Nothing

Nothing (pronounced nuhth-ing)

(1) No thing; not anything; naught.

(2) No part, share, or trace (usually followed by of).

(3) Something that is nonexistent; non-existence; nothingness.

(4) Something of no importance or significance.

(5) A trivial action, matter, circumstance, thing, or remark.

(6) A person of little or no importance; a nobody.

(7) Something that is without quantity or magnitude.

(8) A cipher or naught; the quantity or quality of zero.  The value represented by the numeral zero (and the empty set: {}).

(9) As “think nothing of it” and related forms, a procedural response to expressions of thanks.

(10) In no respect or degree; not at all.

(11) Amounting to nothing, as in offering no prospects for satisfaction, advancement, or the like.

(12) In architecture, the contents of a void.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nothyng, noon thing, non thing, na þing, nan thing & nan þing, from the Old English nāþing, nān þing & naðinc (nānthing & nathing) (nothing (literally “not any thing”), the construct being nān- (not one (source of the modern none)) + þing (thing).  The earlier Old English was nāwiht (nothing (literally “no thing”), related to the Swedish ingenting (nothing (literally “not any thing, no thing”).  The ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European ne- (not).  In slang and dialectical English there have been many non-standard forms including nuffin, nuffink, nuttin', nuthin, nuthin', nowt, nuthing & nothin'.  Slang has been productive (jack, nada, zip, zippo, zilch, squat, nix) as has vulgar slang (bugger all, jack shit, sod all, fuck all, dick).  Nothing is a noun & adverb and nothingness is a noun; the noun plural is nothings.

Lindsay Lohan wearing nothing (shoes don't count; everybody knows that).  Playboy magazine pictorial, January / February 2012.

The meaning "insignificant thing, a thing of no consequence" emerged circa 1600 (although as an adverb (not at all, in no degree), it was known in late Old English) whereas nothing in the sense of "not at all" had existed since circa 1300.  Phrases in the twentieth century were created as needed: “Nothing to it”, indicating something easily accomplished was noted from 1925 and “nothing to write home about” was really literal, recorded first and with some frequency by censors monitoring the letters written by soldiers serving at the front in Word War I (1914-1918); it appears to date from 1917, the extent of use apparently encouraged by it being a useful phrase exchanged between soldiers by word-of-mouth.  Nothing seems not to have been an adjective until 1961, an evolution of use (or a decline in standards depending on one’s view) which saw words like “rubbish” re-applied in a similar way.  A do-nothing (an idler) is from the 1570s, the noun an adoption from the from the verbal phrase and as an adjective to describe the habitually indolent, it’s noted from 1832.  The adjective good-for-nothing (a worthless person) is from 1711.  The term know-nothing (an ignoramus) is from 1827 and was later applied (though not deliberately) to the US nativist political party, active between 1853-1856, the bulk of which eventually migrated to the Republican Party.  The noun nothingness (non-existence, absence or negation of being) was first used in the 1630s but is most associated with the ideas around nihilism, the exploration of which became a mainstream part of philosophy in the nineteenth century.  Nothingness is distinct from the noun nothingarian which references "one who has no particular belief," especially in religious matters, a descriptive dating from 1789.  It's striking how often in religion, even when factions or denominations are in disputes with one another (sometime actually at war), one thing which seems to unite them is the feeling that whatever their differences, the nothingarians are the worst sinners of all.

The noun nihilist, in a religious or philosophical sense, is from the French nihiliste, from the Latin nihil (nothing at all).  Nihilism, the word first used in 1817, is “the doctrine of negation", initially in reference to religion or morals but later extended universally.  It’s from the German Nihilismus, from the Latin nihil (nothing at all) and was a coining of German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819).  In philosophy, it evolved quickly into an extreme form of skepticism, the political sense of a "rejection of fundamental social and political structures", first used circa 1824 by the German journalist Joseph von Görres (1776-1848).  Most associated with a German school of philosophical thought including (rather misleadingly) GWF Hegel (1770–1831) and (most famously) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), the particular Russian strain was more a revolutionary political movement with something of a premium on violence (that would much influence Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)).  Thus with an initial capital, Nihilism (Nigilizm in the Russian) as used in this context is specific to the movement of Russian revolutionary anarchism 1863-1917 and limited in that the meaning refers to the participants’ disapproval of all social, economic & political possibilities in pre-Soviet Russia; the sense they viewed “nothing” with favor.

