Riparian

Riparian (pronounced ri-pair-ee-uhn or rahy-pair-ee-uhn)

(1) Of, relating to, or situated or dwelling on the bank of a river or other body of water.

(2) In law, a person who owns land on the bank of a natural watercourse or body of water; denoting or relating to the legal rights of the owner of land on a river bank, such as fishing or irrigation

1849: From the Latin rīpārius (feminine rīpāria, neuter rīpārium) (of the banks of a river) from riparia (shore), later used in reference to the stream flowing between the banks, from ripa ((steep) bank of a river, shore)), probably understood literally as "break" (and indicating the drop off from ground level to the stream bed), or else "that which is cut out by the river", from the primitive Indo-European root rei- (to scratch, tear, cut), source of the Ancient Greek ereipia (ruins) & eripne (slope, precipice), the Old Norse rifa (break, to tear apart), the Danish rift (breach), the Middle High German rif (riverbank, seashore) and the English riven & rift.  Riparian is a noun & adjective and riparianism is a noun; the noun plural is riparian.

For technical reasons etymologists treat the construct as rīpāri(us) +‎ -an rather than rīpār(ius) +‎ -ian although ian was a euphonic variant of –an.  The suffix -an was from the Middle English -an (regularly -ain, -ein & -en), from the Old French –ain & -ein (or before an “i”, -en (used in modern French as –ain & -en (feminine –aine & -enne))), from the Latin -ānus (feminine -āna), used to form adjectives of, belonging or from a noun (and cognate with the Ancient Greek -νος (-nos), preceded by a vowel, from the primitive Indo-European -nós).  It was cognate with the English -en.  In English, it was an adjectival suffix widely appended (most frequently to nouns) and most associated with words of Latin origin; when a word ends in "a", a -n is instead appended.  It can also be used to form agent nouns and historically the male forms were constructed with -an, the females with -(i)enne but increasingly the male formations are treated as gender-neutral.  The suffix -ian was a euphonic variant of –an & -n, from the Middle English -an & -en.

In English law riparian rights and liabilities evolved over centuries, both arising as a consequence of the ownership of land abutting natural water and it matters not whether the water is tidal or non-tidal, all that is critical is that the physical property has some contact with the water course during the day.  The operation of law applied most obviously to the flows which occur naturally by riparian ownership can arise when streams and watercourses are channeled through artificial constructions although different aspects of the law may need to be applied to determine the ownership of the riparian rights.

As a general principle, a riparian owner is entitled access to the water, certainly for what are (in the context of place) ordinary purposes which may be for domestic or agricultural purposes.  This right of access may also include the ability to pass over the foreshore or a river bed to get to the water and even to temporarily moor vessels adjacent to riparian land to load or unload them.  Interestingly, this does not of necessity confer a right permanently to moor a vessel, reflecting the ancient common law position in England that the right of anyone to proceed along the nation’s highways and byways does not always imply a similar right to stay in any one place.

In the case of natural channels, such as streams and rivers, where water flows from one riparian owner’s property to another, the downstream owner is entitled to the flow of water in its natural state, both as to quality and the quantity, a specific expression of a concept in English law known as “natural enjoyment of a right”.  This means the upstream owner may take water or construct a dam but in so doing may not materially interfere with the flow and quality of water enjoyed by the downstream owner.  A special riparian right is the ability to drain land to a watercourse which can impact significantly on downstream rights holders and is thus often subject to separate negotiation.  In the case of natural flows, all downstream owners are obliged to accept the flow of water onto their land.  These well-established principles in English domestic law are used often as the basis for negotiations between nations where rivers cross borders; the results of these discussions can vary between amicable agreement and declarations or war.

There are also riparian liabilities.  Apart from not unduly interfering with the flow of water, riparian owners can be required to accept flooding on their land, even if that is caused by natural obstructions downstream and, again dependent on place, a liability can be imposed on riparian owners to manage the risk of flooding.  Because flood risks in England is managed nationally by statutory authorities such as regional drainage boards, the liabilities can very geographically, the power vested in these organisations to require riparian land to be used for flood management and mitigation.  Where water is artificially channeled, some interplay of different laws may be required to determine ownership of fights and liabilities.  As with just about any property rights, a riparian owner can take actions in court to prevent interference with rights, such as by requiring the removal of an obstruction or to stop an adjoining riparian owner from drawing too much water.

Lindsay Lohan, pondering riparian rights in Georgia Rule (2007).

