Proctology

Proctology (pronounced prok-tol-uh-jee)

(1) Historically, the branch of medicine dealing with the surgery of the colon, rectum, and anus.

(2) In modern use, colorectal surgery as a specialty inside (as it were) proctology.

(3) A department or building so named in a hospital, university or clinic etc.

1896: The construct was procto- +‎ -logy or proct- + -ology.  Procto was from a Latinized form of the Greek prōktos (anus), from the primitive Indo-European prokto-, the source also of Armenian erastan-k' (buttocks).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).  A physician specializing in proctology is a proctologist although some may prefer the punchier construction Bart Simpson (from the cartoon TV series The Simpsons), used: “butt doctor”.  The noun proctalgia (pain in the anus or rectum) existed in the medical literature as early as 1811 while the first known use of “proctologist” dates from 1897.  Proctology & proctologist are nouns and proctologic & proctological are adjectives; the noun plural is protologists.

In 1974, The British Medical Journal (BMJ) used the term “guitar nipple” to describe “the irritation to the breast that can occur from the pressure of the guitar against the body.”  In the same spirit, two years later a contributor to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) was more imaginative still, coining “hot pants syndrome” when documenting cases in which a burn to the skin had been induced by a patient carrying a battery-powered transistor radio in the pocket of their trousers.  There was also in 1978 the New England Journal of Medicine's (NEJM) “disco digit” which referred to “a sore or infected finger caused by too much finger snapping while dancing.”  These terms were indicative of the trend in the English-speaking world for newly-identified (and in some cases novel conditions) to be constructed with English elements, rather than the Latin historically used.  In the fields of proctology, the historic terms (of discomfort in the region) were:

Rectalgia (pain in the rectum), the construct being rect- (a clipping of the New Latin rectum, itself a clipping of the Latin rectum intestinum (literally “the straight intestine”), neuter of rectus (straight) +‎ -algia (from the New Latin -algia (pain), from the Ancient Greek ἄλγος (álgos) (pain).

Proctalgia (pain in the anal or rectal region), the construct being proct- (a New Latin combining form, from Ancient Greek πρωκτός (prōktós) (anus).+‎ -algia.

Anodynia (anal pain; anorectal pain), the construct being ano- (from the Latin anus) + -dynia (an alternative (used when the preceding morpheme has a terminal vowel) form of -odynia (a New Latin combining form, from the Ancient Greek ὀδύνη (odúnē) (sorrow, grief, anguish, unhappiness).

Confusingly though, because terminology evolved often independently an in parallel, medicine contrived to use anodynia also to mean “the absence of pain in a previously painful region” and in that case the construct differed, being an- (from the Ancient Greek ἀν- (an-); a doublet of un- and in- (used her in the sense of a negation) +‎ odynia (a New Latin combining form, from the Ancient Greek ὀδύνη (odúnē) (sorrow, grief, anguish, unhappiness).  So for the non-medically trained, confusion could arise given anodynia can mean either “pain in the butt” or “pain has gone away” although because it’s a word unlikely much to be seen by other than the medically trained, instances of this have presumably been rare.  But in the context of “butt pain” there would seem to be some overlap in meaning between rectalgia, proctalgia & anodynia but while all are used to refer to “pain in or around the rectal area”, in the profession there are distinctions in use, particularly in clinical and diagnostic work 

Rectalgia is used to describe pain localized in the rectum and tends to be used as general term for the condition and often without specifying a cause.  Conditions associated with rectalgia include anorectal abscesses and fissures.  Proctalgia encompasses pain in the anorectal region (both anus and rectum) and is commonly used of proctalgia fugax, a specific condition characterized by sudden, severe, and brief rectal pain with no obvious underlying cause.  As the etymology suggests, proctalgia’s remit is broader than that of rectalgia because it includes both anus and rectum.  Whether or not related to the duality of meaning, anodynia is now not in general clinical use but historically it referred to pain in the vicinity of the anus.  The modern terms for that are “anal pain” & “anorectal pain”.  So, although lay-readers might be forgiven for thinking they could be used interchangeably, clinicians applied them based on anatomical location: rectalgia (rectum), anodynia (anus) &, proctalgia (anorectal region).

In the thoughts of Kellyanne Conway: A protologist's ultrasonic rectal probe (available in 140 & 200 mm (5½ & 8 inch) length versions) by the Electro Surgical Instrument Company (ESI (1896)).

Protology and pains in the butt do feature in idiomatic use in English.  Kellyanne Conway (b 1967; senior counselor to the US president, 2017-2020) when discussing the “Muller probe” (an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller (1944) into Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) and the matter of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election) told a press conference the whole project was “a political proctology exam.”  She clearly liked the imagery because later, when Mr Muller handed down his report, she told the assembled press pack it was the “best day” since Mr Trump’s (2016) election, repeated the phrase “political proctology” and, sticking with medical allusions, said the verdict delivered “a clean bill of health.”

PITB (and its variations) is widely used.

Kellyanne Conway in hoodie: Miss January, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute's annual Conservative Women Calendar (2009).

