Acephalous

Acephalous (pronounced ey-sef-uh-luhs)

(1) In zoology, a creature without a head or lacking a distinct head (applied to bivalve mollusks).

(2) In the social sciences, political science & sociology, a system of organisation in a society with no centralized authority (without a leader or ruler), where power is in some way distributed among all or some of the members of the community.

(3) In medicine, as (1) acephalia, a birth defect in which the head is wholly or substantially missing & (2), the congenital lack of a head (especially in a parasitic twin).

(4) In engineering, an internal combustion piston engine without a cylinder head.

(5) In botany, a plant having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex (as is the case in certain ovaries).

(6) In information & communications technology (ICT), a class of hardware and software (variously headless browser, headless computer, headless server etc) assembled lacking some feature or object analogous with a “head” or “high-level” component.

(7) In prosody, deficient in the beginning, as a line of poetry that is missing its expected opening syllable.

(8) In literature, a manuscript lacking the first portion of the text.

1725-1735: From French acéphale (the construct being acéphal(e) + -ous), from the Medieval Latin acephalous, from the Ancient Greek ἀκέφαλος (aképhalos) (headless), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) + κεφαλή (kephalḗ) (head), thus synchronically: a- +‎ -cephalous.  The translingual prefix a- was from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (not, without) and in English was used to form taxonomic names indicating a lack of some feature that might be expected.  The a- prefix (with differing etymologies) was also used to form words imparting various senses.  Acephalous & acephalic are adjectives, acephalousness, acephalia & acephaly are nouns and acephalously is an adverb; the noun plural is acephali.

In biology (although often literally synonymous with “headless”), it was also used to refer to organisms where the head(s) existed only partially, thus the special use of the comparative "more acephalous" and the superlative "most acephalous", the latter also potentially misleading because it referred to extreme malformation rather than absence (which would be something wholly acephalous).  In biology, the companion terms are anencephalous (without a brain), bicephalous (having two heads), monocephalous (used in botany to describe single-headed, un-branched composite plants) & polycephalous (many-headed).

Acephalous: Lindsay Lohan “headless woman” Halloween costume.

The word’s origins were in botany and zoology, the use in political discussion in the sense of “without a leader” dating from 1751.  The Acephali (plural of acephalus) were a people, said to live in Africa, which were the product of the imagination of the writers of Antiquity, said by both the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 487-circa 425 BC) and Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (circa 37–circa 100) to have no heads (sometimes removable heads) and Medieval historians picked up the notion in ecclesiastical histories, describing thus (1) the Eutychians (a Christian sect in the year 482 without a leader), (2) those bishops certain clergymen not under regular diocesan control and later a class of levelers in the time of Henry I (circa 1068–1135; King 1100-1135).  The word still sometimes appears when discussing religious orders, denominations (or even entire churches) which reject the notion of a separate priesthood or a hierarchical order including such as bishops, the ultimate evolution of which is popery.

Acephalousness in its age of mass production: Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) kneeling next to her confessor, contemplates the guillotine on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  Colorized version of a line engraving with etching, 1815.

In political science, acephalous refers to societies without a leader or ruler in the Western sense of the word but it does not of necessity imply an absence of leadership or structure, just that the arrangements don’t revolve around the one ruler.  Among the best documented examples were the desert-dwelling tribes of West Africa (notably those inhabiting the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (now Ghana)), the arrangements of which required the British colonial administrators (accustomed to the ways of India under the Raj with its Maharajas and institutionalized caste system) to adjust their methods somewhat to deal with notions such as distributed authority and collective decision making.  That said, acephalous has sometimes been used too freely.  It is inevitably misapplied when speaking of anarchist societies (except in idealized theoretical models) and often misleading if used of some notionally collectivist models which are often conventional leadership models in disguise or variations of the “dictatorship of the secretariat” typified by the early structure of Stalinism.

The Acephalous Commer TS3

A curious cul-de-sac in engineering, Commer’s acephalous TS3 Diesel engine (1954-1972) was a six-cylinder, two-stroke system, the three cylinders in a horizontal layout, each with two pistons with their crowns facing each other, the layout obviating any need for a cylinder head.  The base of each piston was attached to a connecting rod and a series of rockers which then attached to another connecting rod, joined to the single, centrally located crankshaft at the bottom of the block, a departure from other “opposed piston” designs, almost all of which used twin crankshafts.  The TS3 was compact, powerful and light, the power-to-weight ratio exceptional because without components such as a cylinder heads, camshafts or valve gear, internal friction was low and thermal efficiency commendably high, the low fuel consumption especially notable.  In other companies, engineers were attracted to the design but accountants were sceptical and there were doubts reliability could be maintained were capacity significantly increased (the TS3 was 3.3 litres (200 cubic inch) and when Chrysler purchased Commer in 1967, development ceased although an eight-piston prototype had performed faultlessly in extensive testing.  Production thus cease in 1972 but although used mostly in trucks, there was also a marine version, many examples of which are still running, the operators maintaining them in service because of the reliability, power and economy (although the exhaust emissions are at the shockingly toxic levels common in the 1960s).

Acephalous information & communications technology (ICT)

A headless computer (often a headless server) is a device designed to function without the usual “head” components (monitor, mouse, keyboard) being attached.  Headless systems are usually administered remotely, typically over a network connection although some still use serial links, especially those emulating legacy systems.  Deployed to save both space and money, numerous headless computers and servers still exist although the availability of KVM (and related) hardware which can permit even dozens of machines to be hard-wired to the one keyboard/mouse/monitor/ combination has curbed their proliferation.

