Wet & Dry

Wet (pronounced whet)

(1) Moistened, covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid.

(2) In a liquid form or state.

(3) Something that is or makes wet, as water or other liquid; moisture.

(4) Damp weather; rain.

(5) In historic (US prohibition era) use, a person in favor of allowing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; still used as a descriptor of political candidates or activists in “dry” counties who advocate the status be changed to “wet” but now substantially a retronym.

(6) To make (something) wet, as by moistening or soaking (sometimes followed by through or down).

(7) To urinate on or in (applied usually to pets or children).

Pre 900: From the Middle English wet wett & wette (past participle of weten (to wet)), (wet, moistened), from the Old English wǣtan (to wet, moisten, water), replacing the Middle English weet, from the Old English wǣt, from the Proto-Germanic wētijaną (to wet, make wet), from the primitive Indo-European wed- (water, wet), also the source of “water”.  It was cognate with the Scots weit, weet, wat & wete (to wet), the Saterland Frisian wäitje (to wet; drench) & wäit (wet), the Icelandic væta (to wet) & votur (wet), the North Frisian wiat, weet & wäit (wet), the Old Frisian wēt, the Old Slavonic vedro (bucket), the Swedish and Norwegian våt (wet), the Danish våd (wet), the Faroese vátur (“wet”) and the Old Norse vātr; akin to water.  Wet is a noun, verb & adjective, wetter, wettability & wetness are nouns, wetly an adverb, wetted & wetting are verbs, and wettish, wetter, wettest & wettable are adjectives.  The noun plural is wets and the homophone whet (in accents with the wine-whine merger).

Words in some way related to wet include damp, drench, misty, drizzle, mizzle, humid, dank, fog, mist, muggy, rain, slippery, snow, soak, sodden, soggy, stormy, dip, douse, drench, hose, irrigate & liquid.  For all related words, context and the history of use define the relationship (of extent, type etc).  For example, to drench or soak something implies saturate whereas moistening means only some degree of dampness whereas to soak something suggests an immersion of extended duration until saturated.  With reference to rain, which can always be referred to as wet weather, mizzle & drizzle are expressions of graduation which suggest a lighter fall.

The multi-media US personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) with Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in "Wet" themed top, Huacai Intercontinental Hotel, Beijing, China, September 2024.  She wears it well.

The word wet has proved convenient shorthand for many technical purposes including in calligraphy and fountain pens where it referred to depositing a large amount of ink from the nib or the feed.  To audio engineers, a “wet sound” recording is one to which the audio effects have been applied.  In aviation, it’s a reference to having used the afterburners or water injection for increased engine thrust (maximum wet thrust can be more than twice maximum dry thrust (afterburners consuming huge quantities of fuel)).  In mining a “wet extraction” is a method using fluids whereas a dry extraction relies on the employment of dry heat or fusion.  In soldering, to wet is to form an intermetallic bond between a solder and a metal substrate.  In bench-top science, to wet is to employ a liquid (typically water) as a method of chemical analysis.  A wetback (also called a wet-heater) was a form of heater which in addition to radiating heat to an external space was also attached to the building’s hot water supply, thus providing in whole or in part the energy used to maintain its temperature (wetback was applied also from 1924 as a derogatory description of undocumented Mexican immigrant to the US, a reference to their usually sodden state after crossing the Rio Grande.  There presumably have been bed-wetters (involuntary urination while sleeping) since there have been beds but etymologists can find no instance of the term bed-wetting prior to 1844 (it has also gained an idiomatic identity in politics (qv)).  In ecology, a wetland is an area where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season.  The wet-nurse, though an ancient profession, was first so described in the 1610s.

As vulgar slang, as applied to women, it referred to the sexual arousal indicated by the vulva being moistened with vaginal secretions (which may or may not be related to the word “moist” being often rated as the most disliked in the English language).  The sexual slang associated with men is the “wet dream” which most etymologists insist dates only from 1851 although Middle English in the same sense had ludificacioun (an erotic dream), these nocturnal adventures mentioned by Henry VIII in letters as proof of his virility, called into doubt by his inability to be aroused by one of the wives he didn’t wish to keep.

Wet is widely applied in idiomatic use: To be “wet behind the ears” is to be inexperienced; a “wet blanket” (from 1871, from use of blankets drenched in water to smother fires (the phrase attested in this literal sense from the 1660s)) is someone who spoils the fun of others by failing to join or disapproving of their activities; to “wet one's whistle” is to have one or more alcoholic drinks, an allusion to the idea intoxicants stimulate sociability; in politics a “bed wetter” is a politician who reacts nervously to every passing vicissitude, the label usually applied by those with safe seats to those holding marginal electorates; to be “all wet” is (1) to be mistaken or (2) a really bad idea, both used since the early 1920s (thought built on the earlier sense of “ineffectual”, perhaps ultimately from the circa 1700 slang meaning "drunken"; in computing there’s hardware and software and those working in AI (artificial intelligence) refer to the human brain as wetware; In crime and espionage, wet-work is a euphemistic reference to jobs involving assassination (known also as a wet affair, a wet job & wet stuff, all phrases alluding to the spilling of the blood of others).  In historic UK slang, a wet was someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person (although this use faded as the specific political construction (qv) which emerged in the 1980s prevailed).

Dry (pronounced drahy)

(1) Free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist; not wet.

(2) In climatic matters, having or characterized by little or no rain.

(3) Characterized by absence, deficiency, or failure of natural or ordinary moisture.

(4) Not under, in, or on water.

(5) Not now containing or yielding water or other liquid; depleted or empty of liquid.

(6) In dairying and other forms of animal-based milk production, a beast not yielding milk (also used by analogy for oil wells).

(7) The absence of lachrymosity, free from tears.