So like Mr Trump, Ms Conway would have found the Muller probe a (metaphorical) pain in the butt but “political proctology exam” was both a more polite and elegant way of saying it.  The saying “pain in the butt” belongs to a class of such expressions (all meaning “a nuisance; a source of trouble or annoyance”) which variously are used according to the need for politeness, the hierarchy of rudeness (in ascending order) being: “pain in the neck”, “pain in the brain”, “pain in the back” (all about equal), “pain in the rear”, “pain in the bum”, “pain in the ass” & “pain in the arse” (the choice between “ass” & “arse” dictated by linguistic tradition).  All are often used as initializms (PITN PITB, PITR, PITA) and PITA seems the most popular while in oral use “pain in the neck” and “pain in the ass (arse)” vie for popularity although some do like “pain in the brain” for the rhyme.

First edition (hardcover, 1956) of Soranus' Gynecology, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, translated and with an introduction by Owsei Temkin MD (1902-2002).

Quite when the idea of “specialists” in the modern sense of the word came to the practice of medicine isn’t certain but long before such things were formalized by the creation of colleges or specialist qualifications, it’s likely the early physicians did tend to develop particular areas of expertise and would have had certain patients referred to them, much as is the modern practice.  Probably, this emergence of specialties would have happened organically, based on geography: a physician in a fishing community on the sunny Aegean coast would have encountered a different patient profile than one who worked in the cold of the mountains.  Thus, while it’s not known who can be though the “first proctologist”, medical students everywhere will probably nominate Soranus of Ephesus, a Greek physician who practiced in both Alexandria and Rome during the first & second century AD.  His four-volume treatise on gynecology still exists so he probably deserves to be remembered as an early gynecologist but, as many medical students will confirm, his name is pronounced sawr-ey-nuhs so a proto-proctologist he must be.  Such things do happen: Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) neurologist was Russell Brain (1895–1966).

Ornamentalism

Ornamentalism (pronounced awr-nuh-men-tl-iz-uhm)

(1) The desire or tendency to feature (usually what’s judged an excess of) ornamentation in design or execution (buildings, interiors, furnishings, cars, artwork etc).

(2) Any artistic or architectural style characterised by ornamentation.

(3) In the pre-revolutionary Russian literary tradition, an intricate, mannered and ostentatious prose style most prevalent in the early twentieth century.

(4) In politics, something implemented to lend the appearance of being something substantive while in reality changing little (synonymous usually with “window dressing”).

1860s: The construct was ornament + -al + -ism.  Ornament (an element of decoration; that which embellishes or adorns) was from the Old French ornement, from the Latin ornamentum (equipment, apparatus, furniture, trappings, adornment, embellishment), from ornāre, the present active infinitive of ornō (I equip, adorn). The verb was derived from the noun.  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Ornamentalism & ornamentalist are nouns; the noun plural is ornamentalisms.

Lindsay Lohan mug-shot Christmas tree ornament.  Even the blurb: “…handmade photo-fresco Ornament made with a hybrid Gypsum based polymer that has the crystaline structure of ceramics…” has about it the whiff of ornamentalism.  In some places, this ornament may be thought blasphemous.

The sense of the noun & adjective ornamental (the comparative “more ornamental”, the superlative “most ornamental”) differ from those of ornamentalism in that the former is almost always either positive or neutral.  In the narrow technical sense something ornamental has “no purpose beyond the decorative” although many “ornamental devices” often either can or do fulfill some function, thus the nuanced phrase “merely ornamental” to distinguish the pure forms.  As a noun, “ornamentals” are plants, fish and such bred or maintained for no purpose other than their aesthetic value (although obviously they also often a commercial product).

The same positive or neutral senses tend to be enjoyed by the noun & verb “ornament” which means usually “a decorative element or embellishment” (such as a ceramic piece displayed but never used for its nominal purpose).  In music it means specifically “a musical flourish not needed by the melodic or harmonic line, but which serves to decorate that line” while in the rituals of Christianity, ornaments (in this context always in the plural) are objects (crosses, altar candles, incense and such) used in church services.  So in musical and liturgical use, ornaments enjoy a duality in that they are both decorative and fulfill some function.  That is reflected in biology when the word is used to describe a characteristic that has a decorative function (typically in order to attract a mate) such as the peacock’s marvelously extravagant tail feathers.

Ornamentalism is best known in architecture and design and can been seen in styles ranging from the rococo ((Würzburg Residenz, Würzburg Bavaria, Germany; left), to the McMansion (Wildwood New Jersey, USA; right))

In literary theory, ornamentalism is used to describe a style of writing in the pre-revolutionary Russian literary tradition in which prose was constructed in an intricate, mannered and ostentatious way.  It’s most associated with the early twentieth century and the great exponents of the art were the now sadly neglected Andrei Bely (1880-1934), the symbolist Fyodor Sologub (1863–1927) and the monumentally bizarre Alexei Remizov (1877-1957); it was one of the many stylistic trends briefly to flourish within the Russian avant-garde early in the twentieth century.  It came to be of some interest to later deconstructionists and post-modernists (the latter debatably among the greatest (or worst, depending on one’s view) ornamentalists) because the writers focused not on the capacity of the text to convey narrative or ideological content but the aesthetic and formal qualities of language itself; they treated language as an autonomous artistic medium, focusing on its rhythm, sound, texture and visual patterns.  Even at the time, there was criticism that the style was one of self-indulgence and intended for an audience of fellow writers and those who followed developments in the avant-garde; what comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) would later condemn as “formalism”.

