Dwarf

Dwarf (pronounced dwawrf)

(1) A person of abnormally small stature owing to a pathological condition, especially one suffering from cretinism or some other disease that produces disproportion or deformation of features and limbs.  (In human pathology, dwarfism is usually defined, inter-alia, as an adult height less than 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in).

(2) In zoology & botany, an animal or plant much smaller than the average of its kind or species.

(3) In European folklore, a being in the form of a small, often misshapen and ugly, man, usually having magic powers.

(4) In Norse mythology, any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.

(5) In astronomy, a small version of a celestial body (planet, moon, galaxy, star etc).

(6) Of unusually small stature or size; diminutive; to become stunted or smaller.

Pre 900: From the Middle English dwerf, dwergh, dwerw & dwerȝ, from the Old English dweorh & dweorg (dwarf), replacing the Middle English dwerg and ultimately from the Proto-Germanic dwergaz.  It was cognate with the Scots dwerch, the Old High German twerg & twerc (German Zwerg), the Old Norse dvergr (Swedish dvärg), the Old Frisian dwirg (West Frisian dwerch), the Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch & twerg (German & Low German Dwarg & Dwarch) and the Middle Dutch dwerch & dworch (Dutch dwerg).  The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas gave rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge which led to dwery, forms sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects.  Dwarf is a noun and verb, dwarfness & dwarfishness are nouns, dwarfish & dwarflike are adjectives and dwarfishly is an adverb.  The plural forms are dwarves and dwarfs.  Dwarfs was long the common plural in English but after JRR Tolkien (1892-1973) used dwarves, his influence was enough to become the standard plural form for mythological beings.  For purposes non-mythological, dwarfs remains the preferred form.

The M Word

1970 MG Midget.

Dwarf seems still to be an acceptable term to describe those with dwarfism and Little People of America (LPA), the world’s oldest and largest dwarfism support organization (which maintains an international, membership-based organization for people with dwarfism and their families) has long campaigned to abolish the use of the word “midget” in the context of short humans.  The objection to midget is associative.  It was never part of the language of medicine and it was never adopted as official term to identify people with dwarfism, but was used to label used those of short stature who were on public display for curiosity and sport, most notoriously in the so-called “freak shows”.  Calling people “midgets” is thus regarded as derogatory.  Midget remains an apparently acceptable word to use in a historic context (midget submarine, MG Midget et al) or to describe machinery (midget car racing; the Midget Mustang aerobatic sports airplane) but no new adoptions have been registered in recent years.  The LPA is also reporting some supportive gestures, noting with approval the decision of the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) to revise the nomenclature used in the US standards for grades of processed raisins by removing five references to the term “midget”.  Although obviously a historically benign use of the word, its removal was a welcome display of cultural sensitivity.

An interesting outlier however is midget wrestling, a field in which the participants are said enthusiastically to support the label, citing its long traditions and the marketing value of the brand.  Although in the late twentieth century, midget wrestling’s popularity diminished in the last decade there’s be a resurgence of interest and the sport is now a noted content provider for the streaming platforms which run live and recorded footage.  Since the 1970s, midget wrestling has included styles other than the purely technical form with routines extending from choreographed parody and slapstick performances to simulated sexual assault.  These innovations have attracted criticism and the suggesting it’s a return to the freak shows of earlier centuries but audiences in the target demographic seem appreciative and, noting the success of a number of tours and operators, Major League Wrestling in 2022 announced the creation of a midget division.

The short stature of Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) with (left to right), with Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia (Rome, 1943), with Albert I, King of the Belgians (Frence, 1915), with his wife, Princess Elena of Montenegro (Rome 1937) & with Adolf Hitler, observing navy maneuvers (Gulf of Naples, 1938).  Note his DPRKesque hats.

Technically, Victor Emmanuel didn’t fit the definition of dwarfism which sets a threshold of adult height at 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m), the king about 2 inches (50 mm) taller (or less short) and it’s thought the inbreeding not uncommon among European royalty might have been a factor, both his parents and grandparents being first cousins.  However, although not technically a dwarf, that didn’t stop his detractors in Italy’s fascist government calling him (behind his back) il nano (the dwarf), a habit soon picked up the Nazis as der Zwerg (the dwarf) (although Hermann Göring was said to have preferred der Pygmäe (the pygmy)).  In court circles he was know also, apparently affectionately as la piccola sciabola (the little sabre) a nickname actually literal in origin because the royal swordsmith had to forge a ceremonial sabre with an unusually short blade for the diminutive sovereign to wear with his many military uniforms.  His French-speaking Montenegrin wife stood a statuesque six feet (1.8 m) tall and always called him mon petit roi (my little king).  It was a long and happy marriage and genetically helpful too, his son and successor very much taller although his was to be a tortured existence.  Still, in his unhappiness he stood tall and that would have been appreciated by the late Duke of Edinburgh who initially approved of the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to the Prince of Wales on the basis that she “would breed some height into the line”.

