Basic

Basic (pronounced bey-sik)

(1) Of, relating to, or forming a base; fundamental.

(2) In chemistry, pertaining to, of the nature of, or containing a base; alkaline.

(3) In metallurgy, noting, pertaining to, or made by a steelmaking process (basic process) in which the furnace or converter is lined with a basic or non-siliceous material, mainly burned magnesite and a small amount of ground basic slag, to remove impurities from the steel.

(4) In geology, descriptor of a rock having relatively little silica.

(5) In military use, the lowest or initial form of anything (chiefly US).

(6) In popular culture, the adjectival part of a slang term for a sub-set of females characterized by predictable or unoriginal style, interests, or behavior.

(7) Of things elementary in character, essential, key, primary, basal, underlying.

(8) As a computer industry acronym, (BASIC and its forks, QBASIC, BASICA et al), a long-lived programming language: B(eginner's) A(ll-purpose) S(ymbolic) I(nstruction) C(ode).

1832:  Originally from chemistry (base + ic) and adopted by about every other field.  The programming language was created in 1964 by Hungarian-born US-based computer scientist John Kemeny (1926-1992) and US computer scientist Thomas Kurtz (b 1928).  Use to describe a female sub-set dates from 2005.

The Basic Bitch

Basic bitch, often truncated to the (sometimes affectionate) "basic", is a US pop-culture term.  Although use outgrew its origins, it was intended as a pejorative descriptor of white, middle class females with boringly predictable, mainstream tastes in consumer goods and culture.  Variously interpreted as a variation on the earlier airhead, a general expression of misogyny and another unsuccessful attempt to invent a term white people would find offensive, basic bitch briefly generated a sizable critique.  Although expressions of disapproval of hollow consumer culture had became common even before publication of JK Galbraith's (1908–2006) The Affluent Society (1958) made it a bit of a thing, basic bitch seemingly offended just about all the usual suspects in the grievance industry.

Feminists found it misogynistic and weren’t at mollified by the emergence of a term of male equivalence, their general position probably demanding the dismissal of all cultural feminine signifiers.  To them, the specifics were tiresomely irrelevant; basic bitch was just another way to demean women.  The left generally agreed, arguing it was unhelpful to target a stereotype of late capitalist femininity rather than adhere to their critique of consumer culture.  Western capitalism, neutral on the squabble, soon commodified:

Less predictable was the race-based criticism.  Basic bitch was considered yet another attempt to create a term of disparagement to describe the white folk which they would find actually offensive and in that, like all previous attempts, it didn’t work.  However, it clearly made sense only if applied to white, middle-class females so had the effect of creating yet another exclusive enclave of white privilege and one which, by definition, excluded other ethnicities, even if becoming a basic bitch was their aspiration.  First noted in 2005 in a sub-set of popular music, "basic bitch" entered mainstream use circa 2009 and use appears to have peaked in 2014 although term may persist because it references a mode of behavior rather than anything specific to a time or place; it’s thus adaptable and generationally transferrable.  It’s also an amusing example of one aspect of how Sisyphean battles in the pop-culture wars are waged.  All those who coined the alliterative basic bitch were saying was “our taste in pop music is better than their taste in pop music”.

In the matter of Judge Eugene Fahey

Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018) was a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court; Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Concurring with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey (b 1951) wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) when in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) he wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

CONELRAD

CONELRAD (pronounced kon-ill-rad or kon-ill-rid)

The short form of CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation.

Exclusive to the US, CONELRAD was a nationally standardized system of emergency public broadcasting (on the AM (amplitude modulation) medium-wave band at 640 & 1240 KHz) intended to operate in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War.  The original specifications for what emerged as CONELRAD was first discussed in March 1951 at the Informal Government-Industry Technical Conference and later published by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission):

"The primary plan for alerting broadcast stations that is currently being considered by the FCC Study Group is known as the Key Station System.  The arrangement requires certain telephone circuits (private wire or direct line to Toll Board) between the Air Defense Control Centers (ADCC) and specified radio stations to be known as Basic Key Stations & Relay Key Stations”.