Most associated with the US, riparianism was a doctrine of property rights, based on the principle that the owners of riparian land (riparians) had the right to remove reasonable amounts of water from the river, but others did not.  Because of the various property of rivers (moving in a sense, static in a sense, abutting land, able by natural action to increase and decrease the size of that land, used also as (often pubic) waterways for transportation etc), riparian rights have frequently been considered by courts and the gradual path has been one of a retreat from the classic position such rights accrued absolutely to the land owner as a property right.  An illustrative example was the decision of the High Court of Australia (HCA) in Commonwealth v Tasmania (HCA 21, (1983) 158 CLR 1) which concerned an attempt by the Commonwealth to prevent the state government of Tasmania building a dam on the Gordon River which would have flooded a large area of wilderness, including part of the Franklin River.  The HCA held the Commonwealth had the power to prevent the construction of the dam, based on its constitutional powers: (1) to regulate interstate trade and commerce and (2) its “external (foreign) affairs” power triggered by an obligation to protect sites declared by the United Nations (UN) to be “World Heritage” (by virtue of the Commonwealth having entered into certain treaties).  Also considered were riparian rights and the court held that riparian rights were not absolute and they could be limited by the public interest.  The reasoning was because the construction of the dam would interfere with the natural flow of the river and the ecology of the area, the court had to consider competing interests and in this case the public interest in preserving the area's natural values outweighed the riparian rights of the Tasmanian Government.  Use of the external affairs power was controversial but so was the expansion of the scope of the public interest in relation to riparian rights because it limited the rights of landowners to use waterways for their own purposes.  It was a case with significant implications for environmental law in Australia and beyond, overseas courts citing the judgment when holding that (public) environmental considerations can outweigh (private) property rights.

Fag

Fag (pronounced fag)

(1) Something hanging loose, a flap (mostly archaic except in US technical use in industrial production of textiles where, in the process of quality inspections, a fag is a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric).

(2) Slang for a boring or wearisome task (archaic).

(3) The worst part or end of a thing (mostly UK, now archaic).

(4) Offensive slang for a contemptible or dislikable person (archaic).

(5) Offensive slang for a homosexual male, applied most often to an obvious, especially effeminate or “unusual” one (now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous although within the LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing).

(6) To tire or weary by labor; to be exhausted (usually in the phrase “fagged out”).

(7) One allocated to do menial chores for an older school pupil (mostly in the English public school system but said to be extinct since the late 1990s although apparently still practiced in some Commonwealth countries with public (private) schools based on the old English model).

(8) Slang for a cigarette (now rare, especially in North America); the Cockney rhyming slang was “oily rag”.

(9) As "fag-end" (as in the last un-smoked end of a cigarette), a remnant of something once larger, longer etc such as the frayed end of a length of cloth or rope.

(10) As "fag-end administration", the last months or weeks of a government prior to an election.

1425–1475: From the late Middle English fagge (flap; broken thread in cloth, loose end (of obscure origin)), the later sense-development to the intransitive verb meaning “to droop, to tire, to make weary; drudgery” apparently based on the idea of “a drooping end” or “something limply hanging” dating from the 1520s.  The transitive sense of "to make (someone or something) fatigued, tire by labor" was first noted in 1826.  Those fagged-out fatiguing labor were in the 1850s said to have been engaged in “faggery” and from the same era “brain-fag described "mental fatigue."  Fag is a noun and verb, fagging or fagged are verbs and faggish & fagged are adjectives.  Apparently un-fagged is a correct construction which may be used to describe the process of cutting the ties binding a bundle of sticks.  Functional forms (fag butt, fag lighter, fag grave (an ashtray) are created as required. Fag is a noun & verb; the noun plural is fags.   

A GIF of Lindsay Lohan enjoying a fag.

The meaning “cigarette” dates only from 1888 and was derived from fag-end (applied to many things and attested since the 1610s) and thus a cigarette butt was one of many fag-ends but “fag” (and the plural “fags”) came much to be associated with cigarettes.  Fag may be variant of the verb “flag” in the sense of “droop, tire” and related (perhaps remotely) to the Dutch vaak (sleepiness).  The use of the term to refer to cigarettes is still heard in parts of the English-speaking world but is almost unknown in the US where use is not advised because there, almost exclusively, it's exclusively a gay slur.

Inhaling a known carcinogen is of course a bad idea and not recommended but Lindsay Lohan did make smoking look sexy.

Faggery (or faggotry) was the system in English public schools in which the younger students acted as servants (there were sometimes other purposes) for the older.  It was part of public school environment which Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) said was designed primarily to teach pupils life was “inherently unfair”.  Still, he valued the process and described any chap who hadn't benefited from the experience as having "no background".  The use in English public schools to describe a junior student who performs "certain duties" for a senior seems first to have been used in 1785 although the practice is documented from the seventeenth century.  The schoolboy slang describing the offices of the institution as “fagdom” & “fagmaster” dates from 1902.  In modern use, faggery (less so faggotry but like faggotness, faggotize & faggotism) is used as a gay slur.  The term "faggot voter" was a historic term in the UK & Ireland used when there was a property qualification attached to the electoral franchise.  A legal loophole, it described someone entitled to vote by virtue of holding some form of property title short of freehold, typically to a subdivision.  The origin of the term was based on the idea of “faggot” in the sense of the sticks gathered together and bound to make a whole (ie one property with one title fragmented for electoral purposes while not diminishing the quality of the ultimate ownership).  The “loophole” was one of those things which began as an “unintended consequence” of changes to the rules of real property but it wasn’t reformed until the late 1800s because so many land-owners and members of parliament made use of it to “stack their constituencies” with voters.