What the ornamentalists did was elevate the elements of language (words, sentences, paragraphs etc) to be artistic objects to be assembled and arranged, their interplay as important (some critics suggested more so) than any implied or discernible meaning, thus the fragmented, non-linear prose which was a complete rejection of traditional realism: the ornamentalists called their work “associative structures”, suggesting they really were the proto postmodernists.  In that sense, it wasn’t the textual devices (repetition, alliteration, assonance) or the unusual syntactic structures which was most striking but the often chaotic mixture of prose and poetry and the interpolation of visual and performative elements into the text.  Needless to say, there was much symbolism, presumably thought an adequate substitute for coherence.  Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was a noted critic of some of the more wilfully obscure ornamentalists but in his early Russian works and later English novels, their influence is detectable in his sensitivity to language's aesthetic possibilities.  While ornamentalism never really became a formal “school” of literature, it did exert a pull on Russian modernism and the possibility of elements like language operating as autonomous artistic objects.

In the US car industry peak ornamentalism happened between 1957-1962: 1960 Chrysler 300F (left), 1958 Buick Limited (centre) and 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (right).

An earlier Russian literary tradition which was later sometimes a part of ornamentalism was skaz (from the sleazat (to tell)), a genre of folk tales consisting usually of an eye-witness account of an episode in peasant or provincial life, distinguished by the narrative being related by a fictitious narrator rather than the author directly.  What that method did was afford an author some latitude in the use of speech forms such as dialect, slang, mispronunciations and, not infrequently, neologisms, all of which lent the texts a naturalistic vigour and colourfulness which usually wouldn’t appear in a naturalistic piece, told in the first person.

A Spanish literary tradition in the same vein as ornamentalism was plateresco (from platero (silversmith), most associated with sixteenth century romances (with most of what that implies).  The English version of the terms was “plateresque” (silversmith-like) and literary criticism borrowed the idea from architecture & design where it describes the ornate styles popular in Spain during the sixteenth century, the word applied in the same way as rococo (which can be thought of as “high ornamentalism”).  The more familiar Spanish term was Gongorism which described the style of writing typified by that of the poet Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627), famous for his baroque and affected ways with the language which featured a Latinistic vocabulary & syntax, intricate use of metaphors, much hyperbole, mythological allusions and a general weirdness of diction.  In fairness, Góngora did not always write in this manner but so distinctive were his narratives when he did that a minor industry of imitators followed including Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) and the English polymath Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) who had great fun while Gongorising.  Gongorism as practiced was a deliberate exaggeration of technique, unlike the earlier aureate (from the Latin aureatus (adorned or decorated with gold), the construct being aure(us) (golden, gilded) +‎ -ate (the adjective-forming suffix).  Arueate language (characterized by the use of (excessively) ornamental or grandiose terms) was most generously described as a sort of poetic diction and it was much in vogue for English and Scottish and poets of the fifteenth century, the works of whom are characterized by the used of ornate & ornamental language, often studded with vernacular coinages from Latin words.

Diva

Diva (pronounced dee-vuh or dee-vah)

(1) A distinguished female singer; a prima donna.

(2) By later extension, any female celebrity, especially one who sings.

(3) In slang (use can be derogatory or affectionate),a person with an exalted opinion of their worth, is demanding of others and fussy about personal privileges.

1864: From the Italian diva (diva, goddess, a fine or beautiful woman), from the Latin dīva (goddess), feminine of dīvus (divine, divine one; notably a deified mortal (and related to related to deus (god, deity)), from the Old Latin deivā, from the Proto-Italic deiwā (goddess), feminine of deiwos (god), from the primitive Indo-European deywós (god) & (dyeu- (to shine (in derivatives: “sky, heaven, god”).  Diva, divaism & divadom are nouns and divaesque, divalike & divaish are adjectives; the noun plural is dive or (more commonly in English) divas.  The verbs divaed & divaing have been used but are non-standard.

The use of “diva” began on the Opera stages and it’s not clear who was the first soprano so labeled.  The first known reference to a singer a “diva” dates from 1864 but some historians claim the model for the mode of behavior was the Spanish soprano Maria Malibran (1808-1836) who before dying tragically young was notorious for her demanding personality and dramatic ways; retrospectively “diva” was applied to her.  During her lifetime it was used also of the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind (1820-1887) although apparently only in relation to the beauty of her voice (she was dubbed “the Swedish Nightingale” and she’s remembered also “Jenny Lind soup” (made with mashed sago or rutabaga or sago, chicken stock thickened with a roux, Gruyère cheese, sage, egg yolks and heavy cream, all topped topped with beaten egg whites),  The link to her is said to be it being her favorite dish to sooth the chest and vocal cords prior to a performance.

