Typology

Typology (pronounced tahy-pol-uh-jee)

(1) The doctrine or study of types or pre-figurative symbols.

(2) A systematic classification or study of types and the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics.

(3) In linguistics, the study and classification of languages according to structural features, especially patterns of phonology, morphology, and syntax, without reference to their histories.

(4) In archaeology, the result of the classification of things according to their characteristics.

(5) In Biblical scholarship, the study of symbolic representation, particularly the origin and meaning of Scripture types.

(6) In theology, the doctrine or study of types or of the correspondence between them and the realities which they typify.

1835–1845:  A compound word, the construct being typo- + -logy.  The Middle English type (symbol, figure, emblem) was from the Latin typus, from the Ancient Greek τύπος (túpos) (mark, impression, type), from τύπτω (túptō) (I strike, beat).  The –ology suffix was also a construct, built from -o- (an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The English -logy suffix originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned such as astrology from astrologia, the practice since the sixteenth century.  The French -logie is a continuation of the Latin -logia, ultimately from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  In Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (logos) (account, explanation, narrative), itself a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English, the suffix has long been productive, especially to form the names of scientific disciplines, analogous to names of disciplines loaned from the Latin, such as geology from geologia.  Original compositions of terms with no precedent in Greek or Latin become common in the late eighteenth century, sometimes imitating French or German templates; insectology (after the French insectologie (1766) and terminology after German terminologie (1801).  From the nineteenth century, the suffix was applied to words with no Greek or Latin origin, such as undergroundology (1820) and hatology (1837).  In the twentieth century, it began liberally to be applied to for amusing yet useful words (such as Kremlinology) and sometime satirically (garbageology, burgerology, footballology et al).  Typology & typologist are nouns and typological & typologic are adjectives; the noun plural is typologies.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

In pop-psychology, one of the most popular tests is the so-called "16 Personalities Test", a multi-choice exercise in typology which determines one’s place in the sixteen.  The model is that of the original Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which uses a combination of four letters to represent different personality types.  The four letters are drawn from:

(E) Extraversion: How much one focuses on the outer world versus inner world.

(I) Introversion: How much one focuses on the inner world vs. outer world.

(S) Sensing: How one processes information through the senses and concrete experience.

(N) Intuition: How one processes information through patterns and possibilities.

(T) Thinking: How one makes decisions based on objective analysis and logic.

(F) Feeling: How one makes decisions based on subjective values and emotions.

(J) Judging: How one prefers a structured, organized, and planned lifestyle.

(P) Perceiving: How one prefers a flexible, adaptable, and spontaneous lifestyle.

Bolted on to the four letter string is an additional –A or –T.  The (-A) applies to those who are Assertive Advocates who see things through a filter that values humanity and want to have people (in limited introverted doses) in their lives.  The (-T) people are Turbulent Advocates who are more likely to go beyond merely wanting people in their lives.

Lindsay Lohan, suspected ESFP

Most sites which list celebrities as illustrative examples of the type categorize Lindsay Lohan as ESFP (Entertainer) although some also put her in the INFJ (advocate) list and variation between tests is not unusual because a single different answer can change the allocation.  For an actor to be found to be "an entertainer" is obviously uncontroversial, the interest presumably in the appended -A or -T which would depend on variations in the answers.  The test has always been popular although the profession doesn’t regard as serious science and its origin actually was a reaction by someone who though the orthodox scientific approaches were needlessly complex.  In its original form it was first published in 1944 and has been often since revised.  Pseudoscience or not, it’s great fun and there are worse ways of deciding whether or not to marry one’s boyfriend.  Grouped into four categories, the sixteen types are:

Analysts

(1) Architect (INTJ-A / INTJ-T): Imaginative and strategic thinkers, with a plan for everything.

(2) Logician (INTP-A / INTP-T): Innovative inventors with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

(3) Commander (ENTJ-A / ENTJ-T): Bold, imaginative and strong-willed leaders, always finding a way – or making one.

(4) Debater (ENTP-A / ENTP-T): Smart and curious thinkers who cannot resist an intellectual challenge.

Diplomats

(5) Advocate (INFJ-A / INFJ-T): Quiet and mystical, yet very inspiring and tireless idealists.

(6) Mediator (INFP-A / INFP-T): Poetic, kind and altruistic people, always eager to help a good cause.

(7) Protagonist (ENFJ-A / ENFJ-T): Charismatic and inspiring leaders, able to mesmerize their listeners.

(8) Campaigner (ENFP-A / ENFP-T): Enthusiastic, creative and sociable free spirits, who can always find a reason to smile.

Sentinels

(9) Logistician (ISTJ-A / ISTJ-T): Practical and fact-minded individuals, whose reliability cannot be doubted.

(10) Defender (ISFJ-A / ISFJ-T): Very dedicated and warm protectors, always ready to defend their loved ones.

(11) Executive (ESTJ-A / ESTJ-T): Excellent administrators, unsurpassed at managing things – or people.

(12) Consul (ESFJ-A / ESFJ-T): Extraordinarily caring, social and popular people, always eager to help.

Explorers

(13) Virtuoso (ISTP-A / ISTP-T): Bold and practical experimenters, masters of all kinds of tools.