In cosmology, the word dwarf is applied to especially small versions of celestial bodies.  A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy of between several hundred and several billion stars, (the Milky Way may have as many as billion) and astronomers have identified many sub-types of dwarf galaxies, based on shape and composition.  A dwarf planet is a small, planetary-mass object is in direct orbit of a star, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right.  Best-known dwarf planet is now Pluto which used to be a planet proper but was in 2006 unfortunately down-graded by the humorless types at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) who are in charge of such things.  It’s hoped one day this decision will be reversed so Pluto will again be classified a planet.  Dwarf planets are of interest to planetary geologists because despite their size, they may be geologically active bodies.  The term dwarf star was coined when it was realized the reddest stars could be classified as brighter or dimmer than our sun and they were created the categories “giant star” (brighter) and dwarf star (dimmer).  As observational astronomy improved, the

With the development of infrared astronomy there were refinements to the model to include (1) the dwarf star (the “generic” main-sequence star), (2) the red dwarf (low-mass main-sequence star), (3) the yellow dwarfs are (main-sequence stars with masses comparable to that of the Sun, (4) the orange dwarf (between a red dwarf and yellow/white stars), (5) the controversial blue dwarf which is a hypothesized class of very-low-mass stars that increase in temperature as they near the end of their main-sequence lifetime, (6) the white dwarf which is the remains of a dead star, composed of electron-degenerate matter and thought to be the final stage in the evolution of stars not massive enough to collapse into a neutron star or black hole, (7) the black dwarf which is theorized as a white dwarf that has cooled to the point it no longer emits visible light (it’s thought the universe is not old enough for any white dwarf to have yet cooled to black & (8) the brown dwarf, a sub-stellar object not massive enough to ever fuse hydrogen into helium, but still massive enough to fuse deuterium.

Coolest dwarf of all is (9) the ultra-cool dwarf (first defined in 1997), somewhat deceptively named for non cosmologists given the effective temperature can be as high as 2,700 K (2,430°C; 4,400°F); in space, everything is relative.  Because of their slow hydrogen fusion compared to other types of low-mass stars, their life spans are estimated at several hundred billion years, with the smallest lasting for about 12 trillion years.  As the age of the universe is thought to be only 13.8 billion years, all ultra-cool dwarf stars are relatively young and models predict that at the ends of their lives the smallest of these stars will become blue dwarfs instead of expanding into red giants.

The events towards the conclusion of the nineteenth century German fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs make ideal reading for young children.  Her evil step-mother has apparently killed poor Snow White so the seven disappointed dwarfs lay her body in a glass coffin.  The very next, a handsome prince happens upon the dwarfs’ house in the forest and is so captivated by her beauty he asks to take her body back to his castle.  To this the dwarfs agree but while on the journey, a slight jolt makes Snow White come to life and the prince, hopelessly in love, proposes and Snow White accepts.  Back at the palace, the prince invites to the wedding all in the land except Snow White's evil stepmother.

One of the seven dwarfs looking at Snow White.

The step-mother however crashes the wedding and discovers the beautiful Snow White is the bride.  Enraged, she attempts again to kill her, but the prince protects her and, learning the truth from his bride, forces step-mother to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead.  That takes not long and once she drops dead, the wedding ceremony resumes.  The prince and Snow White live happily ever after.

The condition achondroplasiaphobia describes those with a “fear of little people".  The construct is achondroplasia (the Latin a- (not) +‎ the Ancient Greek chondro- (cartilage) + the New Latin‎ -plasia (growth); the genetic disorder that causes dwarfism) + phobia (from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) from φόβος (phóbos) (fear).  The condition, at least to the extent of being clinically significant, is thought rare and like many of the especially irrational phobias is induced either by (1) a traumatic experience, (2) depictions in popular culture or (3) reasons unknown.  Achondroplasiaphobia has never appeared in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  In 2006, it was reported that while dining at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, after noticing two people of short stature had entered the restaurant, Lindsay Lohan suffered an "anxiety attack" and hyperventilated to the extent she had to take "an anti-anxiety pill" to calm down.  To her companions she repeatedly said "I’m so scared of them!"  A spokesperson for the LPA responded by suggesting Ms Lohan should "...treat her fear the same as she would a fear of any other protected minority population.  If that fails, she might find diversity training to be useful."