(8) Drained or evaporated away.

(9) Desiring drink; thirsty; causing thirst.

(10) A food (typically toast) served or eaten without butter, conserves (jam, jelly), honey etc.

(11) Of food, lacking enough moisture or juice to be satisfying or succulent.

(12) Of bread and bakery products, stale.

(13) Of or relating to non-liquid substances or commodities (usually as dry goods, dry measure; dry provisions etc).

(14) Of wines (though now also used of beer, cocktails and other beverages), not sweet.

(15) Characterized by or favoring prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors for use in beverages (mostly prohibition-era US but still a term used in political debates in “dry” counties).

(16) As a general descriptor, anything plain; bald; unadorned; something expressed in a straight-faced, matter-of-fact way.

(17) Dull; uninteresting:

(18) Indifferent; cold; unemotional.

(19) An unproductive period.

(20) Of lumber, fully seasoned.

(21) Of masonry construction, built without fresh mortar or cement.

(22) Of a wall, ceiling, etc in an interior, finished without the use of fresh plaster.

(23) In ceramics unglazed (if deliberate) or insufficiently glazed (if in error).

(24) In art, hard and formal in outline, or lacking mellowness and warmth in color.

(25) To make something free from moisture (or with its moisture substantially reduced.

(26) Something tedious, barren, boring, tiresome, jejune.

(27) Of wit, shrewd and keen in an impersonal, sarcastic, or laconic way.

(28) In sheep farming, a ewe without a lamb after the mating season

(29) In electronics, an imperfectly soldered electrical joint (where the solder has not adhered to the metal), thus reducing conductance

(30) In food preservation, to preserve (meat, vegetables, fruit etc) by removing the moisture.

(31) In chemistry as anhydrous, free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.

(32) In audio engineering, a sound recording free from applied audio effects (especially reverberations).

(33) In animal breeding, an impotent male beast (applied especially to bulls).

(34) In the rituals of certain Christian denominations, of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

In acting (especially on stage, to forget one’s lines.

Pre 900: From the Middle English drye, dryge, drüȝe & drie (without moisture, comparatively free from water or fluid), from the Old English drӯge, from the Proto-Germanic draugiz (source also of the Middle Low German dröge, the Middle Dutch druge, the Dutch droog, the Old High German truckan & trucchon, the German trocken and the Old Norse draugr), from the Germanic root dreug- (dry), from the primitive Indo-European dherg (to strengthen; become hard), from dher (to hold, support).  Dry is a noun, verb and adjective, dryable, drier, driest, dryer (or dryest) are adjectives, dryly an adverb, dries, drying & dried are verbs and dryness is a noun.  The noun plural is drys or dries; the spelling drie is long obsolete.

The meaning "barren" dates from the mid fourteenth century.  As applied to “persons showing no emotion, use emerged circa 1200; of humor or jests (delivered without show of pleasantry, caustic, sarcastic), it’s of early fifteenth century origin (and implied in dryly).  The sense of "uninteresting, tedious" was from the 1620s.  Of wines, brandy etc which were "free from sweetness or fruity flavor", use dates from circa 1700.  Dry was first used of places prohibiting alcoholic drink in 1870 (although, ad-hoc, there had been “dry feasts” & “dry festivals” at which no alcohol was served since the late fifteenth century and the colloquial dry (prohibitionist) entered US political slang in 1888.  Prior to and during the prohibition era in the US, the “drys” were those who supported prohibition and in the isolated counties in the US where it’s still imposed, they remain a (local) political force.  Dry goods, first so named in the 1560s were those dispensed in dry, not liquid, measure.  Dry land (that not under the sea) as a concept (first in the law of real property) was from the early thirteenth century.  The dry-nurse (a back formation from wet-nurse) was “one who attends and feeds a child but does not suckle it", use dating from the 1590s.  The dry-run (rehearsal) dates from 1941 and was adopted by the military and just about everyone else dates from 1941.  Dry ice "solid carbon dioxide" became available in 1925.  Dry out in the drug addiction sense is from 1967.

The first process of dry-cleaning (to clean clothes or textiles without using water) appears to have been advertised first in 1817.  The long-known "fungal decay in timber" was in 1779 first described as dry rot, the figurative sense of "concealed or unsuspected inward degeneration" dating from 1821.  As a hair-drying device, the first use of blow-dry appears to be a surprisingly late 1971.  The process of preserving vegetables as freeze-dried was a wartime development in the US, first announced as a patented commercial process in 1946, the earlier sun-dried documented since the 1630s although the technique dates from early human culture.  The dry sense of humor (with apparent unintentional humor or sarcasm) was noted first in the early fifteenth century, dryly meaning "without moisture" in the 1560s and "without affection" by the 1620s.  The drywall (plasterboard, sheetrock; gypsum-based manufactured panel used in interior construction) was first sold in 1952, the earlier use (1778) of dry wall meaning (a wall built without mortar).  A drier (used since the early fourteenth century as a surname) as “one who dries and bleaches cloth," agent noun from the verb dry (that which dries or is used in drying), dated from the 1520s.  Dryer was used to describe a piece of machinery in 1848 although the first drying-machine appears to have entered service as early as 1819.

Wet & Dry

Wet and dry must be one of the most obvious and commonly cited dichotomies in English and there are a number of noted examples.

Perilli's Dry, Intermediate and Wet tyres for use in Formula One.

