Garland

Garland (pronounced gahr-luhnd)

(1) A wreath or festoon of flowers, leaves, or other material, worn for ornament or as an honor or hung on something as a decoration; an accolade or mark of honor.

(2) To crown, adorn or deck with such an object.

(3) A representation of such a wreath or festoon.

(4) In publishing, a collection of short literary pieces, as poems and ballads; a literary miscellany.

(5) In nautical use, a band, collar, or grommet or ring of rope lashed to a spar for convenience in handling.

(6) In admiralty jargon, a netted bag used by sailors to store provisions.

(7) In mining, a metal gutter installed around the inside of a mineshaft, to catch water running down inside the shaft and funnel it into a drainpipe.

1275–1325: From the Middle English gerlande, gerelande, garlande & garland (used to mean both "wreath of flowers" & "crown of gold or silver), from the Old French garlande, garlaunde, gerlande & guerlande (from which Modern French gained guirlande) from the Frankish wierlōn & wieralōn, a frequentative form of the Frankish wierōn (to adorn, bedeck), from wiera (a gold thread), akin to the Old High German wieren (to adorn) & wiara (gold thread).  The Frankish forms alluded to the notion of "an ornament of refined gold" (most likely "of twisted gold wire"), from the Proto-Germanic wira- & wera-, a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root wei- (to turn, twist).  Variations of garland exist in many Romanic languages including the Old Spanish guarlanda, the French guirlande, the Italian ghirlanda and the Portuguese grinalda.  The verb in the sense of "to make a garland" or "to crown with a garland" emerged in the late sixteenth century.  Garland & garlanding are nouns & verbs, garlanded is a verb & adjective, garlander is a noun and garlandless is an adjective; the noun plural is garlands.

Commitment issues: Hamlet and Ophelia by Agnes Pringle (1853-1934)

Flowers appealed to William Shakespeare (1564–1616) as a literary device because their myriad of attributes, color, shape, fragrance, thorns, fragility et al, offered so many metaphors for the human condition.  In the plays, over two-hundred species of plants are mentioned and thirty-odd scenes are set in gardens or orchids.  In Hamlet (Act IV, scene 5), there’s a harvest in Ophelia’s garland speech to her brother Laertes:

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.  And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.  There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.  O, you must wear your rue with a difference.  There's a daisy.  I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. (Act IV, scene 5)

There were fantastic garlands did she come. Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples, that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. (Act IV, Scene 7)

There were fantastic garlands did she come, Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples. (Act IV, Scene 7)

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus or Rosmarinus officinalis (pre 2017)

Since Antiquity, rosemary has been associated with remembrance, Athenian students at study wore garlands of rosemary as a memory improvement tool.  The name is derived from the Latin rosmarinus (dew of the sea), a reference to its blue petals and habitat atop Mediterranean cliffs.  In Shakespeare's day, rosemary was in both the wedding bouquets carried by bridesmaids and the wreaths laid at funeral wreaths.  A contemporary poet, Robert Herrick (1591-1674) , wrote in a verse “Grow it for two ends, it matters not at all, Be it for my bridall or buriall."  In English folklore, a man who couldn't smell the fragrant shrub was thought incapable of loving a woman though in the same tradition, if rosemary was planted in front of a cottage, it was held to mean the woman was the head of the household.  That was one folk belief said to have caused the up-rooting of not a few plants.  Helpfully, it was said also to repel plague and witches while sleeping with a sprig beneath the pillow prevented nightmares.  But for Ophelia, distraught at her father's death and Hamlet's odd behavior, the mention of rosemary indicates to her brother and the Elizabethan audience her brittle feelings and lack of confidence: "Pray you, love, remember."

