Parthian

Parthian (pronounced pahr-thee-un)

(1) A native or inhabitant of Parthia.

(2) An Iranian language of ancient and medieval Parthia.

(3) Of or relating to, or characteristic of Parthia, its inhabitants, or their language.

522: (Although use doubtless predates the first recorded use)  It refers to a native or inhabitant of Parthia (ancient kingdom northeast of Persia in western Asia) and was from the Old Persian Parthava (a dialectal variant of the stem Parsa and the source of "Persia" (the plural was Partienes).  In English, Parthian had been used by historians and geographers since the 1520s and the familiar adjectival form "Parthian shot" seems to date from the early nineteenth century but images of the act had existed for two millennia and had since the 1630s been referred to as the "Parthian fight".  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) liked the word: Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight (Cymbeline (circa 1610), Act I, Scene VII).  Parthian is a noun & adjective and if used in the sense of “of or relating to the historic Parthia or Parthians” it is with an initial capital; the noun plural is Parthians.

The Parthian shot and the parting shot

Journalists at Murdoch tabloid the New York Post can be relied upon to re-purpose a metaphor.

The Parthian shot was a military tactic, used by mounted cavalry and made famous by the Parthians, an ancient people of the Persian lands (the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979).  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the Parthian archers would, in full gallop, turn their bodies backward to shoot at the pursuing enemy.  This demanded both fine equestrian skills (a soldier’ hands occupied by his bows & arrows) and great confidence in one's mount, something gained only by time spent between man & beast.  To make the achievement more admirable still, the Parthians used neither stirrups nor spurs, relying solely on pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping mounts and, with varying degrees of success, the tactic was adopted by many mounted military formations of the era including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols.  The Parthian Empire existed between 247 BC–224 AD.

As a metaphor, “Parthian shot” describes a barbed insult or some sort of attack delivered while in the act of retreat.  There are aspiring pedants who like to point this out to those using the term “parting shot” in a similar vein and while they’re correct the latter is sometimes being used incorrectly, in many instances they’re right for the wrong reasons.  “Parthian shot” seems first to have appeared in a letter written by an army officer serving under the Raj, Captain Godfrey Mundy (1804-1860), ADC (aide-de-camp) to Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton (later Lord Combermere, 1773–1865; Commander-in-Chief, India 1825-1830) using it while speaking of a successful shot during one of the many hunting expeditions which so contributed to the slaughter of the sub-continent’s wildlife during the colonial era.  That was in 1832 and while there’s evidence of use in succeeding decades, it was after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) published A Study in Scarlet (1886) which included the sentence: “With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him” that the phrase began with some frequency to appear in English.

The battlefield tactic had for some time been known to historians and soldiers before it emerged as a metaphor and it’s thought Captain Mundy was being a little loose in his interpretation, everything suggesting the “Parthian shot” he mentioned was the firing his “Joe Manton” (a shotgun manufactured by the English gunsmith Joseph Manton (1766–1835)) backwards, over his shoulder, a trick with looks impressive in movies but which demands practice to avoid a self-inflicted injury.  Although it’s sometimes suggested “parting shot” was a folk etymology from “Parthian shot”, the former was in use by at least the late 1700s and etymologists can find no documentary evidence, however convincing the linkage may appear and it’s not impossible “parting shot” evolved (possibly even in more than one place) separately and among those who had never heard of the “Parthian shot”.  So, while the two terms are often used interchangeably and in general use “Parthian shot” is now rare, those who wish can achieve nuances of difference: (1) A “Parthian shot” is an attacking comment made while in retreat and (2) A “parting shot” is a “last word” delivered while breaking off from an oral engagement; it does not of necessity imply a retreat.

The Bolton-Paul Defiant (1939-1943)

The Royal Air Force (RAF) tried a variation of the Parthian shot with Bolton-Paul Defiant, a single-engined fighter and Battle of Britain contemporary of the better remembered Spitfire and Hurricane.  Uniquely, the Defiant had no forward-firing armaments, all its firepower being concentrated in four .303 machine guns in a turret behind the pilot.  The theory behind the design dates from the 1930s when the latest multi-engined monoplane bombers were much faster than contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF considered its new generation of heavily-armed bombers would be able to penetrate enemy airspace and defend themselves without a fighter escort and this of course implied enemy bombers would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with some degree of impunity.

By 1935, the concept of a turret-armed fighter emerged.  The RAF anticipated having to defend the British Isles against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers and, in theory, turret-armed fighters would be able approach formations from below or from the side and coordinate their fire.  In design terms, it was a return to what often was done early in the First World War, though that had been technologically deterministic, it being then quite an engineering challenge to produce reliable and safe (in the sense of not damaging the craft's own propeller) forward-firing guns.  Deployed not as intended, but as a fighter used against escorted bombers, the Defiant enjoyed considerable early success, essentially because at attack-range, it appeared to be a Hurricane and the German fighter pilots were of course tempted attack from above and behind, the classic hunter's tactic.  They were course met by the the Defiant's formidable battery.  However, the Luftwaffe learned quickly, unlike the RAF which for too long persisted with their pre-war formations which were neat and precise but also excellent targets.  Soon the vulnerability of the Defiant resulted in losses so heavy its deployment was unsustainable and it was withdrawn from front-line combat.  It did though subsequently proved a useful stop-gap as a night-fighter and provided the RAF with an effective means of combating night bombing until aircraft designed for the purpose entered service.