In motorsport, there are wet and dry tyres, the former (obviously) used when the track is wet and the latter (also called “slicks”) when the surface is dry.  There are also various flavors of “intermediate tread” tyres for conditions which are damp rather than wet.  The difference is that dry tyres have no tread (the grooves cut into the contact surface) pattern, the purpose of which is to provide passages into which the water is forced to be expelled at the sides.  In the early 1970s, there were competitions with rules which demanded the use of street tyres (ie those used on street cars as opposed to racing rubber) and some drivers discovered a unique property of BF Goodrich’s square-shouldered T/A Radial was that if the tread was (in advance) carefully worn down to a certain point, it would behave much like a slick and last long enough not to have to be replaced for the duration of most races (or until fuel-stop sessions in endurance events).

In the law of real property, there are wet and dry leases, typically issued in conjunction when handling riparian property.  The leases are often divided because it’s not uncommon for the one commercial operation to have part of a business on land and part on water (such as a marina or docking facility) and being very different, may have different operators.  It’s thus normal commercial practice for a head-lessor (perhaps a hotel operator) to enter into both a dry lease (for the hotel property on land) and the wet lease (for whatever happens on the water) and then sub-lease the wet lease to someone with the appropriate expertise.

Wet and dry sandpaper is the tip of the sanding iceberg.  Wet sanding, which is sanding with the addition of water to act as a lubricant, is less abrasive than dry sanding, and results in a smoother finish and whenever possible, it’s best to wet-sand when finishing a project.  Dry sanding removes more material, and smooths rough material more quickly and if the ultimate in smoothness isn’t required, is the choice of many.  So, wet sand for a super smooth finish but the two are of course frequently combined, dry sanding first to remove most of the unwanted material before wet sanding.

Lindsay Lohan in Cynthia Rowley (b 1968) wetsuit.

In diving, wetsuits and drysuits use different engineering but operate on a similar principle.  Wetsuits use a layer of water (heated by the wearer's body) to provide insulation while a drysuit uses a layer of air and is completely water-proof, stopping water from coming into contact with the skin.  Wetsuits are made from rubber neoprene and are designed so the diver’s body heat is retained but, unlike drysuits, are not waterproof.  For that reason, a loose fitting wetsuit is suitable only for warm-water conditions; skin-tight wetsuits are ideal for cold water surf because they are warm and permit more movement than drysuits.  Where the drysuit excels is in predominately out-of-water conditions such as kayaking, paddle-boarding or water-based photography.  For extreme winter conditions a drysuit is really the only choice because for warmth, additional layers can be added beneath the suit, something not possible with a wetsuit.

In northern Australia, the concepts of spring, summer, autumn (fall) & winter really don’t make climatic sense the way defined seasons do in more temperate regions.  Instead, there’s just the wet and the dry.  The dry is long and hot, rain is rare and towards the end of the dry there is the “build-up” which unfolds over a month or more as the air becomes warmer and heavier, the clouds in the evenings begin to darken and the humidity becomes increasingly oppressive.  Locals call it the period of mango madness because as the fruit ripens, emotional instability is apparent in some, mood swings induced by the inexorable rise in heat and humidity.  The wet usually begins in late November or early December and is marked by heavy monsoonal downpours, spectacular lightning, increased cyclone activity and a rise in crimes of violence.

Makita 20 litre Wet Dry Vacuum Cleaner 1000W.

Wet and dry vacuum cleaners are devices regarded with some awe because we’re all schooled to take care to ensure water is kept way from electrical appliances yet the manufacturers of these things encourage us to suck water into them.  They’re obviously of great utility in handling wet floors or sodden carpets but can be used anywhere where something wet is the problem and suction the answer such as cleaning hot tubs or removing surface condensation.

During the 1980s, in the corrosive, gut-wrenching world of Tory politics, the factions became not quite formalized but certainly well-understood as the “wets and drys”.  The origin lay in the use of the term “wet” which the right-wing fanatics (of which there were a few in the government of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990)) applied to their less hard-line colleagues (defined as those not in favor of repealing the twentieth century).  Wet was an old term of derision in historic UK slang, someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person.  In an effort to retaliate, the wets labelled the fanatics “the drys” but this backfired because the drys loved the idea and were soon describing themselves thus, presumably because while "a bit wet" had long been an insult, "dry humor" had always been thought clever and sophisticated. 

Bilateral

Bilateral (pronounced bahy-lat-er-uhl)

(1) Pertaining to, involving, or affecting two or both sides, factions, parties, or the like.

(2) Located on opposite sides of an axis; two-sided, especially when of equal size, value etc.

(3) In anatomy and biology, pertaining to the right and left sides of a structure (especially in the region furthest from the median plane).

(4) In contract law, binding the parties to reciprocal obligations.

(5) In anthropology, relating to descent through both maternal and paternal lineage.

(6) In the British education system, a course combining academic and technical components.

(7) In physics, acting or placed at right angles to a line of motion or strain.

(8) In phonetics and phonology, of a consonant (especially the English clear l), pertaining to sounds generated by partially blocking the egress of the airstream with the tip of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge, leaving space on one or both sides of the occlusion for air passage.

1775: The construct is bi + lateral.  Bi-, in the sense of the word-forming element (two, having two, twice, double, doubly, twofold, once every two etc) is from the from Latin bis (twice) or bīnus (double), from the Old Latin which was cognate with the Sanskrit dvi-, the Ancient Greek di- & dis-, the Old English twi- and the German zwei- (twice, double), all from the primitive Indo-European PIE root dwo- (two), ultimate source also of the Modern English duo.  Bilateral is a noun & adjective, bilateralist, bilateralization, bilaterality & bilateralism are nouns and bilaterally is an adverb; the noun plural is bilaterals.

