Tsar

Tsar (pronounced zahr)

(1) An emperor or king.

(2) Title of the former emperors of Russia and several Slavonic states.

(3) Slang term for an autocratic ruler or leader.

(4) Slang term for a person exercising great authority or power in a particular field.

1545-1555: From the Old Russian tsĭsarĭ (emperor or king), akin to the Old Church Slavonic tsěsarĭ, the Gothic kaisar and the Greek kaîsar, all ultimately derived from the Latin Caesar (an emperor, a ruler, a dictator) while the Germanic form of the word was the source of the Finnish keisari and the Estonian keisar.  The prehistoric Slavic was tsesar, Tsar first adopted as an imperial title by Ivan IV (Ivan Vasilyevich, 1530–1584 and better remembered as Ivan the Terrible, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia 1533-1584 & Tsar of all Russia 1547-1584) in 1547.  There’s a curious history to spelling tsar as czar.  Spelled thus, it’s contrary to the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by the Carniolan diplomat & historian Baron Siegmund Freiherr von Herberstein (1486–1566) in his work (in Latin) Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (Notes on Muscovite Affairs (1549)) which was such a seminal early source of knowledge of Russia in Western Europe that "czar" passed into the Western languages; despite that history, "tsar" definitely is the proper Latinization.  It still appears and some linguistic academics insist the lineage means it should be regarded as archaic use rather than a mistake and, as a fine technical point, that’s correct in that, for example, the female form czarina is from 1717 (from Italian czarina and German zarin).  In Russian, the female form is tsaritsa and a tsar’s son is a tsarevitch, his daughter a tsarevna.

Nicholas II (Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov, 1868–1918; last Tsar of Russia, 1894-1917).  He cut an imposing figure for the portraitists but his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Emperor & King of Prussia 1888-1918) reckoned the tsar's mental abilities rendered him most suitable to "a cottage in the country where he can grow turnips".  Wilhelm got much wrong in his life but historians seem generally to concur in this he was a fair judge of things.

Tsar and its variants were the official titles of (1) the First Bulgarian Empire 913–1018, (2) the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396), (3) the Serbian Empire (1346–1371), (4) the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721) (technically replaced in 1721 by imperator, but remaining in use outside Russia (also officially in relation to certain regions until 1917) and (5) the Tsardom of Bulgaria (1908–1946).  So, although most associated with Russia, the first ruler to adopt the title was Simeon I (usually written as Simeon the Great; circa 865-927, ruler of Bulgaria 893-927) and that was about halfway through his reign and nobody since Simeon II (Simeon Borisov Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, b 1937; (last) Tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria 1943-1946) has been a tsar.  The transferred sense of "person with dictatorial powers" seems first to have appeared in English in 1866 as an adoption in American English, initially as a disapproving reference to President Andrew Johnson (1808–1875; US President 1865-1869) but it has come to be applied neutrally (health tsar, transport tsar) and use does sometimes demand deconstruction: drug tsar has been applied both to organised crime figures associated with the distribution of narcotics and government appointees responsible for policing the trade.  In some countries, some overlap between the two roles has been noted.

Comrade Stalin agitprop.

Volgograd, the southern Russian city was between 1925-1961 named Stalingrad (Stalin + -grad).  Grad (град in Cyrillic) was from the Old Slavic and translates variously as "town, city, castle or fortified settlement"; it once existed in many languages as gord and can be found still as grad, gradić, horod or gorod in many place-names.  Before it was renamed in honour of comrade Stalin (1878-1953, leader of the USSR 1924-1953), between 1589-1925, the city, at the confluence of the Tsaritsa and Volga rivers was known as Tsaritsyn, the name from the Turkic-related Tatar dialect word sarisin meaning "yellow water" or "yellow river" but because of the similarity in sound and spelling, came in Russia to be associated with Tsar.  Stalingrad is remembered as the scene of the epic and savage battle which culminated in the destruction in February 1943 of the German Sixth Army, something which, along with the strategic failure of the Wehrmacht in the offensive (Unternehmen Zitadelle (Operation Citadel) in the Kursk salient five months later, marked what many military historians record as the decisive moment on the Eastern Front.  It has become common to refer to comrade Stalin as the "Red Tsar" whereas casual comparisons of Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) don't often reach to Russia's imperial past; they seem to stop with Stalin.

Caesar (an emperor, a ruler, a dictator) was from the late fourteenth century cesar (from Cæsar) and was originally a surname of the Julian gens in Rome, elevated to a title after Caius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) became dictator and it was used as a title of emperors down to Hadrian (76–138; Roman emperor 117-138).  The name ultimately is of uncertain origin, Pliny the Elder (23–79) suggested it came from the Latin caesaries (head of hair) because the future dictator was born with a lush growth while others have linked it to the Latin caesius (bluish-gray), an allusion to eye color.  The "probity of Caesar's" wife (the phrase first recorded in English in the 1570s) as the figure of a person who should be above suspicion comes from the biography of Julius Caesar written by the Greek Middle Platonist priest-philosopher & historian Plutarch (circa 46–circa 123).  Plutarch related the story of how Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia because of rumors of infidelity, not because he believed the tales of her adultery but because, as a political position, “the wife of Caesar must not even be under suspicion”.  That’s the origin of the phrase “the probity of Caesar’s wife, a phrase which first appeared in English in the 1570s.