(14) Adventurer (ISFP-A / ISFP-T): Flexible and charming artists, always ready to explore and experience something new.

(15) Entrepreneur (ESTP-A / ESTP-T): Smart, energetic and very perceptive people, who truly enjoy living on the edge.

(16) Entertainer (ESFP-A / ESFP-T): Spontaneous, energetic and enthusiastic people – life is never boring around them.

The difference between between Typology and Allegory in Biblical scholarship

Typology is an approach to the interpretation of the Scriptures found in the New Testament itself and in the writings of the early Church, which sees certain people and events in the Old Testament (Types) as foreshadowing things fulfilled in the New Testament (Antitypes). This is related to, but distinct from, allegory.  The opinions of those in the early Church were never monolithic, the view being that Scripture had different levels of meaning which included the literal or historical sense of the text, but could also have an allegorical, or a typological meaning.  A text also has a moral sense and an anagogical or mystical sense. That a text had an allegorical or typological meaning did not negate the historical sense, it being just another way of understanding the text.

Typology stresses the connection between actual persons, events, places, and institutions of the Old Testament, and their corresponding reality in the New Testament which they foreshadowed.  Moses the Lawgiver foreshadows Christ, the ultimate Lawgiver.  Aaron, the high priest, foreshadows Christ, the ultimate High Priest.  Manna, which fed the people in the wilderness foreshadows the Christ the Heavenly Bread (the Eucharist), which provides ultimate spiritual nourishment.  The classic example is probably the The Burning Bush which foreshadows the Theotokos.  In the book of Exodus, God calls Moses on Mount Horeb from the midst of a bush which "was burning, yet it was not consumed".  The Church sees the Unburnt Bush on Horeb as a type of the Most Holy Theotokos, who gave birth to Christ while still while remaining a virgin.

Allegory finds hidden or symbolic meaning in the Old Testament, which is inherent in text and does not depend on a future historical fulfillment; for example, I Corinthians 9:8-10 sees the law forbidding the muzzling of an ox while it treads the corn as having the hidden meaning that a minister of the Gospel should be supported by the people he ministers to.  The Song of Solomon is also often interpreted as an allegory of God (the Lover), and His love for His people (the beloved). The allegorical approach also often sees multiple correspondences in a given narrative which illustrate some point. For example, St Paul explicitly uses allegory in Galatians 4, in which he sees the child of the slave woman (Hagar) as representing those under the Law, while the child of the free woman (Sarah) as representing those under the New Covenant, and the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael as representing the inferiority of the Old Covenant to the New (Galatians 4:21-31).

Shuttle

Shuttle (pronounced shuht-l)

(1) In weaving, a device in a loom for passing or shooting the weft thread through the shed from one side of the web to the other, usually consisting of a boat-shaped piece of wood containing a bobbin on which the weft thread is wound (ie the tool which carries the woof back and forth (shuttling) between the warp threads on a loom).

(2) In a sewing machine, the sliding container (thread-holder) that carries the lower thread through a loop of the upper thread to make a lock-stitch.

(3) In transport, a public conveyance (bus, train, ferry, car, limousine aircraft), that travels back and forth at regular intervals over a particular route, especially a short route or one connecting two transportation systems; the service provided by such vehicles.

(4) In badminton, as shuttlecock, the lightweight object, built with a weighted (usually rubber-covered) semi-spherical nose attached to a conical construction (historically of feathers but now usually synthetic) and used as a ball is used in other racquet games. Shuttlecock was also once widely used as the name of the game but this is now rare.

(5) As space shuttle, vehicle designed to transport people & cargo between Earth and outer-space, designed explicitly re-use with a short turn-around between missions (often with initial capital letters).  The term shuttlecraft is the generic alternative, “space shuttle” most associated with the US vehicle (1981-2011).

(6) To cause (someone or something) to move back and forth by or as if by a shuttle, often in the form “shuttling”.

(7) Any device which repeatedly moves back and forth between two positions, either transporting something or transferring energy between those points.

(8) In electrical engineering, as shuttle armature, a H-shaped armature in the shape of an elongated shuttle with wires running longitudinally in grooves, used in small electrical generators or motors, having a single coil wound upon a the bobbin, the latter usually formed in soft iron.

(9) In diplomacy, as shuttle diplomacy, the practice of a diplomat from a third country shuttling between two others countries to conduct negotiations, the two protagonists declining directly to meet.

