Omicron

Omicron (pronounced om-i-kron or oh-mi-kron)

(1) The fifteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabet and the sixteenth in Ancient archaic Greek; a short vowel, transliterated as o.

(2) The vowel sound represented by this letter.

(3) The common name designated (on 26 November 2021 by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE)) for the variant B.1.1.529 of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the condition COVID-19.

(4) In English, as “o” & “O” (fifteenth letter of the alphabet), a letter used for various grammatical and technical purposes.

Circa 1400: The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (oʊmɪkrɒn; the symbol Oo), literally "small o" (ὂ μικρόν (ò mikrón)), the construct being o + the Ancient Greek (s)mikros (small (source of the modern micro-) and so-called because the vowel was "short" in ancient Greek.  Omega (O) was thus the “long” (O) and omicron the “short” (o).  It’s from omicron both Latin and Cyrillic gained “O”.  Depending on the context in which it’s being written, the plural is omicrons or omicra.

The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet was derived from a character which in Phoenician was called 'ain or ayin (literally "eye") and represented by what most dictionaries record as something like "a most peculiar and to us unpronounceable guttural sound".  The Greeks also lacked the sound, so when they adopted characters from the Phoenician alphabet, arbitrarily they changed O's value to a vowel.  Despite the medieval belief, there is no evidence to support the idea the form of the letter represents the shape the mouth assumes in pronouncing it.  The Greeks later added a special character for the "long" O (omega), and the original thus became the "little o" (omicron).  In Middle English and later colloquial use, o or o' has a special use as an abbreviation of “on” or “of”, and remains literary still in some constructions (o'clock, Jack-o'-lantern, tam-o'-shanter, cat-o'-nine-tails, will-o'-the-wisp et al).  The technical use in genealogy is best represented by Irish surnames, the “O’” from the Irish ó (ua), which in the Old Irish was au (ui) and meant "descendant".

As a connective, -o- is the most common connecting vowel in compounds either taken or formed from Greek, where it is often the vowel in the stem.  English being what it is, it’s affixed, not only to constructions purely Greek in origin, but also those derived from Latin (Latin compounds of which would have been formed with the L. connecting or reduced thematic vowel, -i).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds the usage note that this occurred especially when what was wanted were compounds with a sense of Latin composition, which even if technically possible, would not be warranted but, were correct under the principles of Greek composition.  Similarly, blood type-O was in 1926 originally designated “0” (zero)" denoting the absence of any type-A & B agglutinogens but the letter O was adopted to align the group with existing nomenclature.  The standardized scale in railroads (O=1:48 (1:25 gauges)) dates from 1905.

As the character to represent the numerical value "zero", in Arabic numerals it is attested from circa 1600, the use based on the similarity of shape.  The similarity would later cause a Gaëtan Dugas (1952–1984), a Québécois Canadian flight attendant, mistakenly to be identified as "Patient Zero" (the primary case for HIV/AIDS in the United States).  The error happened because of a mistake made in 1984 in either the reading or transcription of a database maintained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which tracked the sexual liaisons and practices of gay and bisexual men, mostly those from California and New York. Dugas, because he was statistically unusual in having no relevant connections with either state, was coded as "Patient O" (indicating out-of-state) but this was at some point misinterpreted as "Patient 0 (Zero)".  Dugas was later identified as "Patient Zero" (ie the person who introduced HIV/AIDS to North America) in Randy Shilts's (1951-1994) book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987) which explored the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.  Shilts would later dismiss the significance of the technical error, claiming it made no difference to his point that Dugas engaged in behavior by which he either carelessly, recklessly or intentionally infected his many sexual partners with HIV (a claim subsequently contested by others).  Shilts died in 1994 from an AIDS-related condition.

Flirting with risk of exposure to, inter-alia, Omicron: Lindsay Lohan in facemask during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The authorities discourage the use of masks with the one-way, non-return valves (this one a twin-valve model) during epidemics & pandemics because, while affording the usual protection to the wearer, there is a slight reduction in their effectiveness in reducing the risk of infecting others.

A variant of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes Covid-19, Omicron (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in November 2021 after being detected in Botswana.  Rapidly, it out-competed other SARS-CoV-2 strains to become the predominant variant in circulation, the primary transmission vector of that thought to be international air travel.  The WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) named variant B.1.1.529 “Omicron” in November 2021, skipping the Greek letters next in sequence (nu (Ν, ν) & xi (Ξ ξ)), the former not used because of the confusion envisaged by virtue of the English pronunciation (“new” virus) and the latter avoided so the feelings of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) weren’t hurt, the origins of Covid-19 being a sensitive issue among the CCP’s Central Committee.

Flirting virus: Omicron FLiRT variant.

Although a number of Omicron sub-variants have subsequently been identified, none has been found so structurally dissimilar that the TAG-VE felt constrained to allocate a different Greek letter.  Instead, such variants were tagged alpha-numerically according to the group’s established convention (BA.1, BA.2 etc; identified sub-variants of BA.5 listed in a BQ.n sequence).  By June 2024, Omicron and its sub-variants remain dominant globally although new strains continue to emerge, notably the “FLiRT" which sounds encouraging but the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provided a rather dry explanation: “F for L at position 456, and R for T at position 346 (references to specific mutations in the virus’s spike protein).  The FLiRT variants are sub-variants of the Omicron JN.1 strain and include notable strains such as KP.2, KP.3, and KP.1.1.  The FLiRT variants now account for a significant portion of cases in the United States.