Plutonium & Uranium

Plutonium (pronounced ploo-toh-nee-uhm)

A radioactive chemical element that is artificially derived from uranium, plutonium is a highly toxic metallic transuranic element.  It occurs in trace amounts in uranium ores and is produced in a nuclear reactor by neutron bombardment of uranium-238. The most stable and important isotope, plutonium-239, readily undergoes fission and is used as a reactor fuel in nuclear power stations and in nuclear weapons. Symbol: Pu; atomic no: 94; half-life (plutonium 239): 24,360 years; valency: 3, 4, 5, or 6; relative density (alpha modification): 19.84; melting point: 1184°F (640°C); boiling point: 5846°F (3230°C); specific gravity 19.84.  Its longest-lived isotope is Plutonium 244 with a half-life of 77 million years.

1941: The construct was Pluto (the (now dwarf-) planet), +–ium (the element ending suffix from the Latin -um (neuter singular morphological suffix) and based on Latin terms for metals such as ferrum (iron).  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements.  Plutonium was discovered at the University of California, Berkeley and so named because it follows the recently discovered neptunium in the periodic table and, at the time, Pluto followed Neptune in the Solar System.  The name plutonium earlier had been proposed for barium and was used sometimes in this sense early in the nineteenth century.

Pluto was from the Latin Plūtō, from the Ancient Greek Πλούτων (Ploútōn) (god of the underworld”).  In Greek mythology & Roman mythology, Pluto is remembered as the Greco-Roman god of the underworld but the ultimate origin was the Greek Ploutōn (god of wealth), from ploutos (wealth, riches (thought probably used originally in the sense of “overflowing”), from the primitive Indo-European root pleu- (to flow); the alternative Greek name Hades is also related to wealth because it is from beneath the earth that lie valuable metals & precious gems.  Although some have expressed doubt, the accepted history is it was then eleven year old Ms Venetia Burney (1918–2009) who suggested the name Pluto for the newly discovered (then) planet, aware of the procedure apparently because her uncle had earlier nominated Phobos and Deimos as names for the moons of Mars.  In 2006, the humorless International Astronomical Union (IAU) made its scandalous decision to declare, on highly technical grounds, that Pluto was not a planet but a mere dwarf and this inspired the American Dialect Society to coin the verb "to pluto" meaning "to demote or devalue something".

Uranium (pronounced yoo-rey-nee-uhm)

A white, lustrous, radioactive, metallic element, it has compounds used in photography and in coloring glass, the 235 isotope used in atomic and hydrogen bombs and as nuclear fuel in fission reactors.  A radioactive silvery-white metallic element of the actinide series, it occurs in several minerals including pitchblende, carnotite, and autunite.  Symbol: U; atomic no: 92; atomic wt: 238.0289; half-life of most stable isotope (uranium 238): 451 × 10⁹ years; valency: 2-6; relative density: 18.95 (approx.); melting point: 2075°F (1135°C); boiling point: 7473°F (4134°C); specific gravity 18.95.

1789: The construct was Uranus + (the planet) the –ium.  The element was named (using the conventions of Modern Latin) because the discovery of the planet had recently been announced.  Uranus was from the Latin Ūranus, from the Ancient Greek Οὐρανός (Ouranós), from οὐρανός (ouranós) (sky, heaven).

Uranus Fudge Factory, 14400 State Hwy Z, St Robert, Missouri 65584, USA.

Nuclear Weapons

Of the first three atomic bombs built in 1945, two used plutonium as fissile material while one used uranium.  Two of the many problems faced in the project were (1) production of uranium of the required purity was slow but a bomb of this type was (relatively) simple to produce and (2) plutonium was more abundant but the engineering to create such a bomb was intricate, the results uncertain.  Two designs were thus concurrently developed: a (relatively) simple trigger-type device and a more complex implosion-type.  Trinity, code-name for the world’s first detonation of a nuclear device (New Mexico, July 1945), was one of the latter, an implosion-type plutonium bomb.  It was chosen because this was a genuine test, there being no certainty it would work whereas the trigger-type uranium device, ultimately dropped on Hiroshima a month later, was never tested because the scientists and engineers had such confidence in its design.  After the war, it was assumed the somewhat inefficient trigger mechanism wouldn’t again be used but technical problems saw production temporarily resumed, these stop-gap A-Bombs remaining in service until 1951.

Models of short and medium-range ballistic missiles at DPRK Annual Flower Show, Pyongyang, April 2013.

Lindsay Lohan in mushroom cloud T-shirt.