Lindsay Lohan on the panel of The Masked Singer (2019).  Diva can be a term of endearment. 

Divas (real and imagined) are popular figures to parody and the word has produced a number of derived forms including (1) the nouns divaism (diva-like behavior) & divadom (the condition of being a diva; the sphere of divas) and (2) the adjectives divaesque (behavior reminiscent of a diva (the comparative more divaesque, the superlative most divaesque)), divalike & divaish (pertaining to the manner expected of a diva (some noting of the latter the anagram was HIV/AIDS)).  The adjective divaistic and the verbs divaed & divaing (doing something in a divaish way) are non-standard and used for jocular effect.  In music, the noun “diva house” described a late 1980s subgenre of house music, much associated with booming vocals (handbag house listed usually as the synonym although, being pop culture, there are likely some who find a distinction)).  The noun divo is used of “a male diva” (a man with the traits characteristic of a typical diva (used also with the implication the word should summon in the mind "deviant" (ie he's a bit gay)).  Diva (in the sense used in English) was also borrowed from the Italian in un-adapted form in Catalan, Dutch, French, Norwegian Nynorsk, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Top ten (20, 25, 100 etc) lists are a staple of publishing and the internet and some have assembled list of the “greatest” sopranos of all time but it’s really not possible to compare those who performed over centuries.  For those of the pre-electronic age, obviously no recordings exist and the only evidence of their stage performances is the subjective writings of critics and other contemporaries (of their divalike behavior the contemporary reports may be more reliable).  Even well into the twentieth century, the capabilities of the technology used to record sound and the dubious quality of the storage media means it’s difficult to compare and while “digital re-mastering” greatly enhances sound, it’s not entirely certain how closely the result emulates what originally would have been heard.  These difficulties exist in many fields.  In boxing it’s a challenge to creating rankings because those of one era never fought those in another and in sports where the equipment has such an influence (such as golf and tennis), it can be hard to work out where technology ended and ability & application began.  Even the notions of “best” and greatest are contested.  In something like sprinting where everything comes down to a single metric (such as the elapsed time over 100 metres) perhaps it’s possible but is “the best” by definition the current holder of the world record, whomever held it longest or the runner who was judged to have run in the era with the most formidable competition.  There are nuances too.  In motorsport the question of “the greatest” is often debated and that’s clearly not about who is the fastest because in the 1970s few doubted that was Ronnie Peterson (1944–1978) but it’s rare to see him on lists because the sport is so focused on titles.  So it’s probably absurd to create a “greatest divas” list although some have and while there will always be variations, some names are likely always to appear:

Victoria de los Angeles (1923-2005): De los Angeles sang in an age of divas yet according to all reports she was the most un-diva-like of them all.  What made her a great singer was the sheer beauty of her voice, coupled with a delivery which seemed genuinely to affect her audience, one critic noting she didn’t so much master her repertoire as “seduce it”.  It was of course a technique to use a voice to evoke emotion in others and many singers do it but de los Angeles managed it with an innocence which made those listening forget the technical tricks of the trade and just feel.

Maria Callas (1923-1977): There is a cult surrounding Callas and even half a century-odd after her death, she remains probably the best known of all the divas, including among those who have never heard her sing a note.  Her tempestuous private life accounts for much of that but she deserves the reputation she gained as a singer while at the height of her powers.  Both her training and technique were unconventional: Although never the most refined singer, she transcended that by brining to her roles a thrilling intensity and an untypical willingness to sound ugly if that’s what the role demanded; she was a great actress as well as a singer.  Where Callas sits in the pantheon will always be debated but she remains unique.

Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962): There should probably be a special category for those who sing Richard Wagner’s (1813–1883) operas because as well as tonal beauty and a great memory, they need endurance and sheer power and in all this the Norwegian Flagstad set a mark not yet surpassed.  Even all that is really not enough to conquer the Wagnerian repertoire because a soprano needs also a sense of drama and several modes of attacking the declamatory utterances which make his work so memorable.  Hers was a dark voice which could range from the tenderness of the grieving maiden to the violence of Brünnhilde’s battle-cry and Wagner hasn’t been the same since.

Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981): US born of Italian stock, Ponselle performed mostly in the US along with several seasons in England and Italy.  She retired from stage work in the mid-1930s but to continued to sing into the 1950s and although the recordings of her are obviously pre-modern, they reveal enough for listeners to understand why her voice was so often described as “legendarily beautiful”.  That many critics can’t all be wrong.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006): It may sound strange to speak of a soprano as “a technician” but it seems appropriate for Schwarzkopf who mastered such a range of styles and material; the word which appears time after time in the critical notices was “flawless”.  What should not be forgotten however were the innovations for she “invented” some of the ways sopranos “phrase” things are now part of the orthodoxy of performance.  Her 1965 performance of Richard Strauss's (1864-1949) Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) with the Radio-Symphonieorchester Berlin under György Széll (1897–1970) is definitive: the need again to record the songs vanished because it's simply not possible to improve on Schwarzkoph's recording.  She must have agreed with the critics because she choose seven of her own recordings when appearing on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.

Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004): Tebaldi’s career began quite modestly in the last days of World War II (1939-1946 and in the early post-war years she confined herself almost exclusively to Italian works of the late nineteenth & early twentieth century but during the 1950s & 1960s she emerged was the leading Italian soprano.  By her own admission she was never a great “actress” and relied for effect on her voice but it alone was enough, critics describing it with terms like creamy or velvety, observing the way audiences would “bask” in its waves.  Because she performed in the same era as Callas the two are often compared but they were very different singers; except for the price tags, one may as well compare a Rolls-Royce with a Ferrari. 

Weltanschauung

Weltanschauung (pronounced velt-ahn-shou-oong)

A worldview.

1868 (in English): From the German Weltanschauung, the construct being Welt (world) + anschauung (view, conception, perception).  Welt was from the Middle High German wëlt, an assimilative contraction of the older wërlt, from the Old High German weralt, from Proto-the West Germanic weraldi, from the Proto-Germanic weraldiz; it was cognate to the English world, the Dutch wereld and the Swedish värld.  Anschauung was from the Middle High German anschouwunge, a calque of the Latin vīsiō (seeing, sight, vision, view); the construct being ansch(auen) (to look at; to behold; to observe (visually); to view) +‎ (a phonetic) -ouwu- + -ung (the suffix used to form nouns from verbs).  Weltanschauung is a noun and weltanschaulich is an adjective; the noun plural is plural Weltanschauungen.

In English, the word is used as an un-adapted borrowing from the German (although often without the initial capital German nouns demand), the descendants from the German in other languages including the Afrikaans wêreldbeskouing (calque), the Bulgarian светоглед (svetogled) (calque), the Estonian maailmavaade (calque), the Finnish maailmankatsomus (calque), the Hungarian világnézet (calque), the Japanese 世界観 (calque), the Chinese 世界觀／世界观 (shìjièguān), the Korean 세계관 (segyegwan), the Vietnamese thế giới quan, the Polish światopogląd (calque), the Romanian weltanschauung, the Russian мировосприя́тие (mirovosprijátije) (calque), the Swedish världsåskådning (calque) and the Ukrainian світосприйняття́ (svitospryjnjattjá) (calque).

One of those compound nouns at which Germans excel in forming, Weltanschauung seems first to have been used by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of Judgment (1790)).  Kant used the word (which translates literally as “worldview”) to describe the capacity of man to achieve a unified perspective on the world; to illustrate the concept he referenced the matter of aesthetic judgment and the contemplation of nature, emphasizing how aesthetic experience enables people to form a coherent and meaningful view of the world as a whole.  For Kant, a Weltanschauung was essential were an individual to experience the sublime and the role of imagination & reason in aesthetic experience but the term doesn’t dominate the text, acting instead as a kind of structural underpinning, providing the framework with which people can move beyond fragmented sensory impressions to grasp a harmonious vision of nature and the cosmos.  For Kant, the very purpose of philosophy was a uniting of the faculties of understanding, reason, and sensibility, itself a worldview which makes his work at once so rewarding and so difficult.

His examples though were compellingly simple: It was through encounters with the sublime (the stars above, the deep forest, the grandeur of the mountains etc) that humans could transcend their limited empirical experiences and begin to sense unity and order (though perhaps not purpose, Kant inclined to sit on the fence on that one) in nature.  Importantly though, Kant did explain this was a serious business and one’s Weltanschauung was a thing to be arrived at through a process of reflecting upon the relationship between humanity, nature and the infinite; it was not something upon which one just stumbled.  So it was a matter of human imagination and reason operating together to synthesize sensory data and from this process would emerge a conception of universal principles: the world as an ordered and meaningful whole.  Kant not only asked much from the universe, he expected much from us.

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

Despite his reputation (especially, one imagines, among puzzled students), Kant was not devoted to abstractions and was a practical philosopher; his intent was to write the sort of texts the philosophers of antiquity might have produced in an attempt to help people live better lives.  Kant wrote with moral and sometimes teleological themes and he was a great influence on later German philosophers including Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)) and it was his use of Weltanschauung in Critique of Judgment which provided the early foundation for the term.  His focus was on neither a subjective or cultural worldview but rather the universal human capacity to achieve a harmonious and meaningful perception of the world, grounded in aesthetic and teleological judgment.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1906), posthumous oil on canvas by Edvard Munch (1863-1944).  In the popular imagination, Nietzsche's Weltanschauung remains probably the best remembered German worldview of the nineteenth century.