It may have been in use before but was certainly nativized during the sixteenth century.  The occasionally bin- before vowels was a form which originated in French, not Latin although it’s suggested this may have been influenced by the Latin bini (twofold), the familiar example being “binary”.  In computing, it’s most associated with zero-one distinction in the sense of off-on and in chemistry, it denotes two parts or equivalents of the substance referred to although there are rules and conventions of use to avoid confusion with stuff named using the Greek prefix di- such as carbon dioxide (CO₂).  In general use, words built with bi- prefix can cause confusion.  While biennial (every two years) seems well understood, other constructs probably due to rarity remain, ambiguous: fortnightly is preferable to biweekly and using “every two months” or “twice a month” as required removes all doubt.

Lateral was first adopted as verb in the 1640s from the fourteenth century Old French lateral, directly from Latin laterālis (belonging to the side), a derivation of latus (genitive lateris) (the side, flank of humans or animals, lateral surface) of uncertain origin.  As a noun, the precise definition "situated on either side of the median vertical longitudinal plane of the body" is from 1722.   Equilateral (all sides equal) was first used in mathematics in the 1560s, a borrowing from the Latin aequilateralis, aequi- being the suffix- meaning “equal”; contra-lateral (occurring on the opposite side) is from 1871; the adjective ipsilateral (on the same side of the body), bolting on the Latin ipse- suffix (self) dates from 1907; the use in US football to describe a lateral pass seems to have appeared in print first in 1934.  Multilateral and trilateral seem to have been seventeenth century inventions from geometry, the more familiar modern applications in international diplomacy not noted until 1802.

Conventions of use

Although one would have to be imaginative, with the Latin, there’s little limit to the compound words one could construct to describe the number of sides of a thing.  The words, being as unique as whole numbers, would also be infinite.  Whether many would be linguistically useful is doubtful; sextilateral may mislead and ūndēquadrāgintālateral (thirty nine sided) seems a complicated solution to a simple problem.

Unilateral             One-sided
Bilateral               Two-sided
Trilateral              Three-sided
Quadrilateral        Four-sided
Quintilateral         Five-sided
Sextilateral          Six-sided
Septilateral          Seven-sided
Octolateral           Eight-sided
Novilateral           Nine-sided
Decilateral           Ten-sided
Centilateral          Hundred-sided
Millelateral           Thousand-sided

The modern convention appears to be to stop at trilateral and thereafter, when describing gatherings of four or more, adopt multilateral or phrases like four-power or six-party.  Trilateral seem still manageable, adopted not only by governmental entities but also by the Trilateral Commission (founded in 1973 with members from Japan, the US, and Europe), a remarkably indiscrete right-wing think-tank.  However, in the organically pragmatic evolution of English, there it tends to stop, quadrilateral now most associated with Euclidean plane geometry (there are seven quadrilateral polygons) and used almost exclusively in that discipline and other strains of mathematics.  Outside of mathematics, it was only in the formal language of diplomacy that quadrilateral was used with any frequency.  The agreement of 15 July 1840, (negotiated between Lord Palmerston (1784-1865; variously UK prime-minister or foreign secretary on several occasions 1830-1865) and Nicholas I (1796–1855; Tsar of Russia 1825-1855) to tidy up things in the Mediterranean) between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia was formalised as a quadrilateral treaty but the word fell from favour with quadruple alliance preferred for a later European arrangement.

Bilateral diplomacy: Lindsay Lohan meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), Ankara, 27 January 2017.

Although many of the wonks in the foreign policy establishment like to dream of a world in which everything is settled by multi-lateral discussions, in the world of the realists, it's understood the core of conflicts (which are the central dynamic of international relations) are bilateral.  Accordingly, most efforts are devoted to bilateral discussions.  In the business of predictions, it's also the relationships between two states which absorbs most of the thoughts of pundits and the long-term projections of those in the field can make interesting reading, decades later.  In 1988, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) published 1999: Victory Without War, which with no false modesty he suggested was "...a how-to guide in foreign police for whomever was elected president in November 1988".  Given that, it's not surprising one passage has attracted recent comment: "...in the twenty-first century the Sino-US relationship will be one of the most important, and one of the most mutually beneficial, bilateral relationships in the world."  Things do appear to have worked out differently but there is a school of thought that the leadership of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) is an aberration and that his replacement is likely to be one who pursues a more cooperative foreign and economic policy because that is more likely to be in China's long-term (ie a century ahead) interest.

A quadrilateral meeting to discuss German war guilt reparations and allied debts accumulated during World War I (1914-1918): Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934; President of France 1913-1920, left), Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1922-1923. centre-left), Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943, centre right) and Georges Theunis (1873–1966; Prime Minister of Belgium 1921-1925 & 1934-1935, right), 10 Downing Street, London, December 1922.

This was an obscure photograph which until the twenty-first century had appeared only in some specialist history texts but as the internet achieved critical mass memes became a thing and Mussolini’s eyes were a gift for the meme-makers, most captions suggesting the duce may have had a sudden premonition of his own unfortunate end although others offered: “I feel naked without a moustache”, “I think I have imposter syndrome”, “Oh God, I just pooped my pants”, “One of these men may be a Freemason but I don't know which” and “I wonder if they can tell I'm on drugs”.  However, although not noted as a mystic, he may also have sensed impending death “sitteth at the right hand”, Andrew Bonar Law then having only months to live.

Serving as the UK prime minister for seven months between October 1922 and May 1923, it’s ironic Andrew Bonar Law is now remembered only because of the memorable title of his biography (The Unknown Prime Minister. The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858–1923 (1955)) by Tory historian Robert Norman (Baron Blake, 1916–2003), something borrowed from a chance remark at Law’s funeral by Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916): “We’re burying the unknown prime minister next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”  Law deserves more than that footnote because that he even achieved the office was emblematic of both a changing country and a changing party.  He was preferred over Lord Curzon (1859–1925), a glittering former foreign secretary and Viceroy of India; never again would seriously it be contemplated a prime-minister might sit in the House of Lords.  Unexpectedly diagnosed with an inoperable throat cancer, Law resigned and within six months was dead.      