In late nineteenth century US slang, a sheriff was "the great seizer" an allusion to the office's role in seizing property pursuant to court order.  The use of Caesar to illustrate the distinction between a subject’s obligations to matters temporal and spiritual is from the New Testament: Matthew 22:21.

They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

Christ had been answering a question posed by the Pharisees to trap Him: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15–20)?  To answer, Jesus held up a denarius, the coin with which pay the tax and noted that on it was the head of Caesar, by then Caesar had become a title, meaning emperor of Rome and its empire.  It was a clever answer; in saying "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's", Jesus dismisses the notion of believers being conflicted by the demands of the secular state as a false dilemma because, one can fulfil the requirements of the sate by a mere payment of coin without any implication of accepting its doctrines or legitimacy.  Over the years much has been made of what is or should be "rendered unto Caesar", but more interesting is inference which must be drawn: if we owe Caesar that which bears his image, what then do we owe God?  It can only be that we owe God that which bears the image of God, an impressive inventory listed in the book of Genesis and now interpreted by some Christians as "the whole universe".  To Caesar we can only ever owe money; to God we owe ourselves.

In the Old English the spelling was casere, which would under the expected etymological process have evolved into coser, but instead, circa 1200, it was replaced in the Middle English by keiser, from the Norse or Low German, and later by the French or Latin form of the name.  Cæsar also is the root of German Kaiser, the Russian tsar and is linked with the Modern Persian shah.  Despite the common assumption, "caesar" wasn’t an influence on the English "king".  King was from the Middle English king & kyng, from the Old English cyng & cyning (king), from the Proto-West Germanic kuning, from the Proto-Germanic kuningaz & unungaz (king), kin being the root.  It was cognate with the Scots keeng (king), the North Frisian köning (king), the West Frisian kening (king), the Dutch koning (king), the Low German Koning & Köning (king), the German König (king), the Danish konge (king), the Norwegian konge (king), the Swedish konung & kung (king), the Icelandic konungur & kóngur (king), the Finnish kuningas (king) and the Russian князь (knjaz) (prince) & княги́ня (knjagínja) (princess).  It eclipsed the non-native Middle English roy (king) and the Early Modern English roy, borrowed from Old French roi, rei & rai (king).

The Persian Shah was from the Old Persian xšāyaθiya (king), once thought a borrowing from the Median as it was compared to the Avestan xšaϑra- (power; command), corresponding to the Sanskrit (the Old Indic) kṣatra- (power; command), source of kṣatriya (warrior).  However, recent etymological research has confirmed xšāyaθiya was a genuine, inherited Persian formation meaning “pertaining to reigning, ruling”.  The word, with the origin suffix -iya was from a deverbal abstract noun xšāy-aθa- (rule, ruling) (Herrschaft), from the Old Persian verb xšāy- (to rule, reign).  In the Old Persian, the full title of the Achaemenid rulers of the First Empire was Xšāyaθiya Xšāyaθiyānām (or in Modern Persian, Šāhe Šāhān (King of Kings)), best as "Emperor", a title with ancient, Near Eastern and Mesopotamian precedents.  The earliest known instance of such a title dates from the Middle Assyrian period as šar šarrāni, used by the Assyrian ruler Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC).

Tsar Bomba: the Tsar bomb

Tupolev Tu-95 in flight (left) and a depiction of the October 1961 test detonation of the Tsar Bomb.

Царь-бомба (Tsar Bomba (Tsar-bomb)) was the Western nickname for the Soviet RDS-220 hydrogen bomb (Project code: AN602; code name Ivan or Vanya), the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.  The test on 30 October 1961 remains the biggest man-made explosion in history and was rated with a yield of 50-51 megatons although the design was technically able to produce maximum yield in excess of 100.  For a long time the US estimated the yield at 54 megatons and the Russians at 58 but after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was confirmed the true yield was 50-51 megatons.  Only one was ever built and it was detonated on an island off the Russian arctic coast.  The decision to limit the size blast was related to the need to ensure (1) a reduced nuclear fall-out and (2) the aircraft dropping the thing would be able to travel a safe distance from the blast radius (the Kremlin's attitude to the lives of military personnel had changed since comrade Stalin's time).  No nuclear power has since expressed any interest in building weapons even as large as the Tsar Bomb and for decades the trend in strategic arsenals has been more and smaller weapons, a decision taken on the pragmatic military grounds that it's pointless to destroy things many times over.  It's true that higher yield nuclear weapons would produce "smaller rubble" but to the practical military mind such a result represents just "wasted effort".

Progress 1945-1961.

The Tupolev Tu-95 (NATO reporting name: Bear) which dropped the Tsar Bomb was a curious fork in aviation history, noted also for its longevity.  A four-engined turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform, it entered service in 1956 and is expected still to be in operational use in 2040, an expectation the United States Air Force (USAF) share for their big strategic bomber, the Boeing B-52 which first flew in 1952, the first squadrons formed three years later.  Both airframes have proven remarkably durable and amenable to upgrades; as heavy lift devices and delivery systems they could be improved upon with a clean-sheet design but the relatively small advantages gained would not justify the immense cost, thus the ongoing upgrade programmes.  The TU-95's design was, inter-alia, notable for being one of the few propeller-driven aircraft with swept wings and is the only one ever to enter large-scale production.  It's also very loud, the tips of those counter-rotating propellers sometimes passing through the sound barrier.

Footage of the Tsar Bomb test de-classified and released after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1922-1991).