The essence of the system was each Basic Key Station upon receiving an alert or warning signal from the ADCC would, upon instruction, broadcast a predetermined message and also relay the message by telephone to all Relay Key Stations assigned to each Basic Key Station.  As a diversified network designed to be able to continue functioning even if various parts were destroyed, it was conceptually similar to a later US military project which would later evolve into the internet.  Intended to be simple, robust and able to reach as wide a possible audience in the shortest possible time, CONELRAD used simple protocols for alerting the public and other "downstream" stations, consisting of a sequence of shutting the station off for five seconds, returning to the air for five seconds, again shutting down for five seconds, and then transmitting a tone for 15 seconds.  Key stations would be alerted directly and all other broadcast stations would monitor a designated station in their area.

In the event of an attack on the US, all domestic television and FM (frequency modulation) radio stations were required instantly to cease broadcasting and upon alert, all most AM stations shut down, those remaining on-air transmitting either on 640 or 1240 kHz.  No transmission would last more than a few minutes and upon one going “off-air” another would take over the frequency on a ”round robin” chain, this to confuse enemy aircraft which might be navigating using Radio Direction Finding (RDF), a technique first widely used in the early days of World War II (1939-1945).  In the US, all radio sets manufactured between 1953-1963 were required to have the two frequencies marked by the triangle-in-circle (CD Mark), the symbol of Civil Defense organizations.

Prompt

Prompt (pronounced prompt)

(1) Something done, performed, delivered etc at once or without undue delay.

(2) Ready & quick to act as the circumstances demand (archaic).

(3) Quick or alert.

(4) Punctual.

(5) To move or induce to action; to occasion or incite (often as “prompted”).

(6) To assist by suggesting something.

(7) To remind someone of what has been forgotten (formalized in live performance (the stage, singing etc) where a “prompt” is a supplied from the wings to remind a performer of a missed cue or forgotten line (the noun prompter can indicate both a person employed to deliver cues or the device used (printed or on a screen).

(8) In computing, the message or symbol on the screen which indicates where an entry is require, the most basic of which is the “command prompt” of text-based operating systems which stood ready to receive a structured command.

(9) In computing, in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning algorithms (MLI) and related systems, to request particular output by means of instructions, questions, examples, context, or other input.

(10) In commercial use, a time limit given for payment of an account for produce purchased, this limit varying with different goods (archaic).

(11) In futures trading, the “front” (closest or nearest).

(12) The act of prompting.

1350-1400: From the Middle English prompte (ready, eager (adjective) & prompten (verb), from the French prompt, all forms ultimately from the Latin prōmptus (evident; manifest, at hand, ready, quick, prepared), participle of prōmō (to take or bring out or forth, produce, bring to light) and the adjectival use of past participle of prōmere (to bring forth, deliver, set forth), the construct being from prō- (forth, forward; for; on behalf of, in the interest of, for the sake of; before, in front of; instead of; about; according to; as, like; as befitting), a combining form of the preposition prō, from the Proto-Italic pro-, from the primitive Indo-European pro-, o-grade of per-) + emere (to buy, obtain, take).  The synonyms can include urge, spur, remind, refresh, instigate, impel, punctual, quick, rapid, hasty & timely.  Modifiers are applied as requited including over-prompt, quasi-prompt & un-prompt.  Prompt is a noun, verb & adjective, promptness & prompter are nouns, prompter & promptest are adjectives, promptly is an adverb and prompting & prompted are verbs; the noun plural is prompts.

