Gypsy

Gypsy (pronounced jip-see)

(1) A once common term for the Roma or Romani but now largely socially proscribed as disparaging and offensive (sometimes with initial capital letter).  The Roma or Romani are scattered throughout Europe and North America and often maintain a nomadic way of life even in urbanized, industrialized societies, their source apparently a wave of migration from north-west India from around the ninth century onwards.

(2) The Indic language of the Roma or Romani although not in formal academic or technical use (always with initial capital letter).

(3) A person held to resemble a Roma or Romani, especially in physical characteristics (notably the combination of darker skin and dark, curly hair) or in a traditionally ascribed lifestyle and inclination to move from place to place.

(4) Of or relating to the Roma or Romani (can be used neutrally but is often applied as a disparaging and offensive slur).

(5) In informal use, working independently or without a license; a vagrant; an itinerant person or any person, not necessarily Romani; a tinker, a traveller; a circus or carnival performer; any itinerant person, or any person suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft.

(6) In informal use, free-spirited (though distinct from “bohemian” which implies something more sophisticated).

(7) In informal use, a sly, roguish woman.

(8) In informal use, a fortune teller (now rare).

(9) A move in contra dancing in which two dancers walk in a circle around each other while maintaining eye contact (but not touching as in a swing), the variations including the whole gyp, the half gyp, and the gypsy meltdown (in which this step precedes a swing); out of context the terms can be disparaging and offensive.

(10) In theater, a member of a Broadway musical chorus line.

1505–1515: A back formation from gipcyan, a Middle English dialectal form of egypcien (Egyptian) which over centuries lost the unstressed initial syllable), adopted in this context because of the mistaken perception Gypsies came originally from Egypt.  It was used as an adjective since the 1620s (with the sense "unconventional; outdoor) and the modern (and now archaic) UK word gippy was in use by at least 1889 as a truncated colloquial form of “Egyptian” although gip & gyp as abbreviations of gipsy & gypsy were known since the 1840s, the related verbs being gipped & gipping.  It was cognate with the Spanish Gitano and close in sense to the Turkish & Arabic Kipti (gypsy) although the literal meaning of that was “Coptic” (the form of Christianity most common in Egypt).  In Middle French the closest term was Bohémien (although that tended to be a geographical reference without the same associations familiar from modern use), the Spanish also using Flamenco (from Flanders) in the same way.  Those adoptions of use do hint at the manner in which the Roma have so often been treated as “outsiders”, “outlanders” or “foreigners” in just about any country where they were found although the nuances of “gypsy” were very different to notions such as “rootless cosmopolitans” which were attached to the Jews.  The alternative spellings were gipsy, gipsey, gypsey, gypsie & gyptian, all of which except gipsy are thought archaic.

In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the special significance of Gypsy (rather than gipsy) being the preferred spelling in English, a development not related to the practice imposed on other words (tyre, syphon et al) where a ‘y’ was substituted for an ‘I’ for no better reason than the effect was thought decorative.  Henry Fowler thought it helpful because it existed as a relic to remind those concerned that the original meaning was “Egyptian” but noted also the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) statement that (in the early twentieth century) the preferred spelling appeared to be gipsy by the plural form gypsies was far from uncommon, presumably because users found awkward the “…appearance and repetition of ‘y’”.  Gypsy is a noun, verb & adjective; gypsydom, gypsyhood & gypsyism are nouns, gypsying & gypsied are verbs and gypsyesque, gypsyish, gypsy-like & gypseian are adjectives; the noun plural is gypsies.

Noted traveller Lindsay Lohan, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 2009.

The terms "Gypsy", "Roma", "Traveller" and "Romani" are often used interchangeably, but there are differences.  Gypsy is a term that historically referred to the Romani people, who are believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and migrated to Europe and other parts of the world over many centuries but it’s usually now thought a derogatory slur because of the history of use in stereotyping and discriminating against Romani people.  Roma is now the preferred term for the Romani people, and it is often used to refer to the ethnic group as a whole.  Romani is an adjective that refers to anything related to the Roma people, such as Romani culture or the Romani language.  It is used also as a noun to refer to an individual member of the Roma people.  Traveller is a term used to describe various groups of people who live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, including the Roma people. However, there are other groups of people who are also considered Travellers, such as the Irish Travellers in Ireland and the UK.

Lymantria dispar: The moth formerly known as gypsy (their appearance is subject to wide variations between regions).  

TheAwareness of the sense shift of “gypsy” from something purely descriptive to a racial slur has also had consequences in zoology.  In 2021, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) announced it was removing “gypsy moth” and “gypsy ant” as the sanctioned common names for two insects.  The link between the insects and the slur is not as remote as some may suspect because as Romani scholar Professor Ethel Brooks noted, the common name of the species Lymantria dispar was gained from the behavior of the hairy larvae of the caterpillar stage during which the larvae would swarm and strip the leaves from a tree, leaving behind so much destruction that they were habitually referred to as “a plague”.  Tellingly, nobody ever cursed the Lymantria dispar but all blamed the “gypsy moth caterpillars”.  Dr Brooks made the connection between peoples’ view of the ravenous bugs and her own experience of the way the Roma were often disparaged.  She however confessed to being surprised her advocacy for change succeeded with the entomologists although the ESA was aware the Lymantria dispar’s common name was derogatory and had received a request for change as early as 2020, forming a Better Common Names Project, a task force to review and replace offensive or inappropriate insect common names.

