Abduct
(pronounced ab-duhkt)
(1) To
carry off or lead away (a person) illegally and in secret or by force,
especially to kidnap.
(2) In physiology
(as a back-formation from adduction), of certain muscles, to pull (a leg, arm
etc) away from the median axis of the body.
1825–1835:
From the Latin abductus, past
participle of abdūcere (to abduce; to
lead away) and perfect passive participle of abdūcō (to lead away), the construct being ab- (from, away from) + dūcō
(lead). The sense of the verb “abduct”
meaning “to kidnap” was in use by 1834 (almost certainly as a back-formation
from abduction and may be compared with the earlier transitive verb “abduce”, from
abdūcō. Abduct & abducting are verbs, abductor,
abductee & abduction are nouns, abducting is a verb, & abducted is a
verb & adjective, abductive is an adjective and abductively is an adverb;
the common noun plural is abductions.
The noun abduction
(a leading away) was in use by the 1620s and was from the Latin abductionem (a forcible carrying off,
ravishing, robbing), the noun of action from past-participle stem of abducere (to lead away, take away,
arrest (in use a sense of “by force” often implied although in Roman humor it
seems the word was used when men approvingly discussed (legitimate,
non-violent) acts of seduction)). The
construct was ab- + ducere (to lead), the latter element
from the primitive Indo-European deuk-
(to lead). The modern idea of abduction as
“the criminal act of forcibly taking someone (ie a kidnap) was in use by 1768,
the previous uses in medicine and logic continuing, confusion avoided because the
contexts were so different
In English,
the sixteenth century abduce conveyed the same notions as the later abduct :(1)
to conduct away; to take away; to withdraw; to draw to a different part &
(2) to move a limb out away from the centre of the body but became obsolete
when the alternative was preferred although it retains to this day the abstract
meaning “to draw a conclusion”, used in specialized fields to describe the
results of metanalysis. In applied
statistics, metanalysis is a systematic procedure (there are many) used to
analyse data from two or more sources although, casually, the term is sometimes
used of any analysis undertaken at a higher level of abstraction than running
the numbers through a “standard analytical model”. For those not practitioners in the field(s),
what is abduced appears to be the same as what is “deduced” from the data and
the difference between the terms is that abduce describes a process.
El rapto de Europa (The Rape of Europa (1628-1629)),
oil on canvas by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Prado Museum, Madrid (left). It follows a 1562 work in the same vein by
Tiziano Vecelli (circa 1489-1576 and known in English as Titian). Ratto
di Proserpina (The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-1622) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(1598–1680) (right).
In modern use,
few words in English have, in a historical context, been as misunderstood as “rape”
because the modern understanding has become so pervasive. Rape is now (in most Western jurisdictions)
held to mean “a penetrative sexual act
forced upon another in the absence of their consent” (although some
feminist schools of thought argue the vista should be wider) but the use of the
word “rape” (sometimes retrospectively) in so much art and sculpture from
Antiquity and the Middle Ages is the cause of much misunderstanding among modern
audiences. Both the French noun and verb
ultimately came from the Latin rapina
(act of robbery, plundering (related to rapine and the source of much modern
confusion because “rape” was long used in the sense of “pillage” or
“kidnapping”)) with sense development influenced by the Latin rapidus (rapid). In the sense of “carrying off”, the English
use was in parallel with the Middle French rapture with the meaning drawn from
the Medieval Latin raptura (seizure,
rape, kidnapping, carrying off, abduction, snatching away) and the word rape is
a cognate of this.