Pre 900: Shuttle was a merge from two sources. From (1) the Middle English shutel, shotel, schetel, schettell, schyttyl & scutel (bar; bolt), from the Old English sċyttel & sċutel (bar; bolt), the notion being shut +‎ -le.  Shut was from the Middle English shutten & shetten, from the Old English scyttan (to cause rapid movement, shoot a bolt, shut, bolt), from the Proto-Germanic skutjaną & skuttijaną (to bar, to bolt), from the Proto-Germanic skuttą & skuttjō (bar, bolt, shed), from the primitive Indo-European skewd & kewd- (to drive, fall upon, rush). The -le suffix was from the Middle English -elen, -len & -lien, from the Old English -lian (the frequentative verbal suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -lōną (the frequentative verbal suffix) and was cognate with the West Frisian -elje, the Dutch -elen, the German -eln, the Danish -le, the Swedish -la and the Icelandic -la.  It was used as a frequentative suffix of verbs, indicating repetition or continuousness.  From (2) the Middle English shitel (missile; a weaver's instrument), shutel, schetil, shotil, shetel, schootyll, shutyll, schytle & scytyl (missile; projectile; spear), from the Old English sċytel, sċutel (dart, arrow) (related to the Middle High German schüzzel and the Swedish skyttel), from the Proto-Germanic skutilaz, (related to the Middle High German schüzzel and the Swedish skyttel) and cognate with the Old Norse skutill (harpoon), the idea akin to both shut & shoot.  Shuttle is a noun, verb & adjective, shuttling is a noun & verb and shuttled and shuttles are verbs; the noun plural is shuttles.  The adjectival form shuttle-like is more common than the rare shuttlesque (which is listed as non-standard by the few sources to acknowledge its dubious existence).

A Lindsay Lohan advertising mural on the back of one of the airport shuttle buses run by Milan Malpensa International Airport in northern Italy.

The original sense in English is long obsolete, supplanted by the senses gained from the weaving instrument, so called since 1338 on the notion of it being “shot backwards and forwards” across the threads.  The transitive sense (move something rapidly to and fro) was documented from the 1540s, the same idea attached to the shuttle services in transport, first used in 1895 (although the intransitive sense of “go or move backward and forward like a shuttle” had been in use by at least 1843) in early versions of what would come to be known as intra-urban “rapid transit systems” (RTS), the one train that runs back and forth on the single line between fixed destinations (often with intermediate stops).  This was picked up by ferry services in 1930, air routes in 1942, space travel in 1960 (in science fiction) and actual space vehicles in 1969.  Shuttle in the sense it evolved in English is used in many languages but a separate development was the naming of the weaving instrument based on its resemblance to a boat (the Latin navicula, the French navette and the German Weberschiff).  The noun shuttlecock dates from the 1570s, the “shuttle” element from it being propelled backwards and forwards over a net and the “cock” an allusion to the attached anti-aerodynamic construction (originally of feathers) which resembled a male bird's plume of tail feathers.  The term Shuttle diplomacy came into use in the 1970s thanks to tireless self-promotion by Dr Henry Kissinger although the practice (of “good offices”) dates back centuries.

The Abbotsleigh class of 2020 pondering time flying faster than a weaver’s shuttle.

The motto of the Sydney girl’s school Abbotsleigh is tempus celerius radio fugit (Time flies faster than a weaver's shuttle), the idea behind that said to be: “As the shuttle flies a pattern is woven, with the threads being the people, buildings and events. The pattern is Abbotsleigh as it continues to grow in complexity and richness each year”.  Quite whether a weaver’s shuttle (said by some detractors to have been chosen as symbolic of the "proper" place of women being in a state of domestic servitude for the convenience of men) is appropriate for a girls’ school in the twenty-first century has been debated.  The motto came from the family crest of Marian Clarke (1853-1933), Abbotsleigh’s first headmistress (principle) and was maintained using the family’s grammatically dubious form tempus fugit radio celerity until 1924 when the correct syntax was substituted.  It’s an urban myth the mistake was permitted to stand until 1924 as a mark of respect while Ms Clarke was alive; she lived a decade odd after the change although the family’s heraldry was apparently never corrected.

The US (left) and USSR (centre) space shuttles compared with a badminton shuttlecock (right).  The shuttlecock is rendered in a larger scale than the shuttles.

The US Space Shuttle was operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) between 1981-2011 as the low Earth orbital vehicle which was the platform for its Space Transportation System (STS).  The plans, based on ideas first explored in science fiction a decade earlier, for a (mostly) reusable spacecraft system were first laid down in 1969 and despite intermittent funding, test flights were first undertaken in 1981.  Five Space Shuttles were eventually built to completion and between 1981-2011, there were over a hundred missions.  The stresses imposed on the craft were considerable which meant both the mission turn-arounds were never as rapid as had been hoped and the extent to which components could be reused had to be revised.  There was controversy too about the failures of NASA’s procedures which resulted in the two accidents in which all seven crew aboard each shuttle were killed.  The programme was retired in 2011.

Lindsay Lohan getting off the NAPA Shuttle, The Parent Trap (1998).  The term "to disembark" was borrowed from nautical use and of late "to deplane" has entered English which seems unnecessary but the companion "to disemplane" was more absurd still; real people continue to "get on" and "get off" aircraft.