Other branches of science are also acting.  The American Ornithological Society in 2020 announced the formation of an ad hoc committee to look into nomenclatures, some of the more obvious changes being the replacement of bird-names based on the names of people with dubious histories in colonialism or slavery.  In genetics, there’s also a move to rename the “Gypsy jumping genes”, a class noted for their propensity to make copies of themselves and insert them back into the genome.   In genetics, such revisions are not unknown; some years ago a number of genes were renamed because their original names, thought whimsical at the time, were held to be offensive to those with certain physical characteristics or suffering some forms of mental illness.  In ichthyology, attention is also being paid to names.  The Atlantic goliath grouper was historically referred to as the "jewfish" and while the origin of the name is obscure, a review determined it was likely the species' physical characteristics were connected habitually deployed caricatures of anti-Semitic beliefs and as long ago as 1927, the New York Aquarium changed the fish's name to Junefish.  In 2001, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) changed the name to "goliath grouper".

South African de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth c/n 842 ZS-ABA, registered to The Johannesburg Light Plane Club At Baragwanath Airfield and pictured with Junkers A50 Junior ZS-ABV c/n 3511 and Avro 594 Avian II ZS-AAN c/n 124

The de Havilland Gipsy aero-engine enjoyed a very long life.  First produced in 1927, it was used in an extraordinary number of airframes, most famously de Havilland’s Gipsy Moth and Tiger Moth.  The last variant, the Gipsy Queen 70, left the assembly line almost thirty years after the first.

Stanton Special in its original 1953 hill climb form (left) and as re-configured in 1954 with a Weltex Mistral body for land speed record competition (right).    

One curious footnote in the long career of the Gipsy engine was its use in the 1953 Stanton Special, a New Zealand built race-car.  Although not a classic racing-car power-plant, the Gipsy was light, reliable and produced a lot of torque over a wide power-band, making it ideal for the hill-climbs for which it was intended.  A product typical of the practical improvisation which characterized so much of the early motor-sport scene in New Zealand, the engine was salvaged from a Tiger Moth used for aerial-spraying and the Stanton Special quickly was dubbed “the cropduster”, the aero-engine’s distinctive exhaust note meaning it was never mistaken for anything else.  So effective did it proved in hill climbs it attracted comments suggesting that were something done to improve its dubious aerodynamic properties, it might enjoy some success in events where speeds were higher.  Accordingly, Christchurch-based Weltex Plastics, one of the pioneers in the production of fibreglass structures, in 1954 furnished one of its Mistral bodies (a design produced under license from the UK’s Microplas), complete with a tail fin to enhance straight-line stability (a la that year’s Jaguar D-Type at Le Mans).  Thus configured and with the engine tuned further with the addition of an Abbott supercharger & four Amal carburetors, it was entered in some national land speed contests and won convincingly, managing an elapsed time of 12.96 seconds in the standing quarter-mile (400 m) and a flying quarter at 154 mph (248 km/h).  The tweaking continued and in 1958 it set an Australasian land speed record which would stand for ten years, covering the standing kilometre in 22.95 seconds with a terminal velocity of 175 mph (281 km/h).  The aerodynamics must have been good but remarkably no wind-tunnel time was part of the design process, the stylist apparently sketching something which “looked slippery”.

Propeller

Propeller (pronounced pruh-pel-er)

(1) A person or thing that propels.

(2) A device with a hub to which are attached evenly spaced & shaped radiating blades, rotating on a shaft to pitch against air or water to propel an aircraft, ship etc.

(3) A wind-driven (usually three-bladed) device that provides mechanical energy, as for driving an electric alternator in wind plants (not a universal use).

(4) A steamboat thus propelled; a screw steamer (now rare).

(5) In fishing, a spinnerbait.

1780: The construct was propel + -er and the original sense was “one who or that which that propels”, an agent noun from the verb propel.  The verb propel was a mid-fifteenth century form from the Middle English propellen (to drive away, expel), from the Latin propellere (push forward, drive forward, drive forth; move, impel), the construct being pro- (the prefix here use in the sense of “forward direction, forward movement”) + pellere (to push, drive), from the primitive Indo-European root pel- (to thrust, strike, drive).  The meaning “to drive onward, cause to move forward” emerged in the 1650s.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The alternative spelling propellor dates from the early days of aviation in the first years of the twentieth century and is now extinct.  The standard abbreviation is “prop”, the use noted from military aviation since 1914.  Propeller is a noun; the noun plural is propellers.

Although the concept was used in antiquity and inventors and others (most famously Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519))  had for centuries experimented, the use of the word in mechanical engineering dates from 1809 and was from nautical design describing the application of a “device for moving vessels on or under the water”.  In aircraft design the theory of the use of “propeller” appears in papers and drawings in the 1840s (in what were then described as “flying machines”) and models were built which demonstrated a “proof of concept” although it would be decades before lightweight engines of sufficient power existed to allow experiments in aerodynamics and construction to be powered.  The first known rendering of an aircraft propeller in a recognizably modern form dates from 1853.  The modern propeller uses two or (usually) more twisted, airfoil-shaped blades mounted around a shaft which are spun to provide propulsion of a vehicle through water or air, or to cause fluid flow, as in a pump.  The lift generated by the spinning blades provides the force that propels the vehicle or the fluid although this lift does not of necessity have to induce an actual upward force; its direction is simply parallel to the rotating shaft.

Lindsay Lohan getting off the propeller driven (technically a turbo-prop) NAPA Shuttle, The Parent Trap (1998).

The term “to disembark” was borrowed from nautical use and of late "to deplane" has entered English which seems unnecessary but the companion “to disemplane” seems more absurd still; real people continue to “get on” and “get off” aircraft.