The Tsar Bomb was in a sense the “ultimate” evolution of the centuries long history of the bomb although it wasn’t the end of innovation, designers seemingly never running out of ideas to refine the concept of the device, the purpose of which is to (1) blow stuff up and (2) kill people.  Bomb was from the French bombe, from the Italian bomba, from the Latin bombus (a booming sound), from the Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos) (booming, humming, buzzing), the explosive imitative of the sound itself.  Bomb was used originally of “projectiles; mortar shells etc”, the more familiar “explosive device placed by hand or dropped from airplane” said by many sources to date from 1908 although the word was in the former sense used when describing the anarchist terrorism of the late nineteenth century.  As a footnote, the nickname of Hugh Trenchard (1873-1956), the first Marshal of the Royal Air Force (RAF) was “boom” but this was related to his tone of voice rather than an acknowledgement of him being one of the earliest advocates of strategic bombing.

The figurative uses were wide, ranging from “a dilapidated car” (often as “old bomb”, the use based presumably on the perception such vehicles are often loud).  The bombshell was originally literally a piece of military equipment but it was later co-opted (most memorably as “blonde bombshell) to describe a particularly fetching young women.  So, used figuratively, “bomb” could mean either “very bad” or “very good” and in his weekly Letter from American (broadcast by the BBC World Service 1946-2004), Alistair Cooke (1908–2004) noted a curious trans-Atlantic dichotomy.  In the world of showbiz, Cooke observed, “bomb” was used in both the US & UK to describe the reaction to a play, movie or whatever but in the US, if called “a bomb”, the production was a flop, a failure whereas in the UK, if something was called “quite a bomb”, it meant it was a great success.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

I Know Who Killed Me bombed (in the traditional US sense) but in the way these things sometimes happen, the film has since enjoyed a second life with a cult-following and screenings on the specialized festival circuit.  Additionally, DVD & Blu-Ray sales (it's said to be a popular, if sometimes ironic, gift) meant eventually it generated a profit although it has never exactly become a "bomb" (in the UK sense).  However, while it now enjoys a following among a small sub-set of the public, the professional critics have never softened their view.

Swiftie

Swiftie (pronounced swiftee)

(1) In slang (originally Australian) a trick, ruse, or deception (often in the form “(s)he pulled a swiftie”).

(2) A self-identifying term used by the most devoted (some suggest obsessed) fans of the musician Taylor Swift (b 1989).  The collective is “Swifties” (the initial capital not always used) and as fandom they distinguish themselves from mere casual listeners although the media tends to apply the term to all.  In 2017, Taylor Swift trade-marked the term Swiftie for commercial use and The Oxford English Dictionary elevated it from “slang” to “word” in 2022; it was a finalist in Oxford’s 2023 Word of the Year judging.

(3) As "Singapore Swiftie", an emerging alternative form for term "exclusivity clause", most associated with contract law.

1945 (for the Australian slang) and (at least) 2010 (of Taylor Swift’s fans):  The construct was swift + -ie.  The word swift existed in the Middle English as an adjective & adverb prior to 900 and was an adjective in the Old English.  It was akin to the Old English swīfan (to revolve) and the Old Norse svīfa (to rove) and was most common as an adjective (moving or capable of moving with great speed or velocity; fleet; rapid; coming, happening, or performed quickly or without delay; quick or prompt to act or respond).  The Old English swift was from the Proto-Germanic swiftaz (swift; quick), from the primitive Indo-European sweyp & weyp- (to twist; wind around) and cognate with the Icelandic svipta (to pull quickly) and the Old English swīfan (to revolve, sweep, wend, intervene).  While the derived forms (swiftly, swiftness et al) are well-known and most have survived, one which went extinct was the thirteenth century swiftship “the ability to run fast”.  In the Australian way, the slang “swiftie” (also often as “swifty”) was also re-purposed as a nickname for someone “slow” (both mentally & physically).  The suffix -ie was a variant spelling of -ee, -ey & -y and was used to form diminutive or affectionate forms of nouns or names.  It was used also (sometimes in a derogatory sense to form colloquial nouns signifying the person associated with the suffixed noun or verb (eg bike: bikie, surf: surfie, hood: hoodie etc).  Swiftie is a noun; the noun plural is swifties.

The surname Swift was of English origin and is thought to have been literally a reference to someone who was “swift” (a fast runner).  There are entries in parish records in Suffolk dating from 1222 recording the birth of “Nicholas, ye sonne of Swyfte” and Swift evolved as a name often given to a messenger or courier (the faster a carrier, the faster the transmission of the message, a concept which has survived into the internet age.  In the household books of the court of Edward III (1312–1377; King of England 1327-1377), a Ralph Swyft was recorded as his courier.  The name became common in England and in later centuries spread throughout the English-speaking world.

As SWIFT, it’s the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication: an international consortium that routes instructions concerning transfer of funds between financial institutions.  Except in the business of money transfers, it was an obscure organization until Mr Putin’s (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) special military operation against Ukraine when the significance of SWIFT in the commodities markets (where Russia is a big player) became widely understood after the imposition of trade and other economic sanctions.

In the purple: Dr Taylor Swift in academic gown after being conferred an honorary doctorate in fine arts from New York University, May 2022.