The Soviet Union’s space shuttle, construction of which began in 1980, unsurprisingly, was visually very similar to the US vehicle, there being only so many ways optimally to do these things.  The USSR’s effort was the Буран (Buran) (Snowstorm or Blizzard), the craft sharing the designation with the Soviet spaceplane project and its spaceships, known as "Buran-class orbiters".  Although more than a dozen frames were laid down, few were ever completed to be flight-ready and the Buran’s only flight was an un-crewed orbital mission in 1988 which was successful.  The deteriorating economic and political situation in the Soviet Union meant the programme stalled and in 1993 it was abandoned by the new Russian government.  The striking similarity between the profile of the US & Soviet space shuttles and a badminton shuttlecock is coincidental but not unrelated.  The space craft are designed as aerodynamic platforms because, although not of relevance in the vacuum of space, they did have to operate as aircraft while operating in Earth’s atmosphere whereas the shuttlecock is designed deliberately as an anti-aerodynamic shape.  The shuttle’s shape was dictated by the need to maximize performance whereas a shuttlecock is intentionally inefficient, the shape maximizing air-resistance (drag) so it slows in flight.

Henry Kissinger, shuttling between dinner companions (left to right), Dolly Parton (b 1946), Diane von Furstenberg (b 1946), Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) and Carla Bruni (b 1967).

The term shuttle diplomacy describes the process in which a mediator travels repeatedly between two or more parties involved in a conflict or negotiation, in circumstances where the protagonists are unable or unwilling to meet.  Ostensibly, the purpose of shuttle diplomacy is to facilitate communication between the parties and reach a resolution of the dispute(s) but, being inherently political, it can be used for other, less laudable goals.  The practice, if not the term has a long history, instances noted from antiquity and the Holy Roman Empire was renowned for the neutral diplomats who would travel back and forth between kings, princes, dukes and cardinals.  During both the Conference of Vienna (1814-1815) and the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) the negotiations were marked by intransigent politicians sitting in rooms while a (notionally) disinterested notable shuttled between them, giving and taking until acquiescence was extracted.  A celebrated example of the process played out between 1939-1940 when Swedish businessman Birger Dahlerus (1891-1957) played a quixotic role as amateur diplomat, shuttling between London and Berlin in what proved a doomed attempt to avoid war.  It was for years seen as something romantic (if misguided) and it was only years later when the UK Foreign Office’s papers on the matter were made available the extent of the Swede’s conflicts of interest were revealed.

Richard Nixon meets Henry Kissinger.

The term entered the language in 1973 when Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) used it to refer to his efforts to negotiate an end to the Yom Kippur War between Israel and its Arab neighbors.  Kissinger shuttled between Tel Aviv, Cairo and other Middle Eastern capitals in an attempt to broker a ceasefire and improve diplomatic relations, enjoying some success, achieving a bilateral peace between Egypt and Israel as well as a number of disengagement agreements.  Some historians and foreign policy scholars however, while acknowledging what was achieved, have suggested that it was the Kissinger’s approach to the region in the years leading up to the war which contributed to the outbreak of hostilities.

Kissinger has also been criticized on the basis that shuttle diplomacy was never anything more than him playing a game of realpolitik on a multi-dimensional chessboard rather than an attempt to imagine a regional architecture which could produce a comprehensive peace plan in the Middle East, his emphasis on securing something in the interest of the US (a treaty between Egypt and Israel) meaning the vital issue of Palestine and its potential to assist in securing long-term peace in the region was not just neglected but ignored.  Cynics, noting his academic background and research interests, compared his shuttle diplomacy with the travels of emissaries in the Holy Roman Empire who would travel between the Holy See, palaces and chancelleries variously to reassure the troubled, sooth hurt feelings and cajole the diffident.  There was also the idea of Henry the self-promoting celebrity who could bring peace to Vietnam and Nixon to China, the political wizard who solved problems as they arose.  Certainly, the circumstances in which Kissinger was able to use shuttle diplomacy as a political narrative were unique.  He’d first undermined and then replaced William Rogers (1913–2001; US secretary of state 1969-1973) as secretary of state and even before becoming virtually the last major figure still standing from Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) first term as the Watergate affair took its toll, essentially took personal control of the direction of US foreign policy.  As he put it “…one of the more cruel torments of Nixon’s Watergate purgatory was my emergence as the preeminent figure in foreign policy”.

So, opportunistic his initiatives may have been but there were after all real problems to be solved and it seems unfair to criticize Kissinger for doing what he did rather than constructing some counter-factual grand design which might have created a permanent, settled peace in the Middle East.  However, among realists (and Kissinger was dean of the school), even then there were few who believed such a thing was any longer possible possible (certainly since the conclusion of the six-day war in 1967) and Kissinger certainly achieved something and to do that it’s necessary to understand there are some problems which really can only endlessly be managed and never solved.  Some problems are insoluble, something lost on many US presidents infected more than most by the diminishing but still real feelings of optimism and exceptionalism that have for centuries characterized the American national character.  Until he met Elizabeth Holmes (b 1984; CEO of US biotech company Theranos 2003-2018), nothing fooled Henry.

Mistress

Mistress (pronounced mis-tris)

(1) A woman who has authority, control, or power, especially the female head of a household, institution, or other establishment; a woman employing, or in authority over, servants or attendants.

(2) A female owner of an animal or formerly, a slave.

(3) A woman who has the power of controlling or disposing of something at her own pleasure; the companion term to master (sometimes initial capital letter).

(4) A woman who has a continuing, extramarital sexual relationship with one man, especially a man who, in return for a continuing (and hopefully exclusive) liaison, provides her with financial support.