A probably inaccurate representation of nothing.  

The idea of nothing, in a universal sense in which literally nothing (energy, matter, space or time) exists is difficult to imagine, imaginable presumably only as infinite blackness, probably because that’s the closest to a two-dimensional representation of the absence of any sense of the special, white implying the existence of light.  That nothingness is perhaps impossible to imagine or visualize doesn’t however prove it’s impossible but the mere fact matter, energy and time now exist in space does imply that because, were there ever nothing, it’s a challenge to explain how anything could have, from nothing, come into existence.  Some have mused that there are aspects of quantum theory which suggest even a state of nothingness can be inherently unstable and where there is instability there is the possibility of an event.  The argument is that under quantum theory, if long enough is allowed to pass (something which, bewilderingly, apparently can happen even if there is no time) then every possible event may happen and from this may evolve energy, matter space or time.  To speak of a time scale in all of this is irrelevant because (1) time may not exist and (2) infinity may exist but it can for administrative purposes be thought of as a very long time.  The intriguing link between time starting and energy, matter or space coming into existence as a consequence is that at that point (in time), it may be the only time “now” could exist in the absence of the past and future so everything would happen at the same time.  Clearly, the conditions operative at that point would be unusual so, anything could happen. 

That is of course wholly speculative but in recent decades, the “string theorists” have extended and refined their mathematical models to a degree which not long ago would have been thought impossible so some modelling of a unique point of “now” in nothing would be interesting and the basic framework of that would seem to demand the mathematics of a model which would describe what conditions would have to prevail in order for there truly to be nothing.  That may or may not be possible but might be an interesting basis from which to work for those trying to explain things like dark matter & dark energy, either or both of which also may or may not exist.  Working with the existing universe seems not to be helpful in developing theories about the nature of all this supposedly missing (or invisible) matter and energy whereas were one, instead of working backwards as it were, instead to start with nothing and then work out how to add what seems to be missing (while remaining still not visible), the result might be interesting.

It’s not a new discussion.  The thinkers from Antiquity were known to ponder the philosophers’ traditional concerns such as “why are we here?” and “what is the meaning of life?” but they also realized a more basic matter was “why does anything exist instead of there being nothing?” and for thousands of years this has been “explained” as the work of gods or a god but that really not a great deal of help.  In the Western tradition, this basic question seems not to have bothered angst-ridden Teutonic philosophers, the German Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) writing on the subject, as later would the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951).  Martin Heidegger (1889–1976, who was only briefly a Nazi) called it the “fundamental question of metaphysics”.  The English-speaking school, more tied to the empirical, noted the matter.

Ooze

Ooze (pronounced ooz)

(1) Of moisture, liquid etc, to flow, percolate, or exude slowly, as through holes or small openings.

(2) To move or pass slowly or gradually, as if through a small opening or passage:

(3) The act of oozing, to make by oozing; to exude (moisture, air etc) slowly.

(4) Something that oozes; the product or the result from oozing.

(5) In geology, the technical word for a calcareous or siliceous mud composed chiefly of the shells of one-celled organisms, covering parts of the ocean bottom; a soft thin mud found at the bottom of lakes and rivers

(6) In commercial tanning, an infusion of vegetable matter, such as sumach or oak bark.

(7) Secretion, humor (said now to be rare).

(8) Juice, sap (obsolete except when used as a verb describing process).

(9) Of something abstract, such as information or confidence, to appear or disappear slowly or imperceptibly (often followed by out or away).