Trends of Use

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Lapidify

Lapidify (pronounced luh-pid-uh-fahy)

(1) To convert into stone or stony material; to petrify.

(2) To transform a material into something stony.

(3) Figuratively, to cause to become permanent; to solidify.

1620s: From the French lapidifier, from the Medieval Latin lapidificāre, the construct being the Latin lapis (stone) + -ify.  The origin of the Latin lapis is uncertain but there may be a link with the Ancient Greek λέπας (lépas) (bare rock, crag), which was from either the primitive Indo-European lep- (to peel) or a Mediterranean substrate language, most etymologists tending to favor the latter.  The -ify suffix was from the Middle English -ifien, from the Old French -ifier, from the Latin -ificare, from -ficus, from facio, (“make” or “do”).  It was used to produce verbs meaning “to make”; the alternative form was -fy.  The literal synonym in geology is petrify but also used (in various contexts) are set, harden, clarify, solidify, calcify, mineralize & fossilize.  Lapidify, lapidifies, lapidifying & lapidified are verbs, lapidification is a noun and lapidific & lapidifical are adjectives; the noun plural is lapidifications.

Medusa

In Greek mythology, Medusa (from the Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa), from μέδω (médō) (rule over)) was the youngest of the three Gorgon sisters and among them, the sole mortal.  In the popular imagination it seems to be believed than only the gaze of Medusa had the power to turn men to stone but her sisters Stheno & Euryale also possessed the gift.  The three were the daughters of Phorcys & Ceto who lived in the far west and the heads of the girls were entwined with writhing snakes and their necks protected with the scales of dragons while they had huge, boar-like tusks, hands of bronze and golden wings.  That alone would have made dating a challenge but anyone who had the misfortune to encounter them was turned instantly to stone.  Only Poseidon (god of the sea and one of the Olympians, the son of Cronus & Rhea) didn’t fear their glance because he had coupled with Medusa and fathered a child (in some tales the ghastly Cyclops Polyphemus which wasn’t encouraging but the other Cyclops were about as disagreeable).

Bust of Medusa in marble (1636) by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Museos Capitolinos. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, Italy (left) and Lindsay Lohan in Medusa mode, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) (right).

Born in great secrecy, Perseus was the son of Zeus & Danae but one day, Danae’s father Acrisius heard the baby’s cry and, enraged that Zeus had seduced his daughter, had mother & child sealed in a wooden chest and cast into the sea; it washed up on the shores of the island of Seriphos, the pair rescued by the fisherman Dictys, brother of the ruling tyrant Polydectes.  When Perseus grew, he was one day one of those at one of Polydectes' banquets and when the guests were asked what gift they would offer their host, all except Perseus suggested horses.  He instead offered to bring to the table the severed head of Medusa.  It’s not clear if this was intended as a serious suggestion (wine may have been involved) but the tyrant insisted, saying that otherwise he would take Danae by force.  Embarking on this unpromising quest Perseus was helped by Hermes & Athena who took him to the Graeae; they showed him the way to the nymphs who lent him winged sandals, a kibisis (the backpack of the gods) and the helmet of Hades which rendered the wearer invisible.  Hermes armed him with the harpe, a sickle made of adamant.

Thus equipped, Perseus and Athena began the hunt for the Gorgons.  Of the three sisters, only Medusa was mortal so the project of decapitation had at least some theoretical prospect of success.  The far west was a bleak and uninviting place to which few travelled and they had little trouble in finding their lair, outside which they lay in wait until the family slept.  After midnight, when Medusa had fallen into a deep slumber, Perseus rose into the air on the nymphs’ winged sandals, and, while Athena held a shield of polished bronze over Medusa so it acted as a mirror, protecting them from her gaze, Perseus wielded his harpe, in one stroke striking head from shoulders.  Instantly, from the bloodied neck sprang Pegasus the winged horse and Chrysaor the giant.  Perseus stashed the severed head in the kibisis and quickly alit for home, pursued by a vengeful Stheno & Euryale but, concealed by the helmet’s cloak of invisibility, he evaded them.  Arriving in Seriphos, he became enraged after discovering Polydectes had attempted to rape Danae who had been compelled to seek refuge at the altars of the gods.  Perseus took Medusa’s head from the backpack and held the visage before Polydectes, lapidifying him in an instant, declaring his rescuer Dictys was now the island’s ruler.  The invaluable accessories he returned to the Nymphs while Athena set the head of Medusa in the middle of her shield, meaning she now possessed the power of lapidification.

Philistine

Philistine (pronounced fil-uh-steen, fil-us-stahyn, fi-lis-tin, fil-us-teen, or fi-lis-teen)

(1) In historical use, a non-Semitic native or inhabitant of ancient Philistia, a region in the southwest Levant in the Middle East (initial upper case).

(1) A person lacking in, hostile to or smugly indifferent to cultural values, intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement etc, or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes; a vulgarian or lowbrow.  Of late it has been extended also to those thought too materialistic, especially if the objects of their desires are big televisions, jet skis, McMansions etc.