The terms “impeller” & “propeller” both describe devices which use various implantations of the “rotating blade(s) design and are used in mechanical systems to take advantage of the properties of fluid dynamics to harness specific energy for some purpose.  A propeller is a type of rotating device with blades designed to propel or move a fluid (typically a gas or a liquid) by generating thrust; they are most associated with marine vessels, aircraft and some industrial applications.  In aircraft, propellers can be attached to wing-mounted engines or mounted just about anywhere on a fuselage although historically a location at the front has been most common.  In marine applications, propellers have on specialized vessels been located to the sides of the hull but they almost always emerge at or close to the stern.  An impeller is a rotating component with blades or vanes (almost always enclosed in a housing), typically used for fluid or air distribution, such as a pump or a compressor, the primary purpose being to increase flow or pressure.  The classic impellers those in centrifugal pumps where they spin, creating a flow of fluid (liquid or air) by imparting centrifugal force to the substance; in practice, impellers such accelerate liquids are more common.

So an impeller & propeller do much the same thing, using blades to propel some form of fluid.  The use of different terms is helpful because in practice they are very different devices and the distinction that one is external and the other located within a housing is handy and the origin of that seems to lie in the construct of impeller which came first, dating from circa 1680 (as an agent noun from the verb impel) in the sense of “someone or something which impels”.  What the design of an impeller does is use the energy from the rotation to increase the flow or pressure of the fluid and it that it’s the reverse of a turbine, the rotation of which extracts energy from, and reduces the pressure of the flow.  Engineers also have a number of highly technical rules about what is and is not defined as an impeller base on the whether the entry and exit of the fluids occur axially or radially but it seemed impossible to construct such definitions as absolutes so for most the simpler distinctions are more helpful.  In engineering, impellers have been recorded as a machine or component name since 1836.

News Corp website 22 January 2024.  To refer to a jet engine’s nacelle as a propeller could (almost) be defended on the basis it’s the jet engine which “propels” the aircraft but this is more likely an example of (1) the decline in the quality of journalists and (2) what happens when there are no sub-editors to correct the mistakes.  In time, artificial intelligence (AI) should improve things.    

The verb impel dates from the early fifteenth century and was from the Middle English impellen, from the Latin impellere (to push, strike against; set in motion, drive forward, urge on), the construct an assimilated form of in- (into, in, on, upon), from the primitive Indo-European root en- (in) + pellere (to push, drive), from the primitive Indo-European root pel- (to thrust, strike, drive).  The construct of the Latin impellō was in- +‎ pellō (push, drive), from the Proto-Italic pelnō or pelnaō, a nasal-infix present derived from the primitive Indo-European pelh- (to drive, strike, thrust).  The Latin prefix –in could be appended to create a negative (un-, non-, not etc) but here was used as an intensifier, another possible meaning (in, within, inside) coincidental to the mechanical devices being usually mounted within housings.

Propellers and impellers both use blades (although those of the latter are often in the form of a single piece wither cast, molded, or (occasionally) forged.  Turbines also use blade-like parts but these are called vanes and an industry which seems unable to decide on terminology is the burgeoning business of wind-power; the huge rotating assemblies on wind turbines are referred to variously as vanes, blades or rotors.  Rotor blades are familiar for the use in helicopters which is essentially an airframe where a large-scale propeller sits atop the structure, pointing upwards and rather than “propeller blades”, the accepted term is “rotor blades”, the design of which permits both lift and directional thrust although some exotic multi-engined machines have rotors in housings which, to maximize performance, can themselves be rotated to operate as conventional propellers.

Supermarine Seafang (1946) with contra-rotating propellers.  The Seafang was powered by the Rolls-Royce Griffon and was the final evolution of the Spitfire-derived Seafire and Spiteful, the trio all designed for use on Royal Navy aircraft carriers, the series enjoying success despite the basic design being hampered by the narrow undercarriage which made landings a challenge (something corrected on the Spiteful & Seafang).  Series production of the Seafang was contemplated but eventually only 18 were built because the jet-powered de Havilland Sea Vampire proved capable of carrier operations, surprising some at the Admiralty who doubted the jets could operate from anywhere but land.

The evolution of aircraft influenced propellers.  Once they had been fashioned from wood before the need for faster, more efficient shapes dictated the use of aluminium or other light metals.  By the time the first modern monoplane fighters appeared in the mid 1930s propellers were still two-bladed but as power increased over the years (something which accelerated during World War II (1939-1945)), three, four and five-bladed solutions were engineered.  The rising output however, although it permitted higher performance, created challenges for engineers, notably the “torque effect” which meant a tendency to cause the aircraft to roll in the direction of the propeller’s spin, a problem especially serious during take-offs.  In twin-engined aircraft the solution was to have the propellers rotate in opposite directions but in airframes with a single power-plant, sometimes used were contra-rotating propellers which, although introducing additional complexity and demanding additional maintenance, did offer advantages including: (1) harnessing more of an engine’s power, (2) increased thrust efficiency by a reduction in energy losses, (3) counteracting the torque effect, (4) improved low-speed manoeuvrability and ground-handling and (5) improved acceleration and climbing performance.

A flight of Republic P-47D Thunderbolts with under-wing drop-tanks.

The propeller also influenced other aspects of the aircraft.  When the prototype Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (1941-1945) first took to the air, it was the largest, heaviest single-seat piston-engined fighter ever produced (a distinction it still enjoys today).  Even the early versions used an engine rated at 2000 horsepower (later this would rise to 2800) and to harness this output demanded a large propeller.  The 12 foot (3.7 m) diameter of this four-bladed monster meant the landing-gear had to be extraordinarily long and the only way it could be accommodated was to have them retract inward, otherwise the heavy wing armament (8 x .50 inch (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (425 rounds per gun)) wouldn’t have fitted.