It’s no longer certain the uranium-based bomb used again Hiroshima in August 1945 remains a genuine one-off.  It’s certain that in the sixty-odd years since Trinity, every nuclear weapon except the Hiroshima device was plutonium-based but, beginning in 2006, the DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) conducted six nuclear tests and, despite advances in monitoring and detection techniques, it’s not clear what material was used although the consensus is all were fission (A-Bombs) and not fusion (H-Bombs) devices.  The tests, by historic standards, were low-yield, suggesting uranium, but this could be misleading because even a failed test of can produce a nuclear blast called a fizzle (when a detonation fails grossly to meet its expected yield).  The DPRK's programme will have had the odd fizzle but then so has every nation at some stage of the process but by historic standards it must be judged a success.  It was hampered by sanctions and international opposition (Beijing and Moscow as unwilling as Western powers to help the hermit kingdom join the nuclear club) but achieved the  necessary technology transfer by swapping ballistic missile blueprints with Pakistan which had detonated it's first fission device in 1998 but lacked a robust delivery system to counter the "nuclear threat" from India which had tested as early as 1974.  That transaction was illustrative of one of the two concerns the West harbours about the DPRK bomb (1) some sort of accident (and that covers everything from an unplanned detonation in some unfortunate place to a missile launch which malfunctions and hits a populated area) and (2) nuclear proliferation which happens because the technology is used by Pyongyang in the barter economy as a trade for something desirable but not available because of sanctions or other trade restrictions.

Pox

Pox (pronounced poks)

(1) In human & animal pathology, a disease characterized by multiple skin pustules, as smallpox, associated with the pockmarks left by the purulent skin eruptions.

(2) Historically, a reference to syphilis and sometimes to other venereal diseases (now called sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)) (archaic).

(3) In plant pathology, a disease of sweet potatoes, characterized by numerous pitlike lesions on the roots, caused by a fungus, Streptomyces ipomoea (also called soil rot and distinct from the condition root rot).

(4) In idiomatic use (usually as "a pox on (someone or something)"), an interjection to express distaste, rejection, aversion etc and thus a synonym of curse; the adjective poxy is a variation of the idea.

(5) As the acronym POx, variously Pulse Oximetry, Pressure Oxidation, Partial Oxidation, Point of Exit, Plain Old XML & Purgeable Organic Halogens.

(6) As the acronym POX (or PoX), proof of X.

Circa 1480s: A spelling variant of pocks, the plural of pock, from the plural of the Middle English pocke.  Pox in the sense of “a disease characterized by eruptive sores" emerged in the late fifteenth century, a spelling alteration of pocks & pockes (used since the late thirteenth century in this context), the plural forms of the Middle English pocke (pustule).  From the sixteenth century, it became the common word with which to refer to syphilis.  Pock (pustule raised on the surface of the body in an eruptive disease) was from the Middle English pok, from the Old English poc & pocc (pock; pustule; ulcer), from the Proto-Germanic pukkaz & pukkǭ (pock; swelling) and puh & puhh (to swell up; blow us), from the primitive Indo-European beu & bew- (to grow; swell).  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch pocke, the Dutch pok, the East Frisian pok, the dialectal German Pfoche, the Low German & German Pocke, the French pocque was also from Germanic sources.  The present participle is poxing and the past participle poxed; the noun plural is poxes.

As surnames, Pox & Pocks both long pre-dated the use in pathology and were of Germanic origin, recorded in Bavaria & Austria as a variant Of the Bavaria Böck) and the North German Beck (Baker).  Pox may in some cases have been an alternative spelling of these but is documented as a nickname for a “short man”, from the Low German Pōk (young child; Dwarf).  In some regions it may have been a Germanized form of both the Hungarian Pók and the Slovenian & Croatian Pok common in the Balkans.  In the US, Pox appears to have been an Americanized version of Pocks, most prevalent in the north-eastern states during the nineteenth century.

Coincidently, the Proto-Turkic bok means “dirt, dung” and was cognate with the Turkish bok & Chuvash пӑх (păh); in vulgar slang used predictably in the same sense as “shit” (solid excretory product evacuated from the bowel); the word persists in modern Azerbaijani.  The now idiomatic deprecatory adjective poxy entered English in the late nineteenth century as terms of distaste and disapprobation, having been in the medical literature sin 1853 in the sense of “infected with pox; pocked-marked”.

The noun pock-mark (pockmark later prevailed) dates from the 1670s and was used to describe “the scar or pit left by a pustule" after an infection, particularly after smallpox where the effects were most severe and it was noted as a verb & adjective after 1756.  The earlier word in this sense was the mid-fifteenth century pokbrokyn.  Pock-marked was used by astronomers to refer to the craters visible on the surface of the moon.