The noun (in the phrase “in prompte”) emerged in the early fifteenth century in the sense of “readiness" and was from the Latin verb prōmptus while the more familiar meaning “hint, information suggested, act of prompting” dates from the mid-1500s.  The formal use of prompt in the sense of the indicator on a screen ready to accept user input dates only from 1977 although the concept had been in use for decades.  The ideas of coaching (someone) or assisting them by providing a reminder of that which clearly had been forgotten (or imperfectly learned) was first used in the early fifteenth century, the best-known use in live theatre (to assist a speaker with lines) dating from the 1670s.  The adjectival use (ready, prepared (to do something), quick to act as occasion demands) was from the thirteenth century Old French prompt and directly from Latin prōmptus (brought forth), hence “visible, apparent, evident, at hand”, a use now obsolete.  The commercial sense of the noun prompt “a time limit given for payment for merchandise purchased" dates from the mid-eighteenth and while the concept remains, the word is no longer formally use although the phrase “prompt payment requested” often remains as a reminder.  It remains unclear whether the verb was derived from the adjective or vice-versa and another oddity is that the first recorded instance of “prompting”, the gerund (the verbal noun logically derived from prompt and meaning “incitement or impulse to action” is from 1402, a quarter of a century before the verb.

The formal use of prompt in the sense of the indicator on a screen ready to accept user input dates only from 1977 although the concept had been in use for decades and predates screens, prompts emerging as soon as user input switched from the flicking of switches to character-based entries via a keyboard or similar input device.  The first prompts were those which sat (undifferentiated) on a plotter or printer, awaiting user input.  Command prompts were familiar from the late 1970s and appeared in early versions of Apple and CP/M systems among others but it was the IBM PC which introduced them to what was then the (still small) mainstream.  When the IBM PC was released in 1981, the user interface was exclusively text-based and the PC-DOS (or MS-DOS) command prompt was (almost) the only way for users to interact with their hardware and software.  The quirky exception to that was that on genuine IBM machines, the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) included a BASIC (the Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code programming language) interpreter so it was possible to do certain things with the hardware even if an operation system (OS) wasn’t present.  IBM’s lawyers guarded their BIOS with rare efficiency so the numerous PC clones almost all needed an OS to be useful.

While programmers, nerds, and other obsessive types understood the charm of the command prompt and took to it fondly, most users had no wish to memorize even part of the sometime arcane command set needed and modern capitalism soon responded, menu systems soon available which allowed users to interact with their machine while hiding the essential ugliness beneath.  In time, these were augmented by graphical environments (some of which frankly overwhelmed the OS) and ultimately, the most successful of these would evolve into OSs, some of which included the ability to run multiple command prompts which at first contained and later emulated PC-MS-DOS.  The most elaborate of these was IBM’s OS/2 2.0 (and its successors) which permitted on a single machine literally hundreds of simultaneous command prompt sessions in a mix of 8, 16 & 32-bit flavors, some of which could even been launched as a bootable virtual machine, started from a floppy-diskette image.  Technically, it was an impressive achievement but around the planet, there were only a relative handful of organizations which needed such capabilities (typically those with megalomaniacs seduced by the idea of replacing perhaps dozens of MS-DOS based PCs each housing an interface handler of some type with one machine).  That could be made to work but the aggregate need was so limited that the direction proved a cul-de-sac.

The command prompt (with long file names, left) and the PowerShell prompt (right).  Both use the classic $p$g configuration.

The prompt didn’t however go away and in one form or another most OSs include one, Microsoft’s PowerShell (introduced in 2006 on Windows and ported to cross-platform compatibility within .NET in 2016) in its default configuration almost identical to that of the IBM-PC-1, all those years ago.  PowerShell included an enhanced list of commands but the earlier prompts were also not static and many options became available to customize the look, the list changing from release to release but a typical version included:

$Q (equal sign).
$$ $ (dollar sign).
$T (Current time).
$D (Current date).
$P (Current drive and path).
$V (OS version number).
$N (Current drive).
$G> (greater than sign).
$L & (less than sign).
$B| (pipe).
$E (Escape code (ASCII code 27)).
$_ (Carriage return and line feed).

Few actually customized their line beyond $P$G (so they would know the active sub-directory and that became the default with which most versions of PC/MS-DOS shipped) but $t $d$_$p$g had its followers (its displayed the time and the date above the prompt when in DOS.  Those for who aesthetics mattered could even set text and background colors and there were some genuinely nostalgic types who liked to emulate the bright orange or acid green screens they remembered from the world of the mainframes.  Most pleasing though was probably bright blue on black.