Chrysler XI-2220 V16.  The splined shaft is where the propeller attaches.

With things like the Thunderbolt, the Hawker Tempest and the later Supermarine Spitfires (and its derivatives), the piston-engined fighter achieved its final evolutionary form, the jet engine offering a path to performance unattainable while the physics of propellers imposed limits.  However, had the use of the A-Bombs not ended the war in 1945, development of the propeller aircraft would have continued because the early jets lacked thrust and reliability as well as suffering a rate of fuel consumption which rendered them unsuitable for long-distance operations.  With the war against Japan envisaged as lasting well into 1946, development of faster, more powerful piston engines continued although, given the parlous state of the Japanese military, it’s dubious at least there was much of a rationale for this but the military industrial complex is a creature of inertia and Chrysler’s research had perfected a new aero-engine for the Thunderbolt.  The XI-2220 was a 2,220 cubic inch (36.4 litre) V16 which was rated at a basic 2450 horsepower with some 4000 hp available when tuned for wartime use but with the end of the conflict, all such developments were cancelled and attention switched to the brave new world of jets and swept wings.  Thus ended the era of the big propeller-driven fighters, the V16 stillborn, as was the other extraordinary aero-engine on the drawing board: Britain's 32-cylinder Napier-Sabre H-32 which was a scaled-up version of their H24.

Eavesdrop

Eavesdrop (pronounced eevz-drop)

(1) Secretly to listen to the private conversation of others; to hear a conversation one is not intended to hear.

(2) To eavesdrop upon.

(3) A concealed aperture through which an occupant of a building can surreptitiously listen to people talking at an entrance to the building.

(4) Water that drips from the eaves (also as eavesdrip) (rare).

(5) The ground around a structure on which such water drips (rare).

(6) In zoology, to listen for another organism's calls, so as to exploit them.

Pre 900: From the Middle English evesdrope & evesdripe, from the Old English yfesdrype (water dripping from the eaves).  The late Middle English evisdroppyr was apparently literally “one who stands on the eavesdrops in order to listen to conversations inside the house”.  The ultimate source may be the Old Norse upsardropi, the construct being ups (eaves) + -sar- (container) + dropi (a drop).  The noun eavesdropper seems to have come into use in the mid-fifteenth century in the sense of “one who lurks at walls or windows to overhear what's going on inside.”  The same form was adopted for those who “listened in” even if well away from eaves such as those inside listening through keyholes and in the security community, it’s also used informally of wiretaps, listening devices etc.  The word eavesreading was coined on the model of eavesdropping and meant “surreptitiously to read something”; it’s main use appears to be in spy fiction but the extent of actual use among spies is of course difficult to estimate.  Eavesdrop & eavesdropping are nouns & verbs, eavesdropped is a verb, eavesdropper is a noun and eavesdroppingly is an adverb; the noun plural is eavesdrops (the more common probably eavesdroppers).

Cross-section of eaves.

Eaves (eave the alternative form) was from the Middle English eves (projecting lower edge of a roof), from the Old English efes, yfes & ofes (edge of a roof), from the Proto-West Germanic ubisu (hall), from the Proto-Germanic ubiswō (and related to the Gothic ubizwa, the Old High German obasa (hall; porch; roof) and perhaps ultimately from the primitive Indo-European upér (above; over) from which English ultimately gained “over”.  Drop in this context was from the Late Middle English droppe, from the Middle English drope (small quantity of liquid; small or least amount of something; pendant jewel; dripping of a liquid; a shower; nasal flow, catarrh; speck, spot; blemish; disease causing spots on the skin), from the Old English dropa (a drop), from the Proto-West Germanic dropō (drop of liquid), from the Proto-Germanic drupô (drop of liquid), from the primitive Indo-European drewb- (to crumble, to grind away).

Long distance eavesdropping: Marketed as an "Extreme Sound Amplifier Professional Bionic Ear Listening Device", Amazon notes the Guppy is ideal for bird watchers, nature lovers and outdoor because it can detect "voice equivalent sounds" at distances up to 75 m (250 feet).  Recommended for children aged six and above, it's said to improve children's audiovisual perception, help them explore nature and stimulate their imagination and curiosity.  While Amazon doesn’t dwell on the matter, the Guppy could be used as a dual-purpose device.

The noun eavesdrop described (1) the dripping of rain-water from the eaves of a building (2) the space of ground onto which the water fell and (3) the container at the end of a pipe or spout which collected the water so it would be available for other uses such as gardening, cleaning etc.  In the ninth century the word was eavesdrip which in early Modern English evolved to become eavesdrop.  The Old English words efes, yfes & ofes (edge of a roof) from which eaves was derived were all singular but in the way these thing happened in the Medieval period, the final -s was assumed to indicate a plural (on the basis of the relationship enjoyed by many other words), thus the emergence of the Middle English eves which later became eaves, reputedly because with “Eve” appearing in version of the Bible, the clergy objected to the spelling being used for a form of drainage which was a remarkable concern for the one they held responsible for original sin, the downfall of man and the banishment of humanity from the Garden of Eden.