A headless browser is a web browser without a graphical user interface (GUI) and can thus be controlled only be from a command-line interface or with a (usually) automated script, often deployed in a network environment.  Obviously not ideal for consumer use, they’re ideal for use in distributed test environments or automating tasks which rely on interaction between web pages.  Until methods of detection improved, headless browsers were a popular way of executing ploys such as credential stuffing, page-view building or automated clicking but there now little to suggest they’re now anymore frequently used as a vector for nefarious activity than conventional browsers with a GUI attached.

Browsing for nerds: Google’s acephalous Headless Chrome.

Headless software is analogous with but goes beyond the concept of a headless computer in that it’s designed specifically to function without not just a GUI or monitor but even the hardware necessary to support the things (notably the video card or port).  Whereas some software will fail to load if no video support is detected, headless software proceeds regardless, either because it’s written without such parameter checking or it includes responses which pass “false positives”, emulating the existence of absent software.  Headless software operated in a specialized (horizontal in terms of industries supplied but vertical in that the stuff exists usually in roles such as back-to-front-end comms on distributed servers) niche, the advantage being the two end can remain static (as some can be for years) while bridge between the two remains the more maintenance intensive application programming interface (API), the architecture affording great flexibility in the software stack.

Odalisque

Odalisque (pronounced ohd-l-isk)

(1) A female slave or concubine in a harem, especially one attached to the Ottoman seraglio.

(2) Any of a number of representations of such a woman or of a similar subject, as by Ingres, Matisse et al (initial capital letter).

(3) In informal use, (1) a desirable or sexually attractive woman and (2) in painting, a reclining female figure in some state of undress (contested).

1680s: From the 1660s French odalique (the intrusive -s- perhaps from -esque), from the Ottoman Turkish اوطه‌لق‎ (ōdalik) (maid-servant (sometimes translated as concubine)), the construct being اوده‎ (oda or ōdah) (room in a harem (literally “chamber, hall”) + lιk (the noun suffix of appurtenance).  In French, the suffix was sometimes confused with Greek -isk(os) (of the nature of, belonging to), hence the alternative spelling odalisk where was still circulating well into the twentieth century.  The spread of the Ottoman Empire from Asia to Europe meant useful or intriguing words from Ottoman Turkish entered other languages.  Some use the French or English forms but other variations included the Catalan odalisca, the Dutch odalisk, the German Odaliske, the Hungarian odaliszk, the Icelandic ódalíska, the Italian odalisca, the Portuguese odalisca, the Russian одали́ска (odalíska), the Serbo-Croatian одалиска (odaliska) and the Spanish odalisca.  Odalisque is a noun; the noun plural is odalisques)

An odalisque and the quality of odalisque: Odalisque à la culotte rouge (Odalisque in red trousers) (1921), oil on canvas by Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France (left) and Lindsay Lohan (2008) in the same vein (right).

Matisse was one of many painters drawn to the exoticism of the orient and painted a series of “Odalisque works”.  There was a time when what white male artists did defined what was art but in recent decades, the depictions by Western artists of aspects of culture east and south of Suez have become controversial, the popular word “problematic” often heard.  Even as historical artefacts, it’s difficult now not to be aware of the complicated legacy such imagery evokes, the Western construct of “Orientalism”, although born of a time when such places were far removed from the industrial society of the post-Enlightenment West, jarring when considered using the twenty-first century standards of representing race and gender.  The objectification by white male artists of women (oriental or not), of course had a long history but it adds another layer when those depicted are the prisoners of a harem, a commodity maintained at the pleasure of a man and discarded at whim.  Did Matisee and the others reveal their colonial attitudes by focusing only on the female body as something which existed aesthetically to please men while ignoring the inherent violence beneath the surface?  There have always been those who argue the artist has the right not to be troubled by (or even know about) such things and the l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) school will always have a following but the recent deconstructions of patriarchal and colonial structures of power do mean that while such works can still be enjoyed, to admit such an indulgence is becoming harder to sustain.

Odalisque au pantalon rouge (Odalisque in Red Pants) (circa 1925), oil on canvas by Henri Matisse, Fundación Museos Nacionales, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela.  The real one is on the left, the forgery on the right.

As commodity however, Matisses remain desirable.  Sometime between 1999-2002, his Odalisque au pantalon rouge (Odalisque in Red Pants) was stolen from the Venezuelan national gallery in Carracus and replaced with a forgery.  The crime remained un-noticed until 2003 and the work was recovered some fourteen years later, the circumstances of the disappearance remaining as murky as Venezuela’s politics but the scandal did attract much attention especially given it was the only Matisse hung in any of the nation’s museums and the only of his Odalisques on display anywhere in Latin America.  After being recovered in 2012 in Miami by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the real and the fake were (side-by-side) exhibited as a kind of installation, accompanied by collateral displays which documented the technical differences between the two, the security protocols by which cultural institutions determined patrimony and the systems maintained to monitor any theft of patrimony, according to the regulations of each country and those of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

US and Mexican nationals were convicted on charges of attempting to sell the stolen Odalisque but most Venezuelans appeared to draw the weary conclusion that official corruption was involved.  It was only when in 2002 the museum received a message telling them the painting was being offered for sale that a check was made and it was found the one on the gallery’s walls not just a fake but a poorly executed one.  Nevertheless, it had hung there for at least two years, an embarrassing photograph from 2000 emerging which showed then President Hugo Chávez (1954–2013; Venezuelan president 1999-2013 (except during a few local difficulties in 2002)) standing in the museum with the fake Matisse behind him.  An investigation began but, as often happens in Venezuela, it proved inconclusive although it did reveal word of the painting being on the market had been received as early as 2000 but the matter, for whatever reason, wasn’t pursued.  When the FBI made their arrests, the suspects told them the painting had been stolen and replaced by museum employees, something which elicited little surprise in Carracus and nor was anyone much shocked when an audit revealed several other pieces were missing, none of which have been recovered.  Under Chavez, Western art was not regarded as anything of importance and, given the country’s problems in the years since, it’s likely that if ever another audit is performed, a few more things might be found to be missing.