The noun swift was applied to name any of numerous long-winged, swallow-like birds of the family Apodidae, related to the hummingbirds and noted for their rapid flight.  It was used also of several types of moth, butterfly & lizard noted for their rapid movements and in engineering was used of the adjustable device on the processing apparatus upon which a hank of yarn is placed in order to wind off skeins or balls or the main cylinder on a machine for carding flax.  In the plural, the word was used of the faster-flowing current of a stream or reaches of a river and “swifts” in that sense remains in literary and poetic use although it’s otherwise obsolete.  Historically, the adjective Swiftian meant “of or pertaining to the Anglo-Irish satirist and essayist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) or his works” (the best known of which were A Tale of a Tub (1704) & Gulliver's Travels (1726) but of late it has in academia been used also of Taylor Swift.  Universities are businesses which operate to make a profit and even Harvard now runs Taylor Swift courses which focus on her musical and lyrical style.  Jonathan Swift in 1713 became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, thus his later common sobriquet: “Dean Swift”.  It’s thought unlikely Talyor Swift will follow her namesake into ecclesiastical administration.

The Singapore Swiftie

The lawyers in the Singapore government have a famously acute commercial sense and wouldn’t have needed the back of an envelope, let also a spreadsheet, to work out that if an exclusivity clause could be agreed with Taylor Swift, guaranteeing her six concerts in the city-state would be her only performances in the region, the economic benefits in terms of inward capital flows would be considerable.  For Taylor Swift’s operation too there would have been advantages, not the least of which would have been Singapore’s high level of security and world-class infrastructure but the cost off-sets would also have been considerable including a reduction in travel expenses and the logistical impositions of touring (the set-up and tear-down of the venues is a major operation with a high labor component).  The amount the government paid for the exclusivity clause wasn’t disclosed but presumably both parties were satisfied with the transaction.  Such is Ms Swift’s cultural power that it seems not even Greta Thunberg (b 2003) was prepared to risk incurring the wrath & indignation of the Swifties by commenting on the addition carbon generated by so many of them flying to see their idol.

Exclusivity clauses are common in commercial contracts and are used variously for purposes such as (1) guarding software, products or services from unwanted distribution, (2) granting exclusive rights to certain parties and forbidding the transfer of those permissions to others, (3) obliging certain parties to purchase products or services exclusively from one’s company rather than a competitor.  So, there’s nothing novel about exclusivity clauses and in most jurisdictions, usually they’re enforceable unless they offend against some over-arching restriction such as “unconscionable conduct” or a violation of competition rules.  As a general principle, the guidelines for an exclusivity clause to be held valid are (1) voluntariness (ie entered into without coercion), (2) certainty of terms (ie no ambiguity), (3) a beginning and an end (although the clauses can, with the agreement of both parties, be extended indefinitely, the clause should be limited in time and renewal & termination protocols must be clear), (4) product & service standards and payment terms must be clear (including variation protocols) and (5) the consequences of any breach must be explicit and detail specific remedies such as monetary compensation.

There are reasons other than the music to become a Swiftie:  The statuesque Taylor Swift in a Sachin & Babi patchwork dress at Capital FM’s Jingle Bell Ball, London, December 2014.  The eye was drawn by the intricate detailing and although some missed her trademark red lipstick, the garment's array of variegated reds meant that would have been too much, the same admirable restraint dictating the choice of black shoes.  Solid colors tend to dominate the red carpet so this piece was a rare splash of genuine adventurism.

Reaction to the deal (soon labeled the “Singapore swiftie”, the formation presumably influenced also by the equally alliterative "Singapore Sling") in the region was swift.  Authorities in Hong Kong & Thailand were immediately critical and one Philippine politician told local media Singapore was operating by “the law of the jungle” and not the law of a “neighborhood of countries bound by supposed principles of solidarity and consensus”, a not so subtle reminder that in the neighborhood diplomatic relations have in recent decades been usually smooth, the members of Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the regional economic and security bloc, famously operating on the basis of “consensus”, a reasonably achievement in an organization of which Myanmar (sometimes still referred to as Burma) is a member.

A Singapore Swiftie: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

However, even while the waves from west & north were disturbing Asean’s usually calm waters, Lee Hsien Loong (b 1952; Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004) was addressing the matter of the Singapore Swiftie in a press conference conducted as part of an Asean summit held, unusually, in Melbourne: “A deal was reached.  And so it has turned out to be a very successful arrangement.  I don't see that as being unfriendly” Mr Lee said, confirming an “incentive” had been paid to secure the deal.  That matter had already attracted interest but the Singapore Tourism Board declined to comment on the amount paid, saying the terms were “commercial in confidence” and Taylor Swift's concert promoter was just as reticent.  The math however will have been done by many and not only does the Singapore economy gain from all the visitors arriving to rent hotel rooms, buy food and catch trains but the city state benefits also from its citizens not leaving the territory, taking their money to neighboring countries to spend there.  Thus, Singapore’s gain is the loss of others and while the numbers in the estimates of the benefit gained bounce around a bit, all were in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Pulling a swiftie on X (when it was known as Twitter)?

Lindsay Lohan’s tweet to Taylor Swift on 14 December 2020 contained no message but it nevertheless garnered some 8K retweets, 53K Likes and over 1000 responses.  Neither sender nor recipient have ever commented but Twitter's deconstructionists pondered this postmodern message and concluded: Lindsay Lohan is a Swiftie.

Plenty of touring acts will have noted all of this and while few have anything like the drawing power of Taylor Swift, doubtless most will have suggested promoters add the Singapore Swiftie to their negotiating toolbox, the hope being that in playing countries & cities off against each other, a bidding war will ensue; certainly, for decades, the approach has worked well for operators like the IOC (International Olympic Committee), FIFA (Fédération internationale de football association) and Formula One.  Hopefully there’s also a linguistic legacy and in the jargon of law and commerce, the dull & boring “exclusivity clause” will be replaced by the exciting and attractively alliterative “Singapore Swiftie”.