The Omicron and others: Notable Lancias

1981 Lancia Beta Spyder (Zagato).

Vincenzo Lancia (1881–1937) used letters from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Lambda, Kappa, Omicron et al) as model names for many of his early vehicles and in 1953 returned to the practice for a one-off range based on a commercial chassis.  However, when the Beta (1972-1984) was released in 1972 it was the first time since 1945 the company had used letters from the Greek to designate a passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t Lancia’s first use of Beta, that had been the 1909 car which replaced the Alpha (also Alfa) and, although the 1972 car had been intended to be the model which would symbolize Lancia’s re-birth (il risorgimento), Beta rather than Alfa was chosen to avoid confusion with Alfa Romeo.  Over time, the Beta would be offered with two four-door saloon bodies and a coupé from which two variants were derived: (1) a three-door estate labeled HPE (high-performance estate) in the tradition of the "shooting brake" (a la the Reliant Scimitar et al) and (2) as a co-project with Lombardy-based coach-builder Zagato, a targa-style convertible with a structural arrangement vaguely similar to that used by the Triumph Stag.  In some markets, in an attempt to enhance the image, the Montecarlo sports car was badged as a Beta.  The survival rate of the Betas was low because of chronic rust but the oft-told tale the steel was of poor quality (described as “porous” and obtained in some sort of barter transaction between Italy and the Soviet Union) has been debunked, the Betas (like to contemporary Alfa Romeo Alfasud) crumbling away because of design flaws, inadequate corrosion-prevention measures and poor build quality, the latter due in part to the appalling state of the relations between capital & labor during the troubled 1970s.

1987 Lancia Thema 8·32.

By the standards of European front wheel drive mass-production, the Lancia Thema (1984-1994 and available as a four-door saloon, a five door estate and a low-volume long wheelbase (LWD) limousine) was completely conventional and mostly unexceptional but there was one memorable diversion: the Thema 8·32.  Introduced at the 1986 Turin Motor Show, instead of the predictable variety of four & six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines used in the mainstream range, the 8·32 was fitted with a version of the 3.0 litre V8 Ferrari used in their 308 and Mondial models.  By the mid-1980s, although it was no longer novel to put powerful engines into previously nondescript saloons, the 8·32 was in the avant garde of the more extreme, pre-dating the BMW M5 (E28) by some months and the Mercedes-Benz 500E (W124) by seven years but what made it truly bizarre was it retained the Thema’s front wheel drive (FWD) configuration.  That probably sounds like the daftest idea since Oldsmobile and Cadillac in the mid 1960s decided to offer big FWD "personal coupes" (which eventually would be offered with V8 engines as large as 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre)) but journalists who tested the 8·32 declared it a surprisingly good good road car although those who tried them on racetracks did note the prodigious understeer.  Ferrari supplying Lancia with a V8 was actually returning a favor: In 1954, it was the Lancia D50 Formula One car which became the first Ferrari V8.  By 1986, even the V8-powered Cadillac DeVille range had switched to FWD but it was a very different machine from the 8·32 and many DeVille owners probably neither noticed nor cared the configuration had changed although they would have appreciated the flat floor and additional interior space.

1974 Lancia Stratos HF.

The 8·32 experiment (which Lancia opted not the repeat) wasn’t the first time Ferrari had provided engines for a Lancia. The Stratos HF (1973-1978, the HF standing for "High Fidelity", a moniker sometimes attached to Lancia’s high performance variations) was named after the Stratos Zero, a 1970 show car designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) although, except conceptually, the production vehicle bore little resemblance to that which lent the name.  The diminutive wedge was powered by the 2.4 litre V6 with which Ferrari used in the Dino 246 (1969-1974) and it was one of the outstanding rally cars of the 1970s, winning the 1974 Targa Florio and taking the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1974, 1975 & 1976.  Still competitive in the late 1970s when factory support was withdrawn because Fiat, the conglomerate which by then owned Lancia, wished to use its activities in motorsport to promote more mainstream models, it continued in private hands to win events into the 1980s and replicas have since been produced.  Such is the appeal of the Stratos that Torino-based coach-builder Manifattura Automobili in 2018 announced a run (said to be limited to 25) of the "New Stratos", based on the (shortened) platform of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia (2007). 

1971 Lancia 2000 Coupé.

The Lancia Flavia was in production between 1961 and 1971 before it was re-named the 2000, a reference to the two litre flat-four, introduced in 1969, an enlarged version of the power-plant which, in 1.5 and 1.8 litre form had powered the Flavia.  Although a decade old at its introduction, the 2000 was still of an advanced specification including the then still uncommon option of fuel-injection.  Although the earlier Flavias were built as four-door saloons, two-door coupés & convertibles (including a quite strange looking coupé by Zagato), the 2000 was offered only with saloon and coupé coachwork, the latter so elegant that most were prepared to forgive the FWD beneath, something the Lancia cognoscenti (a most devoted crew) inexplicably believe is a good idea.