Prompt was one of the finalists for the Oxford University Press (OUP) 2023 Word Of The Year (WotY) although it didn’t make the cut for the shortlist.  Prompt was there not because the selection committee noted either a new international interest in punctuality or Microsoft’s PowerShell convincing a new generation to start enjoying a CLI (command-line interpreter) but because of the social and technological phenononom that is generative AI (artificial intelligence), the best-known of which is ChatGPT.  Of course, even those who weren’t dedicated command-line jockeys have for decades been interacting with the prompts of search engines but the influence of generative AI has been extraordinary and nudging “prompt” to OUP’s WotY finals is just a footnote, the editors noting even the emergence of a new job description: prompt engineer although, given the implications of generative AI, it might be a short-lived profession.  OUP also explained the expansion of meaning was a development of a wider sense: “Something said or done to aid the memory; a reminder” and that the earlier sense “prepared, ready” was long extinct although many clearly think of ChatGPT in this way.

Prompt would have been a worthy WotY and it’ll be with us for the foreseeable future, not something guaranteed for the winner: “Rizz”.  In its explanatory note, OUP sid rizz was “a popular Gen Z internet slang term”, a shortened form of the word “charisma”, used to describe someone’s ability to attract another person through style or charm, able also to be used as a verb (such as to “rizz up”, meaning to attract or chat up another person.  Rizz has about it the whiff of something which may quickly become cheugy (something once cool which became uncool by becoming too widely used by those who will never be cool) and the imprimatur of OUP’s WotY might be a nail in its coffin.  Time will tell but additionally, rizz is probably better click-bait than prompt, something to which even OUP's editors probably aren’t immune.  The other six finalists were:

Situationship: This describes a relationship (which may be sexual or romantic or neither) not thought (by the participants) formal or established (ie outside what are regarded as society’s conventions).  So, the state of relationship it describes in hardly new but it’s a clever use of language (the construct a portmanteau of situation + (relation)ship and it seems to have existed since around 2008-2011 (the sources differ) but its only recently that the use on social media and various dating apps and television shows that it’s achieved critical mass.

The anyway statuesque Taylor Swift, adding to the effect in 6 inch (150 mm) heels.

Swiftie: A (devoted / enthusiastic / obsessive etc) fan of the singer Taylor Swift (b 1989).  It was once pop culture orthodoxy that the particular conjunction of technological, demographic, economic and social conditions which were unique to the Western world in the 1960s meant what was described as the “claustrophobic hothouse” which produced “Beatlemania” couldn’t again happen.  While various pop-culture figures developed fan-bases which picked up descriptors (such as the “Dead Heads” associated with the Grateful Dead), the particular fanaticism surrounding the Beatles has never quite been replicated.  The Swifties however are said in devotion to go close and their numbers probably greater, Taylor Swift’s appeal truly cross-cultural and international; probably only the Ayatollahs and such are unmoved.  Etymologically, “Swiftie” is a conventional affectionate diminutive and among Swifties there are factions including die-hard Swifties, hardcore Swifties and self-proclaimed Swifties.  Someone a little ashamed of their fondness would presumably be a “confessed Swiftie” but none appear to exist and her appeal seems to transcend the usual pop-music boundaries.  Her songs are said to be "infectiously catchy" (a pleonasm she'd probably not allow in her lyrics).

Beige flag: Beige flag has a range and can be a trait which while not something distasteful or shocking, is of a nature which makes one pause and perhaps reconsider one’s relationship with whoever exhibits it.  It can be something which does little more than indicate the person isn’t interesting and is thus a adaptation of “red flag” which is something to which the only rational reaction is an immediate sundering of a relationship.  So a red flag might be being a Scientologist, a Freemason or listening to country & western music whereas a beige flag might be driving a front wheel drive car; undesirable but perhaps not a deal-breaker.  It can also mean something which suggests someone is just not interesting though not actually evil.  Of late however, the meaning of beige flag has shifted, thus it’s making OUP’s list of finalists.  Now, it appears to be used to reference traits which can be thought “neutral” and it’s been further adapted to cover those situations or objects which cause one briefly to pause, before moving on and probably forgetting what they’ve just seen.  It just wasn’t interesting.