Mercury

Mercury (pronounced mur-kyuh-ree)

(1) In chemistry, a heavy, silver-white, highly toxic metallic element (uniquely liquid at room temperature), once widely used in barometers & thermometers and still a component of pesticides & pharmaceutical preparations.  In industrial use it provides the reflecting surface of mirrors, can still be a part of dental amalgams and is used in some switches, mercury-vapor lamps, and other electric apparatus.  It’s also used as a catalyst in laboratories.  Symbol: Hg; atomic weight: 200.59; atomic number: 80; specific gravity: 13.546 at 20°C; freezing point: −38.9°C; boiling point: 357°C.  It’s known also as quicksilver or hydrargyrum.

(2) In clinical pharmacology, the metal as used in various organic and inorganic compounds, used usually to treat infections of the skin.

(3) In mythology, the Roman god who served as messenger of the gods and was also the god of commerce, thievery, eloquence, and science, identified with the Greek god Hermes (initial capital letter).

(4) In astronomy, the planet nearest the sun, having a diameter of 3,031 miles (4,878 km), a mean distance from the sun of 36 million miles (57.9 million km), and a period of revolution of 87.96 days, and having no satellites; the smallest planet in the solar system (diameter and mass: respectively 38 and 5.4% that of earth) (initial capital letter).

(5) Borrowing from mythology, a messenger, especially a carrier of news (largely archaic).

(6) In botany, any plant belonging to the genus Mercurialis, of the spurge family, especially the poisonous, weedy M. perennis of Europe.  Historically, it was most associated with the annual mercury (Mercurialis annua), once cultivated for medicinal properties (the fourteenth century French mercury or herb mercury).

(7) In botany, a similar edible plant (Blitum bonus-henricus), otherwise known since the fifteenth century as English mercury or allgood.

(8) In botany, in eighteenth century US regional use, the poison oak or poison ivy.

(9) In the history of US aerospace, one of a series of U.S. spacecraft, carrying one astronaut and the first US vehicle to achieve suborbital and orbital manned spaceflights (initial capital letter).

(10) Liveliness, volatility (obsolete since the mid-nineteenth century).

1300–1350: From the Middle English Mercurie, from the Medieval Latin, from the Classical Latin Mercurius (messenger of Jupiter, god of commerce) and related to merx (merchandise),  Mercury, mercuriality & mercurialist are nouns, mercurial is a noun & adjective, mercurous, intramercurial & mercuric are adjectives and mercurially is an adverb; the noun plural is mercuries.

The late fourteenth century adjective mercurial (pertaining to or under the influence of the planet Mercury) evolved by the 1590s to include the sense “pertaining to the god Mercury, having the form or qualities attributed to Mercury (a reference to his role as god of trade or as herald and guide)”.  The meaning “light-hearted, sprightly, volatile, changeable, quick” was in use by the 1640s and was intended to suggest the qualities supposed to characterize those born under the planet Mercury, these based on the conduct of the god Mercury (which seems a generous interpretation given some of his antics), probably also partly by association with the qualities of quicksilver. A variant in this sense was the now rare noun mercurious, in use by the 1590s.  The adjective mercuric (relating to or containing mercury) dates from 1828 and in chemistry applied specifically applied to compounds in which each atom of mercury was regarded as bivalent.  Mercurous was by the 1840s applied to those in which two atoms of mercury are regarded as forming a bivalent radical. 

In the mythology of Antiquity, the Roman Mercury (or Mercurius) was identified with the Greek Hermes, protecting travelers in general and merchants in particular.  He was depicted as the messenger of Jupiter and in some tales even as his agent in some of Jupiter’s amorous ventures (famously in Amphytrion (circa 188 BC) by the playwright Titus Maccius Plautus (circa 254–184 BC)).  The location of Rome’s first Temple of Mercury was chosen because it was so close to both the port and the commercial precinct, the god of commerce thus well-placed.  Although it’s not entirely certain, the structure was thought to date from 496 BC and historians note the sanctuary was built outside the pomerium (the city’s religious boundary), leading to speculation the cult may have been of foreign origin.  Mercury’s attributes included the caduceus (the wand), a variety of very fetching broad-brimmed hats, winged sandals (essential for one so “fleet of foot” and the purse (symbolizing the profits merchants gained from their trade).  The tales from Antiquity are not consistent (and in some cases contradictory but Mercury in some traditions was the father of Evander or of Lares (charged with the supervision of crossroads and prosperity); Lares was born after Mercury raped Lara, the water Nymph in the kingdom of the dead.  The identification of Mercury with the Greek Hermes was ancient but in the early medieval period he was linked also with the Germanic Woden and noting his role as a messenger and conveyor of information, since the mid-seventeenth century Mercury was often used as a name for newspapers although has been a common name for a newspaper and some critics have adapted it for their own purposes: In Australia the Hobart Mercury was in the 1980s sometimes derisively called the “Hobart Mockery”.

Vintage wall thermometer: As the temperature increased, the mercury expanded in volume and rose (hence "mercury rising").  The red colour was achieved with the addition of a dye.