1983 Lancia 037.

The last rear-wheel drive car to win the WRC, the 037 (the mysterious name merely a carry-over of the original project name) was a highly modified version of the Montecarlo, a Pininfarina-designed mid-engined coupé produced between 1975 to 1981 (in some markets called the Beta Montecarlo to maintain a link with the more mainstream Beta models and in North America sold as the Scorpion).  The Montecarlo had begun life as a project undertaken by Pininfarina to replace Fiat’s much admired but outdated 124 Coupé but Bertone’s X1/9 design was thought so outstanding it was instead chosen for immediate production while the 124 continued.  Pininfarina’s bigger, heavier car was then designated the Fiat X1/8, envisaged to compete as an up-market, mid-engined, three litre V6 sports car.  However, after the first oil shock in 1973, the market was re-evaluated and, now code-named named X1/20, it was re-positioned as a two litre, four cylinder car and handed to Lancia to become the Montecarlo.  In development since 1980, the competition version, the Lancia Rally 037, was released late the next year and in its first competitive season in Group 5 rallying proved fast but still fragile although, it was certainly promising enough for the factory to return in 1983 when, fully developed, it won the WRC.  It was however the end of an era, the 037 out-classed late in the season by the all-wheel-drive competition which has since dominated the WRC.  In one aspect however it remains a WRC benchmark: no competitor since has looked as good.

1971 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Coupé.

The slightly frumpy looking Fulvia saloon was the mass-selling (a relative term) model of Lancia’s range between 1963-1976 but the memorable version was the exquisite coupé (1965-1977).  Mechanically similar to the saloon except that it was on a short wheelbase  (SWB) platform and the FWD Fulvias were only ever offered with V4 engines of modest displacement (1.1-1.6 litres), the relatively high-performance achieved by virtue of light weight, high specific output and, in the two-door versions, a surprisingly efficient aerodynamic profile, belying the rather angular appearance (except for the usual special coupes by Zagato which managed almost to look attractive, not something which could be guaranteed to emerge from their drawing boards).  The HF versions were built for competition with more spartan interior trim, aluminum doors & non-structural panels, the engines tuned for higher power.  Produced in small runs, the early Flavia HFs used quite highly-strung 1.2 & 1.3 litre engines (the last batch gaining a five-speed gearbox) but the definitive competition HF was released in 1969 with a 1.6 litre engine and nicknamed Fanalona (big headlamps), an allusion to the seven inch units which had replaced the earlier five inch versions.  Almost mass-produced by earlier standards, over thirteen hundred were build and it delivered for the factory-supported Squadra Corse team, winning the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally.  The success inspired the factory to capitalize on the car’s success, a purely road-going version, the 1600 HF Lusso (Luxury) with additional interior appointments and without the lightweight parts manufactured between 1970-1973.  This one really was mass-produced; nearly four thousand were made and they remain much coveted.

1930 Lancia Omicron with two and a half deck arrangement and a clerestoried upper windscreen.

The Lancia Omicron was a bus chassis produced between 1927-1936; over 600 were built in different wheelbase lengths with both two and three-axle configurations.  Most used Lancia's long-serving, six-cylinder commercial engine but, as early as 1933, some had been equipped with diesel engines which were tested in North Africa where they proved durable and, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria, once petrol powered Omicron chassis were being re-powered with diesel power-plants from a variety of manufacturers as late as the 1960s.  Typically of bus use, coachbuilders fabricated many different styles of body but, in addition to the usual single and double deck arrangements, the Omicron is noted for a number of two and a half deck models, the third deck configured usually as a first-class compartment but in at least three which operated in Italy, they were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.

1928 Lancia Lambda series 7 tipo Siluro Bateaux (torpedo) "Casaro".

One of the most innovative designs of the 1920s, the Lamba was produced between 1922-1931 and was the first car to enter volume production using a stressed, unitary body.  It featured very effective four-wheel brakes (something surprisingly rare at the time) and independent front suspension, the competence of which was such that it was able to more than match the point-to-point performance of many cars much more powerful but with more brutishly simple solid axles attached to a chassis.  However, because it was so attractive, demand much exceeded Lancia’s capacity to build sufficient numbers and the factory was forced to offer a model with a conventional chassis so coach-builders could provide bodies to fill the supply gap.  All Lambdas were powered by advanced and compact narrow-angle aluminum overhead camshaft V4 engines between 2.1-2.6 litres and over eleven thousand were built.

Petecure

Petecure (pronounced pet-i-kyoor)

Simple cooking; meals prepared quickly with a limited number of ingredients.

Circa 1430: From the Middle English coining petecure, the construct being the petit + cure.  Petit was from the Middle English petit, from the Old French petit, from the Vulgar Latin pitittus, a diminutive of the Latin pit-, possibly from the Proto-Celtic pett- (part, bit, piece) and related to the Latin pitulus & pitinnus (small), the forms said to be of imitative origin; a doublet of petty.  The alternative forms in the Old French were peti & pitet, the source ultimately of the Spanish pequeño.  Cure was from the Latin curāre (to care for) from cura (cure), from the Proto-Italic kwoizā, from the primitive Indo-European kweys- (to heed); the long archaic forms being coira & coera.

The word petecure seems first to have appears in print in Liber Cure Cocorum, an English cookbook published in the county of Lancashire circa 1430.  The literal translation of Liber Cure Cocorum (which the author titled as The Slyghtes of Cure) isn’t a great deal of help and it’s best understood as The Art of Cooking.  Very much a document of the working class & peasant cuisine of the age, it’s notable for its focus on the food of the common people which contrasts with many of the works by social historians which relied upon the much more extensively recorded recipes and menus enjoyed by royalty and the aristocracy.  There are useful entries about that famous delicacy haggis and the first known reference to humble pie, written at the time as nombuls (ie a pie made from offal) and a theme in the cookbook is what the unknown author called petecure (simple cooking), tips and tricks for the poor who lacked the expensive ingredients and even the exotic spices used by chefs who cooked a sophisticated fare for the elite.  “Of petecure I will preach” he declared and there remains in Cambridge a street named Petty Cury which in the fourteenth century was spelled Le Petycure, though to mean “small kitchen” and probably associated with some eating place once located there.