Stasi eavesdropping ceremony: Stasi officers undertook their duties seriously but there were also office parties where dark good humor was on show.  Operatives who have proved outstanding at eavesdropping and eavesreading could be "dubbed" and conferred with a "knighthood" in the Abhörgerät der Ordnung alten (Ancient order of the Wiretap).  The Stasi (Ministry for State Security) fulfilled in the German Democratic Republic (the GDR (1949-1990), the old East Germany) a function similar to that of the Soviet KGB and is renowned still as history's most prolific eavesdroppers, their surveillance of written and oral communication so extensive and intrusive that for much of the state's existence, individuals needed to assume their telephone calls were being monitored.  The Stasi's (1950-1990) capacity to watch an entire population may soon be exceeded because advances in artificial intelligence (AI) mean it may become possible for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) literally to listen to every telephone call and read every electronic exchange.  In China, it may be that carrier pigeons and typewriters will be made illegal as the CCP moves to ensure there is no communication of which they are unaware.

Lindsay Lohan under the eaves, though probably not eavesdropping.

The noun eavesdrop (also as eavesdroppe) & eavesdrip had a significance beyond domestic storm-water management because they were measurements used first in ancient customary law and later in early English common law as part of what would now be thought a building or planning code.  Under the doctrine, a land-holder was not permitted to erect a roofed-structure so close to the boundary of his land that the water which fell from the roof might fall upon and damage adjacent land.  In customary law, the actual distance was expressed in different ways including “the extended arm-span of a man” (sometimes the parish priest was nominated) but when English measures were (more or less) standardized, that became “not lesse than two footes”.  Wind and water being what they are, it was obviously not possible to guarantee absolutely none of the water from one’s roof would end up on a neighbor’s land so there emerged the common law “right of drip” which technically created an easement upon the affected land, restricted to drips from the roof.  That would now be understood under the notion of “reasonableness” and drips would be held to be reasonable while torrents would not and an order of rectification could be made to demand the torrents in some way be reduced to drips.  This protected the neighbor (the dripee one might say) from water-damage but also meant that if economic benefit was derived from even a torrent (such as free agricultural irrigation), the dripor could not claim for a share of value against the dripee.

The noun eavesdropper was created to refer to “one who stands within the eavesdrop of a house to overhear conversations inside” and the first known record of use in the Presentments at the Sessions of the Borough of Nottingham, 1 October 1487, written in the Legal Latin of the day:

Juratores Constabulariorum dicunt, super sacramentum suum, quod Henricus Rowley, de Notingham, in Comitatu villae Notingham, yoman, die Jovis proximo ante festum Sancti Michaëlis Archangeli, anno regni Regis Henrici Septimi tertio, ac diversis aliis diebus et vicibus, communiter et usualiter, apud Notingham praedictam, est communis evysdropper et vagator in noctibus, in perturbationem populi Domini Regis et contra pacem suam.

The jurors of the Constables say, upon their oath, that Henry Rowley, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, yeoman, on Thursday next before the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, in the third year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon divers other days and occasions, commonly and usually, at Nottingham aforesaid, is a common eavesdropper and night-wanderer, to the perturbation of our Lord the King’s folk and against his peace.

There may in the charge have been the implication Henry Rowley was more than a quidnunc keeping up with things and may have been “casing the joint” with nefarious intent but in its pure sense eavesdropper was later defined in one of the first dictionaries of legal terms; Les Termes de la Ley: or Certaine difficult and obscure Words and Termes of the Common Lawes and Statutes of this Realme now in vse expounded and explained (London, 1636), by John Rastell (circa 1475-1536) and his son, William Rastell (circa 1508-1565):

Euesdroppers are such as stand vnder walls or windowes by night or day to heare newes, and to carry them to others to make strife and debate amongst their Neighbors, those are euill members in the Cōmon-wealth, and therefore by the Statute of Westminst. (I. cap. 33.) are to bee punished.

Etymologists differ on the matter of sequence.  Because the verb eavesdrop is first attested more than a century after the noun eavesdropper, some maintain former is a back-formation while others (on the basis of much linguistic precedent) suggest the very existence of the noun implies the pre-existence of the verb.  Sill the earliest use of the verb known to be extant was in the writings of the English playwright & poet George Chapman (circa 1560-1634) in the comedy Sir Gyles Goosecappe Knight (London, 1606) in which Momford and Lord Furnifall are in the house and plotting to repair to the gallery outside in order secretly to listen to the conversation between Clarence and the physician, Doctor Versey:

Momford: Bring hether the key of the gallerie, me thought I heard the Doctor and my friend.

Lord Furnifall: I did so sure.

Momford: Peace then a while my Lord.  We will be bold to evesdroppe.

It’s a forgotten play but Chapman is not because his translations of the Iliad (1598-1611) and the Odyssey (1616) rank with the most highly regarded in English and the evocative beauty of his style influenced many.  It was his work which inspired the Romantic poet John Keats to write the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (1816) by John Keats (1795–1821).

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Syzygy

Syzygy (pronounced siz-i-jee)

(1) In astronomy (actually borrowed from astrology!), the descriptor for either of the two positions (conjunction or opposition) of a celestial body when sun, earth, and the body lie in a straight line (since applied to the "straight-line configuration" of firstly three and later any number of celestial bodies in a gravitational system.

(2) Any two related things, either alike or opposite (obsolete except for historic references).

(3) In classical prosody, a group or combination of two feet, sometimes restricted to a combination of two feet of different kinds.

(4) In biology (especially zoology), the aggregation in a mass of certain protozoans, especially when occurring before sexual reproduction but can be used also when describing the asexual exchange of genetic material.

(5) In psychology, an archetypal pairing of contra-sexual opposites, symbolizing the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds.

(6) In mathematics, a relation between generators of a module.

(7) In medical pathology, a fusing of some or all of the organs.