As a shortening of faggot, “fag” is documented as being applied as a term of disparagement to homosexual males from 1914, an invention of American English slang, though related to the earlier (1590s) contemptuous term for a woman, especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot in the sense of "bundle of sticks", ie something awkward that has to be carried in the sense of "worthless baggage” (and therefore “worthless woman").  More speculatively, there may be a link with the Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally "little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a faggot homosexual man).  There may also have been some connection with the English public school slang noun fag which even then carried the suggestion of catamite (From the Latin catamītus (boy kept as a sexual partner), from Catamītus, from the Etruscan catmite, from the Ancient Greek Γανυμήδης (Ganumḗdēs) (Ganymede), in Greek mythology an attractive Trojan boy abducted by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus to become his cupbearer and lover (and Ganymede endures as a doublet in that sense)).  The term “faggot marriage” was not a synonym of “lavender marriage” (an arrangement in which a gay man would marry a lesbian for purposes of social or professional respectability) but a disparaging reference to gay marriage.

In the same way the infamous N-word has been re-claimed by certain sub-sets of people of color and is, in context, an acceptable use by or between them, “faggot” similarly, although now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous, within the LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing.  Two inventive variations were “fag hag” (a heterosexual woman who socializes with homosexual men (1969)) and “fag stag” (a heterosexual man who socializes with homosexual men (circa 1995)).  The less common companion slang for men who have many lesbian friends was “dutch boy”, “lesbro” or “dyke tyke”.  Covering all bases, it transpires that those of both sexes who associate with lesbian, gay and bisexual people are “fruit flies”.  The story that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an urban legend with no etymological or historical basis. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (which relied on the scriptural suggestion invoked as the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, although parliament had declared homosexuality a capital crime in 1533, the prescribed method of execution was to be hanged.  While the inquisitorial and judicial organs of the Roman Catholic Church may over the centuries have burned at the stake a good many homosexuals, that really was incidental to the process (sort of the "collateral damage" of the day), the actual sentence imposed usually for other offences.

Faggot was from the Middle English fagot, from the Middle French fagot (bundle of sticks), from the Medieval Latin and Italian fagotto and related to the Old Occitan fagot, the Italian fagotto & fangotto and the Spanish fajo (bundle, wad).  In Italian a fagotto was (1) a bundle or sack, (2), (figuratively) a clumsy or awkward person; a klutz or (3), in music, a bassoon and was probably from the Italian fagotto (diminutive of Vulgar Latin facus, from the Classical Latin fascis (bundle of wood), or perhaps the Ancient Greek φάκελος (phákelos) (bundle).  The senses relating to persons, though possibly originating as an extension of the sense "bundle of sticks", could have been reinforced by Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally "little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a homosexual man).  In English, “fagot” was long the alternative spelling.

A sincere form of flattery: North American F-86 Sabre (first flown October 1947, left) and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (first flown December 1947, right).

A well-crafted amalgam of technology stolen from the West (the airframe construction techniques from the US, the jet-engine a blatant copy of the British Rolls-Royce Nene and the aerodynamics the result of wartime German research), the USSR’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 was a short-range interceptor, the appearance of which in the skies of the Korean War (1950-1953) theatre was such a shock to the UN forces that the US Air Force (USAF) had to scramble to assemble squadrons of North American F-86 Sabres for deployment.  Made in both the USSR and by licensed overseas constructors, the MiG-15 was produced in extraordinary numbers (some sources suggest as many as 17,700) and equipped not only Warsaw Pact militaries, some three dozen air forces eventually using the type and it was widely used in front-line service well into the 1960s.  Simple, robust and economical to operate, many still fly in private hands and some continue to be used as jet-trainers, ideal for the role because of their predictable characteristics and good handling.

The MiG-15’s NATO reporting name was Fagot.  NATO reporting names have no linguistic or etymological significance, being chosen (1) with an initial letter indicating type (B=bomber; F=fighter; C=commercial & cargo; H=helicopter; M= miscellaneous) and (2) a one-syllable name for propeller aircraft and a two-syllable name for jets.  Fagot was just another reporting name picked from NATO’s list of the possible for allocation to fighters:

Fairytale of New York (1987) is a song by the Irish pop-band The Pogues, augmented for the occasion by the late Kirsty MacColl (1959-2000).  One stanza includes the lines:

You're a bum

You're a punk

You're an old slut on junk

Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed

You scumbag, you maggot

You cheap lousy faggot

Happy Christmas your arse

I pray God it's our last

The offending line quickly became: "You cheap lousy faggot" and for many years, every Christmas, there was in England an almost ritualistic argument about whether it was appropriate to play the piece on radio, a matter of some interest because Fairytale of New York was frequently voted the nation’s most popular Christmas song.