Despite the appearance there’s no etymological connection between petecure and epicure, the latter derived from the philosopher Epicurus (circa 340–270 BC).  In the popular imagination, the two words would be thought diametrically opposed, Epicureans now thought of as sybarites with diets characterized by rich, gout-inducing dishes but that’s a modern understanding.  In antiquity, the philosophical system of Epicurus held that the external world was but fortuitous combinations of atoms and that the highest good is pleasure, interpreted as freedom from disturbance or pain.  Epicurus’ school in Hellenic Greece, founded circa 307 BC taught a doctrine hostile to superstition and divine intervention and believed pleasure leads to the greatest individual and collective good.  The path to this, Epicurus held, was to study the world, live modestly and contain one’s desires so as to not succumb to self-indulgence.  A life such lived, he taught, would allow one to attain a state of ataraxia (tranquility) and aponia (a freedom from fear and pain) and to attain these two states produces human happiness in its purest and highest form.  Happiness therefore comes from the virtues of diligence and restraint; the avoidance of excess.  To be fair to Epicurus, he was not averse to the odd luxury and his school was known for the feasts it held on the twentieth of each month.  In the modern age, adherents came to focus on the feast and ignore the rest resulting in the meaning shift which sees Epicureanism now a synonym for hedonism and associated almost exclusively with fine food and drink.  By the late twentieth-century, the word in the sense of its original meaning was barely used outside academic circles but of late something of a cult has developed around his original ideas although all Epicurean societies do seem to have maintained the tradition of the feast.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying a pedicure, September 2007.

Nor should petecure be confused with the 1839 noun pedicure (one whose business is the surgical care of feet (removal of corns, bunions etc)), from the French pédicure, the construct being the Latin pēs (genitive pedis) (foot), from the primitive Indo-European root ped- (foot) + cure as a clipping of curāre (to care for).  The sense of the word shifted from the practitioner (1939) to the treatment itself (1890) before finally settling as a beauty treatment (1905) wholly separate from clinical medicine and thus a companion term to manicure.

Liber Cure Cocorum was barely known for centuries, sitting in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an Anglo-Irish physician & naturalist.  It was one of some 70,000-odd items he bequeathed to the nation, the works among the foundation documents of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum.  Liber Cure Cocorum was deciphered and published in 1862.  Sloane is credited by some as having invented drinking chocolate but the evidence suggests there had been many recipes for such concoctions circulating for years before Sloane published his and the origins anyway probably lie in the Caribbean centuries earlier.  Sloane however, a physician to the aristocracy and three successive sovereigns, was a good publicist, lending his name to Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate, marketed in the 1750s by a London grocer as a “medicinal elixir” and Cadbury’s tins of drinking chocolate for years included a card detailing Sloane's recipe.

Royal Court, Sloane Square SW1W 8AS, London.

It’s after Sir Hans that Sloane Square, a part of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea which drips with money, was named, the reference due to him once owning the land.  Thus far the connection has survived the ripples of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement but in 2020 a bust of Sloane in the British Museum's Enlightenment Gallery was moved to become part of a display documenting his links to the "exploitative context of the British Empire", a reference to the financial benefits he gained from the Jamaican sugar trade.  To that, some Irish critics noted acerbically that nothing was said about the benefits Sloane’s family had gained from the confiscation of Irish lands and their exploitation.

Jentacular

Jentacular (pronounced yen-tac-u-la)

Of or pertaining to a breakfast taken early in the morning, or immediately on getting up.

Early 1700s: A learned borrowing from Latin iēntāculum (breakfast (especially one taken immediately upon rising)), the construct made by appending the English suffix –ar (of, near, or pertaining to (used to form adjectives)).  The construct of iēntāculum (genitive iēntāculī) was ientō (I breakfast), a variant of ieientō (to have breakfast), from ieiūnus (fasting, abstinent, hungry), from ientare the primitive Indo-European hyag (to sacrifice; to worship) + -culum (the diminutive suffix), from –culu, a re-bracketing of the diminutive suffix -lus on nouns ending in –cus.  Jentacular is an adjective.  Authors (presumably of literary novels) wanting a noun could use the Latin jentaculum (jēntāculum), an alternative form of ientaculum, the construct being iēntō (I breakfast) +‎ -culum (a suffix used to form nouns derived from verbs, notably nouns representing tools and instruments).

The Late Latin jēntāculum (I breakfast) reflects the post-Classical changes to spelling in Latin, a highly technical array of changes which happened over hundreds of years in the Middle Ages and was concerned with rendering a pattern of spelling more aligned with actual pronunciation and one change was that jēntāculum replaced the Classical Latin iēntāculum.  In Classical Latin, it was ientare.  In modern writing, the consonant "i" is distinguished from the vowel "i" by using the extended version of the letter "j" for the former, just the vowel form of "v" is distinguished from the consonant form by writing the cursive form "u" for the former.  In the modern alphabet, they’ve long officially been different letters, and they sound much more different in English.  However, in Latin, ientare (strictly speaking IENTARE since half-uncials didn’t then exist)) was pronounced yen-ta-reh and it was this which inspired medieval scholars to decide the written should pay greater tribute to the spoken.  Because in Classical Latin representing the consonant “j” was usually not doubled in writing, a single “i” represented a double “j”; medieval scholars thought a simple approach preferable, much as the Americans corrected many needless redundancies in English (color vs colour; catalog vs catalogue etc).