The origin of the chemical name of mercury (Hg) reflects the influence of Scientific Latin on early-modern chemistry; Hg is an abbreviation of the Latin name of the element: hydrargium (literally “water-silver”), from the Ancient Greek hydrargyros (liquid silver), an allusion to its unique quality of being a silvery liquid when at room temperature (all other metals being solid).  The older English name was quicksilver (still prevalent in literary & poetic circles) which was coined in the sense of “living silver”, a reference to the liquid tending to move “like a living thing” when provoked with the slight provocation.  The “quick” referred not to speed but “alive” in the sense of the Biblical phrase “the quick and the dead”.  Alchemists called it azoth and in medical and sometimes chemical use that’s still occasionally seen.  As late as the fifteenth century, in mainstream Western science the orthodox view was that mercury was one of the elemental principles thought present in all metals.  In Antiquity, it was prepared from cinnabar and was then one of the seven known metals (bodies terrestrial), coupled in astrology and alchemy with the seven known heavenly bodies (the others: Sun/gold, Moon/silver, Mars/iron, Saturn/lead, Jupiter/tin, Venus/copper.  In idiomatic use, (with a definite article), because of the use in barometers & thermometers, “the mercury” was a reference to temperature thus “mercury rising” meant “warmer”, the use dating from the seventeenth century and it has persisted even as the devices have moved to digital technology.  The name mercury was adopted because the stuff flows quickly about, recalling the Roman god who was the “swift-footed messenger of the gods”.

The same rationale appealed to the astronomers of Antiquity who noted the swift movement of the planet which required only 88 days for each solar orbit.  Mercury is sometimes visible from the Earth as a morning or evening star and in our solar system and is the both the smallest and the closest planet to the Sun.  Second in density only to Earth, it’s a lifeless (as far as is known or seems possible) place with a cratered surface which makes it not dissimilar in appearance to Earth's Moon.  It behaves differently from Earth in that the rotational period of 58.6 days is two-thirds of its 88-day annual orbit, thus it makes three full axial rotations every two years.  The atmosphere is close to non-existent, something which, combined with the rotational & orbital dynamics and the proximity to the Sun produces rapid radiational cooling on its dark side, meaning the temperature range is greater than any other planet in our solar system (466°-184°C (870°-300°F)).  Being so close to the Sun, Mercury is visible only shortly before sunrise or after sunset, observation further hindered by Earth’s dust & pollution, this distorting the planet’s light which obliquely must pass through the lower atmosphere.  It wasn’t until circa 1300 that the Classical Latin name for the planet was adopted in English while a (presumably hypothetical) resident of the place was by 1755 a Mercurian or a century later as Mercurean.  The novel adjective intramercurial (being within the orbit of the planet Mercury) was coined in 1859 to describe a hypothetical planet orbiting between Mercury and the Sun.  The idea had existed among French astronomers since the 1840s but became a matter of some debate between 1860-1869 until observations of solar eclipses finally debunked the notion.  The origin of the noun amalgamation (act of compounding mercury with another metal), dating from the 1610s, was a noun of action from archaic verb amalgam (to alloy with mercury), the figurative, non-chemical sense of “a combining of different things into one uniform whole” in use by 1775.

Genuinely different and obvious a cut above a Ford: 1939 Mercury 8 Coupe.

Reflecting the philosophy of Henry Ford which put a premium on engineering and price, concepts like product differentiation & multi-brand market segmentation came late to the Ford Motor Company.  Unlike General Motors (GM) which throughout the 1930s fielded seven brand-names, it wasn’t until 1938 that Ford added a third, using until then just Ford and Lincoln and even they operated as separate companies whereas GM maintained a divisional structure.  The debut in 1938 of the Mercury label, sitting on the pricing scale between Ford and Lincoln made sense in a way that twenty years on, Edsel never did and, until internal cannibalization began in the 1960s, the Mercury brand worked well.  Even after that, the marketing momentum accrued over decades maintained Mercury’s viability and it wasn’t shuttered until 2011, a victim of the industry’s restructuring after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC 2008-2012).  Debatably, the Mercury brand may yet prove useful and, should a niche emerge, there may be a resurrection, Ford maintaining registration of the trademark.

A (slightly) better Ford LTD: 1969 Mercury Marquis Brougham four-door hardtop.

Perhaps it was the experience of GM which had discouraged Ford.  Although Harvard had begun awarding MBAs since 1908, history unfortunately doesn’t record whether any of them were involved in the brand-name proliferation decision of the mid 1920s which saw the introduction of companion offerings to four of GM’s five existing divisions, only the entry-level Chevrolet not augmented.  The new brands, slotted above or below depending on where the perceived price-gap existed, mean GM suddenly was marketing nine products in competition with Ford offering two and one probably didn’t need a MBA to conclude only one approach was likely correct.  As things turned out, GM’s approach was never given the chance fully to explore the possibilities, the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s suppressing demand in the economy to an extent then unknown, necessitating downsizing in just about every industrial sector.  Axed by GM in 1931 was Viking (Oldsmobile’s companion), Marquette (added to Buick) and Oakland (actually usurped by its nominal companion, Pontiac).  LaSalle (a lower-priced Cadillac) survived the cull… for a while.