An odalisque and the quality of odalisque: Odalisque (circa 1880), oil on canvas by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902)  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (left) and Lindsay Lohan in the same vein, Vanity Fair photo-shoot, 2010 (right).

Inquisition

Inquisition (pronounced in-kwuh-zish-uhn)

(1) An official investigation, especially one of a political or religious nature, historically characterized by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments.

(2) In informal use, harsh, difficult, or prolonged questioning.

(3) The act of inquiring; inquiry; research; an inquest; questioning.

(4) An investigation or process of inquiry, especially a judicial or official inquiry.

(5) In technical use, the finding of a jury, especially such a finding under a writ of inquiry.

(6) Historically, a judicial institution (1232–1820) of the Roman Catholic Church, founded to discover and suppress heresy.

1350–1400: From the Middle English inquisicioun & inquisicion, from the twelfth century Old French inquisicion (inquiry, investigation (inquisition in modern French)), from the Latin inquisitionem (the nominative form in Legal Latin was inquīsītiō) (a seeking of grounds for accusation; a searching into, legal examination) the noun of action from past participle stem of inquirere.  The construct was inquīsīt(us) (past participle of inquīrere (to inquire)) + iōn.  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The word is now most often used, sometime critically, to describe bodies such as royal commissions which are by nature inquisitorial.  Inquisition, inquisitionist & inquisitor are nouns and inquisitorial & inquisitional are adjectives; the noun plural is inquisitions.

The noun inquisitor dates from the early fifteenth century and was the title of the inspector (one who makes inquiries), from the Anglo-French inquisitour, from either the Old French inquisiteur or directly from the Latin inquisitor (searcher, examiner; a legal investigator, collector of evidence), the agent noun from the Latin inquirere.  In the Church, it was the formal title of an officer of the Inquisition from the 1540s.  The feminine forms were inquisitress (1727) & inquisitrix (1825).  In the Church, the role (though not the title) of inquisitor dates from 382, but the ecclesiastical court charged with finding, suppressing and punishing heretics wasn’t formed as an institutionalized standing body until appointments were made by Pope Innocent III (1161–1216; pope 1198-1216) early in the thirteenth century to what was first called the Congregation of the Holy Office.  The English word inquisition began to be used in this sense (and with a capital initial letter) during the 1490s and in the popular imagination has long most been associated with office's reorganization (1478-1483) in Spain, where it fell under the control of the state as what is commonly called the Spanish Inquisition, noted especially for its obsessional secrecy, the severity of its methods of torture and the numbers burned at the stake.

Principle tortures of the Inquisition, woodcut by unknown artist, printed in History of the Inquisition (1850) by Charles H Davie.

Technically, the Inquisition was a group of institutions within the system of the Catholic Church which interacted to varying degrees with the judicial and investigatory offices of secular authorities and it began significantly to grow in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  It expanded from its French origins to other European countries, most famously in the form of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, both of which operated as inquisitorial courts throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  In 1808, Napoleon conquered Spain and ordered the Inquisition there to be abolished although after Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) defeat in 1814, Ferdinand VII (1784–1833; King of Spain 1808 & 1813-1833) attempted a revival but was prevented by the French government upon which his tenuous hold on the throne depended.  With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was defunct by 1834, surviving only in the Roman Curia, renamed in 1908 the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and known since 1965 as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The Inquisitor and a recalcitrant.

Except among historians and Church scholars, all of who have their own favourites, the best known Inquisitor is doubtlessly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022; the future Pope Benedict XVI, pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), appointed by Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) to the office of Prefect (the new (touchy-feely) brand-name for the Inquisitor) of the CDF.  The quarter-century Benedict spent as Inquisitor was both an interesting prelude to his still under-estimated pontificate and the just reward for his abandonment of the youthful indiscretion that was his enthusiasm for reform and change in the Church.  He’d been hopeful, optimistic even, about the possibilities for modernization offered by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II 1962-1965) but having witnessed the social convulsions and the riots across Europe in 1968, which at some moments seemed to verge on revolution, he became disturbed at the effect on youth and the challenge to Church teachings.  He was then the ideal Inquisitor with which the Church could enter the third millennium and updated the philosophical doctrine under which he’d been trained, realizing the great enemies of the Church were no longer communism, homosexuality & Freemasonry but were now Islam, homosexuality & Freemasonry.  Unfortunately, his time as Inquisitor coincided with the need to deal with distasteful, worldly matters rather than the heresy and fine theological points in which he’d more happily have allowed himself to become immersed.  Regrettably too, the powers of the CDF were more limited than in medieval times and a defrocking (laicization) was the most extreme punishment he was able to recommend, the last hanging by the Inquisition being a Spanish schoolmaster in 1826, the last burning at the stake seventy years earlier.