Pre 900: The noun wass from the Middle English wose (sap), from the Old English wōs (sap, froth, juice, moisture) and wāse (soft mud, mire), from the Proto-Germanic wōsą & wosan (related to the Middle Low German wose (scum), the Old High German wasal (rain) and the Old Swedish os & oos), from the primitive Indo-European wósehz (sap) (related to the Sanskrit वसा (vásā) (fat)).  Also of influence was the Old English wāse (mud), related to the Old French wāse and the Old Norse veisa.  The other Proto-Germanic link was waison (source also of the Old Saxon waso (wet ground, mire) and the Old Norse veisa (pond of stagnant water), probably from a primitive long-lost Indo-European root meaning "wet".  The modern spelling is from the mid-1500s.  The verb form meaning (1) "to flow as ooze, percolate through the pores of a substance" (intransitive) and (2) "to emit in the shape of moisture" (transitive) emerged in the late fourteenth century.  Wosen (the Old English verb was wesan) was a verbal derivative of the Old English noun wos (sap, froth, juice, moisture)," from Proto-Germanic wosan from same source as the noun ooze (n.).  The modern spelling is from the late sixteenth century.  Ooze is a noun & verb; oozed, oozle & oozing are verbs and oozy is an adjective; the noun plural is oozes.

Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) watching industrial lubricant ooze into a 209 litre (the old 44 (imperial) gallon) drum.

Lindsay Lohan having just had her T-shirt oozed upon in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

The adjective was oozy which existed in Old English as wosig (juicy, moist) but the original sense is long obsolete, the meaning "containing or resembling fine soft mud; having the consistency of wet mud or slime" is from 1560s and the related form, ooziness, though rare, remains in occasional use.  Ooze and its derivatives are, to some degree, associated with words such as slime, mud, muck, sludge, marsh, bog, goo, silt, gunk, drain, seep, leak, dribble, percolate, trickle, exude, bleed, mire, fluid, gook, glop & alluvium yet none of them appear to evoke the same distaste as what is said to be the most disliked word in English: “moist”.

Calcareous-siliceous sediment distribution: The worldwide distribution of ooze.  In the 1960s, old Everett Dirksen (1896–1969; US senator (Republican-Illinois) and Senate Minority Leader 1959-1969) was so given to mellifluous oratory he was known in Washington DC as “the Wizard of Ooze”.

Esurient

Esurient (pronounced ih-soo-r-ee-uhnt)

(1) The state of being hungry; greedy; voracious.

(2) One who is hungry.

1665–1675: A borrowing from the Latin ēsurient & ēsurientem, stem of ēsuriēns (hungering), present participle of ēsurīre (to be hungry; to hunger for something), from edere (to eat), the construct being ēsur- (hunger) + -ens (the Latin adjectival suffix which appeared in English as –ent (and –ant, –aunt etc) and in Old French as –ent).  The form ēsuriō was a desiderative verb from edō (to eat), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hédti (to eat and from the root ed-) + -turiō (the suffix indicating a desire for an action).  English offers a goodly grab of alternatives including rapacious, ravenous, gluttonous, hoggish, insatiable, unappeasable, ravening, avaricious, avid and covetous.  Esurient is a noun & adjective, esurience & esuriency are nouns and esuriently is an adverb; the noun plural is esurients.

A noted Instagram influencer assuaging her esurience.

For word-nerds to note, a long vowel in the Proto-Italic edō from the primitive Indo-European hédti is illustrative of the application of Lachmann's law (a long-disputed phonological sound rule for Latin named after German philologist and critic Karl Lachmann (1793–1851)).  According to Lachmann, vowels in Latin lengthen before primitive (and the later proto-) Indo-European voiced stops which are followed by another (unvoiced) stop.  Given the paucity of documentary evidence, much work in this field is essentially educated guesswork and Lachmann’s conclusions were derived from analogy and the selective application of theory.  Not all in this highly specialized area of structural linguistics agreed and arguments percolated until an incendiary paper in 1965 assaulted analogy as an explanatory tool in historical linguistics, triggering a decade-long squabble.  This polemical episode appeared to suggest Lachmann had constructed a framework onto which extreme positions could be mapped, one wishing to attribute almost everything to analogy, the other, nothing.  With that, debate seemed to end and Lachmann’s law seems now noted less for what it was than for what it was not.