Rare too is the more recent diplomatic creation, the pentalateral (five-power) treaty of which there appear to have been but two.  One was signed on 23 December 1950 between the United States, France, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.  It didn’t end well.  The other pentalateral treaty was sealed in Tehran during October 2007 between Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, the littoral countries of the Caspian Sea and was a mechanism to avoid squabbles while carving up resources.  Some assemblies are better described in other ways.  When the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK & the US) plus Germany formed a now defunct standing committee to deal with issues raised by Iran’s nuclear programme, although a sextilateral, it was instead dubbed P5+1 although in Brussels, the eurocrats preferred E3+3.

The chief negotiators of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, left to right: Sergey Razov (b 1953; Russia), Christopher Hill (b 1952; United States), Kenichirō Sasae (b 1951; Japan), Wu Dawei (b 1946; China), (Chun Yung-woo, b 1952; South Korea), Kim Kye-gwan (b 1943; North Korea).  Those learning English will find the conventional tool of surface analysis produces a misleading meaning if they deconstruct the elements of "sextilateral".  Here, a spokesman for six men briefs the media about their sextilateral, Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing, China, 23 December 2006.

Muse

Muse (pronounced myooz)

(1) To think or meditate in silence, as on some subject; to meditate upon.

(2) To gaze meditatively or in wonder (archaic though used still in poetry).

(3) A state of abstraction (archaic).

(4) Thoughtfully to comment or ruminate upon some topic.

(5) In Classical Mythology, originally the goddesses of song, meditation & memory, but latterly and more commonly as the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts.

(6) The goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a poet, artist, thinker, or any goddess presiding over a particular art (sometimes lowercase); just about any source of inspiration.

(7) The genius or powers characteristic of a poet (always lowercase).

(8) As the acronym MUSE (Mainstream US English), the strain of US English considered to be standard or unmarked by dialectal variation in pronunciation, syntactic structures, or vocabulary, used in the mainstream news media and taught in (almost all) schools.

(9) A bar or poet (obsolete).

(10) A gap or hole in a hedge or fence through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset (rare though the concept is now often part of road or railroad construction as under or overpasses for the use of wildlife).

1300–1350: From the Middle English muse & musen (to mutter, gaze meditatively on, be astonished), from the Middle French muser, from the Old French (which may have been influenced by the Medieval Latin mūsus & mūsum (snout)).  The fourteenth century verb muse (to reflect, ponder, meditate; to be absorbed in thought) has a murky history, one strain of etymological thought being it was based on the idea of “standing with one's nose in the air” or even “to sniff about” (in the manner of a dog which has lost the scent), thus the link to muse (muzzle) from the Old French & Classical Latin mūsa (snout) of unknown origin.  The fourteenth century noun muse (one of the nine Muses of classical mythology) was from the Old French Muse and directly from the Classical Latin mūsa, from Ancient Greek Μοῦσα (Moûsa) (a muse (also music, song)), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root men- (to think).  The sense of (an inspiring goddess of a particular poet (with a lower-case m-)) dates from the late fourteenth century.  Synonyms of the verb include brood, cogitate, consider, contemplate, deliberate, dream, feel, meditate, moon, percolate, ponder, reflect, revolve, roll, ruminate, speculate, think, weigh, chew over & mull over

The noun musing (act of pondering, meditation, thought) emerged at much the same time as a verbal noun from the verb.  The noun museum was first used in the 1610s to describe the university building in Alexandria and was from the Latin museum (library, study), from the Ancient Greek mouseion (place of study, library or museum, school of art or poetry (originally “a temple or shrine of the Muses”).  The earliest use in reference to English institutions was in the mid-seventeenth century when it was applied to libraries (in the sense of collections of books, documents and other manuscripts) for scholarly study (1640s) while the modern idea of a physical "building or part of a building set aside as a repository and display place for objects relating to art, literature, or science" dates from the 1680s.  Muse is a noun & verb, muser & musing are nouns, musing is a verb museful an adjective and musingly & musefully are adverbs; the noun plural is muses.

Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton (circa 1782) by George Romney.  Emma Hamilton (1765-1815) was the mistress of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson (1758-1805) and muse of the portraitist, George Romney (1734-1802).

The acronym MUSE (Mainstream US English) seems first to have appeared in 1997 and describes what used to be called GA (General American), the unofficial standard accent of the United States.  It’s essentially the accent of much of the Midwest and the West and remains by far the most frequently heard on US broadcast news (regardless of political leanings or affiliation).  It’s thus something of an unofficial standard but does differ from the previous “prestige accent”, the so-called “trans-Atlantic” which was clipped and precise but without the exaggerated form of the UK’s RP (received pronunciation).  The critique of MUSE is that (MUSE) is often treated as morally superior, a view which of course implies negative perceptions of “non-standard languages”, a process of stigmatization which perpetuates dialect discrimination which can result in the disparagement or other mistreatment of users of non-standard varieties.  The acronym MUSE is merely descriptive among academics in the field but is politically divisive in that it’s thought by many as the superior accent in a hierarchy (an idea familiar in the UK) in which the regional forms (such as the Southern Accent) or those influenced by ethnic identity (such as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)) are thought deviations from what is defined as “correct”.  A similar political movement is now promoting Ebonics (the construct a portmanteau of ebony + phonics which originally referenced the languages spoken by the descendants of slaves in the Caribbean, and North America but which was in the 1970s appropriated by African-American academic psychologist Professor Robert Williams 1930-2020), a defined sociolect of what technically is a sub-set of African-American English as an equally legitimate form of the language.  The dialect certainly differs from standard American English and its adoption as a political marker reflects the strain of multi-stranded separatism which now characterizes the positions taken by activists.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens because Ebonics is an example of how English has in the past evolved and, under the Raj, the British noted the adaptations their colonized peoples made to English and even adopted some of the words or expressions which proved useful.  Identity politics have of course evolved since the Raj and there’s now a view that to plunder something like Ebonics for the odd handy phrase would be an act of cultural appropriation and use must remain exclusive to people of color.