(3) One’s opponent (a usually humorous use, often in the plural).

(4) In historic university slang, a person not associated with the university; a non-academic or non-student; a townsperson (originally German, adopted elsewhere as an imitative form although largely now replaced by other regionalism).

1350-1400: From Middle English Philistyne & Philisten (there were many other spellings, often from misunderstandings by Medieval scribes), a descriptor of the Old Testament people of coastal Palestine who made war on the Israelites, from the from Old English Filistina (Fillestina the genitive plural), from the Old French Philistin (which persists in modern French) and the Late Latin Philistinus (Philistīnī in the plural), from the Koine Greek Φυλιστῖνοι (Phulistînoi), a variant of Φυλιστιίμ (Phulistiím), Φυλιστιείμ (Phulistieím) (which may be compared with the Koine Greek Παλαιστῖνοι (Palaistînoi)), all ultimately derived from the Hebrew plural noun פְּלִשְׁתִּים (p'lishtím) (people of P'lesheth (Philistia)), from the adjective פְּלִשְׁתִּי (p'lishtí) (Philistine), from פְּלֶשֶׁת (p'léshet) (Philistia).  The English word was cognate with the Akkadian KURpi-lis-ta (Pilistu), KURpa-la-as-tu (⁠Palastu), KURpi-liš-ta-a-a (⁠Pilištayu) ((people) of the Pilištu lands) and is a doublet of Palestine.  In Egyptian the form was Palusata.  The archaic noun plural form Philistim was from the Middle English Philistiim and the Late Latin Philisthiim.  The synonyms: include the now obsolete Philistee & Philister (used adjectively as philister) and the archaic (except in historic use where it remains rare) Philistian.

The now more familiar adjective was derived from the noun.  The meaning "person felt by the writer or speaker to be deficient in liberal culture" dates from 1827, used originally by Scottish polymath Thomas Carlyle (1798-1881) and popularized by him and English poet Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), both borrowing from the German Philister (enemy of God's word (literally "Philistine," inhabitants of a Biblical land, neighbors (and enemies) of Israel)).  In English, philistine had been used in the humorous figurative sense of "an unfeeling enemy" since circa 1600.  Philistine is a noun & adjective, philistinism is a noun, philistinic & philistinish are adjectives, and philistinely is an adverb; the noun plural is philistines (the spelling Philistim is archaic but still used by historians and Biblical scholars).  The form philistinistic is non-standard but persistent and the usual convention in English applies: it’s Philistine with a capital P if referring to those of biblical description and philistine with a lower-case p when deriding those whose lives are thought culturally barren.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The figurative sense was popularized in German student slang as a contemptuous term by the “gownies” for the "townies" and hence, by extension, to “any uncultured or uneducated person” (as judged by students).  In English, the expression of difference in university cities (“town and gown”) remains.  As late as the early twentieth century it was still common to see printed the claim the figurative use was derived from a sermon delivered in 1693 (cited sometimes as 1689) by the ecclesiastical superintendent Georg Heinrich Götze (1667–1728) at Thuringia’s Jena University.  The event was a memorial service for a student who died as the result of a town versus gown squabble which had turned more than usually violent, several Germans beating each other to death and the pastor’s phrase was the biblical “Philister über dir, Simson!” (The Philistines are upon you, Samson! (Judges 16:9, 12, 14, & 20).  However, the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) entry notes the word was in use in this sense as early as 1687, the sermon picking up rather than the origin.  The words philister and philistine were introduced into English by the British author Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) and greatly popularized by the English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), particularly in essays first published in The Cornhill Magazine (1860-1975) between 1867 and 1868 which were collected into a book entitled Culture and Anarchy (1869).

Writers

Stooping to conquer the Daily Mail's readers: Photograph of Bernard Levin (1963) by Lewis Morley (1925-2013), held by the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) thought finding obscenity in works of art was philistinism and that art should be criticized only if banal or technically inept.  Art could explore any number of obscenities but, however representational, could not be obscene.  Even before he went mad, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) felt himself surrounded by philistines, identifying the worst of the breed as those critical of his writings; such behavior he reduced to an almost clinical condition, accusing them of lacking “true unity” and able to understand any form of style only“...in the negative”.  Sir Martin Amis (1949–2023) may have harbored a similar notion, although the quote attributed to him as finding philistinism “…in anyone who preferred television to his novels” may be apocryphal; whatever the provenance, it was something his father (Sir Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)) might have thought but never said.  Fleet Street’s Tory tabloids liked to hire philistines as columnists and few seemed to display much self-awareness in their shark-feeding populism though Bernard Levin (1928-2004), while a Daily Mail columnist during the 1960s affected the style of a philistine proud of his ignorance.  The Mail’s readership enjoyed the solidarity but after a squabble with the proprietor he moved to The Times.

The Battle between the Philistines and the Israelites (circa 1580), oil on canvas by Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594)), an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school although this work is in the style of Mannerism which emerged during the Late Renaissance.

Reduction

Reduction (pronounced ri-duhk-shuhn)

(1) The act of reducing or the state of being reduced.

(2) The amount by which something is reduced or diminished.