In memory of Tenuate Dospan

A seemingly permanent condition of late modernity is weight gain; the companion permanent desire being weight loss.  The human propensity to store fat was a product of natural selection, those who possessed the genes which passed on the traits more likely to achieve sexual maturity and thus be able to procreate.  Storing fat meant that in times of plenty, weight was gained which could be used as a source of energy in times of scarcity and for thousands of generations this was how almost all humans lived.  However, in so much of the world people now live in a permanent state of plenty and one in which that plenty (fats, salt & sugars) doesn’t have to be hunted, gathered or harvested.  Now, with only a minimal expenditure of energy, we take what we want from the shelf or, barely having to move from our chair, it’s delivered to our door.  In our sedentary lives we thus expend much less energy but our brains remain hard-wired to seek out the fats, salt & sugars which best enable the body to accumulate fat for the lean times.  Some call this the "curse of plenty".

For all but a few genetically unlucky souls, the theory of weight loss is simple: reduce energy intake and increase the energy burn.  For many reasons however the practices required to execute the theory can be difficult although much evidence does suggest that once started, exercise does become easier because (1) the brain rewards the body for doing it with what’s effectively a true “recreational drug”, (2) it becomes literally easier because weight-loss in itself reduces the energy required and (3) the psychological encouragement of success (some dieticians actually recommend scales with a digital read-out so progress can be measured in 100 gram (3½ oz) increments).  Still, even starting is clearly an obstacle which is why the pharmaceutical industry saw such potential in finding the means to reduce supply (food intake) if increasing demand (exercise) was just too hard.

Lindsay Lohan about to assuage her esurience.

For centuries physicians and apothecaries had been aware of the appetite suppressing qualities of various herbs and other preparations but these were usually seen as something undesirable and were often a side effect of the early medicines, many of which were of dubious benefit, some little short of poison.  Although the noun anorectic (a back formation from the adjective anorectic (anorectous an archaic form) appeared in the medical literature in the early nineteenth century, it was used to describe a patient suffering a loss of appetite; only later would it come to be applied to drugs, firstly those which induced the condition as a side-effect and later, those designed for purpose.  The adjective anorectic (characterized by want of appetite) appeared first in 1832 and was a coining of medical Latin, from the Ancient Greek ἀνόρεκτος (anórektos) (without appetite), the construct being ἀν- (an-) (not, without) + ὀρέγω (orégō) (a verbal adjective of oregein (to long for, desire) which was later to influence the word anorexia)).  The noun was first used in 1913.

Tenuate Dospan.  As an industry leader in promoting DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), Merrell was years ahead in the use of plus-size models.

In the twentieth century, as modern chemistry emerged, anorectic drugs became available by accident as medical amphetamines reached the black market as stimulants, the side effects quickly noted.  Those side effects however were of little interest to the various military authorities which during World War II (1939-1945) made them available to troops by the million, their stimulant properties and the ability to keep soldiers alert and awake for days at a time functioning as an extraordinary force-multiplier.  Not for years was fully it understood just how significant was the supply of the amphetamine Pervitin in the Wehrmacht’s (the German armed forces (1935-1945)) extraordinary military successes in 1939-1941.  In the post-war years, various types of amphetamine were made commercially available as appetite suppressants and while effective, the side effects were of concern although many products remained available in the West well into the twenty-first century.  Probably the best known class of these was amfepramone (or diethylpropion) marketed most famously as Tenuate Dospan which was popular with (1) those who wanted to be thin and (2) those who wanted to stay awake longer than is usually recommended.  Tenuate Dospan usually achieved both.

The regulatory authorities however moved to ensure the supply of Tenuate Dospan and related preparations was restricted, the concern said to be about the side effects although in these matters the true motivations can sometimes be obscure.  In their place, the industry responded with appetite suppressants which essentially didn’t work (compared with the efficient Tennuate Dospan) but sold for two or three times the price which must have pleased some.  The interest in restricting esurience however continued and one of the latest generation is Liraglutide (sold under various the brand names including Victoza & Saxenda) which started life as an anti-diabetic medication, the appetite suppressing properties noted during clinical trials, rather as the side-effects of Viagra (sildenafil) came as a pleasing surprise to the manufacturer.  Being a injection, Liraglutide is harder to use than Tenuate Dospan (which was a daily pill) and users report there are both similarities and differences between the two.