Cow-pox (also cowpox), was a disease of cattle, noted from the 1780s and the fluid of the vesicles made it transmissible to humans.  It played an important role in the history of inoculation because it was noted milkmaids (with much exposure to cowpox) enjoyed an almost complete immunity to smallpox.  Chicken-pox was first described circa 1730 and the name is thought either an allusion to the mildness of the condition (compared to syphilis (the pox) or smallpox) or it being most associated with children, or the resemblance of the lumps on the skin to chick-peas.  In medical Latin, the circa 1765 varicella (chicken-pox) was an irregular diminutive of variola, the adjectival form varicellous.  Smallpox, the acute, highly contagious disease and frequently (fatal in a quarter to a third of unvaccinated cases) deadly disease was first so named in the 1510s, as small pokkes, which distinguished the symptoms from the great pox (syphilis).

The famous exchange…

“You sir shall die either on the gallows or of the pox (ie from a STD)”.

“That sir, will depend on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress”.

.. has been attributed to many over the last two centuries odd so the ultimate source is uncertain but the first known record of what may anyway have been an apocryphal exchange appears to have been published in 1784 the London periodical The European Magazine.  Supposedly, protagonist and antagonist were the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) and Samuel Foote (1720-1777) who met at a dinner held in his house by Sir Francis Blake Delaval. (1727–1771).

In the decades which followed, frequently the tale was re-told, sometimes with different participants (although Lord Sandwich was often named) and although occasionally embellished, what’s more interesting is that euphemisms and niceties were sometimes adopted; “the halter” replacing references to nooses and gallows and “p-x and “certain disease” substituting for pox.  Whether the changes reflected editorial taste or changes in what readers thought acceptable in print isn’t clear but by the early nineteenth century the anecdote was published with the punch-line but not the setup sentence.  That may however have been because, being well-known, by then a mere allusion was probably more funny still, a technique used to effect in the House of Commons as recently as 1968.  Whether or not the exchange ever happened or between who will never be known with certainty but the rejoinder is of such voltairesque quality it’s been attributed to more than half-a-dozen political notables.

Monkeypox

Little political energy could be summoned in the West to deal with climate change while it appeared to afflict only Africans, Arabs, Asians and animals (those inhabiting the places Mr Trump would have called “shithole countries”).  It took Europe & North America roasting, flooding and burning to focus minds.  Similarly, monkeypox (a zoonotic virus in the genus Orthopoxvirus) although for decades endemic in parts of Africa, attracted little interest in the West until outbreaks in 2022 and most people had probably never heard of it until a rapid spread of cases began to be reported in the UK, Europe and the US.  On 23 July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with cases reported in 77 countries and territories, similar declaration in the past issued for Swine flu, polio, Ebola, Zika and Covid-19.

Monkeypox movement out of Africa 2022 tracked by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Monkeypox gained its name in 1958 when scientists in Denmark isolated the virus in laboratory monkeys in 1958, when two outbreaks of the disease occurred in monkey colonies.  It’s since become clear that a number of rodents are much more efficient vectors of transmission and the virus is neither exclusive too nor most prevalent in monkey populations but, in the way of these things, the name stuck.  This is not a new phenomenon; the famous Spanish flu linked to the pandemic of 1918-1920 picked up the name only because cases there were reported in the press in 1918 whereas news of those already detected in the US, Europe and the UK were suppressed by wartime censorship which wasn’t applied in neutral Spain.  Another case is Rubella which came to be known as “German” measles, simply because it was scientists in that country which identified and first describe the cause and there are many more, most associated with countries not the source of the disease which bears the name.  It’s not known where and where a person first was infected but a human case of monkeypox was first documented in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1970.  Since then, the DRC has always recorded the majority of infections although between then and 2022, it had spread to a number of African countries, cases beyond the continent rare until 2022.

Example of regional variations in reported transmission: Nigeria 2017-2022.

Other associations linked to the name monkeypox have also become controversial and the WHO announced it is to receive a new name, noting comments from scientists and public health officials that the current name is "discriminatory and stigmatizing" and it’s also inaccurate to name versions of the virus after parts of Africa.  Accordingly, the WHO has already renamed two clades (from the Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos) (shoot, branch, family) of the virus to avoid the stigma associated with geographical names: The variant formerly known as “Congo Basin'' will now be referred to as “Clade I” and the “West Africa” variant will be known as “Clade II”.  The first suggestion of a new name is hMPXV, to denote the human version of the monkeypox virus and rather than anything geographic locations, letters and numbers should be used, based on order of discovery. In that system, the lineage behind the current international outbreak would be dubbed hMPXV-B1.  Some local authorities have acted preemptively, Chicago public health authorities for example using the bland “MPV”.  Whatever it ends up being called however, in the West, like COVID-19, monkeypox may be here to stay.

Take-off point of 2022 spread charted by the Lancet.