A jentacular pair: Jane Fonda (b 1937) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) taking breakfast, Georgia Rule (2007).

Jentacular enjoyed a vogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth century among those who liked to add the odd "learned" flourish to their writing but most dictionaries now describe it as obscure, rare or obsolete.  Indeed, its most frequent appearance now appears to be on lists of unusual words but it still attracts those who like such things, some of whom complicate it further with constructs like post-jentacular, following the English philosopher (most associated with utilitarianism) and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)  who would write of the “ante-jentacular” and “post-prandial” walks he took in his garden.  Despite the Benthamite endorsement, jentacular seems effectively defunct, the English-speaking world taking the view "breakfast" needs no adjective, the occasional instance of breakfasty never catching on, presumably because the ungainly English construction was worse than the anyway unwanted though elegant Latinate form. The word "breakfast" dates from 1463 and is one of the language’s less etymologically challenging coinings, meaning obviously a meal which "breaks" the overnight "fast" and  Australians, as would be expected, came up with "brekkie", a style of diminutive obligatory among certain classes.  Civilised peoples like the Italians and French seem always to have managed to enjoy breakfast but for the English it’s been often depicted as a chore.  Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792–1822) poem Peter Bell the Third by Miching Mallecho, Esq (composed circa 1820 but not published until 1839) clearly preferred the dinner and late-night suppers to anything jentacular:

And all these meet at levees; --
  Dinners convivial and political; --
Suppers of epic poets; -- teas,
Where small talk dies in agonies; --
  Breakfasts professional and critical;

Perhaps that was because the taking of strong drink was something more associated with dinner than breakfast, even among the Romantic poets.

Jentacular thinspiration: A recommended pro-ana breakfast.

Blueprint

Blueprint (pronounced bloo-print)

(1) A process of photographic printing, used chiefly in copying architectural and mechanical drawings, which produces a white line on a blue background; also called a cyanotype.

(2) A physical print made by this process.

(3) A slang term for a digital rendition of the process.

(4) A slang term for such a drawing, whether blue or not.

(5) By analogy, a detailed outline or plan of action (in text or image).

(6) To make a blueprint.

(7) A technique for optimizing the performance of internal combustion engines by machining (or matching) components to their exact specifications.

1887: The construct was blue + print (blue print and blue-print (1882) were the rarely used alternative spellings).  The figurative sense of "detailed plan" dates from 1926 and use as a verb is from 1939.

Blue dates from the sixteenth century and was from the Middle English blewe, from the Anglo-Norman blew (blue), from the Frankish blāu (blue) (possibly via the Medieval Latin blāvus & blāvius (blue)), from the Proto-Germanic blēwaz (blue, dark blue), from the primitive Indo-European bhlēw (yellow, blond, grey).  It was cognate with the dialectal English blow (blue), the Scots blue, blew (blue), the North Frisian bla & blö (blue), the Saterland Frisian blau (blue), the Dutch blauw (blue), the German blau (blue), the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish blå (blue), the Icelandic blár (blue).  It was cognate also with the obsolete Middle English blee (color) related to the Welsh lliw (color), the Latin flāvus (yellow) and the Middle Irish blá (yellow). A doublet of blae.  The present spelling in English has existed since the sixteenth century and was common by circa 1700.  Many colors have in English been productive in many senses and blue has contributed to many phrases in fields as diverse as mental health (depression, sadness), semiotics (coolness in temperature), popular music (the blues), social conservatism (blue stocking; blue rinse), politics (conservative (Tory) & Whig identifiers and (unrelated) the US Democratic Party), labor-market segmentation (blue-collar), social class (blue-blood), stock market status (blue-chip) and, inexplicably, as an intensifier (blue murder).

Print dates from circa 1300 and was from the Middle English printen, prenten, preenten & prente (impression, mark made by impression upon a surface), an apheretic form of emprinten & enprinten (to impress; imprint).  It was related to the Dutch prenten (to imprint), the Middle Low German prenten (to print; write), the Danish prente (to print), the Swedish prenta (to write German letters).  The late Old French preinte (impression) was a noun use of the feminine past participle of preindre (to press, crush), altered from prembre, from the Latin premere (to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress), from the primitive Indo-European root per- (to strike).  The Old French word was also the source of the Middle Dutch (prente (the Dutch prent) and was borrowed by other Germanic languages.

The sense of "a printed publication" (applied later particularly to newspapers) was from the 1560s.  The meaning "printed lettering" is from the 1620s and print-hand (print-like handwriting) from the 1650s.  The sense of "picture or design from a block or plate" dates from the 1660s while the meaning "piece of printed cloth or fabric" appeared first in 1756.  The photographic sense emerged apparently only by 1853, some three decades after the first photographs, the use evolving as printed photographs became mass-market consumer products.  Print journalism seemed to have been described as such only from 1962, a form of differentiation from the work of those employed by television broadcasters.

Blueprinting internal combustion engines is the practice of disassembling the unit and machining the critical components (piston, conrods etc) to the point where they exactly meet the stated specifications (dimensions & weight).  Essentially, the process is one of exactitude, using precision tools to make components produced using the techniques of mass production (which inherently involves wider tolerances) and modifying them by using tighter tolerances, meeting exact design specifications.  It’s most associated with high-performance racing cars, especially those which compete in “standard-production” classes which don’t permit modifications to most components.  In some cases, especially with factory-supported operations, the components might be specially selected, prior to assembly.