Lindsay Lohan, de-influencing.

De-influencing: De-influencing is one which will probably annoy the pedants.  In the social media era, the word influencer has come to mean “someone who seeks to influence the consumption, lifestyle, political behavior etc of their online audience by the creation of social media content, often as a part of a marketing campaign”.  A de-influencer is “someone who attempts to discourage consumption of particular products or consumption in general using the same platforms”.  So the de-influencers are the latest in the long tradition of anti-materialists who have existed at least since Antiquity, whole schools of philosophy sometimes constructed around their thoughts.  There’s said to be a discernible increase in their presence on the socials and many are linked also the various movements concerned with environmental concerns, notably climate change.  The pedants will object because the de-influencers are of course trying to exert influence but OUP are right to note the trend and the associated word.

Heat dome: A heat dome is a persistent high-pressure weather system over a particular geographic area, which traps a mass of hot air below it.  The weather phenomenon, the physics of which have for decades been understood by climate modelers and meteorologists, suddenly entered general in the high (northern) summer of 2023 when much of the northern hemisphere suffered from prolonged, unusually high temperatures, July measured as the hottest month ever recorded.  Under a heat dome, the atmospheric pressure aloft prevents the hot air from rising and dissipating, effectively acting as a lid or cap over the area, thus the image of a dome sitting over the land and they create their own feedback loop: Static areas of high pressure (which already contain warm or hot air trapped under the high) will become hotter and hotter, creating a heat dome.  Hot air will rise into the atmosphere, but high pressure acts as a lid and causes the air to subside or sink; as the air sinks, it warms by compression, and the heat builds. The ground also warms, losing moisture and making it easier to heat even more.  This is climate change in action and heat dome may well become as common an expression as “cyclone” or “hurricane”.

The UK's Royal Meteorological Service's simple illustration of the physics of a heat dome.  Heat domes are also their own feedback loop.  A static areas of high pressure which already contains warm or hot air trapped under the high will become hotter and hotter, creating a heat dome.  Hot air will rise into the atmosphere, but high pressure acts as a lid and causes the air to subside or sink; as the air sinks, it warms by compression, and the heat builds. The ground also warms, losing moisture and making it easier to heat even more.

Parasocial: The adjective parasocial designates a relationship characterized by the one-sided, unreciprocated sense of intimacy felt by a viewer, fan, or follower for a well-known or prominent figure (typically a pop-culture celebrity), in which the follower or fan comes to feel something similar to knowing the celebrity as they might an actual friend.  The parasocial is really a variation of fictosexual (an identity for someone for whom the primary form of sexual attraction is fictional characters) in that the pop-culture celebrity is also an at least partially fictional construct and the relationship is just as remote.  It’s almost irrelevant that one is flesh & blood and parasocial relationships do have certain advantages in that never having to have actual contact, one can never be rejected.  What appears most to have interested OUP is the idea that our relationship with celebrity culture is changing to something more intimate, presumably because the medium is the cell phone (mobile), increasingly our most personally intimate possession.

When one attempts transform a parasocial relationship into something conventional, one sometimes becomes a stalker.

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.

Caprice

Caprice (pronounced kuh-prees)

(1) A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.

(2) A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness; a disposition to be impulsive.

(3) In music, as capriccio, a term for a kind of free composition.

(4) A brief (and hopefully torrid) romance; a fling

(5) A model name used by General Motors (GM) in several markets.