(3) The form (result) produced by reducing a copy on a smaller scale (including smaller scale copies).

(4) In cell biology, as meiosis, especially the first meiotic cell division in which the chromosome number is reduced by half.

(5) In chemistry, the process or result of reducing (a reaction in which electrons are gained and valence is reduced; often by the removal of oxygen or the addition of hydrogen).

(6) In film production when using physical film stock (celluloid and such), the process of making a print of a narrower gauge from a print of a wider gauge (historically from 35 to 16 mm).

(7) In music, a simplified form, typically an arrangement for a smaller number of parties  such as an orchestral score arranged for a solo instrument.

(8) In computability theory, a transformation of one problem into another problem, such as mapping reduction or polynomial reduction.

(9) In philosophy (notably in phenomenology), a process intended to reveal the objects of consciousness as pure phenomena.

(10) In metalworking, the ratio of a material's change in thickness compared to its thickness prior to forging and/or rolling.

(11) In engineering, (usually as “reduction gear”), a means of energy transmission in which the original speed is reduced to whatever is suitable for the intended application.

(12) In surgery, a procedure to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment, usually with a closed approach but sometimes with an open approach.

(13) In mathematics, the process of converting a fraction into its decimal form or the rewriting of an expression into a simpler form.

(14) In cooking, the process of rapidly boiling a sauce to concentrate it.

(15) During the colonial period, a village or settlement of Indians in South America established and governed by Spanish Jesuit missionaries.

1475–1485: From the Middle English reduccion, from the earlier reduccion, from the Middle French reduction, from the Latin reductiōnem & reductiōn- (stem of reductiō (a “bringing back”)) the construct being reduct(us) (past participle of redūcere (to lead back) + -iōn- (the noun suffix).  The construct in English was thus reduc(e), -ion.  Reduce was from the Middle English reducen, from the Old French reduire, from the Latin redūcō (reduce), the construct being re- (back) + dūcō (lead).  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  Reduction, reductivism, reductionistic & reductionism are nouns, reductionist is a noun & adjective, reductional & reductive are adjectives; the noun plural is reductions.  Forms like anti-reduction, non-reduction, over-reduction, pre-reduction, post-reduction, pro-reduction, self-reduction have been created as required.

Actor Ariel Winter (b 1998), before (left) and after (right) mammaplasty (breast reduction).  Never has satisfactorily it been explained why this procedure seems to be lawful in all jurisdictions.

In philosophy & science, reductionism is an approach used to explain complex phenomena by reducing them to their simpler, more fundamental components.  It posits that understanding the parts of a system and their interactions can provide a complete explanation of the system as a whole an approach which is functional and valuable is some cases and to varying degrees inadequate in others.  The three generally recognized classes of reductionism are (1) Ontological Reductionism, the idea that reality is composed of a small number of basic entities or substances, best illustrated in biology where life processes are explained by reducing things to the molecular level.  (2) Methodological Reductionism, an approach which advocates studying systems by breaking into their constituent parts, much used in psychology where it might involve studying human behavior by examining neurological processes.  (3) Theory Reductionism which involves explaining a theory or phenomenon in one field by the principles of another, more fundamental field as when chemistry is reduced to the physics or chemical properties explained by the operation of quantum mechanics.  Reduction has been an invaluable component in many of the advances in achieved in science in the last two-hundred-odd years and some of the process and mechanics of reductionism have actually been made possible by some of those advances.  The criticism of an over-reliance on reductionism in certain fields in that its very utility can lead to the importance of higher-level structures and interactions being overlooked; there is much which can’t fully be explained by the individual parts or even their interaction.  The diametric opposite of reductionism is holism which emphasizes the importance of whole systems and their properties that emerge from the interactions between parts.  In philosophy, reductionism is the position which holds a system of any level of complexity is nothing but the sum of its parts and an account of it can thus be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.  It’s very much a theoretical model to be used as appropriate rather than an absolutist doctrine but it does hold that phenomena can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena: epiphenomena.  A reductionist is either (1) an advocate of reductionism or (2) one who practices reductionism.

Reductionism: Lindsay Lohan during "thin phase".

The adjective reductive has a special meaning in Scots law pertaining to reduction of a decree or other legal device (ie something rescissory in its effect); dating from the sixteenth century, it’s now rarely invoked.  In the sense of “causing the physical reduction or diminution of something” it’s been in use since the seventeenth century in fields including chemistry, metallurgy, biology & economics, always to convey the idea of reduces a substance, object or some abstract quantum to a lesser, simplified or less elaborated form.  At that time, it came to be used also to mean “that can be derived from, or referred back to; something else” and although archaic by the early 1800s, it existence in historic texts can be misleading.  It wasn’t until after World War II (1939-1945) that reductive emerged as a derogatory term, used to suggest an argument, issue or explanation has been “reduced” to a level of such simplicity that so much has been lost as to rob things of meaning.  The phrase “reductio ad absurdum” (reduction to the absurd) is an un-adapted borrowing from the Latin reductiō ad absurdum, and began in mathematics, logic (where it was a useful tool in deriving proofs in fields like).  In wider use, it has come to be used of a method of disproving a statement by assuming the statement is true and, with that assumption, arriving at a blatant contradiction; the synonyms are apagoge & “proof by contradiction”.