It spread too to the English-speaking world and the influence on British & US writers of eighteenth & nineteenth century German philosophers was profound, tied to a shared concern with romanticism and idealism which was a challenge to the English tradition of empiricism.  In 1868, the US philosopher & psychologist William James (1842–1910) used weltanschauung in an essay titled The Sentiment of Rationality, published in The North American Review.  Very much in the tradition of Kant’s “worldview”, the essay explored the nature of belief, rationality and the human tendency to seek coherent perspectives on existence: intellectual commitments, emotional and practical needs.  What James wrote would have been familiar to those schooled in Kant but he expressed things in a more accessible way, explaining a worldview as the product of one’s quest for an intellectual unity which resolves apparent contradictions or ambiguities in one’s understanding of the world.  The essay in 1868 was an early work but James’ concept of Weltanschauung appears also in his major works including The Principles of Psychology (1890) and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); his interest in how individuals and societies construct meaning was life-long.  Probably, in English, the use of weltanschauung usually isn’t necessary because unlike other German borrowings like Zeitgeist (spirit of the age) or schadenfreude (taking pleasure form another's misfortune) which express in one word what in English takes a phrase, the literal translation “worldview” does the job.  However, it’s handy for those who wish to suggest and an outlook something in the vein of nineteenth century German philosophical thought, especially if accompanied by an apprehension of dread though definitely it doesn’t convey: “a certain Teutonic je ne sais quoi”.

Whitewall

Whitewall (pronounced hwahyt-wawl or wahyt-wawl)

(1) A tyre (or tire), almost always pneumatic, with a sidewall with a white circular line of varying widths.

(2) Having white sidewalls (of a tyre).

(3) In US military use, a hair cut with a closely cropped back and sides and the hair on the top of the head left longer.

(4) In UK dialect (Northamptonshire), the spotted flycatcher (the bird so-called because of the white color of the under parts).

1950–1955: The construct was white + (side)wall.  White pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English whit & hwit, from the Old English hwīt (whiteness, white food, white of an egg (and in late Old English “a highly luminous color devoid of chroma”)), from the Proto-West Germanic hwīt, from the Proto-Germanic hwītaz, from the primitive Indo-European ḱweydós, a by-form of ḱweytós (bright; shine). It was cognate with the German weiss, the Old Norse hvītr and the Gothic hweits; akin to wheat.  The idea of the “whites of the eye” was known in the late fourteenth century while the use of the term “white man” emerged in the late 1600s.  Wall pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English wal, from the Old English weall (wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff), from the Proto-West Germanic wall (wall, rampart, entrenchment), from the Latin vallum (wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade), from vallus (stake, post), from the primitive Indo-European welH- (to turn, wind, roll).  It was likely conflated with waw (a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition), from the Middle English wawe, from the Old English wāg & wāh (an interior wall, divider).  It was cognate with the North Frisian wal (wall), the Saterland Frisian Waal (wall, rampart, mound), the Dutch wal (wall, rampart, embankment), the German Wall (rampart, mound, embankment) and the Swedish vall (mound, wall, bank”).  The forms white wall & white-wall are also used.  Whitewall is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is whitewalls.

Wide whitewalls on 1953 Packard Caribbean Convertible (left), narrow whitewalls on 1967 Mercedes-Benz 600 (centre) and triple whitewalls on 1966 Cadillac Coupe De Ville (right) (there were also double whitewalls).

Whitewall tyres became available in the early years of the twentieth century but it wasn’t until the 1930s they became a noted feature on luxury cars sold in the US and, in the way these things work, they were soon also an option on lower-priced models although, being relatively expensive and offering no functionality, the take-up rate was low.  The very existence of the whitewall was, stylistically, something of a throwback because the earliest pneumatic tyres were an off-white, the color of the natural rubber formula and the manufacturers soon added a zinc oxide to the mix for no reason other than producing a bright white which was more appealing in showrooms.  Given the unsealed roads of the era, the stark white didn’t long last in use and tyres quickly degenerated to a “dirty beige” and although “tyre cleaning” products were available, it was a sisyphean task and presumably few persisted.  In 1910 the BF Goodrich Company began adding carbon black to its various formulae after tests confirmed this added strength and durability to the rubber.  Rapidly the technique was adopted by the industry although because carbon black was an additional input cost, some tyres were produced with the additive used only for the portion of the rubber used for the tread surface, meaning the sidewalls remained white.  The first whitewalls were thus a product of cost-cutting and it’s an irony the look would more than a decade later be picked up as a marker of wealth and luxury although the commercial “whitewalls” would be a strip of white rubber added during the manufacturing process to an all-black carcass.  As a “discovery” the whitewall can be thought serendipitous.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Whitewall magazine, Fall / Autumn 2012 edition.  The photograph was Lindsay Lohan V by Richard Phillips (b 1962).  By magazine standards, the predominately black & grey cover was unusually dark but this was a deliberate editorial choice.  New York-based Whitewall magazine was founded in 2006 by Michael Klug (b 1978) who remains publisher & editor at large.  Whitewall is described as a publication for creative communities, bringing together art, design, fashion & lifestyle, with a focus on sustainability and diversity, offering a platform for the queer, trans and those identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color).