One aspect of the epidemiology of monkeypox in the West is that some 95% of those diagnosed are gay or bi-sexual men (“men who have sex with men” now the preferred and most accurate terminology).  Activists from the relative LGBTQQIAAOP faction are among those advocating a change of name although this is unlikely to remove the stigmatization based on the rate of transmission among men who have sex with men; presumably a stigmatization associated with hMPXV-B1 (or whatever) must be thought less offensive than one linked with monkeypox, probably because  an alpha-numeric string is a step removed from any link with animals and thus the slur of bestiality.  In the 1980s, that was one of the complaints once it was revealed HIV/AIDS was probably a mutated monkey virus from Africa and, even in the pre-internet era, unsubstantiated theories soon circulated that the entry of the virus into the human system was linked to men having sex with monkeys, a slur on both African men and the gay community who at the point constituted the bulk of infections, almost all as a result of sexual contact.  The consensus now is that HIV/AIDS entered human circulation (perhaps even as long ago as the nineteenth century) because of blood-blood mixing while monkeys were being butchered as part of the bush-meat trade.  The monkeypox vector may have been the same.

Naming virus species is the responsibility of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) (the expert group which brought us COVID-19) but the WHO has decided to ask for the public’s help, announcing an “…open consultation for a new disease name for monkeypox.  Anyone wishing to propose new names can do so”.  A portal will soon be provided.

Bogus

Bogus (pronounced boh-guhs)

(1) Not genuine; counterfeit item; something spurious; a sham; based on false or misleading information or unjustified assumptions.

(2) In printing. a matter set (by union requirement) by a compositor and later discarded, duplicating the text of an advertisement for which a plate has been supplied or type set by another publisher.

(3) In computer programming, anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc).

(4) In philately, a fictitious issue printed for exclusively for collectors, often issued as if from a non-existent territory or country (as opposed to a forgery, which is an illegitimate copy of a genuine stamp).

(5) As calibogus, a US dialectical word describing a liquor made from rum and molasses (sometimes rum and spruce beer).

1827: An invention of US English, coined originally by the underworld to describe an apparatus for coining counterfeit currency.  The origin is unknown, etymologists noting the Hausa boko (to fake) and because bogus first appeared in the US, it’s possible the source arrived on a slave ship from West Africa.  An alternative speculation is it was a clipped form of the nineteenth century criminal slang tantrabogus (a menacing object), from a late eighteenth century colloquial Vermont word for any odd-looking object (which in the following century was used also in Protestant churches to mean "the devil").  The New England form may be connected to tantarabobs (a regionalism recorded in Devonshire name for the devil) although the most obvious link (for which there’s no evidence) is to bogy or bogey (in the sense of “the bogeyman”).  In this sense, bogus might thus be related to bogle (a traditional trickster from the Scottish Borders, noted for achieving acts of household trickery which sometimes operated at the level of petty crime.  The use of bogy & bogie by the military is thought unrelated because the evidence is it didn’t pre-date the use of radar (a bogie being an unidentified aircraft or missile, especially one detected as a blip on a radar display).

The noun came first, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tracing the first use to describe the counterfeiting apparatus to Ohio in 1927, the products of the nefarious minting having also picked up the name by at least 1838, adjectival use (counterfeit, spurious, sham) adopted the following year.  Later, bogus came to be applied to anything of poor quality, even if not something misrepresenting a brand-name (ie bogus in intended function).  The adoption by computer programmers (apparently in the 1980s) to refer to anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc was an example of English in action; they could have chosen any of bogus’s many synonyms but it was the word of choice and hackers use it too.  Bogus is an adjective and (an occasional) noun, bogotic is an adjective, bogusly is an adverb and bogusness a noun.

From the nerdy humor of programmers came the related bogon, the construct being bog(us) (fake, phony) + -on (the suffix used to form names of elementary particles or fundamental units) (the noun plural being bogons).  To programmers, the bogon was the the imaginary elementary particle of bogosity; the anti-particle to the cluon (the construct being clue (idea, notion, inkling) + -on (the plural being cluons) which was the imaginary elementary particle of cluefulness and thus the anti-particle to the bogon.  The slightly less nerdy network engineers adopted bogan to refer to an invalid Internet Protocol (IP) packet, especially one sent from an address not in use.  Clutron proved useful, a clutron an especially clever or well-informed nerd although it was also picked-up in the misogynistic word of on-line gaming where a slutron was a highly skilled female player a combination where meant she attracted hatred rather than admiration a make would usually enjoy.

The surname Bogus was borrowed from the Polish (masculine & feminine) forms Bogus & Boguś, or the Romanian Boguș (the plural of the proper noun being Boguses).  In the British Isles it was initially most common in Scotland before spreading south and is thought ultimately related to other named beginning with Bog- (Bogumił, Bogusław, Bogdan et al).  In Polish, Boguś is also a given name and listed as a back-formation (as a diminutive) from either Bogusław, Bogdan, Bogumił or Bogusław (+ -uś).