In the late 1980s the BBC seemed unconcerned at the possibility of a gay slur being thought at least implied but found the anatomical slang offensive, asking that "arse" be replaced with “ass” which was a liberal approach compared with the old BBC tradition of outright bans but sensitivities shifted to gender in the 1990s and in subsequent live performances MacColl sometimes adjusted the lyrics further, singing "You're cheap and you're haggard".  Since then broadcasts have varied in the version carried, the BBC even permitting all or some of “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” on some of their stations but not others.  There’s was also use of the old practice “bleeping out” (actually scrambling) “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” as required and it’s now fairly unpredictable just which version will be played.  It did seem one of the more improbable battlefields of the culture wars but was emblematic of the new censorship.  Although, in the context of the song, it was obvious “faggot” was being used in the old sense of meaning “someone worthless” rather than “someone a bit of a homosexual”, the objection was to the very word which many activists demand should be proscribed, the same fate suffered by "niggardly" a form with an etymology as unrelated to the infamous "N-word" as the meaning.

Ossuary

Ossuary (pronounced osh-oo-er-ee or os-oo-er-ee)

(1) A structure dedicated to the storage of the bones of the dead.

(2) Any container for the burial of human bones, such as an urn.

(3) By extension, a place for discarded or broken items or (figuratively), of abandoned concepts or ideas. 

1650-1660: From the Late Latin ossuārium (charnel house; receptacle for bones of the dead), a neuter of ossuārius (of or for bones) and variant of ossārium, the construct being oss- (stem of os) (bone (plural ossua)) + -ārius (the adjectival suffix giving the sense “of or related to”).  The Latin os was from the primitive Indo-European ost (bone).  The model for the word was mortuarium, and the alternative form remains ossuarium.  Ossuary and ossuarium are nouns and ossuarius is an adjective; the noun plural is ossuaries.

The Sedlec Ossuary at Starosedlecká, Kutná Hora, in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic lies about 42 miles (70 km) east of the capital, Prague.  A medieval town, much of the baroque architecture was build between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries from the wealth generated by the adjacent silver mine.  On architectural grounds alone Kutná Hora is worthy of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site but, in the suburb of Sedlec is the Church of All Saints which probably deserves a separate listing.

Sedlec’s Church of All Saints is better known as the Sedlec Ossuary, the church of bones, said to contain the bones of between some forty and sixty-thousand dead.  Its origins were a mission by the abbot of the Sedlec Cistercian Monastery, sent by the King of Bohemia to Jerusalem.  The abbot returned with an urn of soil from the Golgotha, the place where Jesus Christ was said to be crucified and this earth he spread around the grounds of the church’s cemetery.  As word of the "Holy Soil" became known, from all over Bohemia, people began to ask to be buried at Sedlec’s Church of All Saints.

Such was the demand that by the fifteenth century, skeletal remains had to be exhumed from the cemetery, the town needing to expand and more space needed for the more recently dead.  In what may sound a little shocking (but must have been judged theologically sound), the bones lay stacked in the basement of the church until 1870 when František Rint (1835-circa 1895), a woodcarver and carpenter from the small town of Česká Skalice in northern Bohemia, was employed by the House of Schwarzenberg (the ruling family of the town) to organize and arrange them.  The results of his efforts were spectacular, the carpenter creating intricate sculptures, including several chandeliers and a copy of the Schwarzenberg coat of arms.  The most spectacular of the chandeliers is also technically interesting for anatomists, said to include at least one of every bone in the human body

The elaborate constructions may seem macabre but each is accompanied by religious displays arranged from bone, conveying to visitors the message that the chapel remains a respectful place of worship and indeed, regular masses continue to be held in both the upper and lower chapel.  Musical performances however are staged only within the church proper so what might prove the interesting acoustic properties of all those bones remains unexplored.  The site, opened to tourists early in the century proved popular, almost a quarter-million visiting in the last year before the pandemic and it quickly became the biggest attraction in central Bohemia.  The financial blessing has proved also a curse however, local residents complaining the volume of visitors often overwhelms the operations of what remains a functioning Roman Catholic church and cemetery.  It’s said there are tourists who treat the place as just another theme-park.

Still, such is the importance of the ossuary to the local economy, that the ancient site is often renovated, including some attention to the condition of the bones which sounds strange but it seems human bone is subject to discoloration over time and restoring them to a more brilliant white is thought greatly to enhance the tourists' visual experience.  Even if one’s taste doesn’t extend to the macabre, Kutná Hora remains one of the medieval treasures of Bohemia and within the same Cistercian complex as the ossuary is the Sedlec Cathedral, the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist.  Built between 1290-1320, the cathedral is one of the oldest remaining in the Baroque Gothic style and also enjoys a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list and a short distance from there is a truly secular attraction, the Kutná Hora's Chocolate Museum, a tiny homage to chocolate with exhibits dating from the early nineteenth century.  There are chocolate tasting sessions and private candlelit dinners can be booked.

The ossuary vibe: Lindsay Lohan wearing Alexander McQueen skull scarf, 2012.