Ichthyology

Ichthyology (pronounced ik-thee-ol-uh-jee)

(1) In zoology, the scientific study of fishes.

(2) The study of the history, cultural & economic importance of fishes.

1640–1650: A compound word, the construction being ichthyo- + -logy.  Ichthyo- and ichthy- were from the Ancient Greek ἰχθύς (ikhthús) (fish), possibly from the primitive Indo-European dhghu and there may be a relationship with the Old Armenian ձուկն (jukn) & the Lithuanian žuvis and the suffix –logy was derived from the Ancient Greek λογία (logos) (to study).  The English -logy suffix originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the -λογία is an integral part of the word loaned whereas the French -logie is a continuation of the Latin -logia, ultimately from Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within English, the suffix has long been productive, especially to form names of sciences or departments of study, analogous to names of disciplines loaned from the Latin, such as astrology from astrologia or geology from geologia. Original compositions of terms with no precedent in Greek or Latin become common by the early nineteenth century, sometimes imitating French or German templates; insectology (1766) after the French insectologie & terminology (1801) after the German terminologie.  By the twentieth century, English creations with no Greek or Latin origin (undergroundology (1820), hatology (1837) were frequent, sometimes in conjunction with –ism words.  Ichthyology is a noun, related forms include ichthyologic & ichthyological (adjectives), ichthyologically is an adverb; the noun plural is ichthyologists.

The noun piscatology was an irregular (and jocular) formation dating from 1857, the construct being the Latin piscatus, past participle of piscārī (to fish), present active infinitive of piscor, from piscis, from the Proto-Italic piskis, from the primitive Indo-European peysḱ-, the cognates including the Old Irish íasc, the Gothic fisks and the Old English fisċ + -olgy.  The word piscatology has been used to mean “the study of fish” (and thus a synonym of ichthyology)) but not by scientists and the irregular form is now more correctly casually applied to fishing and those who fish.  In the 1990s, the idea behind the construction of piscatology begat piscetarian and pescetarian (a person who consumes no animal flesh with the exception of fish or other seafood), by analogy with “vegetarian”.

Reeling one in: Lindsay Lohan and Hofit Golan (b 1985) fishing off Sardinia, July 2016.  They would be considered piscatologists rather than ichthyologists although there are humorless purists who insist there's no such word as piscatologist.

In zoology, the modern conventions of taxonomy mean fishes are precisely categorized but the English word “fish” for centuries was used to describe a much wider range of species (although one discerning observer in the fifteenth century did concoct fishes bestiales (water animals other than fishes), presumably on the basis fishes proper should be limited to something like “a vertebrate which has gills and fins adapting it for living in the water”.  As still familiar names like starfish, jellyfish, shellfish & cuttlefish attest, just about any fully aquatic animal (including mammals like dolphins & whales) was thought some sort of fish and attempts by zoologists to rectify things (such as suggesting the starfish should retroactively be named sea star) have made little impact.  The difficulty with such a project is that historically, some fish were also misleadingly named.  The name seahorse (also as sea horse & sea-horse) encompasses dozens of small fish in the genus Hippocampus, from the Ancient Greek hippókampos (ἱππόκαμπος), the construct being híppos (ἵππος) (horse) + kámpos (κάμπος) (sea monster or sea animal).  To be consistent, these engaging creatures would presumably have to be named horsefish (risking confusion with one of Donald Trump’s alleged former associates) or something else less appealing than seahorse and that’s unlikely to attract much support.

Fish was from the Middle English fisch, from Old English fisċ (fish), from the Proto-West Germanic fisk, from the Proto-Germanic fiskaz (fish) and was related to the West Frisian fisk, the Dutch vis, the German Fisch, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish fisk and the Icelandic fiskur.  The word was linked with both the Latin piscis and the Old Irish īasc although the actual root remains unknown.  Some have constructed the primitive Indo-European roots pisk & peysk- because of evidence gleaned from the Italic, Celtic, and Germanic but it remains speculative and one etymologist maintains that (on phonetic grounds), it may be a north-western Europe substratum word .  The verb fish (to harvest creatures living in water) was from the Old English fiscian ("to try to catch fish) was cognate with the Old Norse fiska, the Old High German fiscon, the German fischen and the Gothic fiskon and was directly from the noun; the related forms were fished & fishing.

Lindsay Lohan with catch.  To avoid cancellation, she posted on Instagram that “Bonding with nature. I let my little friend swim away after.”

In astronomy and (the then respectable) astrology, the constellation Pisces was so described from the late-fourteenth century.  From the mid eighteenth century, “fish” (with modifiers) came to be applied to people in a usually derogatory sense, a shift from the earlier use when it had been positive in the sense of someone being a good (romantic) “catch”.  The original figurative sense was of a “fish out of water” (person in an unfamiliar and awkward situation (usually social)) recorded in the 1610s and in the same vein the phrase “a fisshe out of the see” was noted in the mid-fifteenth century.  To “drink like a fish” was from 1744 and was applied to those over-fond of strong drink while “having other fish to fry” (other things demanding more immediate attention) dates from the 1650s.  In optics, the fish-eye lens was first sold in 1961, fish-and-chips became a staple of English cuisine in the 1870s and fish-fingers were first sold (in frozen form) from 1962, the earlier fish-cake known since the 1910s and especially popular during wartime rationing.