Single-family houses (D-Zug) built in 1922 on the principle of architectural reductionism by Heinrich Tessenow in collaboration with Austrian architect Franz Schuster (1892–1972), Moritzburger Weg 19-39 (the former Pillnitzer Weg), Gartenstadt Hellerau, Dresden, Germany.

As a noun, a reductivist is one who advocates or adheres to the principles of reductionism or reductivism.  In art & architecture (and some aspects of engineering) this can be synonymous with the label “a minimalist” (one who practices minimalism).  As an adjective, reductivist (the comparative “more reductivist”, the superlative “most reductivist”) means (1) tending to reduce to a minimum or to simplify in an extreme way and (2) belonging to the reductivism movement in art or music.  The notion of “extreme simplification” (a reduction to a minimum; the use of the fewest essentials) has always appealed some and appalled others attracted to intricacy and complexity.  The German architect Professor Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950) summed it up in the phrase for which he’s remembered more than his buildings: “The simplest form is not always the best, but the best is always simple.”, one of those epigrams which may not reveal a universal truth but is probably a useful thing to remind students of this and that lest they be seduced by the process and lose sight of the goal.  Tessenow was expanding on the principle of Occam's Razor (the reductionist philosophic position attributed to English Franciscan friar & theologian William of Ockham (circa 1288–1347) written usually as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (literally "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" which translates best as “the simplest solution is usually the best”.

Reductio in extrema

1960 Lotus Elite Series 1 (left) and at the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance classic, June 1959 (left) Lotus Elite #41 leads Ferrari 250TR #14. The Ferrari (DNF) retired after overheating, the Elite finishing eighth overall, winning the 1.5 litre GT class.

Weighing a mere 500-odd kg (1100 lb), the early versions of the exquisite Lotus Elite (1957-1963) enchanted most who drove it but the extent of the reductionism compromised the structural integrity and things sometimes broke when used under everyday conditions which of course includes potholed roads.  Introduced late in 1961 the Series 2 Elite greatly improved this but some residual fragility was inherent to the design.  On the smooth surfaces of racing circuits however, it enjoyed an illustrious career, notable especially for success in long-distance events at the Nürburgring and Le Mans.  The combination of light weight and advanced aerodynamics meant the surprisingly powerful engine (a lightweight and robust unit which began life powering the water pumps of fire engines!) delivered outstanding performance, frugal fuel consumption and low tyre wear.  As well as claiming five class trophies in the Le Mans 24 hour race, the Elite twice won the mysterious Indice de performance (an index of thermal efficiency), a curious piece of mathematics actually intended to ensure, regardless of other results, a French car would always win something.

Colin Chapman (1928–1982), who in 1952 founded Lotus Cars, applied reductionism even to the Tessenow mantra in his design philosophy: “Simplify, then add lightness.”  Whether at the drawing board, on the factory floor or on the racetrack, Chapman seldom deviated from his rule and while it lent his cars sparking performance and delightful characteristics, more than one of the early models displayed an infamous fragility.  Chapman died of a heart attack which was a good career move, given the likely legal consequences of his involvement with John DeLorean (1925–2005) and the curious financial arrangements made with OPM (other people's money) during the strange episode which was the tale of the DMC DeLorean gullwing coupé.

1929 Mercedes-Benz SSKL blueprint (recreation, left) and the SSKL “streamliner”, AVUS, Berlin, May 1932 (right).

The Mercedes-Benz SSKL was one of the last of the road cars which could win top-line grand prix races.  An evolution of the earlier S, SS and SSK, the SSKL (Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht (light)) was notable for the extensive drilling of its chassis frame to the point where it was compared to Swiss cheese; reducing weight with no loss of strength.  The SSK had enjoyed success in competition but even in its heyday was in some ways antiquated and although powerful, was very heavy, thus the expedient of the chassis-drilling intended to make it competitive for another season.  Lighter (which didn't solve but at least to a degree ameliorated the high tyre wear) and easier to handle than the SSK (although the higher speed brought its own problems, notably in braking), the SSKL enjoyed a long Indian summer and even on tighter circuits where its bulk meant it could be out-manoeuvred, sometimes it still prevailed by virtue of sheer power.  By 1932 however the engine’s potential had been reached and no more metal could be removed from the structure without dangerously compromising safety; in engineering (and other fields), there is a point at which further reduction becomes at least counter-productive and often dangerouw.  The solution was an early exercise in aerodynamics (“streamlining” the then fashionable term), an aluminium skin prepared for the 1932 race held on Berlin’s AVUS (Automobil-Versuchs und Übungsstraße (automobile traffic and practice road)).  The reduction in air-resistance permitted the thing to touch 255 km/h (158 mph), some 20 km/h (12 mph) more than a standard SSLK, an increase the engineers calculated would otherwise have demanded another (unobtainable) 120 horsepower.  The extra speed was most useful at the unique AVUS which comprised two straights (each almost six miles (ten kilometres) in length) linked by two hairpin curves, one a dramatic banked turn.  The SSKL was the last of the breed, the factory’s subsequent Grand Prix machines all specialized racing cars.