So entrenched in fashion has the skull been for hundreds of years that not even its use (as the “Death’s Head”) by the Nazi SS (the Schutzstaffel (security squad), 1925-1945, also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes) tainted it sufficiently to discourage its appearance on clothes, accessories and jewelry.  Seasonally, the popularity ebbs and flows but skulls are seemingly always at least a niche and the appeal is also cross-cultural, the skull variously a good luck charm and a symbol employed to ward of disease and evil spirits.  In the English-speaking world, the widespread use of the skull symbol seems to have begun in the Elizabethan period (1558-1603) although most acknowledge the practice began in Bohemia and came to England via sea-farers and traders, the original items being skull rings, either carved from a human jawbone or rendered from metal.  An especially popular form was the skull ring with the jawbone disappearing to create the illusion of a finger piercing the wearer's mouth, still a widely used pattern today.  One curious aspect of the appeal is that Satanists and Christians alike have both embraced the iconography, skulls a likely to be seen among Devil worshipers as they are to be in the mix with images of saints and crucifixes.  Of late though, while they haven’t disowned the medieval art, Christianity seems now less keen on skulls.  The Satanists remain committed.

Climate

Climate (pronounced klahy-mit)

(1) The composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years (decades, centuries or other epochs).

(2) A region or area characterized by a given climate (often as climatic zone or with modifiers such as cold-climate, sub-climate, micro-climate, dry-climate et al).

(3) The prevailing attitudes, standards, or environmental conditions of a group, period, or place (used in politics, sociology, economics etc in the sense of mood, atmosphere, spirit, tone, temper etc).

(4) An area of the earth's surface between two parallels of latitude (obsolete).

(5) A region of the Earth (obsolete).

(6) In contemporary slang, a clipping of “climate change” and frequent verbal (especially oral) shorthand.

1350–1400: From the Middle English climat, from the Old French climat (region, part of the earth), from the Late Latin clīmat- (stem of clīma, from the Ancient Greek κλῐ́νω (klínō) (I slope, incline)), from klīmat- (stem of klī́ma (latitude, slope, region (literally “inclination”), the notion being “slope of the earth from equator to pole”), the construct being klī- (akin to klī́nein (to slope, lean)) + -ma (the noun suffix), ultimately from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root klei- (to lean).  The adjective climatic is sometimes confused with climactic.  Climatic is used of the climate; climactic describe something which forms a climax.  Climate is a noun & verb and climatic, climatical & climatal are adjectives and climatically is an adverb; the noun plural is climates.

The original meaning in the mid-fourteenth century was purely geographic, the sense being horizontal zone of the earth's surface measured by lines parallel to the equator (ie latitude).  From antiquity, geographers and cartographers divided earth into zones determined by the angle of the sun on the slope of the surface and the length of daylight.  Not knowing what lay beyond reported (and not always reliable) observations, these zones varied greatly.  Some calculated variously 24 or 30 climates between Meroe on the upper Nile (in modern-day Sudan) and the mythical Riphaean Mountains which thought to be the Arctic’s boundary, systems in which as one traced the map north, the climate changed at the point where daylight was a half hour longer or shorter (according to season) than the starting point.  Others thought cosmically and listed seven (one for each known planet) or twelve (tied to the signs of the zodiac).

Being a measure of latitude, there was obviously a tendency for the climates to correlate with temperature, something noticed as early as the late-fourteenth century and, being practical rather than abstract, the word came rapidly to be used in the sense of “distinct zones of the earth's surface associated with changes in weather”.  This meaning shift evolved by the early seventeenth century to make climate understood as “combined results of weather associated with a region, the characteristics of a country or region with reference to variation of heat, cold, humidity, rainfall, wind etc.  The figurative use (the collective mental or moral atmosphere of a group or whole society) dates from the 1660s.  The difference between climate and “the weather” is that climate is a summary of the long-term manifestations of weather and other atmospheric conditions (which can be applied to defined zones or globally).  The modern practice is that climate is a statistical summary of a representative period and that’s usually generational (ie 25-30 years) but climate modelers using the geological record and other sources (trees, ice cores etc) can construct longer epochs in centuries (eg the ice ages) or even millions of years, the global climate during the age of the dinosaurs often summed up as “warm & wet”.

Lindsay Lohan pondering climate change.

To acclimatise (or acclimatize) is to acclimate (become accustomed to) one’s self to the weather conditions prevalent where one find’s one’s self, a term used also figuratively in the sense of adjusting tastes or expectations to different cultures.  The use of modifiers is common and can be meteorological (warm-climate, dry-climate, chilly climate, temperate-climate etc) or figurative (hostile climate, sceptical climate etc).  In the age of climate-concern, there’s been a growth of such use including climate canary, climate control, climate denial, climate denier, climate despair, climate emergency, climate finance, climate doom, climate system, climate-speak and, of course, climate change.  Indeed, the very phrase “climate change” is a construct which has come widely to be used because it references easily understood consequences rather than some abstract process.  The possible climatic implications of man-made atmospheric CO₂ emissions was discussed as early as 1896 by Swedish chemist & Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) in a paper called On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, his conclusion being that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading a global increase in average temperatures.  In the scientific community, his ideas for decades remained controversial and in the wider community, barely noted and it wasn’t until the 1950s when researchers, taking advantage of new techniques made possible by the vastly increased quantity of data which became available because of wartime advances and a vast expansion of meteorological and atmospheric measuring, began serious study of the study the potential impact of human activities on the Earth's climate.