The phrase “plenty more fish in the sea” was a re-assuring line for those whose love was unrequited and like “cold fish” & “queer fish” (both alluding to qualities detected in those with some degree of social ineptitude) was a coining from the early twentieth century.  Usually applied to other soldiers, “queer fish” was a favourite of Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946), a perhaps unexpected choice for one of Britain’s more renowned ornithologists.  Why Sir Henry Channon (1897–1958) gained the nickname "Chips" is uncertain but it’s popularly attributed to a photograph taken of him standing on the stairs while at Oxford, next to a Mr Fysch.  Channon’s (almost) un-redacted diaries (1918-1957 (with gaps)), published in three volumes between 2021-2023 revealed him at his best and worst and are an indispensable companion while reading anything about mid-twentieth century British politics.

The plural of fish is an illustration of the inconsistency of English.  As the plural form, “fish” & “fishes” are often (and harmlessly) used interchangeably but in zoology, there is a distinction, fish (1) the noun singular & (2) the plural when referring to multiple individuals from a single species while fishes is the noun plural used to describe different species or species groups.  The differentiation is thus similar to that between people and peoples yet different from the use adopted when speaking of sheep and, although opinion is divided on which is misleading (the depictions vary), those born under the zodiac sign Pisces are referred to variously as both fish & fishes.

Coefficient

Coefficient (pronounced koh-uh-fish-uhnt)

(1) In mathematics, a number or quantity in an equation placed usually before and multiplying another number or quantity; a constant by which an algebraic term is multiplied; a number, value or item that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic.

(2) In physics, a number that is constant for a given substance, body, or process under certain specified conditions, serving as a measure of one of its properties; a number, value or item that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic.

(3) Acting together (rare except in historic references).

1580s: From the Middle English coefficient (that which unites in action with something else to produce a given effect), from the French coefficient, coined by French mathematician François Viète (1540-1603), from the Late Latin coefficient, stem of coefficiēns, which is a nominalisation of the present active participle of coefficere, the construct being co- (together) + efficere (to effect) from efficio.  The alternative spelling is co-efficient and the adjectival sense “acting in union to the same end” was first used in the 1660s.  Coefficient is a noun & adjective, coefficiency is a noun and coefficiently an adverb; the noun plural is coefficients.

In science and engineering, the word is applied for a variety of technical purposes, including:

(1) In physics, as coefficient of friction, the ratio between (1) the magnitude of the force of friction which a surface produces on an object (moving along the surface or being pressed statically against it) & (2) the magnitude of the normal force which is produced by the surface on the object and which is perpendicular to that surface.

(2) In physics, as drag coefficient, a dimensionless quantity quantifying the amount of hydrodynamic drag force experienced by an object with a given area immersed in a fluid of a given density flowing at a given speed.

(3) In statistical analysis, a coefficient of alienation (or coefficient of non-determination), a numerical measure of the lack of relationship between variables.

(4) In physics, as ballistic coefficient, the ratio of the mass of an object to the product of its maximum cross-sectional area and its drag coefficient, used to measure the object's resistance to deceleration by hydrodynamic drag.

(5) In chemistry, as Bunsen coefficient, the number of millilitres of gas dissolved in a millilitre of liquid at atmospheric pressure and a specified temperature.

(6) In statistics, as Dice coefficient, a statistic used to gauge the similarity of two samples.  It is equal to twice the number of elements common to both sets, divided by the sum of the number of elements in each set.

(7) In naval architecture, as prismatic coefficient, the ratio between the total submerged volume of a vessel's hull, on the one hand, and the product of the length of the submerged portion of the hull with the area of the largest cross-sectional slice of the submerged portion of the hull, on the other.

(8) In naval architecture, as block coefficient, the proportion occupied, by the submerged portion of a vessel's hull, of a rectangular prism with dimensions equal to the maximum beam of the submerged portion of the hull, the length of the submerged portion of the hull, and the draft of the vessel.

(9) In measurement, as temperature coefficient, a number which relates the change of the magnitude of a physical property to a unit change in temperature.

(10) In nuclear engineering, as void coefficient, a number quantifying how the reactivity of a nuclear reactor changes due to the formation of bubbles in the reactor's coolant.

Drag coefficient (CD)

Except in a vacuum, objects in motion are subject to drag, the friction created by air or water interacting with the object’s surface.  This friction absorbs energy the object could otherwise use to maintain or increase speed so, except where drag is required (such as the need for a certain amount of down-force), designers of objects which move, shape them to minimise drag. Historically, the drag coefficient was notated as c_d but it’s also written as c_x & c_w (cd or CD a common form in non-specialist literature).  The CD number is calculated according to a equation, the construct of which varies according to the object to be assessed.  For a car, the equation is:

F = 1/2 * rho * S * Cx * v²

F is the dragging force, in expressed in Newtons (N)

S is the frontal surface of the object in square metres (m²)

Cx is the aerodynamic finesse, which varies depending on the shape of the object

v is the relative speed of the object (the car) compared to the fluid (the air), in meters per second (m/s), separated into vc (object speed) and va (air speed) and written (vc - va)

rho is the density of the fluid, the air, in kilograms per cubic meters (kg/ m³) (approximately to 1.55 kg/m³)

The drag coefficient (CD) is a measure of aerodynamic efficiency, expressed as a number and, as a general principle, the lower the number, the more efficient the shape but the CD is often misunderstood.  It’s not an absolute value which can be used to compare relative efficiency of objects of radically different shapes.  A CD for an aircraft needs to be compared with that of other airframes, not those of a train or truck, the CD calculated by an equation using a variable (the reference area) relevant to the function of the object.  For aircraft, the variable is the wing area because it’s relevant for an object moving in three dimensions whereas for road vehicles, it’s the frontal area, cars and trucks almost always moving forward.  That’s why noting a Boeing 747 has a CD of .031 while a Porsche 911 might return .34 is a meaningless comparison.