Ford in the late 1930s had clearly been thinking about how to cover the widely understood "price-points" in the market, most of which existed between the mass-market Fords and the Big Lincolns, then a very expensive range.  One toe in the water of brand-proliferation was the creation in 1937 of "De Luxe Ford" which, despite some of the hints in the advertising, was neither a separate company nor even a division; it was described by historians of the industry as "a marque within a marque".  Structurally, this seems little different to the approach the company had been using since 1930 when it introduced a “Deluxe” trim option for certain models which could be ordered to make the “standard” Ford a little better appointed but the 1937 De Luxe Fords were more plausibly different because some relative minor changes to panels and detailing did make the two “marques” visually distinct.  The Deluxe vs De Luxe spelling was perhaps too subtle a touch to be noticed by many.

1968 Mercury Cougar GT-E 427.  The tennis court hints at the target market.

A long wheelbase Food Mustang with a higher specification, the original Mercury Cougar (1967-1970) was the brand's great success story.  The 1968 GT-E 427 was a tiny part of that but is remembered as the last use of the Le Mans winning 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 and the corporation's only 427 pony-car.  Civilized with hydraulic valve lifters and an automatic transmission, it was a glimpse of what might have been had Ford, as it once planned, put the 427 in a Mustang.     

The De Luxe Ford line was deliberately positioned between Ford and Lincoln but intriguingly, at the same time, Ford introduced both a new, lower priced V12 Lincoln called the Lincoln-Zephyr and the Mercury range, all three of these ventures contesting the same, now crowded, space.  The De Luxe Ford “marque” would last only until 1940 although Ford’s Deluxe option remained on the books; it’s doubtful many outside Ford’s advertising agency noticed.  It would seem Ford was hedging its bets and may have decided to persist with whichever of Mercury and De Luxe Ford proved most successful and as things transpired, that was Mercury so as the 1941 model year dawned, in the dealers’ brochures there were Fords, Mercurys, Lincoln-Zephyrs & Lincolns.  World War II of course intervened and when production resumed after the end of hostilities, that was simplified to Fords, Mercury & Lincoln, remaining that way until the mid-1950s when in a booming economy, the temptation to proliferate proved irresistible and the exclusive Continental division was created, followed by the infamous Edsel, the model spread of which over-lapped the pricing of both Ford and Mercury, an approach which seems to go beyond hedging.  The Continental experiment lasted barely two seasons and the Edsel just three, the latter a debacle which remains a case study in marketing departments.

A natural Mercury: 1955 Ford Thunderbird.

So by 1960 the corporation again offered just Fords, Mercurys & Lincolns but it was a troubled time for the latter, the huge Lincolns of the late 1950s, although technically quite an achievement in body engineering, had proved so unsuccessful that Ford’s new management seriously considered closing it down as well but it was saved when handed a prototype Ford Thunderbird coupé which was developed into the famous Lincolns of 1961-1969, remembered chiefly for the romantic four-door convertibles and being the cabriolet in which John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was assassinated.  That was one of the Thunderbird’s footnotes in corporate history, the other being that when introduced in 1955 it was the first Ford blatantly to intrude on what, according to marketing theory, should have been the domain of Mercury, home of the up-market offerings.

Cannibalizing the corporation: 1965 Ford LTD.

The Thunderbird though was just the first act of trespass and fancier Fords continued to appear, the landmark being the LTD, which began in 1965 as a luxury trim-package for the Galaxie, something which proved so popular it soon became model in its own right, encouraging a host of imitators from the mass-market competition, the most successful of which was Chevrolet’s Caprice (that innovation in retrospect the first nail in the coffins of the now shuttered Pontiac & Oldsmobile).  However, like Pontiac & Oldsmobile, Mercury would endure for decades, all three surviving before being sacrificed in the wake of the GFC and between the debut of the LTD and the end of the line, there were many successful years but the rationale for the existence of Mercury which had been so well defined in 1938 when there was genuine product differentiation and a strict maintenance of price points, gradually was dissipated to the point that with the odd exception (such as the wildly successfully Mercury Cougars of the late 1960s), Fords and Lincolns were allowed to become little more than competitors in the same space and the brand never developed the sort of devoted following which might have transcended the sameness.  By the twenty-first century, there were few reasons to buy a Mercury because a Ford could be ordered in essentially identical form, usually for a little less money.

Xylo-punk band Crazy and the Brains performing Lindsay Lohan, recorded live, Mercury Lounge, New York City, 2013.  Punk bands are said still not widely to have adopted the xylophone.

Utopia & Dystopia

Utopia (pronounced yoo-toh-pee-uh)

(1) An imaginary island described in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, a place enjoying perfection in law, society and politics; such a place cannot exist.

(2) An ideal place or state of being.

(3) Any visionary system of political or social perfection.

(4) A popular product name in the illicit drug industry.

1516: From the New Latin utopia (literally "nowhere"), coined by Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) and used as title of his 1516 book about an imaginary island enjoying perfect legal, social, and political systems although the author’s meaning was rather more nuanced than that the casual use of “utopia” is used usually to convey.  The construct was the Ancient Greek οὐ (ou) (not) +‎ τόπος (topos) (place; region) + ia (from the Classical Latin ia and the Ancient Greek ία (ía) & εια (eia) which form abstract nouns of feminine gender).  The meaning was extended to "any perfect place" by the early seventeenth century.  Marx used the word in disparagement of the “…useless utopian myths…” he thought infected the schools of socialist too remote from political and economic reality.  The French form was utopie.  Utopia, utopographer, utopianizer, utopianization & utopianism are nouns, utopian & utopist are nouns & adjectives, utopianize is a verb, utopianistic is an adjective, utopianly is an adverb; the noun plural is utopias.

Dystopia (pronounced dis-toh-pee-uh)

(1) A society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

(2) Any imaginary place or state of being where everything is bad.