1660-1670: From the French caprice (whim) & capricieux (whimsical), from the Italian capriccioso from capriccio (a shivering), possibly from capro (goat), from the Latin capreolus (wild goat).  Another theory, drawn from folk etymology, connects the Italian compound capo (head) + riccio (hedgehog) suggesting a convulsive shudder in which the hair stood on end like a hedgehog's spines.  The application in musical composition to describe a kind of free composition dates from the 1690s, the sense drawn from the Italian capriccio (the music characterized by a “sudden start or motion”); earlier it meant "a prank, a trick".  The closest synonym is probably whim but vagary, notion, fancy & fling can, depending on context, summon a similar meaning.  An act of caprice differs from a fiat in that the latter, although it may be arbitrary, is an authoritative sanction issued by those vested with a certain legal authority.  The descendents include the Danish kaprice, the German Caprice and the Romanian: capriciu.  Caprice & capriciousness are nouns, capricious is an adjective and capriciously is an adverb; the noun plural is caprices.

Infamously capricious in her youth, Lindsay Lohan is now a mature and responsible mother.

Ford, and the rest of the industry, learned much from the Edsel debacle of the late 1950s.  Although unlucky to be launched into the teeth of the worst recession of the post-war boom, mistakes in conception, design and production had been many and may anyway have been enough to kill the thing.  The lessons learned had been expensive, depending on the source, a loss between US$250-300 million is usually quoted and that was at a time when a million dollars was a lot of money although how much of that loss was real or a product of taking advantage of accounting rules has never been clear.  None of the most expensive aspects to design and build (1) engine, (2) transmission, (3) suspension, (4) body platforms and (5) assembly plant production lines were unique to the Edsel, all being shared variously with other Ford, Mercury and Lincoln models; surprisingly little was exclusive to the Edsel, indeed that sameness was one of the complaints about a car which Ford had puffed-up as “all new”.  That essentially left interior and exterior trim, body panels, marketing and the distribution network to pay for.  Ford certainly lost a lot of money on the Edsel but perhaps not quite as much as the books suggest.  Still, it was a big loss and the corporate capriciousness wasn’t repeated in the 1960s.  The Edsel had been a bad implementation of a sound concept: a spread of brand-identities across a market with a wide price-spread so a corporation can achieve economies of scale using many of the same resources to produce products which to compete both at the low-end on cost-breakdown and in segments where prestige or exclusivity matters.  Ford’s notion was that General Motors (GM) and Chrysler were at the time better able to cover the market because both had more brand-names, GM having five: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac as did Chrysler: Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler & Imperial.  Ford had only three: Ford, Mercury & Lincoln (the short-lived Continental Division (1956-1957) a failure).

Thus the attraction of adding another, an idea which worked well with products like washing powder although, in the auto industry, costs tended to be higher and the model wasn’t essential to cover a broad market, Mercedes-Benz for decades successfully using the one brand for diesel taxis, trucks small and large, Formula One racing cars and cars up to the grandest limousines.  Indeed, the idea by Daimler-Benz to resurrect adopt the long moribund Maybach name to sit atop the range was a failure, reflecting the misunderstanding by the MBA-types involved of the value of the Mercedes-Benz brand which had been acceptable for kings, queens, popes, presidents and potentates.  Only salesmen with no background would think dotcom millionaires and the other newly-rich would be more attracted to Maybach than Mercedes.  Another brand might not have been a bad idea but Maybach should have been positioned as a platform for the front wheel drive and other categories which, frankly have only devalued the three-pointed star; while some have been good cars, they simply were not Mercedes-Benz as they once were understood. 

Nor is the idea infinitely scalable.  GM at one time had nine divisions and the pattern evolved that the brand names tend to appear in times of economic buoyancy (al la Edsel) and disappear during or after recessions (Edsel & De Soto after 1958; Imperial after the first oil shock, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury and Plymouth in the wake of the global financial crisis from 2008).  So, while the 1960s were about the most buoyant years yet, Ford didn’t repeat quite the mistake though they certainly repeated one aspect of the Edsel debacle although the implications of that wouldn’t play out for decades.