1963 Jaguar E-Type S1 (XK-E) FHC (fixed head coupé) (left) and 1962 Volkswagen Type 2 (23 Window Samba).

Even among road transport vehicles, the variability in the equations needs to be understood.  Just because a Volkswagen Type 2 returns a CD of .42 doesn’t mean it’s a more aerodynamic shape than a Jaguar E-Type (XK-E) which produces a notionally worse .44 CD.  The numbers are a product partly of the variable, the frontal area, so the efficiency of the Volkswagen can be assessed only if compared to other, similarly sized vans.

Collage

Collage (pronounced kuh-lahzh or koh-lahzh)

(1) The technique, most associated with visual abstract art, of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope.

(2) A work of art produced by this technique.

(3) An assemblage or occurrence of diverse elements or fragments in (1) and unlikely or unexpected juxtaposition or (2) a coherent result.

(4) In film, a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or images or shifts from one scene or image to another suddenly and without transition.

(5) Any work created by combining unrelated (or at least definably different) styles; in literature, a combination of styles within the one work; in music a combinations of genres.

1915–1920: From the French collage, the construct being coll(er) (paste, glue) + -age.  Coller was from the Ancient Greek κόλλα (kólla) (glue) of uncertain origin but may ultimately be from the primitive Indo-European kol- and cognates included the Russian кле́й (kléj) and the Middle Dutch helen. The –age suffix was from the Middle French -age, from Old French -age, from the Latin –āticum (influential in words like rivage and voyage) which was used to form nouns or collective nouns in the sense of "action or state of being (a) X, result of Xing" or (more rarely), "action related to X".  Although the historical suffix has had many applications (eg family relationships or locations), it’s now almost wholly restricted to the sense of "action of Xing", and many terms now have little to no connection with the most common uses something especially notable in forms descended from actual Latin words such as fromage and voyage.  Collage & Collagist are nouns, collaged & collaging are verbs (used with object); the noun plural is collages.

Of the accidental & intentional

It not certain exactly when collage was first used in the sense its modern meaning.  It's sometimes credited to English painter and critic, Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) who used the term in a 1919 publication but that’s contested given the word had appeared earlier though there’s some doubt whether that was in reference to the mechanical technique or the final product.  What became known as collage certainly long pre-dates 1919; papier collé was used by both Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Georges Braque (1882–1963) early in the century and artists, authors & painters had for centuries been producing work from disparate components.  In the digital age, the somewhat misleadingly named software eCollage (and many others) allowed collages to be created on screen although, technically, these programs were as often used to render photomontage as collage.  The opportunistically named iCollage is an image-assembly app for iOS.

A montage of Che Guevara collages.  The difference between collage and montage is that while a collage weaves together things of difference to create a unified whole, a montage uses complete things of some similarity to create something visually coherent although, with some modern artists, coherence can prove elusive.

Colleges by Giuseppe Arcimboldi; Left to right: Four Seasons in One Head, oil on canvas, (circa 1590), Fire, oil on wood, (1566), Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor painted as Vertumnus, Roman god of the seasons, oil on canvas, (circa 1591), The Librarian, oil on canvas, (1566) & Summer, oil on canvas, (1563).

In Western portraiture, the collage is not a recent form.  Although also a conventional court painter of portraits and sacred art, Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldi (1527–1593) was noted for his portraits rendered as collages, the heads fashioned from objects such as vegetables, fruits, flowers & fish.  Very much the modern art of his day, his fanciful work seems to have been well received and critics have linked his work to the tradition of Mannerism.  Examples of collage have been found which pre-date Antiquity and the idea of assembling some representation of something from whatever items fall to hand is thought likely to have been one of the earliest forms of human artistic expression. 

Colleges by Jason Mecier; Left to right: Sigmund Freud, Frida Kahlo, Barack Obama, Lindsay Lohan & Donald Trump.

Los Angeles based pop artist Jason Mecier (b 1968) operates in a particular niche of the collage world, his mosaic portraits fabricated from unconventional materials, sometimes thematic (Sigmund Freud rendered in pills) and most famously, trash.  Perhaps surprisingly, Mr Mecier seems never to have fashioned a likeness of crooked Hillary Clinton; even when working with trash, presumably one has to draw the line somewhere.

Bling

Bling (pronounced bling (sometimes bling-bling)

(1) Expensive and flashy jewelry, clothing, or other possessions.

(2) The flaunting of material wealth and the associated lifestyle.

(3) Flashy; ostentatious.

(4) A want of resemblance (obsolete).

1997: Apparently from Jamaican English slang bling-bling, a sound suggested by the quality of light reflected by diamonds.  In the Caribbean, bling-bling came to be used to refer to flashy items (originally jewelry but later of any display of wealth) and the term was picked up in the US in African-American culture where it came to be associated with the rap and hip-hop (pop music forks) community.  There were suggestion the word bling was purely onomatopoeic (a vague approximation of pieces of jewelry clinking together) but most etymologists list it as one of the rare cases of a silent onomatopoeia: a word imitative of the imaginary sound many people “hear” at the moment light reflects off a sparkling diamond.  The long obsolete meaning “a want of resemblance” came from earlier changes in pronunciation when dissem′blance became pronounced variously as dissem′bler and dissem′ bling with bling becoming the slang form.  There is no relationship with the much older German verb blinken (to gleam, sparkle).