1868: A compound word dys + (u)topia, the word coined by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and its first public use was in one of his speeches delivered in the House of Commons.  The construct was the Ancient Greek δυσ (dus) (bad) + τόπος (tópos) (place; region) + ia (from the Classical Latin ia and the Ancient Greek ία (ía) & εια (eia) which form abstract nouns of feminine gender). It’s since usually been used in the sense of any bad place, real or imagined.  In popular culture, depictions of dystopia have tended to follow the concerns of the time; pandemics, nuclear war, alien invasion, dictatorial régimes and climate change.  The spelling distopia is erroneous but not uncommon.  Dystopia, dystopographer, dystopianizer, dystopianization & dystopianism are nouns, dystopian & dystopist are nouns & adjectives, dystopianize is a verb, dystopianistic is an adjective and dystopianly is an adverb; the noun plural is dystopias.  The constructs follow the model of those derived from utopia although in use, most are rare.

Urban future by noted practitioner of dystopian art, Polina Kulagina.  There is an entire genre of dystopian art and literature.

For something which More insisted can't exist, utopia has survived well and it's proved a popular building block.  A gaytopia is the sort of place (real or imagined) which is (for whatever reason) a paradise for the LGBTQQIAAOP community and the hetrotopia was apparently a right-wing reaction to that, the idea being a "gay-free" zone.  A pornotopia is a place (real or virtual) in which every form of pornography however depraved was available; it was a specialized form of an infotopia which was something like the original vision of some for the WorldWideWeb (WWW) back when Al Gore (b 1948; US vice president (VPOTUS) 1993-2001 & in 2000 the next president of the United States (NPOTUS)) called it the "information superhighway".  Apparently he invented the internet so it's reasonable he assumed naming rights.  Pornotopia was originally used to describe a imagined world where all were willing (even anxious) to engage in all forms of sexual activity while an intimatopia was a fantasy world serving as an ideal setting for sexually charged relationships involving a high degree of sustained emotional intimacy.  The romantopia was a world imagined by women as the ideal setting for romantic love (it has dismissively been called millsandboonatopia).  A cyberutopia is a kind of heaven for nerds, a place full of cables, computers, routers and coffee machines where Coca-Cola & pizza are free.  The technoutopia is much the same sort of place and one inhabited by technoutopians and technoutopists dedicated to the pursuit of technoutopism.  An autopia was envisaged as an urban landscape designed around the use of the automobile and it's long been used as a critique of certain cities of which Los Angeles is the best-known example although there are many cities where traffic management is far, far worse.  The negative forms can be a bit fuzzy (and remember More's Utopia was used as an internally negated concept).  Dystopia is well known but there is also unutopia & anti-utopia, all appearing to mean "the antithesis of utopia".  On the rare occasions anti-utopia & unutopia appear, it's advised to deconstruct the context.

The dystopian vision of Dante's Inferno: The Fifth Circle (1587) by Stradanus (1523-1605)), depicting Virgil and Dante on the River Styx in the fifth circle of Hell where the wrathful are for eternity condemned to splash around on the surface, fighting each other.  Dante Alighieri's (circa 1265–1321), Divine Comedy was written between 1307-1321 and helping the pair cross is the infernal ferryman Phlegyas.  Stradanus was one of the many names under which the Flemish artist Jan van der Straet painted, the others including Giovanni della Strada, Johannes della Strada, Giovanni Stradano, Johannes Stradano, Giovanni Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van Straeten & Jan van Straten.

So influential has been Robert Bolt’s (1924–1995) play A Man for All Seasons (1960) in forming the public perception of Sir Thomas More that he seems now remembered as a kind of proto-liberal.  It is true he held opinions which would have been shared by few (lord) chancellors of the last 500-odd years including a condemnation of private property and the idea that the very structure of English society was a “conspiracy of the rich”.  Centuries before Karl Marx (1818-1883), he discussed the surplus value of labor and the mechanisms by which working people were alienated for this value so it could be absorbed by the already rich to add to their wealth.  So he ticks many boxes of wokeness but he also held views on women and their place that would make social media identity Andrew Tate (b 1986) follow his X (formerly known as Twitter) account.

More’s book Utopia is similarly misunderstood, the modern use of the word meaning many who have never read it merely assume what it means.  Structurally, it was influential because it contains threads identifiable as both science fiction (SF) and fantasy and in both these genres, authors have often described “utopias”, usually either as (1) places of unrestricted self-indulgence or (2) places in which everything is so antiseptically perfect that humans, with their inherent imperfections, just “don’t fit in”.  In these alternative universes, being fictional, something has to happen and what often occurs is that they turn into dystopias, the ultimately inadequate human inhabitants dealt with; that which doesn't "fit in" must be "thrown out".  More wasn’t quite so theatrical; his original title for the book was in Latin and is best translated as something like “the Best State of a Commonwealth on the New Island of Utopia” and, living in troubled times, his book explored ways society might be arranged in another way that would ensure the intrigue, corruption and scandal with which he was familiar might be avoided.  Unlike England with its then quite rigid hierarchical structure, Utopia was a communal venture and one in which forms of wealth existed but only as a means to ensure things run smoothly.  Not only was the quest to accumulate wealth not pursued, the very idea was absurd because it would fulfil no useful purpose.  Unfortunately, such is the nature of man that it seems such a place can never exist, or at least not long survive, thus the choice of the name Utopia (“nowhere” in the New Latin).