(5) A senior female schoolteacher; a schoolmistress, a unique New Zealand form of which was Senior Assistant Mistress (SAM), the highest teaching position (ranking below assistant principle (or headmaster)) available to women until the mid-1970s.

(6) A term of address in former use and corresponding to Mrs, Miss, or Ms (should be with initial capital letter but often misused).

(7) A dialectical word for sweetheart (archaic).

(8) The term for a woman who specializes in the niche BDSM (a abbrevation traditionally of "bondage, discipline & sadism masochism" (in modern use dominance & submission sometimes also added or substituted) market, female equivalent of a master in the same context; a dominatrix.

(9) A married woman; a wife (archaic Scots dialectal form).

(10) A title (either official or courtesy) granted to certain positions in royal households or religious orders (eg Mistress of the Robes, Mistress of the Cloisters et al).

(11) In the games of bowls, the jack (obsolete).  

1275–1325: From the Middle English maistresse from the Old & Middle French maistresse (maîtresse in modern French), feminine of  maistre (master), from the Latin magister (chief, head, director, teacher) the construct being maistre (master) + -esse or –ess (the suffix which denotes a female form of otherwise male nouns denoting beings or persons).  In yet another example of the patriarchal domination of language, when a woman is said to have acquired complete knowledge of or skill in something, she’s said to have “mastered” the topic.  Mistress is a noun and verb, mistressship (or mistress-ship), mistresspiece,  mistresshood & mistressdom are nouns, mistressing is a verb and mistressly is an adjective; the noun plural is mistresses.  The noun plural mistresses has been used by many and the pragmatic advice is mistresses should be enjoyed sequentially rather than concurrently.  That said, plenty who have had the odd mistress might reflect things would have been better had they followed the advice of the English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861), published in The Latest Decalogue (1862):  Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it.

In English, the original meaning (circa 1300) was "a female teacher, governess; supervisor of novices in a convent", reflecting the senses in the Old French maistresse although in the Old French it could be used to mean also "lover" & "housekeeper" (though there would have been some overlap in those roles).  The notion of a mistress being a "a woman who employs others or has authority over a household and servants" developed in the early fifteenth century, the use to describe "a woman who has mastered an art or branch of study" emerging some decades later.  The familiar modern sense of "a kept woman maintained by a married man" dates from the early fifteenth century and, perhaps surprisingly, by the mid-1600s it was used as a polite form of address to a woman, a extension presumably of a sense other than adulterous women.  The meaning "woman who is beloved and courted, one who has command over a lover's heart" is from the turn of the fifteen century.

Thought crime

Associated Press (AP) tweeted in early May 2020 it would no longer use the term “mistress” to describe adulterous women, noting it thought the word “archaic and sexist”, preferring the alternatives “companion” or “lover”, adding the AP Stylebook had been updated to include this proscription among some two-hundred changes.  The AP Stylebook has for generations been a standard reference for many news organizations, often referred to by working journalists as the “style bible” and widely used in journalism courses.

Barnaby reflects: Vikki Campion (b 1985) & Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia 2016-2022).

Linguistically, AP’s attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of adulterers isn’t a great deal of help, banning as it does a word with a precise meaning, well-understood for centuries, replacing it with terms ambiguous or misleading; there’s no other single word (or term of convenient brevity) which conveys the same meaning of “mistress” in the sense which so disturbs AP.  The revisions make much of the need to adopt “gender-neutral language”, another “inclusive” transformation being the pursuit of criminals at large will no longer be “manhunts” but rather “searches”, a further example of dilution of meaning, an unfortunate trend for a news organization to pursue.  AP are correct that “mistress” is both “loaded” and “gendered” given there’s no similarly opprobrious term for adulterous men but the word is not archaic; archaic words are those now rare to the point of being no longer in general use and “mistress” has hardly suffered that fate.  AP’s agenda appears to be the creation of doctrinaire neutrality and are constructing their own newspeak to save its readers from their own thought crime.

Ashley Horn before (left) & after (centre) and Lindsay Lohan (right).

Ashley Horn (b 1995) is Lindsay Lohan's half sister, her father being Michael Lohan (b 1969), her mother, Kristi Kaufmann Horn (b 1963), a Montana massage therapist who briefly was Michael Lohan's mistress.  In 2013 it was reported by In Touch Magazine (a famously reliable source) that Ms Horn had paid some US$25,000 on five rounds of cosmetic surgery with the intention of more closely resembling her older half-sister.  As detailed by Ms Horn, she had "...rhinoplasty, a bit of refinement underneath my cheeks and jawline, some fat injected into my chin and some fat injected into my upper cheeks", the specific instruction being to emulate Lindsay Lohan's look in her late teen-age years, Ms Horn's age at the time.

Bipolar

Bipolar (pronounced bahy-poh-ler)

(1) Having two poles, as the earth.

(2) Of, relating to, or found at both polar regions.

(3) Characterized by opposite extremes in opinions, nature etc.

(4) In electronics, relating to a semiconductor device, such as a transistor, that exploits the electrical characteristics of contact between two substances, one with an inherent positive charge, the other with an inherent negative charge.