Liraglutide (Saxenda).  The dose increases month by month.

On Tenuate Dospan, one’s appetite diminished rapidly but food still tasted much the same, only the desire for it declined and being an amphetamine, energy levels were elevated and there were the usual difficulties (sleeping, dryness in the mouth, mood swings).  Dieticians recommended combining Tenuate Dospan with a high quality diet (the usual fruit, vegetables, clear fluids etc).  By contrast, although Liraglutide users reported much the same loss of interest in food, they noted also some distaste for the foods they had once so enjoyed and a distinct lack of energy.  It’s still early in the life of Liraglutide but it certainly seems to work as an appetite suppressant although in the trials, the persistent problem of all such drugs was noted: as soon as the treatment ceased, the food cravings returned.  Liraglutide does what the manufacturer’s explanatory notes suggest it does: it is a drug which can be used to treat chronic obesity by achieving weight-loss over several months, during which a patient should seek to achieve a permanent lifestyle change (diet and exercise).  It does not undo thousands of generations of evolution.  The early literature at least hinted Liraglutide was intended for obese adolescents for whom no other weight loss programmes had proved effective but anecdotal evidence suggests adults are numerous among the early adopters.

Compersion

Compersion (pronounced kom-pur-zhuhn or kom-pur-shuhn)

(1) The positive feeling of joy, happiness or empathy an individual experiences when their romantic partner(s) form new romantic or sexual connections with others; vicarious joy associated with seeing one's partner(s) have joyful romantic or sexual relation with others.

(2) By extension, in general use, the wholehearted participation in the joy of others.

1970s: A neologism coined by the Kerista Commune a mid-twentieth century polyfidelity community.  The word is a portmanteau, the construct said to have been comp(assion) + (conv)ersion.  Compassion in this context was used in the sense of “feelings of empathy and concern for the well being of others and sharing in their happiness” while conversion was co-opted to convey “change or transformation” specifically the transformation of the typically expected (in the circumstances) jealousy or insecurity into positive feelings of happiness and joy for one's partner's experiences.  Etymologists have speculated the word may be derived from the work of the French ethnologist & anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), notably The Social Use of Kinship Terms Among Brazilian Indians in American Anthropologist, volume 45, number. 3, July-September 1943.  In that case the contract would have been the French compère (partner) + -sion (as a verb-forming suffix), based on an earlier use of the French compérage to denote the practice of brothers-in-law sharing wives as observed among Tupi people of the Brazilian Amazon.

Brother Jud.

In the tradition of utopian visions, the Kerista Commune was a communal living experiment founded in 1956 in New York City by John Presmont (formerly Jake Peltz, aka "Brother Jud" (although his birth name was thought to have been Jacob Luvich) 1923-2009).  The inspiration for the community apparently came from “a visionary experience” Brother Jud enjoyed in 1956 during which “an entity” instructed him to create a sexually experimental international community although it wasn’t until another experience in 1962 there was another vision of an island called Kerista and at that point, the name was adopted.  However, even before the revelation in 1956, Brother Jud had become a devotee of the works of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) a US-based Austrian psychoanalyst with a difficult past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his his many books were widely read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards monocausality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

There are many (and varied) descriptions of the Kerista commune and it was a loosely structured concept rather than a distinct entity, its membership, practices and “rules” changing dynamically as people came and went but its core characteristics were based on the principles of communal living, polyfidelity, personal fulfillment and artistic self-expression.  By far the most discussed aspect of the commune was the acceptance of polyfidelity, something which aroused the suspicion and mistrust of the US establishment almost as much as the Marxist-sounding “group councils” with their collective decision making which, on paper, was soviet-like in theory if not practice.  Interestingly, while the group councils were concerned with things like trash management and vegetable production, there were parallel "intimate councils" which dealt with personal relationships within the community and it was this body that the concept of compersion emerged.  Compersion was less the process of polyfidelity than a description of the correct state of mind one should adopt in its milieu.  What the Kerista did however stress was that their ethos of group sex, partner swapping, and "bisexual bonding" was not a “swingers club” or mere “free love” but a community in which members existed in a relationship of "complex marriages", multi-stranded arrangements formed by romantic and sexual bonds which involved permanent, devotional obligations on a many-to-many basis. 