Lindsay Lohan, MUSE Magazine photo-shoot, January 2010.

Amuse (to divert the attention, beguile, delude) was a mid-fifteenth century verb from the Old French amuser (fool, tease, hoax, entrap; make fun of (literally "cause to muse" (in the sense of being distracted from some useful purpose)), the context being a- (from Latin ad- (through; towards), but here thought a causal prefix) + muser (ponder, stare fixedly).  This original sense in English is technically obsolete but echoes of the meaning live on in critiques the more serious-minded sometimes make of the more banal examples of popular culture.  For most of the eighteenth century, the word assumed the usual meaning “to deceive or cheat by first diverting attention”; the modern “bemuse” thus retaining something of the old meaning.  In the Ancient Greek amousos meant "without Muses (and hence "uneducated"), another connection some like to link to popular culture.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noted “amuse” was never used by Shakespeare, indicating it wasn’t in widespread use before the seventeenth century.

In Classical Greek Mythology, the original three goddesses were Aoede (song), Melete (meditation), and Mneme (memory) but later writers fleshed-out the roll-call and scholars consider the standard canon to be the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (religious music), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy).  In Roman mythology the Camenae were goddesses thought originally water deities, inhabiting a sacred grove and spring located outside the Porta Capena (gate in Rome's Servian Wall).  They were believed imbued with magic powers which could cure ailments and prophesy the future so in Roman religious rituals, the Camenae were offered libations of water and milk and it was the poet Quintus Ennius (circa 239–circa 169 BC) who identified them with the Muses; there they’ve remained.

Marilyn Monroe 1962 (left) & Lindsay Lohan 2011 (right).

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) has since her death been a visual muse for many in popular culture including Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Cynthia Sherman (b 1954), Richard Avedon (1923–2004), James Rosenquist (1933–2017), Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) & Richard Pettibone (b 1938), all of who followed their pursuit with a seriousness quite unfairly never afforded to her acting while she was alive.  Lindsay Lohan twice made a muse of Marilyn Monroe, in 2008 & 2011 reprising two of her photo sessions.

Reich

Reich (pronounced rahyk or rahykh (German))

(1) With reference to Germany or other Germanic agglomerations, empire; realm; nation.

(2) The German state, especially (as Third Reich) during the Nazi period.

(3) A term used (loosely) of (1) hypothetical resurrections of Nazi Germany or similar states and (2) (constitutionally incorrectly), the so-called “Dönitz government (or administration)” which existed for some three weeks after Hitler’s suicide. 

(4) Humorously (hopefully), a reference to a suburb, town etc with a population in which German influence or names of German origin are prominent; used also by university students when referring to departments of German literature, German history etc. 

(5) As a slur, any empire-like structure, especially one that is imperialist, tyrannical, racist, militarist, authoritarian, despotic etc.

1871: From the German Reich (kingdom, realm, state), from the Middle High German rīche, from the Old High German rīhhi (rich, mighty; realm), from the Proto-West Germanic rīkī, from the Proto-Germanic rīkijaz & rikja (rule), a derivative of rīks (king, ruler), from the Proto-Celtic rīxs and thus related to the Irish rí.  The influences were (1) the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to rule), from which is derived also the Latin rēx and (2) the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule".  Cognates include the Old Norse riki, the Danish rige & rig, the Dutch rike & rijk, the Old English rice & rich, the Old Frisian rike, the Icelandic ríkur, the Swedish rik, the Gothic reiki, the Don Ringe and the Plautdietsch rikj.  The German adjective reich (rich) is used with an initial lower case and as a suffix is the equivalent of the English -ful, used to form an adjective from a noun with the sense of “rich in”, “full of”.  As a German noun & proper noun, Reich is used with an initial capital.

Reich was first used in English circa 1871 to describe the essentially Prussian creation that was the German Empire which was the a unification of the central European Germanic entities.  It was never intended to include Austria because (1) Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) intricate series of inter-locking treaties worked better with Austria as an independent state and (2) he didn't regard them as "sufficiently German" (by which he would have meant "Prussian": Bismarck described Bavarians as "halfway between Austrians and human beings".  At the time, the German Empire was sometimes described simply as “the Reich” with no suggestion of any sense of succession to the Holy Roman Empire.  “Third Reich” was an invention of Nazi propaganda to “invent” the idea of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) as the inheritor of the mantle of Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814) and Bismarck.  The word soon captured the imagination of the British Foreign Office, German “Reichism” coming to be viewed as much a threat as anything French had ever been to the long-time British foreign policy of (1) maintaining a balance of power in a Europe in which no one state was dominant ("hegemonic" the later term) and (2) avoid British involvement in land-conflicts on "the continent".