Reduction gears: Known casually as "speed reducers", reduction gears are widely used in just about every type of motor and many other mechanical devices.  What they do is allow the energy of a rotating shaft to be transferred to another shaft running at a reduced speed (achieved usually by the use of gears (cogs) of different diameters.

In chemistry, a reduction is the process or result of reducing (a reaction in which electrons are gained and valence is reduced; often by the removal of oxygen or the addition of hydrogen) and as an example, if an iron atom (valence +3) gains an electron, the valence decreases to +2.  Linguistically, it’s obviously counterintuitive to imagine a “reduced atom” is one which gains rather than loses electrons but the term in this context dates from the early days of modern chemistry, where reduction (and its counterpart: “oxidation”) were created to describe reactions in which one substance lost an oxygen atom and the other substance gained it.   In a reaction such as that between two molecules of hydrogen (2H₂)and one of oxygen (O₂) combining to produce two molecules of water (2H₂O), the hydrogen atoms have gained oxygen atoms and were said to have become “oxidized,” while the oxygen atoms have “lost them” by attaching themselves to the hydrogens, and were thus “reduced”.  Chemically however, in the process of gaining an oxygen atom, the hydrogen atoms have had to give up their electrons and share them with the oxygen atoms, while the oxygen atoms have gained electrons, thus the seeming paradox that the “reduced” oxygen has in fact gained something, namely electrons.

Secretary of Defence the younger (left) and elder (right).  Donald Rumsfeld (left) with Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) and George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009).

Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021; US Secretary of Defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) may or may not have been evil but his mind could sparkle and his marvellously reductionist principles can be helpful.  His classification of knowledge was often derided but it remains a useful framework:

(1) Known unknowns.
(2) Known knowns.
(3) Unknown unknowns.
(4) (most intriguingly) Unknown knowns.

A expert reductionist, he reminded us also there are only three possible answers to any question and while there's a cultural reluctance to say “don’t know”, sometimes it is best:

(1) I know and I’m going to tell you.
(2) I know and I’m not going to tell you.
(3) Don’t know.

While (1) known unknowns, (2) known knowns and (3) unknown unknowns are self-explanatory, examples of (4) unknown knowns are of interest and a classic one was the first “modern” submarine, developed by the Germans during the last months of World War II (1939-1945).

German Type XII Elektroboot (1945).

In World War II, the course of the war could have been very different had OKM (Oberkommando der Marine (the Kriegsmarine's (German Navy) high command)) followed the advice of the commander of the submarines and made available a fleet of 300 rather than building a surface fleet which wasn’t large enough to be a strategic threat but of sufficient size to absorb resources which, if devoted to submarines, could have been militarily effective.  With a fleet of 300, it would have been possible permanently to maintain around 100 at sea but at the outbreak of hostilities, only 57 active boats were on the navy’s list, not all of which were suitable for operations on the high seas so in the early days of the conflict, it was rare for the Germans to have more than 12 committed to battle in the Atlantic.  Production never reached the levels necessary for the numbers to achieve critical mass but even so, in the first two-three years of the war the losses sustained by the British were considerable and the “U-Boat menace” was such a threat that much attention was devoted to counter-measures and by 1943 the Allies could consider the battle of the Atlantic won.  The Germans’ other mistake was not building a true submarine capable of operating underwater (and therefore undetected) for days at a time.

It was only in 1945 when Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945) were assessing the “revolutionary” new design that they concluded there was no reason why such craft couldn’t have been built in the late 1930s because the engineering capacity and technology existed even then (although the industrial and labor resources did not).  It was a classic case of what Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) would later call an “unknown known”: The Germans in 1939 knew how to build a modern submarine but didn’t “know that they knew”.  Despite the improvements however, military analysts have concluded that even if deployed in numbers, such was the strength of forces arrayed against Nazi Germany that by 1945, not even such a force could have been enough to turn the tide of war.  However, had the German navy in 1939-1940 had available a fleet of even 100 such submarines (about a third what OKM (Oberkommando der Marine (the Kriegsmarine's (German Navy) high command) calculated was the critical strategic size given at any point only a third would be at sea with the others either in transit or docked), the battle in the Atlantic would have been much more difficult for the British.

Mr Rumsfeld however neglected to mention another class of knowledge: the “lost known”, examples of which have from time-to-time appeared and there may be more still to be discovered.  The best known were associated with the knowledge lost after the fall in the fifth century of the Western Roman Empire when Europe entered the early medieval period, once popularly known as the “Dark Ages”.  The lost knowns included aspects of optics such as lens grinding and the orthodoxy long was the knowledge was not “re-discovered” or “re-invented” until perfected in Italy during the late thirteenth century although it’s now understood that in the Islamic world lens continued during the late Medieval period to be ground and it’s suspected it was from Arabic texts the information reached Europe.