1965 Ford LTD.

In 1965, Ford reverted to the business model which had worked in pre-Edsel times and introduced the LTD as an up-market option for their full-sized Galaxie.  It seemed a good idea at the time and it was, the option proving popular with customers and lucrative for Ford, the option package costing about US$175 to install yet it added some US$335 to the sticker price and the psychology of turning the mainstream Ford into a “luxury car” seemed also to exert a pull on the buyers’ wallets because it was possible to work through the option list and add some 30% to the bottom line.  Unlike most Galaxie customers, LTD buyers were inclined to tick the boxes.  Even at the time, although generally impressed with the thing (and in fairness to Ford much attention had been devoted to some basic engineering to ensure it was quieter and smoother than before), reviewers did ponder quite what the effect of moving a Ford up-market would be on the companion Mercury Division, positioned since 1938 as up-market from Ford, yet well short of Lincoln.  The corporation aimed to solve that problem by maintaining some differentiation between the two brands and to some degree this worked for decades but eventually the point of maintaining three distinct layers had ceased to have value for Ford and in 2011 Mercury was shuttered.

1965 Ford LTD.

The LTD (it apparently meant “Lincoln Type Design” and not “Limited”) did though have quite an effect on the completion with the entry level ranges of others soon augmented with similar options.  Chevrolet called their effort the “Caprice”, Plymouth, like Ford” preferred a TLA (three letter acronym) and opted for “VIP” while AMC used “DLP” which apparently stood for “Diplomat”.  Of them all, only the Caprice and the LTD endured but the concept overtook the industry which switched increasingly to adding variations of their basic models with as many “luxury” fittings added as the budget would permit.  There were critics at the time who criticized all this as “gingerbread” but buyers responded and soon tufted, pillowed upholstery in crushed velour or even leather could be had in even the most humble showrooms.  A popular name for such models was “Brougham”, borrowed from a nineteenth century horse-drawn carriage named after a member of the UK’s House of Lords and even if most weren’t aware of the etymology, they knew it sounded suitably aristocratic which was all that mattered.  What came in retrospect to be known as the “brougham era” lasted into the 1980s.

1969 Chevrolet Caprice four-door hardtop.

While never the biggest sellers, dealers liked to have four-door hardtops on display because of the perception they generated showroom traffic and although the collector market prefers two-doors (especially convertibles), the four-door hardtops were often Detroit’s most ascetically successful coachwork for full-sized cars.  In 1969, Chevrolet restricted the Caprice range to two & four door hardtops because the more elaborate interior trim (compared to the cheaper Biscayne, Bel Air & Impala) was more susceptible to sun damage which precluded offering a convertible.  That may have been the reason why in the same era some European manufacturers switched from timber veneer to leather for some vulnerable surfaces in a few convertibles although the published explanations were sometime different.  Improvements in the durability of materials meant that when the revised range was released in 1973, a convertible Caprice was added to the range.

1981 Holden WB Caprice.

Holden, the General Motors operation in Australia began selling their own Caprice in 1974.  In the usual way it was a more elaborately-appointed version of an existing model and in GM tradition replaced an existing badge as the top-of-the-range, the Statesman de Ville relegated to become the entry-level of the long-wheelbase cars, the basic Statesman (always aimed at the hire-car business) retired, mirroring Ford which dropped its Fairlane Custom and, added the Marquis (a name borrowed from Mercury) as a Caprice competitor atop the Fairlane 500.  The early Statesman & Caprice never quite matched the appeal of the competition but it did go out in surprisingly fine style, the WB range (1980-1984) a remarkably successful re-styling of the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ platform (1971-1980) which endured for almost half a decade after the smaller, Opel-based Commodore had replaced the mainstream models.  Developed in unusual secrecy, Holden were miffed to learn Ford’s ZJ Fairlane & FC LTD (released in 1979) had beaten them to the market by six months and included the additional side window they’d hoped would make such a splash on the WB.  Instead, they made much of the Caprice having a grill made from steel.  Not that long before, all grills had been made from steel but most had long switched to extruded plastic so to have one genuinely hand-assembled in steel was a point of differentiation although the public response was muted.  Despite the age of the platform, the attention to the underpinnings which began to be taken seriously after 1977 meant the thing was a capable, if thirsty road car and among the dedicated customer base, there was genuine regret when production ended in 1984.  In 1990, Holden revived the name for a stretched Commodore (some of which were even exported to the US and the Middle East to be sold as Chevrolets) and production continued until the Australian operation was shuttered in 2017.