Although obviously able to be depicted as a subversive, Brother Jud seems not to have made any attempt to transform the Kerista community into a political movement and never did fulfill his wry promise (given in an interview) that he would supplant “the 10 commandments with 69 positions” but he did reduce his political agenda to a succinct 25 propositions, some of which have actually become legal orthodoxy in much of the West:

Legalize group marriage.  Legalize indecent exposure.  Legalize trial marriage. Legalize abortion.  Legalize miscegenation.  Legalize religious intermarriage.  Legalize marijuana.  Legalize narcotics.  Legalize cunnilingus.  Legalize transvestitism.  Legalize pornography.  Legalize obscene language.  Legalize sexual intercourse.  Legalize group sex.  Legalize sodomy.  Legalize fellatio.  Legalize prostitution.  Legalize incest.  Legalize birth control.  Legalize Lesbianism.  Legalize polygamy.  Legalize polyandry.  Legalize polygyny.  Legalize homosexuality.  Legalize voluntary flagellation.

Like many communes (and subject too to external opposition), internal tensions led to factionalism and although Kerista Communes were created in Oregon and California and Oregon, the conflicts proved too much and the lst of the communities was dissolved final . However, the community ultimately disbanded in the 1990s due to various internal conflicts and disagreements.

In general use, in English the word has come to be used to as an antonym of jealousy, Schadenfreude (from German meaning “taking pleasure in the misfortune of others” and adopted in the English-speaking world with joyful relish) or the rare epicaricacy (a word of Greek origin with essentially the same sense as Schadenfreude).  It’s thus not necessarily (and presumably rarely) specifically applied happily to celebrate polyfidelity as did the Keristaists but, filling a gap in English, is there to be used to describe feeling pleasure when others, known or not, enjoy happiness or good-fortune.  Although dour, miserable English lacked such a word, other languages recognise the emotion and it must be part of Jewish tradition because the Hebrew firgun and the Yiddish Naches both convey the sense.  From the Pāli and Sanskrit there’s also मुदिता (muditā) which while sometimes used generally to mean “joy”, is most often used to convey the sense of a vicarious joy, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being, a pure happiness unadulterated by any self-interest.

Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

As the glossies, socials & tabloids gleefully documented, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton (b 1981) had their differences but Ms Lohan’s recent announcement she was with child seemed to elicit from Ms Hilton some feeling of compersion, a congratulatory note quickly sent and earlier she’d expressed similar feelings when, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ms Lohan announced her engagement.  Having recently become a mother, Ms Hilton will presumably be also a source of helpful tips.

Paris: The Memoir (Harper Collins London, (2023), pp 336, ISBN 0-0632-2462-3).

Also helpful in many ways is Ms Hilton’s recently published book Paris: The Memoir, which while genuinely a memoir is interesting too for the deconstruction of the subject the author provided in a number of promotional interviews.  There have over the years been many humorless critics who have derided Ms Hilton for “being famous merely for being famous” but the book makes clear being the construct that is Paris Hilton is a full-time job, one which demands study and an understanding of the supply & demand curves of shifting markets; a personality cult needs to be managed.  She displays also a sophisticated understanding of the point made by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who once explained the abstraction of a personality cult by pointing to his huge portrait and saying “…you see, even I am not Stalin, THAT is Stalin!”  In the acknowledgments, Ms Hilton thanked the ghostwriter who “helped me find my voice.”

Ulotrichous, Leiotrichous & Cymotrichous

Ulotrichous (pronounced Ulotri-c-hous)

Having crisp, woolly or curly hair.