What really was a lost known was how the Romans of Antiquity made their long-lasting opus caementicium (concrete) so famously “sticky” and resistant to the effects of salt water.  Unlike modern concrete, made using Portland cement & water, Roman concrete was a mix of volcanic ash & lime, mixed with seawater, the later ingredient inducing a chemical reaction creating a substance stronger and more durable.  When combined with volcanic rocks, it formed mineral crystalline structures called aluminum tobermorite which lent the mix great strength and resistance to cracking.  After the fall of Rome, the knowledge was lost and even when a tablet was discovered listing the mix ratios, caementicium couldn’t be replicated because the recipe spoke only of “water” and not “sea water”, presumably because that was common knowledge.  It was only modern techniques of analysis which allowed the “lost known” to again become a “known known”.

Inkhorn

Inkhorn (pronounced ingk-hawrn)

A small container of horn or other material (the early version would literally have been hollowed-out horns from animals), formerly used to hold writing ink.

1350-1400: From the Middle English ynkhorn & inkehorn (small portable vessel, originally made of horn, used to hold ink), the construct being ink +‎ horn.  It displaced the Old English blæchorn, which had the same literal meaning but used the native term for “ink”.  It was used attributively from the 1540s as an adjective for things (especially vocabulary) supposed to be beloved by scribblers, pedants, bookworms and the “excessively educated”).  Inkhorn, inkhornery & inkhornism are nouns, inkhornish & inkhornesque are adjectives and inkhornize is a verb; the noun plural is inkhorns.

Ink was from the Middle English ynke, from the Old French enque, from the Latin encaustum (purple ink used by Roman emperors to sign documents), from the Ancient Greek ἔγκαυστον (énkauston) (burned-in”), the construct being ἐν (en) (in) + καίω (kaíō) (burn). In this sense, the word displaced the native Old English blæc (ink (literally “black” because while not all inks were black, most tended to be).  Ink came ultimately from a Greek form meaning “branding iron”, one of the devices which should make us grateful for modern medicine.  Because, in addition to using the kauterion to cauterize (seal wounds with heat), essentially the same process was used to seal fast the colors used in paintings.  Then, the standard method was to use wax colors fixed with heat (encauston (burned in)) and in Latin this became encaustum which came to be used to describe the purple ink with which Roman emperors would sign official documents.  In the Old French, encaustum became enque which English picked up as enke & inke which via ynk & ynke, became the modern “ink”.  Horn was from the Middle English horn & horne, from the Old English horn, from the Proto-West Germanic horn, from the Proto-Germanic hurną; it was related to the West Frisian hoarn, the Dutch hoorn, the Low German Hoorn, horn, the German, Danish & Swedish horn and the Gothic haurn.  It was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ḱr̥h-nó-m, from ḱerh- (head, horn) and should be compared with the Breton kern (horn), the Latin cornū, the Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras), the Proto-Slavic sьrna, the Old Church Slavonic сьрна (sĭrna) (roedeer), the Hittite surna (horn), the Persian سر (sar) and the Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛṅga) (horn

Inkhorn terms & inkhorn words

The phrase “inkhorn term” days from the 1530s and was used to criticize the use of language in an obscure or way difficult for most to understand, usually by an affected or ostentatiously erudite borrowing from another language, especially Latin or Greek.  The companion term “inkhorn word” was used of such individual words and in modern linguistics the whole field is covered by such phrases as “lexiphanic term”, “pedantic term” & “scholarly term”, all presumably necessary now inkhorns are rarely seen.  Etymologists are divided on the original idea behind the meaning of “inkhorn term” & “inkhorn word”.  One faction holds that because the offending words tended to be long or at least multi-syllabic, a scribe would need more than once to dip their nib into the horn in order completely write things down while the alternative view is that because the inkhorn users were, by definition, literate, they were viewed sometimes with scepticism, one suspicion they used obscure or foreign words to confuse or deceive the less educated.  The derived forms are among the more delightful in English and include inkhornism, inkhornish, inkhornery inkhornesque & inkhornize.  The companion word is sesquipedalianism (a marginal propensity to use humongous words).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Inkhorn words were in the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries known also as “gallipot words”, derived from the use of such words on apothecaries' jars, the construct being galli(s) + pot.  Gallis was from the Latin gallus (rooster or cock (male chicken)), from the Proto-Italic galsos, an enlargement of gl̥s-o-, zero-grade of the primitive Indo-European gols-o-, from gelh- (to call); it can be compared with the Proto-Balto-Slavic galsas (voice), the Proto-Germanic kalzōną (to call), the Albanian gjuhë (tongue; language), and (although this is contested) the Welsh galw (call).  Appearing usually in the plural a gallipot word was something long, hard to pronounce, obscure or otherwise mysterious, the implication being it was being deployed gratuitously to convey the impression of being learned.  The companion insult was “you talk like an apothecary” and “apothecary's Latin” was a version of the tongue spoken badly or brutishly (synonymous with “bog Latin” or “dog Latin” but different from “schoolboy Latin” & “barracks Latin”, the latter two being humorous constructions, the creators proud of their deliberate errors).  The curious route which led to “gallipot” referencing big words was via the rooster being the symbol used by apothecaries in medieval and Renaissance Europe, appearing on their shop signs, jars & pots.  That was adopted by the profession because the rooster symbolized vigilance, crowing (hopefully) at dawn, signaling the beginning of the day and thus the need for attentiveness and care.  Apothecaries, responsible for preparing and dispensing medicinal remedies, were expected to be vigilant and attentive to detail in their work to ensure the health and well-being of their patients who relied on their skill to provided them the potions to “get them up every morning” in sound health.  Not all historians are impressing by the tale and say a more convincing link is that in Greek mythology, the rooster was sacred to Asclepius (Aesdulapius in the Latin), the god of medicine, and was often depicted in association with him.  In some tales, Asclepius had what was, even by the standards of the myths of Antiquity, a difficult birth and troubled childhood.