(5) In electric power distribution, a power transmission line having two direct-current conductors in opposite polarity.

(6) In physics, a region of magnetic flux having two distinct poles

(7) In psychiatry, of, relating to, or having bipolar disorder (a major mood disorder that is characterized by episodes of mania and depression; once known as manic-depression.

(8) In physiology, having two poles; used especially of nerve cells in which the branches project from two usually opposite points.

(9) In geopolitics, of or relating to an international system in which two states wield most of the cultural, economic, and political influence (ie two states with hegemonies exerted over their respective spheres of influence.  The companion terms are unipolar and multipolar and all are sometimes used by analogy in fields like commerce or sporting competition to reference instances of specific dominance.

1800–1810: The construct was bi- + polar.  Pole (in this context) was from the Middle French pole & pôle, from the Latin polus, from the Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos) (axis of rotation).  The –ar suffix was from Latin -āris (of, pertaining to) and was appended to nouns to create adjectives (it came increasingly to be appended to words of non-Latin origin).  The bi- prefix came directly from the Latin bi-, from Latin bis (twice) & bīnus (double), from the Proto-Italic dwi-, from the primitive Indo-European dwi- and was one of the sequence of Latin number prefixes (uni-, bi, tri etc).  In English, it can be confusing because it can used to mean either (1) two, pair, both, duo or (2) half.  In chemistry, the use meaning half has been discontinued.  In general use, the ambiguity remains, illustrated by the use when applied to measures of duration which can variously be interpreted as “once every two periods” or “twice every period”, the classic examples of which are this like biweekly, bimonthly, and biannual.  Style guides now often suggest choosing unambiguous forms such as “fortnightly” or, where no such elegant alternative exists, spelling it out explicitly (twice a month; every two years etc).  Using semi- as a prefix can work but is imprecise although acceptable if the meaning is in other ways made clear.

In English, as a clipping (a use of the prefix as a stand-alone word) of bisexual (used as both noun & adjective), the meaning was clear and effortlessly “bi” moved from LGBTQQIAAOP slang to the general vocabulary.  Potentially misleading however is bigender, a coining of LGBTQQIAAOP activists which became linguistically necessary when gender and sex were re-assigned as separate constructs.  It’s recommended it be used as the hyphenated bi-gender (to be consistent “bi-sexual” should probably also adopt the form) lest one might ponder if a bigend is LGBTQQIAAOP slang for something (and at this point one’s mind may wander) unbeknown to one.  Additionally in engineering, a big-end bearing in an internal combustion engine is the one located “big end” of the connecting rod and attached to the crankshaft.  Mechanics may use “bigender” (pronounced big-end-ah) as slang which in oral use won’t be confused with something pronounced as by-jen-dah but if transcribed, were the latter hyphenated, there’ll be no mystified mechanics.  Bipolar is a noun & adjective and bipolarization & bipolarity are nouns; the noun plural is bipolar.

Lindsay Lohan following Edvard Munch's (1863–1944) The Scream (1893).  Much art has been analysed by those seeking insight into the mental health of the artist, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder two conditions frequently identified.

The adjective bipolar dates from 1810 in the figurative sense of "of double aspect" and was by 1859 used in the literature of anatomy (having two processes from opposite poles) to refer to nerve cells while the sometimes hyphenated noun bipolarity (state of having two poles) emerged in 1834.  The earliest known instance of the now familiar use in psychiatry as a technical term to describe what was then known as manic-depressive psychosis appears to date from 1957 in a publication by German psychiatrist Karl Leonhard (1904-1988), noted in the history of the profession for his extensive (though now mostly forgotten) classification of psychotic illnesses (a nosology (the construct being nos- + -ology, from the Ancient Greek νόσος (nosos) (disease) + -λογία (-logia) (study of), the branch of medical science dealing with the classification of diseases)) although still used in structural linguistics is the system of classification of non-verbal communication.  As the term “manic-depression” ascended the linguistic treadmill (a process accelerated by the negative connotations which attached to the word because in popular literature and films manic depressives were often characterised as psychopathic murderers or other flavours or madness) “bipolar disorder” was positioned as a preferable term, the reason being that bipolar was separated from both the connotations of “manic depression” and the two elements (“manic” & “depression”), each loaded with negative associations.  Accordingly, in 1980, bipolar disorder replaced manic-depressive psychosis in the third edition (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  According to tracking by dictionaries, it was in the mid-1990s that bipolar (in the context of mental health) gained traction in general use and, inevitably, appeared on the linguistic treadmill although even forty-odd years on there’s little to suggest it has yet reached the level of opprobrium which might prompt the DSM’s editorial board to discuss the need for a replacement although their processes can take a while, the term “mental retardation” (long regarded in the community as offensive and in some cases misleading) not replaced by term “intellectual development disorder (intellectual disability)” until the release of DSM-5-TR (text revision) in 2022.

The bipolar world in 1980.  The geopolitical architecture of the Cold War (circa 1948-circa 1990) revolved around Moscow (the Warsaw Pact) and Washington DC (NATO).