Raised-letter tyre on 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 (left) and red-line (later, there would be blue-line, yellow-line etc) tyre on 1966 Pontiac GTO (right).  The BF Goodrich Radial T/A (left) was valued by road-racers because it was discovered as the tread wore it behaved with characteristics which were similar to a racing "slick".  For a while, worn T/A Radials became a handy revenue earner for tyre shops.

The whitewall became more popular in the late 1940s until the Korean War (1950-1953) caused a squeeze on rubber supplies but once the peacetime returned, so did the whitewall and the width grew, often measuring 2½-3 inches (65-75 mm), something made possible by the physical size of tyre sidewalls increasing during the 1950s.  The perception now is the fashion was very much a US taste and while there’s some truth in that, American culture in the 1950s exerted a great influence and whitewalls were seen in Europe, Australia and Japan and for some reason the Italian fashion magazines seemed particularly taken with them for their photo-shoots.  Curiously, the US industry seemed to lose interest in whitewalls between 1961-1963, just as the wild fins of the era suddenly vanished although there was a period of transition, the “standard” whitewall shrinking to a width of 1 inch (25 mm) and sometimes less.  During the 1960s, although whitewalls remained a fixture on the more up-market mainstream vehicles the preferred look for high-performance machinery (it was the “muscle-car” era) was the “raised letter” tyre which spelled out the manufacturer’s name and often model of tyre, the free advertising greatly pleasing.  At the same time, the muscle car circle developed a taste for “red-line” tyres” which featured a thin red strip.

US actress Mamie Van Doren (b 1931) cleaning her Jaguar XK120 OTS (open two seater (ie roadster) 1948-1954), paying special attention to the whitewall tyres.  For those who need advice on such matters, Longstone Tyres has published a guide.

In the collector community there are factions for whom whitewalls are a thing (for some, verging on a fetish) and according to these experts, the most common mistake is to use a product like ArmorAll’s various tyre cleaners (ArmorAll’s stuff usually a good choice for many surfaces) which, because of the chemical composition, tend to draw the carbon from the black rubber of the tyres, permanently staining the whitewalls with a yellowish hue.  For generations the preferred cleaning product was Westley’s Bleche Wite but, after a corporate takeover, the ingredients were in some way changed and the reputation suffered, the product later replaced.  Among disgruntled ex-customers, the theories explaining all this included corporate greed and some (unspecified) intervention by the EPA (Environmental protection Authority).  Containers of Westley’s Bleche Wite (those with the original chemical composition) now trade on the internet at multiples of their original price, in the manner of bottles of “original” Absinthe dating from the days when it was in many places banned although, unlike the “green fairy”, most of the cleaning spray is probably authentic.  There seems not now a consensus about what’s the nest cleaning product and some even suggest good results can be obtained by using a mix of baking soda or plain white toothpaste with warm water.

Sir William Lyons (1901–1985) presenting the Jaguar E-Type to the press pack, Geneva, March 1961 (left) and a 1961 publicity shot for the US market release (right).  In the US market, Jaguar had long made the whitewalls optional for the XK sports cars but there, most of the E-Type's (often called XK-E or XKE in the US) publicity material featured whitewalls.  The fad soon faded although narrow whitewalls were still available until 1975 when the last E-Types were sold.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color saturation being "enhanced" in pre-production editing; Vogue's artists made models thinner and cars shinier.  Although never quite as popular in Australia, the UK & Europe as they were in the US, whitewalls until the 1980s were not a rare sight in these places and buyers were seduced also by that other American intrusion, the vinyl roof, something more of a crime against good taste than any whitewall.

1952 Ferrari 212 (which the factory supplied with an up-rated 225 engine) Barchetta by Touring Superleggera (left) and 1974 Mercedes-Benz R107 (450 SL).

The Ferrari was a gift from Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) to Henry Ford II (1917–1987) and was the last non-racing Ferrari bodied by coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera.  The whitewall tyres were fitted especially for US delivery and Ford used the car during its evaluation process for the 1955 Thunderbird which picked up styling cues including the hood (bonnet) scoop and egg crate grille.  The Mercedes-Benz 450 SL illustrates just how jarring whitewalls can be if used on vehicles not suited to their presence.  On the early R107s (1971-1989) and C107s (the SLC, 1971 1981), thin whitewalls were sometime fitted to US market cars and even then there was comment about they really didn’t suit.  On the 450 SL pictured, the error is compounded by the fitting of the “chrome” wheel arch trims.  This was an unfortunate trend (which spread also to Jaguar, BMW and beyond) which began with their appearance in 1963 on the Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) but on the original they were of metal whereas the aftermarket ones were almost always anodized plastic. 

Apestail

Apestail (pronounced eypse–teyl)

A name for the symbol “@”, adapted from its Dutch name.