Blueprint of the USS Missouri (BB-63), an Iowa-class battleship launched in 1944.  Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy.

The first blueprint was developed in 1842 by English mathematician, astronomer, chemist & experimental photographer Sir John Herschel (1792-1871).  What he then termed a “cyanotype process” eliminated the need to copy original drawings by means of hand-tracing, a cumbersome, time consuming (and therefore expensive) process.  At what was then an astonishingly low cost, it permitted the rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number of copies.  The cyanotype process used a drawing on semi-transparent paper that was weighted down on top of a sheet of paper which was then placed over another piece of paper, coated with a mix of ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferrocyanide (derived from an aqueous solution and latter dried).  When the two papers were exposed to light, the chemical reaction produced an insoluble blue compound called blue ferric ferrocyanide (which became famous as Prussian Blue), except where the blueprinting paper was covered and the light was blocked by the lines of the original drawing. After the paper was washed and dried to preserve those lines, the result was a negative image of white (or whatever color the blueprint paper originally was) against a dark blue background.  White was by far the most used paper and the most common cyanotypes were thus blue with white lines.  At least by 1882 they were being described as “blue prints” but by 1887, they were almost universally called blueprints and in engineering and architecture had become ubiquitous, Herschel’s photochemical process producing copies at a tenth the cost of hand-tracing.

Factory blueprint (quotation drawing produced on diazo machine) of 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S Uhlenhaut Coupé).  Two were built, one of which sold in June 2022 for a world record US$142 million at a private auction held at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

Refinements and economies of scale meant that during the early twentieth century the quality of blueprints improved and costs further fell but by the 1940s, they began to be supplanted by diazo prints (known also as “whiteprints” or “bluelines”).  Diazo prints were rendered with blue lines on a white background, making them easier to read and they could be produced more quickly on machinery which was simpler and much less expensive than the intricate photochemical devices blueprints demanded.  Accordingly, reprographic companies soon updated their plant, attracted too by the lower running costs, the diazo machinery not requiring the extensive and frequent maintenance demanded by the physically big and intricate photochemical copiers.

1929 Mercedes-Benz SSKL printed in blueprint style.

One tradition of the old ways did however endure.  The diazo machines caught on but “diazo print”, “whiteprint” & “blueline” never did; the drawings, regardless of the process used, the color of the paper or the lines (and many used black rather than blue) continued to be known as “blueprints”.  That linguistic tribute persisted even after diazo printing was phased-out and replaced with the xerographic print process, the standard copy machine technology using toner on bond paper.  Used for some time in commerce, large-size xerography machines became available in the mid-1970s and although originally very expensive, costs rapidly fell and the older printing methods were soon rendered obsolete.  As computer-aided design (CAD) software entered the mainstream during the 1990s, designs increasingly were printed directly from a computer to printer or plotter and despite the paper used being rarely blue, the output continued to be known as the blueprint.

Blueprint of the Chrysler Building, New York City, 1930.

Even now, although often viewed only as multi-colored images on screens (which might be on tablets or phones), such electronic drawings are still usually called blueprints.  Nor have blueprints vanished.  There are many things (buildings, bridges, roads, power-plants, railroads, sewers et al) built before the 1990s which have an expected life measured in decades or even centuries and few of these were designed using digital records.  The original blueprints therefore remain important to those engaged in maintenance or repair and can be critical also in litigation.  Old blueprints can be scanned and converted to digital formats but in many cases, the originals are fragile or physically deteriorated and finer details are sometimes legible only if viewed on the true blueprint.  Centuries from now, magnifying glasses in hand, engineers may still be examining twentieth century blueprints.

Lindsay Lohan, blueprinted.    

Peccant

Peccant (pronounced pek-uhnt)

(1) Sinning; corrupt; guilty of a moral offense.

(2) Violating a rule, principle, or established practice; faulty; wrong.

(3) Producing disease; morbid (archaic).

1595–1605: From the Latin peccantis & peccant- (stem of peccāns), present participle of peccāre (to sin, to err, offend).  The Latin peccāns was the present participle of peccō, from the primitive Indo-European verbal root ped- (to walk, fall, stumble) and related to pṓds, the same source as the Hittite pata, the Latin pēs & pedis, the Tocharian A pe, the Tocharian B paiyye, the Lithuanian pāda (sole (foot)), the Russian под (pod) (ground), the Ancient Greek πούς & ποδός (poús & podós), the Albanian shputë (palm, foot sole), the Old Armenian ոտն (otn) and the Sanskrit पद् (pád)).  Derived forms include the nouns peccancy & peccantness and the adverb peccantly.  Also related in English is the familiar impeccable and the almost unknown peccable.

Peccant Pathogens: SARS-CoV-2 which causes the disease COVID-19, is thought to have jumped from bats to humans via an as yet unknown species.  The transmissibility, morbidity and mortality rate in humans is a product of the interaction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with the three species.  Despite the popular association, there was never any proof of casual connection between eating bat soup and contracting COVID-19.

Bastard

Bastard (pronounced bas-terd, br-sted, or bar-stad)

(1) A person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child (technically gender-neutral but historically applied almost exclusively to males).  Use is now mostly in a historic context.

(2) In slang as a term of disparagement, a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person.