Bipolar disorder was actually introduced to the DSM when the multi-axial system (Axis I to Axis V) was created:

Axis I: Clinical Disorders (including bipolar disorder)

Axis II: Personality Disorders and Mental Retardation

Axis III: General Medical Conditions

Axis IV: Psychosocial and Environmental Problems (stressors)

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning

This structure was modified with the release in 2000 of DSM-IV-TR which, within the axis system, divided diagnoses and symptoms into sections or "decision trees," including which symptoms must be included for a diagnosis and which must not be present.  The sectional approach was carried over to the DSM-5 (2013) when the axis system was abandoned, replaced by 20 chapters containing categories of related disorders of which “Bipolar and Related Disorders” is one, others including Anxiety disorders, Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, Depressive disorders, Feeding and eating disorders and Personality disorders.  Within its category, bipolar disorder was subject to some refinements, including those reflected in other areas (such as objectum sexuality) that attempted to reduce the medicalization of behaviour that although statistically aberrant, was part of the normal human condition.  Childhood bipolar disorder for example, although long well-defined and accepted as a diagnosis, was effectively rolled into a new category of depressive disorders called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), reflecting the concern that the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder was being inconsistently and overly applied to behaviour better understood as variations of childhood irritability.  Possibly too, the editors may have been influenced by work in labelling theory which suggested the early appearance in an individual’s medical history of conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder could have life-long consequences.

In the DSM-5, the diagnostic sub-categories of bipolar disorder were extended to seven:

(1) Bipolar I disorder

(2) Bipolar II disorder

(3) Cyclothymic disorder

(4) Substance/medication-induced bipolar and related disorder

(5) Bipolar and related disorder due to another medical condition

(6) Other specified bipolar and related disorder

(7) Unspecified bipolar and related disorder

Other changes included (1) the elimination of “mixed episode”.  Instead, a manic, hypomanic, or depressive episode can be specified as “with mixed features” a specifier with its own DSM definition. (2) The bipolar II diagnosis in the DSM-IV excluded a history of mixed episodes and this exclusion has been removed, something many long advocated. (3) There was a standardization of the text.  The word “abnormally” was not included in the DSM-IV criterion A for a hypomanic episode, while it was in criterion A for a manic episode; in DSM-5 the same language is used for both, the full criteria for the two distinct types of episodes thus closer together. (4) Each type of bipolar disorder gained specifiers (such as “with mixed features”, “with anxious distress” & “with rapid cycling”) which serve further to clarify the illness.

The DSM-5-TR was released in 2022 and among the changes were amendments to the section covering disorder.  Criterion B in bipolar I disorder was refined to make explicit that a manic episode can't be “superimposed on” (ie bolted-onto to run simultaneously with) an existing diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, delusional disorder, or other specified or unspecified psychotic disorder.  A similar procedural clarification was made to criterion C for bipolar II.  The specifiers indicating the severity of a manic episode were also updated.  Under DSM-5, the bipolar severity specifiers were mild, moderate, and severe which certainly made sense when labeling depressive episodes but when of clinical significance, that was less helpful when categorizing manic episodes because, in the nomenclature of the DSM, “mild” indicated “no impairment in functioning” whereas manic episodes inherently impaired function.  The specifiers for manic episodes accordingly were updated in the DSM-5-TR to (1) Mild (the manic episode meets the minimum symptom criteria), (2) Moderate (the manic episode causes a very significant increase in impairment and (3) Severe (the patient needs nearly continual supervision to prevent harm from being done to themselves and/or others).

2:365 by Kim Rask & Missy Douglas (2014), Ucki Ood, pp 400 (ISBN-100615950620).  A collection of 365 works painted in 2013 as a document of bipolar disorder.

First diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19 while a student of art at Cambridge, Dr Missy Douglas (b 1977) in 2013 undertook for that year, each day to paint a canvas which would express her feelings at that moment.  To ensure the works reflected her condition rather than the effects of medication, during this year she went un-medicated, hoping the paintings would more accurately reflect the highs and lows of bipolarity.  When going to sleep each evening, Dr Douglas had no idea how she would feel the next morning, some days ecstatic, some days depressed.  Although the change in name to bipolar was probably helpful, Dr Douglas' experiment does illustrate why “manic depression” was so evocative of the condition.  Interestingly, on not one day was a painting not completed, not does the set include a blank canvas or one simply black or rendered otherwise monochromatically.  What this indicates would be something to ponder but is perhaps indicative of how a spectrum condition can manifest, Dr Douglas presumably a high-functioning bipolar.  For a BBC piece, Dr Douglas provided brief notes for six of the works:

Day 5: “I was really anxious, angry and feeling trapped.”

Day 177: “I was really in a dark place here. I was completely in a depressive phase.”

Day 236: “I was burying feelings and my emotions were all over the place.  Very turbulent.”

Day 242: “I was at the height of mania here, but there was a massive wave of white depression heading towards me.”

Day 314: “Mania.  I was buzzing and everything was technicolor and beautiful.  I was flying and felt invincible."

Day 359: “Christmas Day 2013.  I was feeling very depressed yet I completely compartmentalised and concealed it.  The twinkly forced jollity hid the sadness.”

Socle

Socle (pronounced sok-uhl or soh-kuhl)

(1) In architecture, a low, plain part forming a base for a column, pedestal, or the like; a plinth or pedestal.

