persistent or resistant to interventions that, based on clinical experience, would have worked, after adequate evaluation and treatment attempts.  MSbP is a variation of Munchausen syndrome (which the APA list as factitious disorder (FD)), a mental disorder in which those affected feign (or sometimes even induce) disease, illness, injury, abuse, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves.  The name is from the fictional character Baron Munchausen from the 1785 novel Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, by German author Rudolf Erich Raspe (1736-1794), a collection of extraordinary stories, based (loosely) on the tales told by the real-life Baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen (1720-1797).  The real baron was prone to quite some exaggeration in the tales of his travels but never went as far as Herr Raspe who included in his volume the eighteenth century baron flying to the moon.

Factitious disorder (FD) is an umbrella category including a range of mental disturbances in which patients intentionally act physically or mentally ill without obvious benefits.  The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR (2000)) distinguished FD from malingering, which was defined as faking illness when the individual has a clear motive (typically to avoid work, benefit financially or evade legal difficulties).  FD used to be known as "hospital addiction", "pathomimia" or "polysurgical addiction" and variant names for individuals with FD included "hospital vagrants", "hospital hoboes", "peregrinating patients", "problem patients" and "professional patients".

The syndrome has a long tradition.  The English physician Hector Gavin (1815-1855) in 1843 published On Feigned and Factitious Diseases in which he documented, drawing mostly from the records of soldiers and seamen, the means used to simulate or produce symptoms and the best techniques a clinician could use to of uncover impostors.  Two thousand-odd years earlier, the noted Roma physician Aelius Galenus (Galen, 129-216 AD) wrote of six cases in his journals and from then to the present, the medical literature is littered with examples but modern, systematic study didn’t really begin until 1961 when British endocrinologist and haematologist Richard Asher (1912-1969) published a paper.  It had been Dr Asher who, in 1951, had coined the term Munchausen syndrome to describe a chronic subtype of FD and his work is worth reading even by the medically untrained and otherwise uninterested, such is the vivid quality of the writing and the seductive use of language.  It was in these years that the condition began more fully to be understood as distinct from malingering and the term Munchausen syndrome most appropriately refers to the subset of patients who have a chronic variant of FD with predominantly physical signs and symptoms.  In practice, however, many still use the term Munchausen syndrome interchangeably with FD.  The American Psychiatric Association first classified Munchausen syndrome in the third edition of the DSM (DSM-III 1980) so, historically, the condition was under-diagnosed and the current view is these patients feign illness or injury not to achieve a clear benefit, such as financial gain, but rather to gain the sympathy and special attention often given to people who are truly ill.  There is often a willingness to undergo painful or even risky tests and operations in order to obtain this attention.  Munchausen syndrome is considered a mental illness but can just as helpfully be thought a symptom because it is associated with severe emotional difficulties.

The term Munchausen syndrome by proxy was in 1977 coined by British pediatrician Roy Meadow.  Meadow became famous also for the rule he published in his 1977 book The ABC of Child Abuse, which stated that in a single family, "one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proved otherwise", this coming to be known as "Meadow's Law" and influential among UK social workers and child protection agencies.  His framing of the rule reflected his dogmatism and his reputation suffered as a consequence of his being struck from the British Medical Register by the General Medical Council (GMC) because of the erroneous and misleading evidence he provided in several trials which resulted in wrongful convictions although GMC’s ruling was overturned on appeal, on what might be described as public policy grounds.  Dr Meadow subsequently voluntarily relinquished his registration, thereby ensuring he could not be compelled to appear before the GMC regarding any previous professional conduct.

MSbP however survived the controversy.  Those with FD tend to be women aged 20-40 years and employed in medical fields such as nursing or other discipline where those employed enjoy familiarity with medical technology while those with chronic FD (Munchausen syndrome) are predominately unmarried, white, middle-aged men estranged from their families.  Perpetrators of Munchausen syndrome by proxy are typically mothers who induce illness in their young children although the conduct by fathers or others is not unknown.  The causes of FD, whether physical or psychiatric, are difficult to determine because affected patients are often lost to follow-up when they leave the hospital.  Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used and abnormalities in the brain structure of some patients with chronic FD have been detected but this does no more than suggest the possibility there may be some biological or genetic factors in the disorder shouldn’t be excluded.  The results of EEG (electroencephalography) studies are usually reported as non-specific and the suggestions for the causes of these disorders cast a wide net including (1) traumatic events and numerous hospitalizations during childhood, (2) FD allows patients to feel in control as they never did in childhood, (3) a coping mechanism, learned and reinforced in childhood and, intriguingly, (4). The “care-eliciting behaviors” theory, a process of unconscious identification with an important person, who genuinely has the pathology the patient is feigning.

Many authors have also underscored the co-occurrence of some pathological personality traits or disorders such as (5) identity disturbance, (6) unstable interpersonal relationships and (7), recurrent suicidal or self-mutilating behaviors which are similar to those encountered in borderline personality disorder.  Also noted have been instances of deceitfulness, lack of remorse, reckless disregard for safety of self, repeated failure to sustain constant work behavior and the failure to conform to social norms but these are common features not only of FD but of many antisocial personality disorders.  There is little agreement or evidence as to what causes Munchausen syndrome or Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Some theories suggest that the patient (or caregiver) may have experienced just about any of the conditions or experiences suffered by those with a variety of mental disorders and there seems to be no one thing or subset either exclusive or predictive.

In the DSM-5 (2013), the FD conditions were placed in the category Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders and the most precise definitional clauses were added, FD assigned to individuals who falsify illness in themselves or in another person, without any obvious gain  This combination of intentional falsification and lack of any obvious gain sets factitious disorder apart from similar conditions, such as somatic symptom disorder (where someone seeks excessive attention for genuine concerns) and malingering (where an individual falsifies symptoms for personal gain).  The condition is noted as both to diagnose and treat and, being rare (1% of individuals in hospital present with criteria matching the disorder), but the prevalence of factitious disorder throughout the general population is unknown.  Diagnosis of factitious disorder often requires a number of investigatory steps in order to accurately identify the condition without wrongful accusation, and treatment options can be both limited and difficult to administer if the individual refuses to admit the deception.  There are four primary criteria for diagnosing factitious disorder:

(1) Intentional induction or falsification of physical or psychological signs or symptoms.

(2) The individual presents themselves as ill, impaired or injured to others.

(3) The deceptive behavior persists even in the absence of external incentives or rewards.

(4) Another mental disorder does not better explain the behavior.

Factitious disorder may be diagnosed as either a single episode or as recurrent episodes (two or more instances of illness falsification and/or induction of injury) and Factitious disorder in another (formerly known as previously called Munchausen syndrome by proxy) may be broadly diagnosed using essentially the same four criteria as:

(1) Intentional induction or falsification of physical or psychological signs or symptoms in another person.

(2) The individual presents another individual (the victim) as ill, impaired or injured to others.

(3) The deceptive behavior persists even in the absence of external incentives or rewards.

(4) Another mental disorder does not better explain the behavior.

As with factitious disorder, factitious disorder in another may be diagnosed as either a single episode or as recurrent episodes (two or more instances of illness falsification and/or induction of injury). With factitious disorder in another, the victim may be assigned an abuse diagnosis as a result of the perpetrator’s behavior or actions.