In the English-speaking world, bling & bling-bling began to appear in dictionaries early in the twenty-first century.  Many languages picked up bling & bling-bling unaltered but among the few localizations were the Finnish killuttimet and the Korean beullingbeulling (블링블링) and there was also the German blinken (to blink, flashing on & off), a reference to the gleam and sparkle of jewels and precious metals.  Blinken was from the Low German and Middle Low German blinken, from the root of blecken (to bare) and existed also in Dutch.  As viral-words sometimes do, bling begat some potentially useful (and encouraged) derivations including blingesque, blingtastic, blingbastic blingiest, blingest, a-bling & blingistic; all are non-standard forms and patterns of use determine whether such pop-culture constructs endure.  Bling & blinger are nouns, blinged, blingish, blingy & blingless are adjectives, bling-out, blinged-out & bling-up are verbs; the noun plural is blingers (bling and bling-bling being both singular & plural).

The preferred repository for bling between wears: Hermès Fuchsia Pink Ostrich Birkin, Lindsay Lohan's seat on a private jet, September 2012.  

In popular use, bling referred originally to the wearing of bright, usually large and expensive accessories, later extended to the adornment of objects such as cars and houses.  The purpose always was conspicuously to flaunt one’s wealth (however obtained) but the word did undergo a bit of down-market mission creep in that it came quickly to be applied also to cheap (even if obviously so) embellishments or products thought in any way flashy.  That movement was a hint that bling, although a thing of prestige in certain classes, was regarded by others as not in good taste, hence the use of the word to describe lifestyles even not associated with the display of bling in its original sense.

Libération's take on Sarko (Nicolas Sarközy (b 1955; President of France 2007-2012)).

Nicolas Sarközy attracted the label "bling-bling president" because of the perception his time in the Élysée Palace came to be associated with pop-culture celebrities, designer accessories and his sudden acquisition of rich friends (the latter noted also of his successor).  There may have been an element of snobbery in much of the coverage, some sections of the press not impressed with any departure from the lineage of tradition and grandeur carried over from the Kings of France and the twice divorced Mr Sarközy’s less than usual background (in terms of both class and ethnicity) probably offended some, his marriage to Italian-born former model Carla Bruni (b 1967) attracting some comment because of the variety in her portfolio.  He did seem unable to resist the lure of bling, even his choice of the smart Hotel Barriere Le Fouquet's (located where the Champs Elysees meets Avenue George V) as the place to celebrate his election victory in 2007 noted.

Mr Sarközy achieved a few political firsts but also made legal history, becoming the first former president in post-war France to have received a prison sentence for corruption, the three year term (two suspended) imposed for influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy, the former president having attempted to bribe a magistrate in return for information on an investigation into his campaign finances.  His wife called the sentence a "a senseless witch-hunt" but, like Lindsay Lohan, he was able to serve the one-year custodial term at home fitted with an electronic tag.  The appeal process is still working its way through the system.  There are also accusations Mr Sarközy received illegal campaign funds from the late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011), that tangled matter resulting in charges of criminal conspiracy, corruption, illegal campaign financing and benefiting from embezzled public funds.

Mayara Rodrigues Tavares (b 1991; former Unicef representative), President Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) & President Sarközy, G8 summit (Russia was briefly thought respectable), L'Aquila, Italy, July, 2009.  The photograph was widely distributed but the impression conveyed was a trick of the camera angle, President Obama exonerated by video footage taken at the time, President Sarközy perhaps not.

Official DPRK Central News Agency Photograph: Ri Sol-ju (b circa 1987; wife of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un) (left), Kim Ju-ae (b circa 2013; daughter of Kim Jong-un) (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) (right), undisclosed location, February 2023.

The appearance of the Supreme Leader’s nine-year old daughter at a banquet and subsequent parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Korean People's Army (KPA) attracted interest because as analysts noted, in the way the Kim dynasty does things, it might suggest she has been anointed as Kim IV to succeed the Supreme Leader when he dies (God forbid).  It was actually her second public appearance, the first in 2022 when she was involved in inspections of the DPRK’s nuclear missile programme so she’s getting well acquainted with big rockets, long a family interest.  Fashionistas were most impressed by the presumptive Kim IV in 2022 because she was dressed in black white & red, matching the color scheme the DPRK uses on its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); everyone thought that a nice touch.  The DPRK has recently issued a range of postage stamps featuring the daughter.

Daddy-Daughter day with ICBM: DPRK postage stamp issue featuring ICBMs, the Supreme Leader & his daughter, Kim Ju-ae.  Like most nine-year old girls, Kim Ju-ae is much taken by the beauty of nuclear weapons. 

Standing behind the ruling family are DPRK generals and admirals, noted for their big hats and bling-bling medals.  Militaries around the world envy the hats but the bling-bling medals are sometimes misunderstood.  Although the DPRK military has not formally been involved in armed conflict since the end of the Korean War (1950—1953), it’s not entirely true the soldiers and sailors have not been deployed in combat, the odd local battle with RoK (South Korea) forces happening over the years and some DPRK soldiers have been loaned to other countries for use in localized conflicts.  Still, there wouldn’t seem to have been sufficient reason to award as many medals as the generals always display.  The reason for all that bling-bling is that the DPRK operates under a three generation hereditary system, one convention of which is that they are entitled to wear the medals awarded to their fathers and grandfathers.  Few armies follow this tradition and regards awards a purely personal possessions (although relatives can wear them in memorial parades on the right-side of the chest).  The DPRK regards the restriction as extreme Western individualism and an insult to the dead and to maintain consistency, applies the three-generation model also to their criminal justice system.  Under the doctrine of "three generations of punishment" individuals found guilty of a crime are sent to the labor camps with their entire family, the subsequent two generations of the family are born in the camp and remain locked up for life.  This includes those convicted of “unspecified offences” all of whom, although never quite sure of the nature of their offence, are certainly guilty.