Between the 1970s and the early twenty-first century, a consensus built in mainstream science that human activities (especially the burning of fossil fuels), were contributing to global warming and other climatic changes.  The early phrase popular in the discussion, at that stage conducted mostly among scientists and environmentalists (although the fossil fuel industry quickly mounted counter campaigns, both in public relations activities and the traditional buying-off of politicians) was the “greenhouse effect” but greenhouses, associated with positive things like grapes & tomatoes didn’t have the desired worrying effect so the terminology in the 1990s shifted to the consequences.  “Global warming” replaced “greenhouse effect” in consciousness-raising but it proved vulnerable to attacks from industry which claimed every unseasonal cold-spell disproved the thesis, thus the use of “climate change”.  That has proved resistant to challenge and even in the West the matter is now being taken seriously, as the consequences of climate change begin to affect to rich nations of the global north, destructive heat, fires, hurricanes, floods and tropical diseases no longer ignored as largely they were when those who suffered were mostly Africans, Arabs, Asians and animals.

Psychiatrists & psychologists find the distinction between climate and weather a helpful metaphor when explaining personality.  The term personality denotes the enduring pattern of a patient’s life and can thus be thought their individual climate.  The weather which produces that climate can be good (happy events, a successful marriage, a fulfilling career), bad (a dull job, habitually sore feet) or severe (cancer, divorce) and in some cases a patient’s reaction to these event can result is what is diagnosed as a personality disorder (PD).  In the West, psychiatry is thought one of medicine’s more recent disciplines and in some structural senses that’s probably true but the understanding of the human personality is ancient.  Writing in 45 BC, the Roman statesman & scholar Cicero (106-43 BC) observed that in men existed “…all kinds of depravity and perversity” and that “There are more disorders of the mind than of the body and they are of a more dangerous nature for the mind, when disordered… can neither bear nor endure anything and is under the perpetual influence of desires”.  Cicero went further, noting the depravities of men were deep seated and either caused or exacerbated by environment in which men lived and what afflicted one could also poison the whole for when an entire society “declare unanimously for what is wrong, then we are altogether overwhelmed”.  PD writ large: Each individual an element of the weather and the body politic the climate.

La Mort de Cicéron (The Death of Cicero (circa 1635), oil on canvas by François Perrier (1590–1650), Bad Homburg, Staatliche.

Within two years of writing those words Cicero would be dead and the circumstances of his execution would provide probably several case studies in PD but he had few reasons to complain; he may have lived by the pen but he ruled by the sword, for centuries remembered fondly by scholars of Antiquity and, perhaps less helpfully for his reputation, of late by Ted Cruz (b 1970; US senator (Republican, Texas) since 2013).  Knowledge of PD then was not novel when in 1980 when first it appeared in the third edition (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, organized on a categorical basis with patients classified into one of several distinct personality disorder types.  This system was revised in the DSM-IV (1994) and again in the DSM-5 (2013), the latter adopting a hybrid categorical-dimensional approach to PD, a condition it notes affects at least two of a patient’s (1) way of thinking about oneself and others, (2) way of responding emotionally, (3) way of relating to other people and (4) way of controlling one’s behavior.  In the DSM-5-TR (2022), the types of PD are listed as:

Antisocial personality disorder: A pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others.  A person with antisocial personality disorder may not conform to social norms, may repeatedly lie or deceive others, or may act impulsively.

Avoidant personality disorder: A pattern of extreme shyness, feelings of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to criticism.  Patients with avoidant personality disorder may be unwilling to get involved with others unless they are certain of being liked, be preoccupied with being criticized or rejected, or may view themselves as not being good enough or socially inept.

Borderline personality disorder: A pattern of instability in personal relationships, intense emotions, poor self-image and impulsivity.  A patient with borderline personality disorder may go to great lengths to avoid being abandoned, have repeated suicide attempts, display inappropriate intense anger, or have ongoing feelings of emptiness.

Dependent personality disorder: A pattern of needing to be taken care of and submissive (clingy the modern term) behavior.  Patients with dependent personality disorder may have difficulty making daily decisions without reassurance from others or may feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of fear of inability to take care of themselves.

Histrionic personality disorder: A pattern of excessive emotion and attention-seeking. Patients with HPD may be uncomfortable when they are not the center of attention and may use physical appearance to draw attention to themselves or have rapidly shifting or exaggerated emotions.

Narcissistic personality disorder: A pattern of need for admiration and lack of empathy for others.  A patient with NPD may have a grandiose sense of self-importance, a sense of entitlement, take advantage of others or lack empathy.

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: A pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfection and control.  A patient with OCPD (distinct from Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)) may be overly focused on details or schedules, may work excessively, not allowing time for leisure or friends, or may be inflexible in their morality and values.

Paranoid personality disorder: A pattern of being suspicious of others and seeing them as mean or spiteful.  Patients with paranoid personality disorder often assume people will harm or deceive them and refuse to confide in others or become close to them.