1827: From the New Latin ulotrich(ī) (curly hair) from the Ancient Greek οὖλος (oulos) (curly) + the root τριχ (trikh) of θρίξ (thríx) (hair) +‎ -ous.  The -ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from Old French -ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of) and a doublet of -ose in unstressed position; it was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance

Leiotrichous (pronounced leiotri-c-hous)

Having smooth (straight) hair.

1827: From the New Latin leiotrich(i) (smooth hair) from the Ancient Greek λεῖος (leîos) (smooth) + the root τριχ (trikh) of θρίξ (thríx) (hair) +‎ -ous.  The -ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from Old French -ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of) and a doublet of -ose in unstressed position; it was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance

Cymotrichous (pronounced cy·motri·c·hous)

Having hair somewhere between curly and smooth; includes the wavy spectrum.

1827: From the New Latin cymotrich(i) (wavy hair) from the Ancient Greek κῦμα (kûma) (wave) + the root τριχ (trikh) of θρίξ (thríx) (hair) +‎ -ous.  The -ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from Old French -ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of) and a doublet of -ose in unstressed position; it was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance

Lindsay Lohan: Ulotrichous.

That these three words exist is due to the French military officer, naturalist and politician Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778-1846).  A biologist and geographer, his early academic interests lay in volcanology and botany and in the early nineteenth century he travelled extensively in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean studying plants, the need to document and classify his findings meaning he became expert in systematics and this skill he adapted to the classification of people into races.  For a number of reasons, his 1825 volume Essai zoologique sur le genre humain (Zoological essay on the human race) is now just a footnote in the discipline but was for decades influential.  The book was an attempt to classify humans with straight hair into the Leiotrichi and those with woolly or tufted hair into the Ulotrichi, with many sub-groups below these headings, a third category, the Cymotrichi, later added, apparently to accommodate those inconsiderate to have hair not quite straight yet not sufficiently curly to be properly ulotrichous.

Lindsay Lohan: Leiotrichous.

The terms he used to describe the method of racial classification for the purpose of human taxonomy added to existing systems of classifications, Bory (the shorthand in the literature which references his work) in his 1825 book adding leiotrichi, japeticus, arabicus, indicus, scythicus, sinicus, hyperboreus, neptunianus, australasicus, columbicus, americanus, patagonicus, oulotrichi, aethiopicus, cafer, hottentotus & melaninus.  His classification was a technically competent exercise in systematics and was thought a scientifically orthodox document, seriously studied for most of the nineteenth century and quoted by many noted figures including TH Huxley (1825–1895) and Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and his classifications remain used by many specialists in zoology and even botanists for their vivid, illustrative value.  The politics of language does however intrude on the zoologists and some, especially in the United States, prefer lissotrichous (smooth-haired from the Greek lissos) because of the history attached to Bory. 

Lindsay Lohan: Cymotrichous.

What later became controversial was the adoption of the scheme, especially the word ulotrichous (having crisp, woolly or curly hair) by nineteenth century anthropologists to create a division of humankind encompassing those with crisp, woolly or curly hair.  Because of the racial association, the words are no longer in general use in human classification although the system still has a role in the technical language of pathology and forensic medicine.  Other than those specialized fields, while not extinct, they’re rare and for most, it’s no loss, smooth, surly and wavy being adequate for all except hairdressers who, needing precision, have a classification of hair in a dozen categories (1A to 4C).

Factoid

Factoid (pronounced fak-toid)

(1) Something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.

(2) An insignificant, surprising or trivial fact (frequently used, especially in the clickbait business; probably now the accepted meaning).