(3) In slang, an expression of sympathy for a man who has suffered in some way (unlucky bastard, poor bastard etc).

(4) In slang, an expression used of someone who has been fortunate (lucky bastard).

(5) In jocular slang, a term of endearment (chiefly Australia & New Zealand).

(6) Something fake, phony, irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual; of abnormal or irregular shape; of unusual make or proportions (now rare).

(7) In engineering, politics, architecture etc, something which is a mixture of inputs as opposed to pure versions.

(8) In metalworking & woodworking, a type of file.

(9) In informal use an extremely difficult or unpleasant job or task.

(10) In animal breeding, a mongrel (biological cross between different breeds, groups or varieties) (now rare).

(11) A sword midway in length between a short-sword and a long sword.

(12) In sugar refining, (1) an inferior quality of soft brown sugar, obtained from syrups that have been boiled several times or (2) a large mold for straining sugar.

(13) A very sweet fortified wine, often with spices added.

(14) In commercial printing, paper not of a standard size.

(15) In theater lighting, one predominant color blended with small amounts of complementary color; used to replicate natural light because of their warmer appearance.

(16) In theology, a heretic or sinner; one separated from one's deity (archaic).

(17) In biology, a botanical tendril or offshoot (rare and used only in the technical literature).

(18) In linguistics, any change or neologism in language that is viewed as a degradation.

1250–1300: From the Middle English bastarde, basterd & bastart, from the Anglo-Norman bastard (illegitimate child), from the eleventh century Medieval Latin bastardus of unknown origin but perhaps from the Germanic (Ingvaeonic) bāst- (related to the Middle Dutch bast (lust, heat)), a presumed variant of bōst- (marriage) + the derogatory Old French –ard (the pejorative agent noun suffix), taken as signifying the offspring of a polygynous marriage to a woman of lower status (ie the acknowledged child of a nobleman by a woman other than his wife), a pagan Germanic custom not sanctioned by the Christian church.  The Old Frisian boask, boaste & bost (marriage) was from the proto-Germanic bandstu- & banstuz (bond, tie), a noun derivative of the Indo-European bhendh (to tie, bind).  It was cognate with the French bâtard (bastard), the West Frisian bastert (bastard), the Dutch bastaard (bastard), the German Bastard (bastard) and the Icelandic bastarður (bastard).  Etymologists caution that charming as it is, the traditional explanation of Old French bastard as derivative of fils de bast (literally “child of a packsaddle”, the source of this the idea of a child conceived on an improvised bed (medieval saddles often doubled as beds while traveling)) is dubious on chronological and geographical grounds.  The Medieval Latin Bastum (packsaddle) is of uncertain origin.  One etymologist noted that while the origin of bantling (a young child known or believed to be "a bastard") was uncertain, it could be from the German Bänkling (bastard-child) which was from the Luxembourgish Bänk, from the Middle High German and Old High German bank, from the Proto-West Germanic banki, from Proto-Germanic bankiz (and cognate with the German Bank, Dutch bank, English bench, Swedish bänk and Icelandic bekkur.  The alleged link with bastard offspring is that conception took place on "a bank" rather than in a bed where responsible & respectable folk did such things.

In pre-modern Europe, being born to unmarried parents was not always regarded as a stigma although the Church in canon law prohibited bastards from holding clerical office without an explicit papal indult.  Royalty and the aristocracy, famously prolific in the production of bastards, seemed often unconcerned, Norman duke William, the Conqueror of England, is referred to in state documents as "William the Bastard" and one Burgundian prince was even officially styled “Great Bastard of Burgundy”.  From this, came the idea of something bastardized being associated with the creation of an inferior copy or version of something, hence the sense of corruption, degradation or debasement, hence the association with words like counterfeit, fake, imperfect, irregular, mongrel, phony, sham, adulterated, baseborn, false, impure, misbegotten, mixed & spurious, the adjectival form common by the late fourteenth century.  However, the word eventually became used to describe things deliberately designed to be variations of something, typically between two established types.  Thus emerged bastard agrimony, the bastard alkanet, bastard bar, bastard hartebeest, bastard file, bastard hemp, bastard hogberry, bastard pennyroyal, bastard pimpernel, bastard quiver tree, bastard tallow-wood, bastard tamarind, bastard teak, bastard musket, bastard culverin, bastard gemsbok, bastard mahogany, bastard toadflax, bastard trumpeter, bastard cut, bastard eigne & bastard amber.

Variations of the word existed in many languages including the Scots bastart & bastert, the French bâtard, the Old French bastardus, the Galician bastardo, the Middle Dutch bastaert, the Dutch bastaard, the Italian bastardo, the Late Latin bastardus, the Indonesian bastar, the Saramaccan bása, the Sranan Tongo basra, the Middle English bastard, bastarde, basterd & bastart.  Use as a generic vulgar term of abuse for a man appears to date from circa 1830 although presumably it may have be slanderously applied in the past.  The early fourteenth century noun bastardy (condition of illegitimacy) was from the Anglo-French and Old French bastardie and appears from the 1570s in contemporary documents in the sense of "begetting of bastards, fornication".  The early seventeenth century verb bastardize meant "to identify as a bastard", predated by the figurative sense, "to make degenerate, debase" which dates from the 1580s, probably because bastard since the 1540s had also served as a verb meaning "to declare illegitimate".  The later use of bastardize, bastardized, bastardizing & bastardization to mean “rituals and activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation as a way of initiating a person into a group or organization” was associated with the military, crime gangs and university fraternities, (ie structures where the membership is predominately made up of males aged 17-25.  The terms hazing, initiation, ragging & deposition were synonymous and all began as regionally-specific but soon tended towards the internationalism which marks modern English.  The once useful phrase “political bastardry” is still seen but is now rare, a victim of association; as children born out of wedlock are now no longer described as bastards, the word is also being banished from some other contexts, including political discourse which is also losing many gender-loaded expressions.  Notable bastards include Confucius (circa 551-479 BC), William the Conqueror (circa 1028-1087), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935), John Gorton (1911-2002), Eva Peron (1919-1952), Fidel Castro (1926-2016) & Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962). 