Schizoid personality disorder: Being detached from social relationships and expressing little emotion.  A patient with schizoid personality disorder typically does not seek close relationships, chooses to be alone and appears to care little about praise or criticism from others.

Schizotypal personality disorder: A pattern of being very uncomfortable in close relationships, having distorted thinking and eccentric behavior. A patient with schizotypal personality disorder may have odd beliefs or odd or peculiar behavior or speech or may have excessive social anxiety.

Colossus

Colossus (pronounced kuh-los-us)

(1) A statue of gigantic size.

(2) Anything colossal, gigantic, or very powerful.

(3) The internal name for Google's file system, introduced in 2010 and optimized for use in big-machine databases stored in multiple server clusters.  

1350-1400: From the Middle English, from the Latin colossus (statue larger than life), from the Ancient Greek κολοσσός, (kolossós) (statue or image, origin uncertain but thought most likely from a pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language) and the word was used by Herodotus to describe large Egyptian statues.  The figurative sense "anything of awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794, taken from the adjective colossal (of extraordinary size, huge, gigantic), in use since 1712 although, colossic in the same sense is noted from circa 1600 and there are instances of colossean in the seventeenth century, both from the French colossal, from colosse, all forms from the Latin colossus from the Greek kolossós. The noun Colosseum dates from the 1560s, replacing the earlier Coliseum, the name in Medieval Latin for the classical Amphitheatrum Flavium (begun circa 70), noun use of the neuter of the adjective colosseus (gigantic), thought perhaps a reference to the big statue of Nero that for so long stood nearby. Colossus is a noun' the noun plural is colossi or colossuses.

The plural of colossus doesn't often come up in conversation but when it does, the choice is between colossi and colossusus, the latter there to be used by anyone who finds unwelcome, for whatever reason, the adoption in English of classical plural forms.  Not all words from Greek with a Latinised ending -us take the same pluralisation and there's no objection either to colossuses or the Latinized colossi; those who object to either probably suffer the condition known as hyper-correctionism and it is a real phenomenon (the squabble about octopuses, octopodes and the charming octopi) and is ongoing.  All that can be recommended is consistency; in a document, either adopt the English plural forms or use the classical form but don't mix.

Vaguely plausible rendering of how The Colossus of Rhodes may have appeared.

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  It was a very big statue, erected somewhere near the port of the city of Rhodes, the biggest settlement on what is the one of the larger Greek islands of the same name which lies off what is now Turkey’s Aegean coast.  Taking a dozen years to complete, the statue, construction of which began in 292 BC, was erected to honor Elios, the God of the Sun, who brought the inhabitants victory over Demetrius Poliorcetes (Demetrius I of Macedon; “The Besieger" 337–283 BC) who laid siege to Rhodes in 305-304 BC.  It stood for only sixty-odd years, collapsing during a severe earthquake which struck in 226 BC, contemporary reports indicating the structure fractured at both knees before toppling.  Remarkably, the mostly bronze wreckage was left substantially undisturbed for some eight-hundred years, becoming something of a tourist attraction before, in 654, it was salvaged by Arab invaders under the Muslim caliph Mu'awiya I (معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; circa 600–680) who sold it to someone described as “a Jewish merchant from Damascus” who is said to have carted it off on a camel train of almost “a thousand beasts”.

Demetrios the Besieger had a scandalous private life but had a flair for military matters, noted too for innovations in engineering such as the machines and devices built by his armies as siege engines.  However, even the forces he was able at deploy in 305-304 BC weren’t sufficient to defeat the fortifications of Rhodes and eventually, Demetrios was compelled to retreat, abandoning the siege machinery on the island.  To give thanks to the Sun God, the Rhodians granted the commission to build a triumphal statue to Helios to the sculptor Chares of Lindos (Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, circa 330 BC-circa 280 BC), a pupil of Lysippos (Λύσιππος; fourth century BC) and, in the dozen years between 304-292 BC, he supervised the construction.

Digitally generated image of statue of Zeus by Phidias,

Before the Colossus, Rhodes had long been famous for its statues, the contemporary accounts probably as unreliable as any Roman histories but even if Pliny’s count of some three-thousand was an exaggeration, the writing of others do suggest there were doubtlessly a lot, many in stone, some in bronze, but nothing on the scale of the Colossus had even been attempted.  There was a titanic statue, as they’re now known, in Olympus, a chryséléphantine (one made from Gold and ivory) study of Zeus some 13 m (42 feet) high, another of the seven wonders although the sculptor Phidias (Φειδίας, circa 480–430 BC) had avoided the fragility inherent in a standing figure by having Zeus sit in a chair.  He had also built a chryshephantine statue of the goddess Athena but that stood but 9m (30 feet) high; by any standards, the titanic Colossus was truly colossal.

Logo of Lindsay Lohan's Rhodes Beach House.