A real Ferrari 1963 250 GTO (left) and Temporoa's superbly made replica of a 1962 model (right).  US$70 million vs US$1.2 million. 

The synonyms can include fraudulent, pseudo, fake, faux, phony, false, fictitious, forged, fraudulent, sham, spurious, artificial, dummy, ersatz, imitation, pretended, pseudo, simulated, counterfeit but bogus is what’s known as a “loaded word”.  Bogus implies fake (and less commonly “of poor quality”) but just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it need be thought bogus.  Ferrari made only 39 (it can also be calculated at 36 or 41 depending on definitions) 250 GTOs and one has sold for US$70 million but it’s possible for experts to create an almost exact replica (indeed one of higher quality than an original although given the standard of some of the welding done in the factory in those years that's really not surprising) but it will only ever be worth a fraction of the real thing (a fine example offered for US$1.2 million).  Whether such a thing should be regarded as a replica, recreation, clone or whatever is something about which there's debate but few would dismiss such a work as bogus.  It really hangs on disclosure and representation.  With only 39 250 GTOs on the planet, all with well-documented provenance, it’s not possible to claim a replica is authentic but there are cars which have been produced in the hundreds or even thousands which some try to pass off as genuine; in these cases, they have created something as bogus as knock-off handbags.  One popular use of bogus is to describe various members of royal families who parade themselves in the dress military uniforms of generals or admirals, despite often having never served on been near a combat zone.  

With something digital, just about anyone can create an exact duplicate, indistinguishable from the source, hence the attraction of the non-fungible token (NFT) which, thus far, can’t be forged.  NFTs have been linked to real-world objects, as a sort of proof of ownership which seems strange given that actual possession or some physical certificate is usually sufficient, certainly for those with a 250 GTO in the garage but there are implications for the property conveyancing industry, NFTs possibly a way for real-estate transactions to be handled more efficiently.  For those producing items which attract bogus items (running shoes, handbags etc), there’s interest in attaching NFTs as a method of verification.

Humble beginnings: Publicity shot for the 1960 Ford Falcon.

When Ford released the Falcon in 1960, it was modest in just about every way except the expectations the company had that it successfully would counter the intrusion of the increasingly popular smaller cars which, worryingly, many buyers seemed to prefer to the increasingly large offerings from Detroit.  A success in its own right, the Falcon would provide the platform for the Mustang, the Fairlane, the Mercury Cougar and other variations which, collectively, sold in numbers which would dwarf those achieved by the original; it was one of the more profitable and enduring platforms of the twentieth century.  In the US, it was retired after a truncated appearance in 1970 but it lived on in South America and Australia, the nameplate in the latter market lasting until 2016, a run of over half a century during which the platform had been offered in seven generations in configurations as diverse as sedans, vans & pick-ups (utes), hardtop coupés, 4WDs, station wagons and long wheelbase executive cars.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase I leading three Holden Monaro (HT) GTS 350s, Bathurst 1969.

Most memorably however, between 1969-1972, it was also the basis of a number of thinly disguised racing cars, production of which was limited to not much more than was required by the rules of the time to homologate the strengthened or high-performance parts needed for use in competition.  The Falcon GT had been introduced in 1967 and had proved effective but the next year faced competition from General Motors’ (GM) Holden Monaro GTS which, with a 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) Chevrolet V8 out-performed the Ford which had by then had benefited from an increase in displacement from 289 cubic inches (4.7 litres) to 302 (4.9) which proved not enough.  The conclusion reached by both Ford & GM was of course to increase power so for 1969 the Falcon and Monaro appears with 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) and 350 (5.7) V8s; the power race was on.  Ford however decided to make sure of things and developed homologation-special with more power, some modification to improve durability and, with endurance racing in mind, a 36 (imperial) gallon (164 litre) fuel tank, quickly (and inexpensively) fabricated by welding together two standard tanks.  The car was called the GTHO (written variously in documents as also as G*T*H*O, GT-HO & G.T.H.O. (and as GT·HO on the glovebox lid)), HO apparently understood by the Ford engineers to mean “high output” but presented to the public as “handling options”, the company not wishing to frighten the horses with fears of racing cars being sold for use on the streets (and such a furore did ensue in 1972 which proved the GTHO’s death knell.