The quest for the use of “plain English” is not new.  The English diplomat and judge Thomas Wilson (1524–1581) wrote The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), remembered as the “the first complete works on logic and rhetoric in English” and in it he observed the first lesson to be learned was never to affect “any straunge ynkhorne termes, but to speak as is commonly received.”  Wring a decade earlier, the English bishop John Bale (1495–1563) had already lent an ecclesiastical imprimatur to the task, condemning one needlessly elaborate text with: “Soche are your Ynkehorne termes” and that may be the first appearance of the term in writing.  A religious reformer of some note, he was nicknamed “bilious Bale”, a moniker which politicians must since have been tempted to apply to many reverend & right-reverend gentlemen.  A half millennium on, the goal of persuading all to use “plain English” is not yet achieved and a fine practitioner of the art was Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013): from no one else would one be likely to hear the phrase “detailed programmatic specificity” and to really impress he made sure he spoke it to an audience largely of those for whom English was not a first language.

An inkhorn attributed to Qes Felege, a scribe and craftsman.

Animal horns were for millennia re-purposed for all sorts of uses including as drinking vessels, gunpowder stores & loaders, musical instruments and military decoration and in that last role they’ve evolved into a political fashion statement, Jacob Chansley (b 1988; the “QAnon Shaman”) remembered for the horned headdress worn during the attack on the United States Capitol building in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.  Inkhorns tended variously to be made from the horns of sheep or oxen, storing the ink when not as use and ideal as a receptacle into which the nib of a quill or pen could be dipped.  Given the impurities likely then to exist a small stick or nail was left in the horn to stir away any surface film which might disrupts a nib’s ability to take in free-flowing ink, most of which were not pre-packaged products by mixed by the user from a small solid “cake” of the base substance in the desired color, put into the horn with a measure starchy water and left overnight to dissolve.  The sharp point of a horn allowed it to be driven into the ground because the many scribes were not desk-bound and actually travelled from place to place to do their writing, quill and inkhorn their tools of trade.

A mid-Victorian (1837-1901) silver plated three-vat inkwell by George Richards Elkington (1801–1865) of Birmingham, England.

The cast frame is of a rounded rectangular form with outset corners, leaf and cabuchons, leaf scroll handle and conforming pen rest.  The dealer offering this piece described the vats as being of "Vaseline" glass with fruit cast lids and in the Elkington factory archives, this is registered, 8 Victoria Chap 17. No. 899, 1 November 1841.  “Vaseline glass” is a term describing certain glasses in a transparent yellow to yellow-green color attained by virtue of a uranium content.  It's an often used descriptor in the antique business because some find the word “uranium” off-putting although inherently the substance is safe, the only danger coming from being scratched by a broken shard.  Also, some of the most vivid shades of green are achieved by the addition of a colorant (usually iron) and these the cognoscenti insist should be styled “Depression Glass” a term which has little appeal to antique dealers.  The term “Vaseline glass” wasn’t used prior to the 1950s (after the detonation of the first A-bombs in 1945, there emerged an aversion to being close to uranium) and what's used in this inkwell may actually be custard glass or Burmese glass which is opaque whereas Vaseline glass is transparent.  Canary glass was first used in the 1840s as the trade name for Vaseline glass, a term which would have been unknown to George Richards Elkington.

English silver plate horn and dolphin inkwell (circa 1909) with bell, double inkwell on wood base with plaque dated 1909.  This is an inkwell made using horns; it is not an inkhorn.

So inkhorns were for those on the move while those which sat on desks were called “ink wells” or “ink pots” and these could range from simple “pots” to elaborate constructions in silver or gold.  There are many ink wells which use horns as part of their construction but they are not inkhorns, the dead animal parts there just as decorative forms of structure.

Dr Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic cow horn fertilizer.

Horns are also a part of the “biodynamic” approach to agriculture founded by the Austrian occultist & mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), an interesting figure regarded variously as a “visionary”, a “nutcase” and much between.  The technique involves filling cow horns with cow manure which are buried during the six coldest months so the mixture will ferment; upon being dug up, it will be a sort of humus which has lost the foul smell of the manure and taken on a scent of undergrowth.  It may then be used to increase the yield generated from the soil.  It’s used by being diluted with water and sprayed over the ground.  Dr Steiner believed the forces penetrating the digestive organ of cows through the horn influence the composition of their manure and when returned to the environment, it is enriched with spiritual forces that make the soil more fertile and positively affect it.  As he explained: “The cow has horns to send within itself the etheric-astral productive forces, which, by pressing inward, have the purpose of penetrating directly into the digestive organ. It is precisely through the radiation from horns and hooves that a lot of work develops within the digestive organ itself.  So in the horns, we have something well-adapted, by its nature, to radiate the vital and astral properties in the inner life.”  Now we know.