1973: A compound word, the construct being fact + -oid.  Fact dates from the 1530s and was from the Old French fact, from the Latin factum (something done, an act, deed, feat, exploit etc (which in Medieval Latin was used also to mean “state, condition, circumstance”)), a noun use neuter of factus (done or made), the past participle of facere (to do; to make) and perfect passive participle of faciō (do, make), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European dhe (to put, place, set).  When in the early sixteenth century fact entered the Middle English it was used with the sense of “an action, a thing performed, anything done, a deed (thus a neutral word of action in that the deeds could be for good or ill) but later and predominately during the 1600s, the understanding of fact was “an evil deed or crime” (the legacy of this preserved in legal jargon ex post facto (retrospective), post factum (after the crime (literally (after the act)) etc.  The Old & Middle French later evolved into faict & fait and the Latin was the source also of the Spanish hecho and Italian fatto.  The suffix -oid was from a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek -ειδής (-eidḗs) & -οειδής (-oeidḗs) (the “ο” being the last vowel of the stem to which the suffix is attached); from εἶδος (eîdos) (form, likeness).  It was used (1) to demote resembling; having the likeness of (usually including the concept of not being the same despite the likeness, but counter-examples exist), (2) to mean of, pertaining to, or related to and (3) when added to nouns to create derogatory terms, typically referring to a particular ideology or group of people (by means of analogy to psychological classifications such as schizoid).  Factoid is a noun (the noun factoidism is non-standard) and factoidal is an adjectival; the noun plural is factoids.

The modern understanding of what constitutes a fact (except for the Trump White House where the Orwellian “alternative facts” were sometimes helpfully provided) is something “empirically proven, known to be true; what actually happened”.  In the early seventeenth century, under the influence of the development of what later came to be known as the “scientific method”, this began to replace the earlier sense which was really a statement or belief although the word had picked up such an association with acts of crime that it for a while wasn’t clear if the choice by the scientists was wise.  However, by the early eighteenth century London’s Royal Society effectively formalized the modern vocabulary of knowledge (theory, fact, disproof, experiment, hypothesis etc) and the lawyers happily retained their phrases.  The modern use as standardized in science was thus innovative because in Middle English there was no noun, the closest expression from earlier centuries being a phrase like “a thing proved true”.  Dictionary entries as early as 1707 included an entry for “facts” as the “real state of things; in reality” but the reality of the nature of scientific progress was acknowledged in 1729 by the entry “something presented as a fact but which might be or is false”.

Beauty and the Beast

Marilyn Munroe (1926-1962).

Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in the 1973 “biography” of Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn: A biography), a collection of photographs for which Mailer provided the captions and some supporting short-form text), a factoid something “…that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact” and yet comes to be accepted as one, usually because it’s at least plausible, and (certainly in the pre-Internet age), either difficult or time-consuming to verify.

Norman Mailer (1923–2007).

Writing in the particular milieu of the America of Nixon and Agnew, Mailer regarded factoids with some suspicion, thinking them things “…which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the silent majority.”  He made this observation without obvious irony, despite admitting some of what he wrote in the book of Marilyn Munroe’s photographs was “speculative”.

However, even before the ubiquity of the internet, the meaning had begun to morph, with the new eventually supplanting rather than existing in parallel with Mailer’s creation, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defining factoid as (1) an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact and (2) a brief or trivial item of news.  The newer meaning was first popularized by the Cable News Network (CNN) (although in this newer sense it seems first to have appeared in Canada) in the 1980s when they presented bizarre or obscure, but nevertheless true snippets as "factoids" during newscasts.

A modern factoid site.

Some purists attempted a rescue.  William Safire (1929–2009) advocated factlet for CNN’s color pieces and it was adopted by up-market publications like The Guardian and The Atlantic but the popular press like factoid and it’s become a staple of internet clickbait.  That’s how English works, meanings of words like factoid and decimate shift over time according to use, sometimes coming even to mean the opposite of their original form.  The –let suffix was from the Middle English –let & -elet, from the Old French -elet, a double diminutive from the Old French –el & -et.  It was used to create diminutive forms and in English is widely appended (booklet: a small book, applet: a small computer application, piglet: a young pig et al).  It’s applied almost exclusively to concrete nouns and except in jocular use (and unusually for a diminutive) never with names. When used with objects, it generally denotes something smaller; when used with animals, it is of their young form; when used of adult persons, it’s usually depreciative, connoting pettiness and conveying contempt.  A special use was in suits of armor where it denoted a piece of the larger whole, this sense carrying over to some aspects of military uniforms.  The other suggestion was factette though that may have fallen victim to historic association.  The –ette suffix was from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something and thus, because factette could be seen as an inferior form of fact, the inference might be draw that “inferior” and the feminine forms of words were also inferior.

Riparian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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