The term "Fourth Reich" had been around for a while when it was co-opted by Edwin Hartrich’s (1913-1995) for his book The Fourth and Richest Reich (MacMillan 1980), a critique both of the modern German state and its influence on the European Economic Community (the EEC (1957) which by 1993 would morph into the European Union (EU).  The term is still sometimes used by those criticizing the German state, the not so subtle implication being Berlin gradually achieving by other means the domination of Europe which the Third Reich attempted by military conquest.  Fourth Reich is also sometimes used, erroneously to describe the two-dozen day “administration” of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; German head of state 30 April-23 May 1945) who in Hitler’s will was appointed Reich President (and therefore head of state); the so-called “Flensburg Government”.  That’s wrong and the only difference of opinion between constitutional theorists is whether it was (1) the mere coda to the Third Reich or (2) a charade, the German state ceasing to exist by virtue of events on the ground, a situation the finalization of the surrender arrangements on 8 May merely documented.  The latter view certainly reflects reality and in a legal sense the formal existence of a German state was required to ensure the validity of the surrender and other administrative acts; the consensus is the German state ceased to exist on 8 May 1945.  That the Allied occupying forces allowed the obviously pointless “Dönitz administration” to “function” for some three weeks has been the subject of historical debate.  Some have suggested there were those in London & Washington who contemplated using (at least temporarily) the “Flensburg Government” as a kind of “administrative agent” and it's true Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) did briefly flirt with the idea.  However, what's more plausible was it was so unexpected and no planning (military or political) had been had undertaken to deal with such a thing: "Hitler in his bunker was one thing, an admiral in Flensburg was another".

Hartrich’s thesis was a particular deconstruction of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), the unexpectedly rapid growth of the economy of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) in the 1950s and 1960s which produced an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  There were many inter-acting factors at play during the post-war era but what couldn’t be denied was the performance of the FRG’s economy and Hartrich attributed it to the framework of what came to be called the Marktwirt-schaft market economy with a social conscience), a concept promoted by Professor Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) while working as a consultant to the Allied occupying forces in the immediate aftermath of the war.  When the FDR was created in 1949, he entered politics, serving as economy minister until 1963 when he became Chancellor (prime-minister).  His time as tenure was troubled (he was more technocrat than politician) but soziale Marktwirtschaft survived his political demise and it continues to underpin the economic model of the modern German state.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the German edition of GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine, August 2010.  Although published in the Fourth Reich, the photo-shoot by photographer Ellen Von Unwerth (b 1954) took place on Malibu Beach, California during June 2010.  Sommerlust is not as exciting as it may sound to English-speaking ears; it translates as “summer pleasure”

Hartrich was a neo-liberal, then a breed just beginning to exert its influence in the Western world, but he also understood that the introduction of untrammelled capitalism to Europe was likely to sow the seeds of its own destruction but he insists the “restoration” of the “…profit motive as the prime mover in German life was a fundamental step…” to economic prosperity and social stability.  Of course the unique circumstances of the time (the introduction of the Deutsche Mark which enjoyed stability under the Bretton Woods system (1944), the outbreak of the Cold War, the recapitalization of industry and the provision of new plant & equipment with which to produce goods to be sold into world markets under the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (1947)) produced conditions which demand attention but the phenomenal growth can’t be denied.  Nor was it denied at the time; within the FRG, even the socialist parties by 1959 agreed to build their platform around “consumer socialism”, a concession Hartrich wryly labelled “capitalism's finest hour”.  The Fourth and Richest Reich was not a piece of economic analysis by an objective analyst and nor did it much dwell on the domestic terrorism which came in the wake of the Wirtschaftswunder, the Baader-Meinhof Group (the Red Army Faction (RAF)) and its ilk discussed as an afterthought in a few pages in an epilogue which included the bizarre suggestion Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015; FRG Chancellor 1974–1982) should be thought a latter-day Bismarck; more than one reviewer couldn’t resist mentioning Hitler himself had once accorded the same honor to the inept Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945).

The word "Reich" does sometimes confuse non-specialists who equate it with the German state, probably because the Third Reich does cast such a long shadow.  Murdoch journalist Samantha Maiden (b 1972) in a piece discussing references made to the Nazis (rarely a good idea except between consenting experts in the privacy of someone don's study) by a candidate in the 2022 Australian general election wrote:

The history of the nation-state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: German Empire (1871–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1945).

It's an understandable mistake and the history of the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods but that doesn't include the Weimar Republic.  The point about what the British Foreign Office labelled "Reichism" was exactly what the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) as a "normal" democratic state, was not.  The Reich's three epochs (and there's some retrospectivity in both nomenclature and history) were the Holy Roman Empire (1800-1806), Bismarck's (essentially Prussian) German Empire (1871-1918) & the Nazi Third Reich (1933-1945).  

The First Reich: the Holy Roman Empire, 800-1806

The Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the early Middle Ages, the popular identification with Germany because the empire’s largest territory after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany.  On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III (circa 760-816; pope 795-816) crowned Charlemagne (747–814; King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans (and thus retrospectively Holy Roman Emperor) from 800)) as Emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Despite the way much history has been written, it wasn’t until the fifteenth century that “Holy Roman Empire” became a commonly used phrase.

Leo III, involved in sometimes violent disputes with Romans who much preferred both his predecessor and the Byzantine Empress in Constantinople, had his own reasons for wishing to crown Charlemagne as Emperor although it was a choice which would have consequences for hundreds of years.  According to legend, Leo ambushed Charlemagne at Mass on Christmas day, 800 by placing the crown on his head as he knelt at the altar to pray, declaring him Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans), in one stroke claiming staking the papal right to choose emperors, guaranteeing his personal protection and rejecting any assertion of imperial authority by anyone in Constantinople.  Charlemagne may or may not have been aware of what was to happen but much scholarship suggests he was well aware he was there for a coronation but that he intended to take the crown in his own hands and place it on his head himself.  The implications of the pope’s “trick” he immediately understood but, what’s done is done and can’t be undone and the lesson passed down the years, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) not repeating the error at his coronation as French Emperor in 1804.

Some historians prefer to date the empire from 962 when Otto I was crowned because continuous existence there began but, scholars generally concur, it’s possible to trace from Charlemagne an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role.  Not all were, at the time, impressed. Voltaire sardonically recorded one of his memorable bon mots, noting the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."  The last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II (1768–1835; Holy Roman Emperor 1792-1806) dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after Napoleon's creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The Second Reich: the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, 1871-1918

German Empire, 1914.