The verb rape
was from the late fourteenth century rapen
(seize prey; abduct, take and carry off by force) from the noun rape and the Anglo-French raper, from the Old French rapir (to seize, abduct) which was the
standard legal term, probably directly from the Latin rapere (seize, carry off by force, abduct). The meaning “to rob, strip, plunder (a place
and, more latterly, an institution)” dates from the 1720s and was a partial revival
of the old sense but applied to objects rather than people; in this sense it is
still used, not because there aren’t other terms to convey the meaning but
because of the special force the word “rape” exerts. Of course, in the literature and art of the
Classical world and for centuries after depictions of the “rape” of women (in
the sense of being abducted) likely were anyway representations of what was a
prelude to sexual violation, trophies being taken for a reason so the
distinction is one of linguistic practice rather than changes in the conduct of
men. Other related words have also had similar
meaning shifts. The adjective “ravishing”,
dating from the mid fourteenth century and meaning “enchanting, exciting
rapture or ecstasy” (present-participle adjective from the verb ravish) is now
probably associated with Mills & Boon romances but the origin was sacred,
the figurative notion being “carrying off
from earth to heaven”. The term “rape”
is thus now obsolete in the sense of “carry off” and replaced by “abduct”, the
synonyms (used variously) including drag away, kidnap, run away with, seize, spirit
away etc.
Deduction,
induction & abduction
A reproduction of an early edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles with illustrations by Sidney Paget (1860–1908). It was Paget who gave Holmes the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape which became so associated with him; neither were ever mentioned by Conan Doyle.
Some subtle
differences in the meanings of the sometimes confused induction & deduction
were recently discussed on the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) World
Book Club in an exchange between presenter Harriett Gilbert and Dr Mark Jones,
co-presenter of The Doings of Doyle
podcast and editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal. The focus of the programme
was The Hound of the Baskervilles,
the third of the four crime novels by British author & physician Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the work featuring the fictional detective Sherlock
Holmes and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson.
Later published in a single edition, it originally serialised in The Strand Magazine between August 1901 and
April 1902, something which accounts for the structure including a number of “cliff
hanger” last sentences in chapters, a creative tension which would have worked
well when readers eagerly were waiting seven days for the next instalment but which
produces an unusual narrative effect when printed as a consolidated work. The gothic Hound of the Baskervilles, which remains the best regarded of Conan
Doyle’s novels, was set in the gloomy fog of Dartmoor in England’s West Country
and was the tale of the search for a “fearsome,
diabolical hound of supernatural origin”.
As a footnote the author's name is an example of how conventions of use
influence things. He's long been
referred to as “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” or “Conan Doyle” which would imply the
surname “Conan Doyle” but his surname was “Doyle” and he was baptized with the
Christian names “Arthur Ignatius Conan”, the “Conan” from his godfather. Some academic and literary libraries do list
him as “Doyle” but he's now referred to almost universally as “Conan Doyle” and
the name “Arthur Doyle” would be as un-associated with him as “George Shaw”
would with George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950). A popular perception probably is that
immediately after uttering the phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson”, Holmes will go on
to explain how, through a process of induction or deduction, how he solved
whatever was the riddle. Interestingly, although
he had Holmes say both “elementary” and “my dear Watson”, Conan Doyle
never used the two as a single text-string, the phrase appearing first in the
US film The Return of Sherlock Holmes
(1929). The detective does however at
various times use techniques of deduction, induction abduction.
The process
of deduction moves from general rules, laws, premises, principles etc to
specific conclusions on the basis if the assumptions are true and the reasoning
valid, the conclusion must be true, thus the standard example cited in
Philosophy 101 lectures: (1) premise 1: all humans are mortal; (2) premise 2:
Socrates is a human, thus (3) the conclusion: Socrates is mortal. What deduction relies upon is necessity (the
conclusion follows with certainty). The
process of induction describes drawing conclusions from specific observations or
facts so that general rules or principles can be developed. The significance of induction is that
conclusions cannot be guaranteed to be true and are assessed in terms of
probability and efficacy is judged by the degree to which things tend towards
certainty. An example would be: (1) observation:
every day in known history the sun has risen in the east thus (2) the
conclusion: tomorrow the sun will rise in the east. While the conclusion goes beyond observed
facts (ie there is no way to view “tomorrow”), the conclusion seems probable.