(2) In architecture, A plain face or plinth at the foot of a wall.

(3) In furniture design, as applied to tables, a large, full-width support used as an alternative to table legs.

(4) In cooking, the use of bread, rice, potato or similar as a (sometimes only decorative) base onto which other ingredients are laid.

(5) In algebraic ring theory (a branch of abstract algebra that studies rings, which are algebraic structures that generalize the properties of integers) the sum of the minimal normal sub-modules of a given R-module of a given ring R.

(6) In group theory, the sub-group generated by the minimal normal subgroups of a given group.

1695–1705: From the French socle, from the Italian zoccolo (wooden shoe; base of a pedestal) from the Latin socculus (small shoe (literally "small sock" (soccus)).  Socle is a noun; the noun plural is socles.

The Valkyrie plot: 20 July 1944

The Valkyrie Plot was an attempt, one of many but one also of a handful actually brought to fruition, to kill Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  The conspirators were mostly Prussian aristocrats, senior army officers (a bit of overlap there) and a smattering of liberal politicians, all of whom ultimately demonstrated their ineptitude at staging a coup d'état but, on 20 July 1944, they did succeed in detonating an explosive device they had smuggled into the Wolfsschanze (the Wolf’s Lair, one of the Führer's heavily guarded military headquarters on the Eastern Front).  Previous opportunities to use a bomb for this purpose had been aborted because the conspirators had wanted as many leading Nazis as possible also killed and those circumstances never arose but after the Allies successfully established a beachhead in Normandy (the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings), it was decided to delay no longer.  The bomb used at the Wolf's Lair was actually of British origin, obtained by the Abwehr (literally "resistance" or "defence" but in a military context used by Germans to mean "counterintelligence"), the military-intelligence service for the Reichswehr & Wehrmacht between 1920-1945 (ironically it was for most of the war one of the centres of anti-Nazi activities) and chosen because its fuse operated with complete silence device.  Ultimately the blast four, seriously injuring another thirteen but Hitler survived for three reasons (although he would claim it was "providence").

(1) Hot, sultry weather.  The plan was for the assassination to be carried out by planting explosives in an underground bunker built with reinforced concrete which had just one steel door and no windows.  Designed to be bomb-proof in that it was built expressly to protect occupants from the energy of outside explosions, in an inside explosion, the occupants would be hit by several blast waves as a consequence of the resonant conditions of high-energy fluid dynamics; ideal conditions to stage an explosion with lethal intent.  However, with unpleasantly high temperature and humidity on the day, the meeting was moved to an above-ground building with several windows which offered ventilation to provide relief.  Thus, when the device exploded, both energy from the blast wave and shrapnel, instead of being contained and ricocheting around the room, dissipated partially outside.

(2) The furniture: The table under which the bomb was planted was supported by two stout, heavy socles rather than legs.  This wouldn’t have been critical except that minutes before detonation, the briefcase containing the device was moved from one side of the socle to the other so that the heavy timber stood between Hitler and the bomb, the structure now at the perfect angle to absorb much of the blast before it reached him.  Had the briefcase been left in its original position, the socle which ultimately absorbed or re-directed much of the energy would instead have increased the lethality of the energy directed towards Hitler. 

(3) Bad luck: Because of circumstances on the day, the plotters were able to arm only one of the two bombs they had intended to use.  Had both been detonated, in either room, the blast would have been much greater although opinion remains divided over whether even this would have been enough to guarantee Hitler’s death.  As it was, he escaped with non-life threatening injuries (curiously for some time after the blast, the shaking of his limbs (symptoms which may have indicated Parkinson's Disease) vanished) and was well enough to conduct social activities the same afternoon (after changing his trousers which had been shredded by the blast), meeting with the by now much diminished Duce (Benito Mussolini,1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943).  After that, they would never meet again.  

Aftermath: The Führer shows the Duce the effects of the blast, telling him he'd been saved "by providence".  Mussolini agreed with Hitler but of course, he always said he did, even when suffering his not infrequent doubts.

The popular television show Mythbusters, run by past masters at blowing-up stuff, did test whether the blast, if using both devices instead of one, would have killed Hitler in either the above-ground conference room or the sealed, underground bunker.  Their tests were conducted using full-scale emulations of both the conference room in which the attack took place and the the underground bunker from which the meeting had been moved.  In both, the intended explosive power was deployed rather than that generated by the single device used on the day.  Explosives experts who examined the data tended to agree that while not definitive, it was plausible Hitler could have survived even a more powerful blast in the conference room but that everything was still dependent on the placement of the briefcase.  However, because the second test didn't exactly replicate the sealed, underground bunker (the test structure was only partially buried) with its walls of think, reinforced concrete, the experts were less convinced by the Mythbusters' conclusion that too would have been survivable.  They further noted the significance of the socle in deflecting the blast, this something which happened only by chance on the day and all agreed that had the bomb been placed close to Hitler, as intended, the blast in either room probably would have killed or severely injured him.

Tables with soles (for prosecution and defence counsel), Lindsay Lohan in court, Los Angeles, January 2013.