The German Empire existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Kaiser (Emperor) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic, remembered as the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, most ruled by royal families.  Although Prussia became one of several kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory and certainly the greatest military power and the one which exercised great influence within the state; a joke at the time was that most countries had an army whereas the Prussian Army had a country.

To a great extent, the Second Reich was the creation of Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; chancellor of the North German Confederation 1867-1871 and of the German Empire 1871-1890), the politician who dominated European politics in the late nineteenth although his time in office does need to be viewed through sources other than his own memoirs.  After Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, without his restraining hand, the empire embarked on a bellicose new course that led ultimately to World War I (1914-1918), Germany’s defeat and the end the reign of the House of Hohenzollern and it was that conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople.  Following the Kaiser’s abdication, the empire collapsed in the November 1918 revolution and the Weimar Republic which followed, though not the axiomatically doomed thing many seem now to assume, was for much of its existence beset by political and economic turmoil.  

The Third Reich: the Nazi dictatorship 1933-1945

Nazi occupied Europe, 1942.

“Nazi Germany” is in English the common name for the period of Nazi rule, 1933-1945.  The first known use of the term “Third Reich” was by German cultural historian Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925) in his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich).  Van den Bruck, a devotee of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and a pan-German nationalist, wrote not of a defined geographical entity or precise constitutional arrangement.  His work instead explored a conceptualized (if imprecisely described) and idealized state of existence for Germans everywhere, one that would (eventually) fully realize what the First Reich might have evolved into had not mistakes been made, the Second Reich a cul-de-sac rendered impure by the same democratic and liberal ideologies which would doom the Weimar Republic.  Both these, van den Bruck dismissed as stepping stones on the path to an ideal; Germans do seem unusually susceptible to being seduced by ideals.

In the difficult conditions which prevailed in Germany at the time of the book’s publication, it didn’t reach a wide audience, the inaccessibility of his text not suitable for a general readership but, calling for a synthesis of the particularly Prussian traditions of socialism and nationalism and the leadership of a Übermensch (a idea from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) which describes a kind of idealized man who probably can come into existence only when a society is worthy of him), his work had obvious appeal to the Nazis.  It was said to have been influential in the embryonic Nazi Party but there’s little to suggest it contributed much beyond an appeal to the purity of race and the idea of the “leader” (Führer) principle, notions already well established in German nationalist traditions.  The style alone might have accounted for this, Das Dritte Reich not an easy read, a trait shared by the dreary and repetitive stuff written by the party “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946).  After Rosenberg was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and sentenced to death by hanging, a joke circulated among the assembled journalists that it would have been fair to add a conviction for “crimes against literature”, a variation on the opinion his fellow defendant Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945) should also have been indicted for “crimes against poetry”.  Von Schirach though avoided the hangman's noose he deserved.        

A book channeling Nietzsche wasn’t much help for practical politicians needing manifestos, pamphlets and appealing slogans and the only living politician who attracted some approbation from van den Bruck was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The admiration certainly didn’t extend to Hitler; unimpressed by his staging of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923), van den Bruck dismissed the future Führer with a unusually brief deconstruction, the sentiment of which was later better expressed by another disillusioned follower: “that ridiculous corporal”.  The term “Third Reich” did however briefly enter the Nazi’s propaganda lexicon and William L Shirer (1904–1993) in his landmark The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) reported that in the 1932 campaign for the presidency, Hitler in a speech at Berlins's Lustgarten (a place which, again perhaps disappointing some, translates as “pleasure garden”) used the slogan: “In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband”.  Shirer's book is now dated and some of his conceptual framework has always attracted criticism but it remains a vivid account of the regime's early years, written by an observer who actually was there. 

The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Empire) between 1933-1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) between 1943 to 1945 but so much of fascism was fake and depended for its effect on spectacle so the Nazis were attracted to the notion of claiming to be the successor of a German Empire with a thousand year history, their own vision of the Nazi state being millennialist.  After they seized power, the term “Third Reich” occasionally would be invoked and, more curiously, the Nazis for a while even referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich (Interim Reich) but as the 1930s unfolded as an almost unbroken series of foreign policy triumphs for Hitler, emphasis soon switched to the present and the future, the pre-Beer Hall Putsch history no longer needed.  It was only after 1945 that the use of “Third Reich” became almost universal although the earlier empires still are almost never spoken of in that way, even in academic circles.

Van den Bruck had anyway been not optimistic and his gloominess proved prescient although his people did chose to walk (to destruction) the path he thought they may fear to tread.  In the introduction to Das Dritte Reich he wrote: “The thought of a Third Empire might well be the most fatal of all the illusions to which they have ever yielded; it would be thoroughly German if they contented themselves with day-dreaming about it. Germany might perish of her Third Empire dream.”  He didn’t live to see the rise and fall of the Third Reich, taking his own life in 1925, a fate probably not unknown among those who read Nietzsche at too impressionable an age and never quite recover.

Wilhelm Reich, Hawkwind and the Orgone Accumulator

Sketch of the orgone accumulator.

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a US-based, Austrian psychoanalyst with a troubled past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his many books widely were read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards mono-causality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London (United Artists UAD 60037/8; referred to usually as Space Ritual) (1973).

The orgone accumulator was an apparently phoney device but one which inspired members of the science fiction (SF) flavored band Hawkwind to write the song Orgone Accumulator which, unusually, was first released on a live recording, Space Ritual, a 1973 double album containing material from their concerts in 1972.  Something of a niche player in the world of 1970s popular music Hawkwind, perhaps improbably, proved more enduring than many, their combination of styles attracting a cult following which endures to this day.