(8) In genetics, the pairing of chromosomes in meiosis

1650-1660:  From the Late Latin sȳzygia (conjunction), from the Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) (yoke of animals, pair, union of two, conjunction), from syzygein (to yoke together), the construct being an assimilated form of syn- (together) + zygon (yoke), from the primitive Indo-European root yeug- (to join).  In the Greek, the word produced also zeugnýnai (to yoke together), sometimes simplified in English transcription as synzugon.  In English, syzygy was adopted by astronomy in 1847.  In science there are a number of terms of classification based on syzygy, the most attractive of which is probably Syzygium samarangense (a taxonomic species within the family Myrtaceae (wax apple or Javan rose apple).  

In progress.

Syzygy was one of those words from the once respectable field of astrology later adopted by a number of scientific disciplines (astronomy, genetics, psychiatry, mathematics, zoology) and retained, even after astrology became widely regarded as disreputable.  In mathematics and the physical sciences, it was a handy descriptor of things which became paired or, however briefly, were in alignment although historically the emphasis was on "pair", a syzygy as able to be applied to an identical pair as two diametric opposites.  That permissiveness is now listed by most dictionaries as obsolete but is something to be noted when reading historic texts.

The origin of the application of the word in disciplines like psychiatry and psychology (noted more by its appearance in literary works than professional or academic papers) is thought by some to have been triggered by Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyova (1853–1900) who used syzygy to denote “close union” and applied the concept in a variety of ways which influenced Russian writers not only in the nineteenth century but also those of the symbolist and neo-idealist movements of the later Soviet era and some critics agree Solovyov was at least one of the sources for Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821–1881) characters Alyosha and Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1880).  Very much in the tradition of   More controversial is the idea his book, The Meaning of Love (1892) (in which syzygy was introduced) is one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy's (1828-1910) much discussed The Kreutzer Sonata (1889); critics remain divided and opinions are argued with vigour although unusually united was the critical industry built around Carl Jung (1875–1961) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) (particularly the former's theories of the collective unconscious and the balancing of conscious and unconscious elements within an individual's psyche, although this was metaphorical and abstract compared to the use in astronomy and other sciences) which found strands of syzygy in the many themes of the self which so permeates their work.  Given the overarching concepts of (1) the individuation process and (2) the unions of individuals, especially of male and female tending to a totality, even a unity, it’s a word with some appeal to those who seem to value having something with such a range of adaptable meanings to use in works of speculative vagueness.

Asymmetric

Asymmetric (pronounced a-sim-et-rick)

(1) Not identical on both sides of a central line; unsymmetrical; lacking symmetry.

(2) An asymmetric shape.

(3) In logic or mathematics, holding true of members of a class in one order but not in the opposite order, as in the relation “being an ancestor of”.

(4) In chemistry, having an unsymmetrical arrangement of atoms in a molecule.

(5) In chemistry, noting a carbon atom bonded to four different atoms or groups.

(6) In chemistry (of a polymer), noting an atom or group that is within a polymer chain and is bonded to two different atoms or groups that are external to the chain.

(7) In electrical engineering, of conductors having different conductivities depending on the direction of current flow, as of diodes

(8) In aeronautics, having unequal thrust, as caused by an inoperative engine in a twin-engined aircraft.

(9) In military theory, a conflict where the parties are vastly different in terms of military capacity.  This situation is not in all circumstances disadvantageous to the nominally inferior party.

(10) In gameplay, where different players have different experiences

(11) In cryptography, not involving a mutual exchange of keys between sender a7 receiver.

(12) In set theory, of a relation R on a set S: having the property that for any two elements of S (not necessarily distinct), at least one is not related to the other via R.

1870–1875: The construct was a- + symmetric.  The a- prefix was from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν-) (an- if immediately preceding a vowel) and was added to stems to created the sense of "not, without, opposite of".  The prefix is referred to as an alpha privative and is used with stems beginning with consonants (except sometimes “h”); “an-“ is synonymous and is used in front of words that start with vowels and sometimes “h”.  Symmetric was from the Latin symmetria from Ancient Greek συμμετρία (summetría).  Symmetry was from the 1560s in the sense of "relation of parts, proportion", from the sixteenth century French symmétrie and directly from the Latin symmetria, from the Greek symmetria (agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement", from symmetros (having a common measure, even, proportionate), an assimilated form of syn- (together) + metron (measure) from the primitive Indo-European me- (to measure).  The meaning "harmonic arrangement of parts" dates from the 1590s.  The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically.  In English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  Asymmetric & asymmetrical are adjectives, asymmetricity, asymmetricality, asymmetricalness & asymmetry are nouns and asymmetrically is an adverb; the noun plural is asymmetries.

The usually symmetrically attired Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities of asymmetry.

1975 Kawasaki 750 H2 Mach IV.

Manufacturers of triple-cylinder motorcycles traditionally used single (3 into 1) or symmetrical (3 into 2) exhaust systems (although, during the 1970s, Suzuki offered some of their "Ram-Air" models with a bizarre 3 into 4 setup, the centre cylinder’s header bifurcated) but in 1969 Kawasaki adopted an asymmetric addition for one of the memorable machines of the time.  The Kawasaki 500 H1 Mach III had two outlets to the right, one to the left and was a fast, lethally unstable thing which was soon dubbed the "widow maker".  Improvements to the Mach III made it a little more manageable and its successor, the 750 H2 Mach IV was claimed to be better behaved but was faster still and best enjoyed by experts, preferably in a straight line although, with a narrow power band which peaked with a sudden rush, even that could be a challenge.  The Kawasaki triples remain the most charismatic of the Japanese motorcycles.