1970 Falcon GTHO Phase II.

If the 1967 GT had been something beyond what Ford in 1960 thought the Falcon might become, the GTHO would have been beyond their wildest imaginings.  Still usable as a road car, it also worked on the circuits although, because of a bad choice of tyre which was unsuited to the techniques of the drivers, it failed to win the annual Bathurst 500, then (as now), the race which really mattered.  Determined to win the 500, a revised GTHO was prepared and, in a novel move, was known as the Phase II (the original retrospectively re-christened the Phase I), the most obvious highlight of the revised specification a switch to Ford’s new Cleveland 351 V8 which, heavier and more powerful, replaced the Windsor 351.  Underneath however, there were changes which were just as significant with the suspension re-calibrated to suit both racing tyres and the driving style used in competition.  Said to have been developed with “a bucket of Ford’s money in one hand and a relief map of the Bathurst circuit in the other”, the Phase II drove like a real racer and probably few cars sold to the public have deliberately been engineered to produce so much oversteer.  On the track it worked and victory at Bathurst followed, something which drew attention from the early unreliability of the Cleveland 351, the implications of it’s less elaborate lubrication system not for some months appreciated.

1971 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III (Clone).

The Phase III followed in 1971 with increased power, the propensity to oversteer toned down and it proved even more successful, the legacy due to be continued by a Phase IV with four-wheel disk brakes (something probably more helpful than more power) but the project was abandoned after a moral panic induced by a Sydney newspaper which ran a front page which alleged “160mph (257 km/h) supercars” were about to fall into the hands of teenagers to use on city streets and highways.  That certainly frightened the horses and politicians, always susceptible to anything which appears in a tabloid, vowed to act and prevailed on the manufacturers to abandon the homologation specials.  Thus ended the era of the GTHO and also the similar machines being prepared by GM and Chrysler, the handful of Phase IV GTHOs built quietly sold off, never to see a race track although one did, most improbably, enjoy a brief, doomed career as a rally car.

1972 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IV.

Over the decades, as used cars, the surviving GTHOs (many destroyed in accidents on and off the track) have become collectable and of the 1222 made (including circa 115 of the (unofficial) Phase 1.5 with a milder (hydraulic valve lifters) Cleveland engine), it’s the Phase III (300 built) which is the most coveted at auction (the handful of Phase IVs seem to change hands mostly in private sales and the record is said to be circa Aus$2 million) and while the prices achieved track the state of the economy, the current record is believed to be Aus$1.3 million.  Based on what was essentially a taxicab which was produced in the hundreds of thousands, there’s an after-market ecosystem which produces all the parts required for one exactly (except for tags and serial numbers) to create one’s own GTHO at considerably less than what a real one now costs so it’s no surprise there are many acknowledged replicas (also described as clones etc) but the odd bogus example has also been unearthed.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IVs being prepared for racing, Melbourne, 1972.

Quite how many of the 287 Phase IIs survive isn’t known and the prices are high so it’s little surprise some have been tempted to misrepresent a bogus example as something real and there are legal implications to this, both criminal and civil.  There are even examples of the less desirable Falcon GTs and in 2011, in a judgment handed down in the District Court of Queensland (Sammut v De Rome [2011] QDC 294), a couple was ordered to pay the plaintiff AU$108,394.04 (US$107,200 at the then favorable exchange rate).  The defendants had sold to the plaintiff what they advertised as a 1969 Ford Falcon GT, a vehicle they had in 2006 purchased for Aus$18,000.  The plaintiff undertook due diligence, inspecting the car in person and in the company of a expert in bodywork before verifying with Ford Australia that the VIN (vehicle identification number) was legitimate car.  Once the VIN had been confirmed as belonging to a 1969 Falcon GT, a sale price of Aus$90,000 was agreed and the sale executed, the buyer having the car transported by trailer to Sydney.

Bogus & blotchy: Lindsay Lohan with fake tan.

Two years later, when the plaintiff attempted to sell the car, a detailed inspection revealed it was a bogus GT, a real GT’s VIN having been used to replace the one mounted on an ordinary 1969 Falcon, an x-ray examination of the firewall confirming the cutting and welding associated with the swap.  It was never determined who was responsible for creating the bogus GT and expert testimony given to the court confirmed that then, a non-GT Falcon of this year and condition was worth between Aus$10-15,000 while the value of an authentic GT was between Aus$65-70,000.  Accordingly, the plaintiff sued for breach of contract, requesting to be compensated to the extent of the difference between what he paid for the car and its current value, plus associated matters such as transport, interest and court costs.  The court found for the plaintiff in the sum of Aus$108,394.04 although the trial judge did note that the defendants likely didn't know the car was bogus, thereby opening for them the possibility of commencing action against the party from whom they purchased the thing, his honor mentioned that because of the civil statute of limitations, they had less than a month in which to file suit.  It's to be hoped they kept the car because in 2022, well-executed replicas of XW Falcon GTs are being advertised at more than Aus$125,000.