Induction
systems: 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé (left), 1961 Chrysler 300G
Convertible (with “long ram” Sonoramic tubes, centre) and 1993 Mercedes-Benz 600 SEC (right).
Before they
became almost universally covered with bland plastic moldings, the more
photogenic induction systems fitted to ICEs (internal combustion engine)
exerted on some a real fascination, the straight or curved tubular structures recalling
architectural traditions from the baroque to brutalism. What the tubes did was deliver the fuel/air
mixture to the combustion chambers and their exaggerated length was to exploit
an aspect of fluid dynamics related to Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) first law
of motion, more commonly known as the law of inertia: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and
an object in motion tends to stay in motion” and it’s the second
part for which the tubes were designed. During
the intake cycle of an engine, the fuel-air mix flows through the intake
manifold, past the intake valve, and into the cylinder, then the intake valve
shuts. At that point, the law of inertia
comes into play: Because the air was in motion, it wants to stay in motion but
can’t because the valve is shut so it piles up against the valve with something
of a concertina effect. With one piece
of air piling up on the next, the air becomes compressed and, being under
pressure, this stuff has to go somewhere so it turns around and flows back
through the intake manifold in the form of a pressure wave. This pressure wave bounces back and forth in
the runner and if it arrives back at the intake valve when the valve opens,
it’s drawn into the engine. This
bouncing pressure wave of air and the proper arrival time at the intake valve
creates a low-pressure form of supercharging but for this to be achieved all
variables have to be aligned so the pressure wave arrives at the intake valve
at the right time. This combination of
synchronized events is known as the “resonant
conditions”. All that physics is of
course interesting but even those bored by the details can sometimes just
admire the lines of the more exotic induction systems
The process
of abduction sometimes is described as “drawing an inference to reach the most
plausible explanation” which sounds a bit wishy-washy but it’s an essential
element in the analytical toolbox. In
use, abduction means moving from an observation (or a opinion, which need not
represent an orthodox view) to develop a hypothesis to explain it. In this process, there should be symmetry,
such as in an expression like: (1) if A were true, (2) B would be expected. (3)
If B is observed, (4) A thus might be true.
So the observation “the car is covered in raindrops” means the hypothesis
“it must have rained” seems reasonable.
Dr Barrett was joking.
For reasons uncertain (though there's been much speculation), since the early
1960s there have been many claims of “alien abduction”. Many theories exploring the phenomenon come
from the mental health community and discuss the effects of dreams, false
memory syndrome and such but of note is the trend emerged only after the “space
race” had begun and tales of “flying saucers” had for some time been part of
popular culture. The fondness alien
abductors clearly have for examining abductees with “anal probes” seems to have
been identified only in the 1980s and the volume of published accounts must have
encouraged the trend; the devices in this context became a staple of comedy
routines.
Conan
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is most associated with deduction but at times used all
three reasoning methods and the boundaries between them are not always rigid,
one sometimes blurring into another because a deduction can be dependent on a
prior induction or abduction. In The Adventure of the Speckled Band
(1892) there is a clear example of the deductive (general > specific
> necessary conclusion) process. In
that short story, Holmes began with the premise a person cannot from the
outside unlock a locked bedroom door if one does not have the key and because
the victim’s door was locked from the inside and the only key was with them in
the bedroom, the
murderer must have entered by some other means (which turned out to be the ventilator). In the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887), the example of the inductive method is
illustrated by Holmes astonishing knowledge of the nature of the ashes left by
cigars, the detective’s explanation being that by “repeated experiments”, his study
of the material allowed him to identify vital characteristics, different
tobaccos leaving different ashes. From
this emerged the general rule that ashes can identify the source tobacco and
thus perhaps also the smoker. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, although
there are many examples of deduction, they ultimately are contingent upon one
fundamental product of the inductive method: There is no such thing as the
supernatural so there can be no spectral hound stalking the moors. From this it follows there must be a mortal flesh
& blood dog, albeit one large and frightening. It’s the simplest explanation, even though one
not certain until tested by the beast being hunted down and killed.