1973 Triumph X-75 Hurricane.

Available only during 1972-1973 and produced in small numbers, the Triumph X75 Hurricane was typical of the motorcycles being produced by the British manufacturers which had neglected development and re-investment and consequently were unable adequately to respond to the offerings of the Japanese which had done both aplenty.  Whatever their charms, models like the X75 were being rendered obsolescent, some of the underlying technology dating back decades yet, without the capital to invest, this was as good as it got and some of the fudges of the era were worse.  The X-75 was however ahead of its time in one way, it was a “factory special”, a design influenced by what custom shops in the US had been doing as one-offs for customers and in the years ahead, many manufacturers would be attracted by the concept and its healthy profit margins.  The X-75 is remembered also for the distinctive asymmetric stack of three exhaust pipes on the right-hand side.

1986 Ferrari Testarossa (1984-1991) with monospecchio.

Some of Ferrari's early-production Testarossas were fitted with a single high-mounted external mirror, on the left or right depending on the market into which it was sold and although the preferred term was the Italian “monospecchio” (one mirror), in the English speaking-world it was quickly dubbed the “flying mirror" (rendered sometimes in Italian as “specchio volante” (a ordinary wing mirror being a “specchietto laterale esterno”, proving everything sounds better in Italian)).  The unusual placement and blatant asymmetry annoyed some and delighted others, the unhappy more disgruntled still if they noticed the vent on right of the front spoiler not being matched by one to the left.  It was there to feed the air-conditioning’s radiator and while such offset singularities are not unusual in cars, many manufacturers create a matching fake as an aesthetic device: Ferrari did not.  The mirror’s curious placement was an unintended consequence of a European Union regulation (and it doubtful many institutions have in a relatively short time created as many regulations of such collective length as the EU) regarding the devices and this was interpreted by the designers as having to provide 100% rearward visibility.  Because of the sheer size of the rear bodywork necessitated by the twin radiators which sat behind the side-strakes (another distinctive Testarossa feature), the elevation was the only way this could be done but it later transpired the interpretation of the law was wrong, a perhaps forgivable mistake given the turgidity of EU legalese.

The Blohm & Voss BV 141

Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Eurl (Owl)

In aircraft, designs have for very good reason (aerodynamics, weight distribution, flying characteristics, ease of manufacture et al) tended to be symmetrical, sometimes as an engineering necessity such as the use of contra-rotationg propellers on some twin-engined airframes, a trick to offset the destabilizing effects of the torque when very potent power-plants are fitted.  There has though been the odd bizarre venture into structural asymmetry, one of the most intriguing being the Blohm & Voss BV 141, the most distinctive feature of which was an offset crew-capsule.  The BV 141 was tactical reconnaissance aircraft built in small numbers and used in a desultory manner by the Luftwaffe (the German air force) during World War II (1939-1945) and although it was studied by engineers from many countries, none seem to have been inspired to repeat the experiment. The origin of the curious craft lay in a specification issued in 1937 by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM; the German Air Ministry) which called for a single-engine reconnaissance aircraft, optimized for visual observation and, in response, Focke-Wulf responded with their Fw 189 Eurl (Owl) which, because of the then still novel twin-boomed layout, encountered some resistance from the RLM bureaucrats but it found much favor with the Luftwaffe and, over the course of the war, some nine-hundred entered service and it was used almost exclusively as the German's standard battlefield reconnaissance aircraft.  In fact, so successful did it prove in this role that the other configurations it was designed to accommodate, that of liaison and close-support ground-attack, were never pursued.  Although its performance was modest, it was a fine airframe with superb flying qualities and an ability to absorb punishment which, on the Russian front where it was extensively deployed, became famous and captured examples provide Russian aeronautical engineers with ides which would for years influence their designs.

The RLM had also invited Arado to tender but their Ar 198, although featuring an unusual under-slung and elongated cupola which afforded for the observer a uniquely panoramic view, proved unsatisfactory in test-flights and development ceased.  Blohm and Voss hadn't been included in the RLM's invitation but anyway chose to offer a design which was radically different even by the standards of the innovative Fw 189.  The asymmetric BV 141 design was eye-catching with the crew housed in an extensively glazed capsule, offset to starboard of the centre-line with a boom offset to the left which housed the single-engine in front with the tail to the rear.  Prototypes were built as early as 1938 and the Luftwaffe conducted operational trials over both the UK and USSR between 1939-1941 but, despite being satisfactory in most respects, the Bv 141 was hampered by poor performance, a consequence of using an under-powered engined.  A re-design of the structure to accommodate more powerful units was begun but delays in development and the urgent need for the up-rated engines for machines already in production doomed the project and the Bv 141 was in 1943 abandoned.

Blohm & Voss BV 141 prototype with full-width rear elevators & stabilizers.

Production Blohm & Voss BV 141 with port-only rear elevator & stabilizer.

Despite the ungainly appearance, test-pilots reported the Fw 141 was a nicely balanced airframe, the seemingly strange weight distribution well compensated by (1) component placement, (2) the specific lift characteristics of the wing design and (3) the choice of opposite rotational direction for crankshaft and propeller, the torque generated used as a counter-balance.  Nor, despite the expectation of some, were there difficulties in handling whatever behavior was induced by the thrust versus drag asymmetry and pilots all indicated some intuitive trimming was all that was needed to compensate for any induced yaw.  The asymmetry extended even to the tail-plane, the starboard elevator and horizontal stabilizer removed (to afford the tail-gunner a wider field of fire) after the first three prototypes were built; surprisingly, this was said barely to affect the flying characteristics.  Focke-Wolf pursued the concept, a number of design-studies (including a piston & turbojet-engine hybrid) initiated but none progressed beyond the drawing-board.