The bastard file.

A bastard file is a half-round file.  It gained the name from being rendered with an intermediate cut, neither very coarse nor very fine and was thus neither one thing nor the other; it was something impure.  The concept of things in engineering, architecture, literature et al being thought bastardized versions if in any way hybrids or deviations from established forms can apply also to proper nouns.  Bob Cunis (1941-2008) was a New Zealand cricketer described as a “medium pace bowler” which may have been generous; he also extracted little movement from the ball and certainly wasn’t a spinner.  Still, between 1964-1972 he played in 20 test matches and coached the national side for three seasons in the late 1980s.  His contribution to the list of linguistic amusements came when BBC Radio commentator John Arlott (1914-1991), unimpressed by the bowler’s pedestrian deliveries commented: “Cunis, a funny sort of name, like his bowling, neither one thing nor the other."  It passed into the sporting annals but may have be plagiarized, apparently appearing in an earlier newspaper report on a match the tourists played against a county side and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) had sometime before 1952 used the line after learning the name of a member of parliament was Alfred Bossom (1881–1965).

Acropolis

Acropolis (pronounced uh-krop-uh-lis)

(1) A citadel or high fortified area in an ancient Greek city.

(2) The Acropolis, the citadel of Athens on which the Parthenon, the Erechtheum and other structures stand.

1655-1665: From the Ancient Greek Ἀκρόπολις (Akrópolis) (Acropolis), the construct being ἄκρος (ákros) (highest; tip; topmost; summit; elevated part of a Greek city) + πόλις (pólis) (city).  The primitive Indo-European root was ak- (be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce) + polis (city), the plural being acropoles.  The Latinized was acro + polis and the plural form either acropolises or acropoleis.  Acropolis is a proper noun and acropolitan is an adjective; the noun plural is acropolises or acropoleis.

The ruin which overlooks Athens is often referred to as “the Acropolis” but that word actually describes the high hill on which the building sits.  An acropolis was an elevated promontory (usually fortified with a citadel) which formed the hub of many cities in Antiquity, a layout chosen because possession of the high-ground is a classic maxim of military planning when constructing a defensive position.  The ancient temple is correctly called the Parthenon although the term “The Acropolis of Athens” remains common.  It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The site of a number of previously-built temples, the Parthenon was built during the rule of Pericles (circa 495-429 BC) in the Golden Age of Athens (460-430 BC).  Construction took some fifty years and Pericles didn’t live to see it finished and although dominated by the main structure, the acropolis is actually the site of a number of temples and statues.  The Parthenon has been re-purposed over the centuries as power and territorial possession changed.  It’s been a pagan temple, a Christian Church, a residence for Episcopalian clergy, a Mosque, a grain store, a barracks and a munitions powder munitions depot and it was while being used for this latter purpose that the greatest damage in a thousand years was caused.  In a 1687 Venetian siege during the Morean War (1684-1689), the gunpowder magazine suffered a direct hit from an artillery shot and a massive explosion ensued, destroying most of the temple’s internal structure.

It’s from the Parthenon that in 1801, the seventh Earl of Elgin (Thomas Bruce, 1766-1841) removed many of the sculptures, later selling them to the British Museum where a number remain, known as The Elgin Marbles.  Their continued presence in the UK has been a source of dispute between the British and Greek governments for over a century.  The position in London has always been they were a lawful purchase, approved in writing by the local representative of the ruling power in Constantinople.  The view in Athens is they are looted art treasures which should be returned; the Greek Government insisting they should be called The Parthenon Marbles.  The marbles still in Greek hands are on display at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the display space designed to accommodate those now in London.

The Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee.

Designed by architect William Crawford Smith (1837–1899), the Parthenon which stands in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  A full-scale reproduction of the original, it's now an art museum and in the Treasury Room are displayed plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles, cast from the original sculptures.  In the nineteenth century, Nashville was one of a number of cities around the world often styled "the Athens of the South" and this doubtless had some influence on the choice of the building as the exposition's centrepiece but while some of the other structures erected for the event were in the style of buildings from antiquity, the Parthenon was the only one to use exact dimensions.

The 1897 structure was intended to last only for the duration of the exposition and was thus built with plaster, wood & brick but such was the local support for its retention it was left standing, soon beginning to deteriorate.  By 1920 however it was a noted tourist attraction and had become accepted as a feature of the city so, on the same foundations, it was rebuilt in concrete, the project completed in 1931.  Concrete however doesn't possess the same qualities of durability as granite and marble so for the replica to maintain its appearance and structural integrity, progressive replacements of components will be required, engineers noting the essentially modular nature of the construction means it may never need wholly to be re-built.

Down the hill from the Acropolis, two and a half-thousand years later: Club Lohan, Iera Odos 30-32, Athens, Greece.