Beach Structurally, the build was executed along the well-understood engineering principles of the age, the base of white marble first installed to which were affixed the feet and ankles, an iron and stone framework gradually formed as scaffolding and structure proceeded in unison upwards.  To permit the workers to reach the highest levels, an earth ramp was built because the heights involved meant a free-standing system of scaffolding would lack the needed stability; when the work was complete, the earth ramp was demolished and the soil carted off.  While the superstructure was built, workers cast the outer skin in bronze using plates, the metal formed with copper melted in large ovens, to which iron, making 10-20% of the mix, was added.  Then the mouton metal mixture was moved in large ladles to be distributed in clay molds, flat structures used to form sheets varying in thickness according to need. Once cast, the rough edges were ground away and the plates polished before they were transported to the building site where they were hammered to the desired shape to be attached to the iron structure,  The thickest and heaviest plates were those rendered for the feet and ankles, complex in the shape of their curves and needing more mass to afford greater stability.  Thus for a dozen years, the thin bronze skin was added to the growing body of stone, each plate fixed to the iron frame and then to the neighboring plate.  Once finished, it was polished to reflect the rays of the Sun so it would shine as intensely as possible, better to honor Helios. 

How engineers would today build a 122 m (400 feet) high Colossus using modern techniques of structural engineering.  An interesting exercise although the Greek exchequer may have other fiscal priorities.

From the laying of the first stone to its toppling, building its destruction lies a time span of but sixty-seven years but the Colossus ranks as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world with Great Pyramid of Giza which still stands after almost five-thousand.  Such was the scale of the Colossus that the ruins still impressed, “…even lying on the ground, it is a marvel" wrote Pliny the Elder (24-79) who noted few men could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and each finger alone would have stood taller than most other statues.  The earthquake which so damaged the city 226 BC broke the Colossus at its narrowest and thus weakest points, the knees, and given the mass which existed above, there was no chance it could survive.  Although it would be centuries before the list of the seven wonders would exist as the codified canon now familiar, the stature was already famous and the an offer to the pay the cost of restoration was extended by Ptolemy III Euergetes (Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemy the Benefactor; circa 280–222 BC) of Egypt.  However, an oracle was consulted and their judgement forbade any re-construction so the offer was declined.  Details of the oracle’s pronouncement are lost but it’s speculated the conclusion may have been the earthquake was the act of a wrathful Helios and the ruins should be left where they fell, lest anger again be aroused.  There is no otherwise compelling explanation to account for why so much valuable bronze wouldn’t for centuries be recycled.

A (fanciful) engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes (circa 1540) by Martin Heemskerck (1498-1574).

The exact location remains uncertain but the notion the Colossus straddled the entrance to Rhodes harbor with ships passing between its legs was a figment of medieval imagination, a thing famously vivid.  Given its method of construction, such a thing would have collapsed under its own weight even before it was complete and, had it stood over the water, not only would construction have been challenging but when it fell, it would have blocked the entrance to the Mandraki harbor.  Despite that, in the early 1980s when a large piece of rubble was discovered in the water, there were still romantics who hoped this might vindicate the medieval theory.  There’s little doubt the story of a 60m (200 feet) tall Colossus straddling the entrance to the harbor was the work of opportunist poets and artists, the engineers and architects of the time sufficiently acquainted with physics and metallurgy to have assured all of the impossibility of their vision yet it seems long to have captured the medieval imagination.  Despite all that, it still influenced many even at the dawn of modernity, being one of the inspirations for the Statue of Liberty but that was designed in a way to ensure greater strength and stability, the weight distribution and the dimensions of the base entirely different.  There’s no doubt the statue stood somewhere in the proximity of Rhodes harbor but archaeological excavations have thus far revealed nothing, not unsurprising given the footprint of a vertical structure is much less than a temple or other building, and the urbanization of Rhodes over two millennia mean the site may long ago have been built-over.  The Colossus though would have shared one noted characteristic with the Statue of Liberty: When copper rubs on iron, it creates electricity, especially in a costal environment with salty air.  Like Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes made its own electricity.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911–2005; Premier of Queensland 1968-1987) (left), Russ Hinze (1919–1991; Minister for this and that in Queensland state government, 1974-1988) (centre) & Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) (right).  Russ Hinze was a politician who served in the state parliament of Queensland, Australia between 1966-1988.  He held many portfolios, often simultaneously, one of which was minister for roads.  In honor of his impressive girth, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads.

Wartime photograph of Colossus.

Colossus was the name of the world’s first electronic device which truly could be described a computer (being programmable, electronic and digital although the instructions were effected by switches, not stored programs).  It was built by the British in 1943 to break German military codes and was one of the mechanisms which provided the allies with the ultra decrypts, the importance of which to the war effort was of critical significance or merely helpful depending on the historian consulted.  During the war, twelve of the machines were assembled (which functioned independently; clusters and farms then an engineer's dream) but two didn't become functional until after the end of hostilities.  Colossus and the whole code-breaking operation remained a well-kept secret until the mid-1970s and the revelation induced some re-assessment of the strategic and tactical acuity of a number of political and military leaders, many of their decisions once through based on intuition or brilliance now understood as merely the use of good intelligence (ie "reading the enemy's mail").