Ersatz

Ersatz (pronounced er-zahts or er-sahts)

(1) Serving as a substitute; synthetic; artificial (adjective).

(2) An artificial substance or article used to replace something natural or genuine; a substitute (noun).

1875: From the German ersatz (units of the army reserve (literally "compensation, replacement, substitute"), a back-formation from ersetzen (to replace; substitute good) from the Old High German irsezzen, the construct being ir- (an unaccented variant of ur; in German, the prefix signifying a notion of getting something (either by conscious effort or (rarely) producing the effect of coming to have it unintentionally) by specific means) + setzen, from the Middle High German setzen, from the Old High German sezzen, from the Proto-Germanic satjaną, from the primitive Indo-European sodéyeti; from the primitive Indo-European root sed- (to sit); it was cognate with the Hunsrik setze, the English set and the Dutch zetten.  Historically an adjective, use of ersatz as a noun was first noted in 1892.

Technically, although ersatz has many synonyms (synthetic, phony, imitation, fake, sham, substitute, counterfeit, bogus, manufactured, pretended, simulated, spurious, copied, false et al), because of its association with inferior quality goods (such as chocolate and, most famously, the notoriously unpleasant ersatz coffee, made typically from acorns), produced in Germany during the world wars to compensate for the shortage of genuine products, Ersatz tends to be used in that context while the preferred terms in modern English use are fake & faux, the latter with the particular sense of something imitative yet deliberately not deceptively so.  Indeed, faux can have positive connotations (faux fur, leather etc) and, among vegans, such things may be obligatory. 

Originally, the German military jargon was Ersatz Corps which described reserve, substitute or replacement troops, the word later adopted by the Kaiserliche Marine (the Imperial Navy) as part of the secrecy protocol which didn’t reveal the names of vessels until launch (and, in war-time, even during sea-trials), ships thus appearing in the naval lists with names like "Ersatz Yorck class".  During the two world wars, it was most famously applied to over ten-thousand substitute products, both industrial and consumer goods, created because of shortages.  The word entered Russian and English and came to describe any product thought not as good as the original.

Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Agreeing with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) when in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) he wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

Schematic of Ersatz Yorck's armor deployment.

Ersatz Yorck was one of the project names for a planned build of three battlecruisers ordered in 1916 by the German navy.  After the first keel had been laid down, influenced by the tendency, noted since the launching a decade earlier of the Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought, towards bigger guns, the design was revised to become was significantly heavier than the Mackensen class which had been the original template.  The name Ersatz Yorck was derived from the ship being the replacement (ie ersatz in the original German sense of the word) for the Roon class armored cruiser SMS Yorck, sunk in home waters in 1914 after striking a (German) mine.  The other two ships in the programme were Ersatz Gneisenau & Ersatz Scarnhorst, both slated as replacements for namesakes lost during the Battle of the Falkland Islands (1914).

The three ships were never completed because it had become apparent augmenting the surface fleet was reinforcing failure and that U-boat (submarine) construction was a better use of available resources.  Thus the partially built Ersatz Yorck, years from completion, was broken up on the slipway and cannibalized to support U-boat production.  However, the navy retained the blueprints and it was these plans which in the 1930s provided the basis for what became the Scarnhorst class battleships although, in the Second World War, the illusion a surface fleet would be a more effective instrument of war at sea than the U-Boats proved again a chimera and one which meant that even in the early days of the conflict, the British never quite lost control of the Atlantic.  Had Germany entered the war with the 300 operational submarines advocated by the navy's U-Boat branch rather than the two-dozen odd available in 1939, the battle in the Atlantic would have have assumed a different character.