Asymmetric warfare

In the twenty-first century, the term “asymmetric warfare” became widely used.  The concept describes conflicts in which there are significant disparities in power, capability and strategies between opposing forces and although the phrase has become recently fashionable, the idea is ancient, based often on the successes which could be exploited by small, mobile and agile (often irregular) forces against larger, conventionally assembled formations.  Reports of such tactics are found in accounts of conflicts in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe from as early as reliable written records have been found.  The classic example is what came later to be called “guerrilla warfare”, hit-and-run tactics which probe and attack a weak spots as they are detected, the ancestor of insurgencies, “conventional” modern terrorism and cyber-attacks.  However, even between conventional national militaries there have long been examples of the asymmetric such as the use of small, cheap weapons like torpedo boats and mines which early in the twentieth century proved effective against the big, ruinously expensive Dreadnoughts.  To some extent, the spike in use of the phrase in the post-Cold War era happened because it provided such a contrast between the nuclear weapon states which, although having a capacity to destroy entire countries without having one soldier step foot on their territory, found themselves vulnerable to low-tech, cleverly planned attacks.

Although the term “asymmetric warfare” covers encompasses a wide vista, one increasingly consistent thread is that it can be a difficult thing for "conventional" military formations to counter insurgencies conducted by irregular combatants who, in many places and for much of the time, are visually indistinguishable from the civilian population.  The difficulty lies not in achieving the desired result (destruction of the enemy) but managing to do so without causing an “excessive” number of civilian causalities; although public disapproval has meant the awful phrase “collateral damage” is now rarely heard, civilians (many of them women & children) continue greatly to suffer in such conflicts, the death toll high.  Thus the critique of the retaliatory strategy of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) in response to the attack by the Hamas on 7 October 2023, Palestinian deaths now claimed to exceed 20,000; that number is unverified and will include an unknown number of Hamas combatants but there is no doubt the percentage of civilian deaths will be high, the total casualty count estimated early in January 2024 at some 60,000.  What the IDF appear to have done is settle on the strategy adopted by Ulysses S Grant (1822–1885; US president 1869-1877) in 1863 when appointed head of the Union armies: the total destruction of the opposing forces.  That decision was a reaction to the realization the previous approach (skirmishes and the temporary taking of enemy territory which was soon re-taken) was ineffectual and war would continue as long as the other side retained even a defensive military capacity.  Grant’s strategy was, in effect: destroy the secessionist army and the secessionist cause dies out.

In the US Civil War (1861-1965) that approach worked though at an appalling cost, the 1860s a period when ballistics had advanced to the point horrific injuries could be inflicted at scale but battlefield medical tools and techniques were barely advance from Napoleonic times.  The bodies were piled high.  Grant’s success was influential on the development of the US military which eventually evolved into an organization which came to see problems as something not to be solved but overwhelmed by the massive application of force, an attitude which although now refined, permeates from the Pentagon down to platoon level.  As the US proved more than once, the strategy works as long as there’s little concern about “collateral damage”, an example of this approach being when the Sri Lankan military rejected the argument there was “no military solution” to the long running civil war (1983-2009) waged by the Tamil Tigers (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)).  What “no military solution” means is that a war cannot be won if the rules of war are followed so the government took the decision that if war crimes and crimes against humanity were what was required to win, they would be committed.

In the 1990s, a number of political and military theorists actually advanced the doctrine “give war a chance”, the rationale being that however awful conflicts may be, if allowed to continue to the point where one side gains an unambiguous victory, the dispute is at least resolved and peace can ensue, sometimes for generations.  For most of human history, such was the usual path of war but after the formation of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 things changed, the Security Council the tool of the great powers, all of which (despite their publicity) viewed wars as a part of whatever agenda they were at the time pursuing and depending on this and that, that meant their interests sometimes lay in ending conflicts and sometimes in prolonging them.  In isolation, such an arrangement probably could have worked (albeit with much “collateral damage”) but over the years, a roll-call of nations run by politicians appalled by the consequences of war began to become involved, intervening with peace plans,  offering mediation and urging the UN to deploy “peacekeeping” forces, something which became an international growth industry.  Added to that, for a number of reasons, a proliferation of non-government organizations (NGO) were formed, many of which concerned themselves with relief programmes in conflict zones and while these benefited may civilians, they also had the effect of allowing combatant forces to re-group and re-arm, meaning wars could drag on for a decade or more.

In the dreadful events in Gaza, war is certainly being given a chance and the public position of both the IDF and the Israeli government is that the strategy being pursued is one designed totally “to destroy” not merely the military capacity of Hamas but the organization itself.  Such an idea worked for Grant in the 1860s and, as the Sri Lankan military predicted they would, end-game there was achieved in 2009 on the basis of “total destruction”.  However, Gaza (and the wider Middle East) is a different time & place and even if the IDF succeeds in “neutralizing” the opposing fighters and destroying the now famous network of tunnels and ad-hoc weapons manufacturing centres, it can’t be predicted that Hamas in some form won’t survive and in that case, what seems most likely is that while the asymmetry of nominal capacity between the two sides will be more extreme than before, Hamas is more likely to hone the tactics than shift the objective.  The IDF high command are of course realists and understand there is nothing to suggest “the Hamas problem” can be solved and being practical military types, they know if a problem can’t be solved it must be managed.  In the awful calculations of asymmetric conflict, this means the IDF calculate that while future attacks will happen, the more destructive the response now, the longer will be the interval before the next event.