1990s: An adaptation of the Dutch word aapestaartje (literally “little monkey's tail”, coined as a jocular term for the @ symbol, the etymology reflecting the symbol's spiral or curled shape, said to resemble the tail of a monkey, the construct being aap (monkey) + staart (tail) + -je (indicating something small or endearing).  Unlike German, the Dutch language has a tradition of humorous descriptive terms although the Germans did retaliate with Klammeraffe (spider monkey.  Other forms have included the Italian chiocciola (snail), the Polish małpa (monkey) and the Hebrew shtrudel (strudel pastry).  An English alternative was ampersat, the construct being ampersa(nd) + at.  Apestail is a noun; the noun plural is apestails.

Apestail in the Algerian font.

One of the curious linguistic paradoxes produced by the internet is that the “@” symbol, although one of the most widely used of those on the standard keyboard, it has never gained a universally accepted “official” name (such as “ampersand” for the “&”).  In English, when referred to it’s usually as “at”.  It was of course its adoption as the divider between the user name and the domain (UserName@domain.x) in email addresses which meant the once neglected key on the keyboard became widely used and although the rise of SMS (short message service), social media platforms, instant messaging services and such has meant there are now many alternatives for electronic communications, so entrenched in corporate life is the email protocol that it’s estimated that every day in 2024, over 350 billion emails are sent, an increase of some 4% from the previous year.  That does make modern capitalism sound industrious but the same researchers also reckoned some 85% of the volume was spam.  As early as the 1960s there had been forms of electronic messaging but all were parochial and it wasn’t until 1971 when programmer Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) included the @ symbol in ARPANET’s (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network; the operation which created the underpinnings of what became the modern internet) implementation and although much has changed in terms of packets and protocols, the @ endures.  From the very start, it was understood to mean “at” thus lindsaylohan@disney.com would universally be understood to mean “Lindsay Lohan at Disney Corporation”.  There was a element of chance in the choice, Mr Tomlinson selecting @ because it was one of the least used ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters and one thus unlikely to conflict with objects elsewhere in code or operating system routines.

Apestail in the Agency FB font.

So the basic syntax of the email address predated the development of the familiar PC or laptop keyboard but in that context it was of very little use because it wouldn’t be until well into the 1990s that email achieved a critical mass of users.  Despite that, from the very first, the @ appeared on most keyboards and that was because substantially they emulated the layout of those which had become familiar on typewriters.  Probably few typewriter users had much need for the symbol either but for those who did it was essential and its long history in typography and commercial transactions justified a key although often it wasn’t included on smaller, cheaper typewriters aimed at the consumer market and even in the computer industry, it wasn’t until @ was included in the ASCII character set that computer keyboards were (more or less) standardized.  In commerce, by the sixteenth century “2” widely was used by merchants to signify a rate or price, such as “7 jars of olives @ 5 drachmas” was understood as 7 x 5 =35 so it was 35 drachmas for 7 jars of olives.  Like the Arabic numeric system, the commercial use spread across Europe and became a standard notation, facilitating a certainty of trading terms between those who shared neither a language now spoke the lingua franca.  Because of its importance and utility in bookkeeping and commerce, it was included on keyboards for the convenience of businesses.  Occasionally, @ would appear in specific academic or technical applications but these instances were rare, localized and none seem to have endured although, for all we know, it may have some secret meaning in Freemasonry.  Some jurisdictions have banned the use of “@” and an element when registering the name of an infant, the implication of that being that some parents must have tried.

Apestail in the Berlin Sans font.

The first time many computer users became aware of the mysterious @ was when it was included as the prefix for built-in functions in the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the so-called “killer app” which in 1983 did so much to legitimize the personal computer in corporate life.  Released in 1979, VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet but it was the more capable Lotus 1-2-3 (soon laden with macros and add-ins) which captured the market and anyone familiar with VisiCalc would have found the transition relatively simple: whereas in VisiCalc SUM(B1:B10) would have calculated the sum of the range A1 to A10, in 1-2-3 it was @SUM(A1..A10). and statements like @IF(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false) were used for conditional logic.  The arrival of Microsoft Windows 3.x in 1990 and especially Windows 95 in 1995 shifted the universe and over time Excel captured the spreadsheet market and while it moved away from the use of @ as a universal function prefix, it does still exist in aome of Excel’s advanced functions such as structured references in arrays.  In many computer languages, @ is used for a variety of purposes.

Apestail in the Niagara Solid font.

The very origin of @ is murky but it seems to have appeared during the later medieval period when it was known in Spanish and Portuguese as arroba, from the Old Spanish arroua and the Old Galician-Portuguese arrova, from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic اَلرُّبْع (ar-rubʕ) (one-fourth), the reference to it making up one fourth of a quintal (the capacity of a standard amphora, a vessel used to store and transport liquids, cereals and other goods) The symbol was used as a shorthand form of the Latin ad (at; to) and one of a range of truncated or stylized forms which saved (1) the time of scribes, (2) ink and (3) paper, all commodities which cost money and some were expensive.  In countries where Spanish and Portuguese were spoken, arroba also referred to a measure of weight, typically around 11.5 kg (25 lb) although regional variations were common.  In that sense, by the operation of local custom, @ was a (regionally) standardized measure like a pood but unlike the pood, it never spread.