Blinged-up: DPRK (North Korean) Army generals, in full-dress bling-bling await the arrival of the DPRK Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un.

Unfortunately, the image on the left was digitally altered for a meme, the original to the right.  The generals wear big hats and have lots of medals but never wear them on the sleeves or trousers.  Unfortunately too, the quality of the medals is not what it was though, at a distance, they look still blingish.  Between 1948 and the Sino-Soviet Split in 1957-1958, the medals were made in the USSR on the model of Soviet decorations and rendered from sterling silver with a screw-plate used to attach them to the uniforms.  Because the DPRK was aligned with Peking, Moscow declined to continue the supply so production was moved to North Korea and, lacking the necessary machine tools and other equipment, things had to be simplified: screw-plate was replaced with a pin and instead of silver, the much lighter and cheaper tin was used.  Many have defected from the DPRK so a number of these medals circulate in militaria markets and the later examples sell usually for much less than the genuine, Soviet-made bling.

Ri Sol-ju has her own taste in bling.  Instead of a decadently Western display of gold, diamonds or precious stones over a tempting décolletage, the demurely attired First Lady wears a simple pendant in the shape of the DPRK’s Hwasong-16 ICBM.  Analysts suggest her choice is jewellery is a political statement rather than a hint to her husband about something.

Aroint

Aroint (pronounced uh-roint)

Begone (as imperative verb) (obsolete).

1595–1605: Of uncertain origin, it survives in English as a curiosity in the lexicon of the obscure, only because it was used by Shakespeare (only as an imperative) and its etymology has thus over the centuries been subject to much conjecture, none of which have ever been escorted by enough evidence to impress the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which has never budged from origin unknown.  There are many words which, however neglected, not entirely forgotten only because they were used by Shakespeare, aroint appearing in both Macbeth and King Lear.  Aroint is a verb.

“Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed runnion cries!”
 (Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 3)

“And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!”
 (King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4)

In the right circumstances, still a useful word still.  Donald Trump and crooked Hillary Clinton.

The origin of aroint has long intrigued Shakespearian scholars.  One nineteenth century theory linked it to a regional dialectical use in Cheshire where rynt, roynt & runt were recorded, milkmaids saying the phrase “rynt thee” to a cow, the beasts so used to the sound that swiftly they moved from her way.  In 1674, some sixty years after Macbeth and Lear were first performed, “rynt you” appeared in a provincial dictionary without any suggestion of further elucidation but the speculation continued.  English philologist John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) cited ronger, rogner & royner, claiming “from whence also aroynt”, all meaning a “separation or discontinuity of the skin or flesh by a gnawing, eating forward, malady”, offering a comparison with the Italian rogna (scabies, mange) and ronyon in Macbeth.  Other early candidates for the etymon are the French arry–avant (away there, ho!), éreinte–toi (break thy back or reins (used as an imprecation)), the Latin dii te averruncent (may the devils take thee) and the Italian arranca (the imperative of arrancare (plod along, trudge)).  Perhaps most obviously, many have mentioned aroint being an expected phonetic variant of anoint or acquiring in some contexts the figurative sense “thrash”, convincing to some because it hints at the common account of witches who were said to perform their supernatural acts by means of unguents.  There was also English diarist and prolific antiquary Thomas Hearne (1678–1735) who in his Ectypa Varia ad Historiam Britannicam (Selected Illustrated History of Britain (1737)) included an illustration of a devil, driving the damned while chanting “Out, out Arongt.”  Arongt resembles aroint and the sense is close but that’s never been enough to satisfy the etymologists.

Threatened with arointment.

In 2018, while operating the Lohan Beach House in Rhodes, Greece, Lindsay Lohan threatened to aroint two employees, their transgressive behavior being photographed wearing two different styles of shoes, one in nude heels, the other in blocky white platforms.  They were otherwise matching in cream robes but not content, Lindsay Lohan posted "Wear the same shoes please.  Or you’re fired."  Shoes were a serious matter at the Lohan Beach House.

One favourite theory of origin is the Rowan tree.  As early as 1784, it was suggested aroint has something to do with rauntree, one of several variants of “rowan tree”, an alleged virtue of which, mentioned in myth and folklore from Ancient Greece to Scandinavia, was its ability to deter witches, protecting people and cattle from evil.  The origin of this handy attribute lies in Norse mythology for Thor was once almost drowned in a river at the hands of a witch but he threw at her a great stone and was carried ashore, pulling himself from the depths by grasping at the limbs of a tree, forever after known as “Thor’s rescue.”  Thus began the tradition of shouting rauntree or rointree to chase away witches, of which there are many.  Rowan is a noun of Scandinavian origin (the Icelandic reynir; the Norwegian raun), the suggestion being an imprecation like a “raun“ to “reyn to thee” seems effortlessly to have slurred to become “aroint thee.”  Some are convinced, some not.