Daisy (Bellis perennis, bruisewort or woundwort)

The Daisy’s botanical name is friom the Latin bellis (pretty), the English from the Anglo Saxon daeges eage (day’s eye); poetically, that was because the petals open during the day and close at night.  Long associated with childhood and innocence, in Scotland and the north of England it’s known also as Bairnwort (bairn a dialectical word for child).  In Roman mythology, the daisy was the virginal nymph Belides who transformed herself into the flower to escape the sexual advances of the orchard god Vertumnus.  The flower was symbolic of the Greco-Roman goddesses Aphrodite and Venus as well as Freya, the Norse goddess of beauty and love for whom Friday is named. The legend is that daisies picked between noon and one can be dried and carried as a good luck charm and in English fields, to this day some children still make daisy chains although those who do grow up to become emos.  Unlike the other plants in Ophelia's garland, the daisy seems to possess only good connotations but Shakespeare has Ophelia announce the daisy but not hand it out, the implication being there’s no innocence or purity at court.

Pansy (Viola × wittrockiana)

The word pansy is from the French pensée (for thoughts), the botanical name tricolor a referece to the three main shades, white, purple and yellow, the heart shaped petals thought to help heal a broken heart, so it was known also as heartease.  Pansies, as Ophelia notes, are for thoughts and it was also used medicinally, a curative for cramps, hysteria and diarrhea in children.  In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy King Oberon mixes a potion with the flower's juice: if dropped on the eyelids of a sleeper, it was said they would awake to fall in love with whatever they first see, hence the unfortunate Titania, Oberon's wife, falling in love with a donkey.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Apparently, fennel is among the vegetables children most dislike.  Pre-dating Shakespeare, Fennel was long regarded as an emblem of false flattery, noted famously in Robert Greene’s (1558-1592) Quip for an Upstart Courtier (1592), the link apparently being the seeds popularity as an appetite suppressant to aid fasting pilgrims, thus becoming symbolic of things that appear to give sustenance but have none.  Empty flattery to hunger.  Shakespeare used fennel often, Falstaff mentioning it in Henry IV, Part 2 and for Ophelia, it’s an allusion to her sterile love affair with Hamlet.

Columbine (Aquilegia or granny's bonnet)

The Columbine, known also as granny’s bonnet, was a wild flower but its beauty made it a popular Elizabethan garden flower, the botanical name from the Latin aquila (eagle) because the petals were thought to resemble an eagle’s talons.  In a more gentle avian vein, the English is derived from the Latin columba (dove), a reference to its nectaries being vaguely reminiscent of the heads of doves.  To Shakespeare, the columbine had a number of symbolic associations.  The poet George Chapman (1559-1634) suggested it was emblematic of ingratitude and William Browne (1590–1645) declared it stood only for forsaken and neglected love for in England it also symbolized cuckoldom as the nectaries did look like horns.  More helpfully, as the "thankless flower", the seeds, if taken with wine, were said to induce labor.

Rue (Ruta graveolens or herb-of-grace)

By Shakespeare’s time, rue had been for centuries a symbol of sorrow and repentance and it’s a long, fabled history. Rue was the plant that King Mithridates VI of Pontus (135-16 BC) imbibed to protect himself against poisoning and the Greek physician Hippocrates (circa 460-circa 370 BC) recommended it to relieve rheumatic pains, heart palpitations and menopausal symptoms.  The herb's name is derived from the Greek ruta (repentance) and the Athenians used it while dining with foreigners to ward off evil demons, spells and spirits whereas in Ancient Rome it was said to improve eyesight.  Its other names, Herb o' Grace or Herb o' Sundays, refers to the sorrow and resulting grace one feels after true repentance and the suit of clubs in a deck of cards was modeled after rue's fleshy, oblong leaves.  It remains a call to regret and repent past evil deeds; due to its strong aromatic smell and bitter taste, the plant has long been symbolic of sorrow, regret and repentance, hence the expression “you’ll rue the day”.  In Elizabethan England (1558-1603), it was carried around as protection against plague and witchcraft and even as an insect repellent. When Ophelia hands it to Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, it is a subtle rebuke of her faithlessness.  In moderation, rue was used to hasten labor but in larger doses, was known to be an abortifacient, hence the speculation that when Ophelia utters the lines "there's rue for you, and here's some for me", it’s a confession of unwanted pregnancy and another reason for ending her life.

Violet (Viola)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) in his essay Of Gardens (1625) wrote the violet was “that which above all others yields the sweetest smell” and they’ve always been prized too for their beauty.  Despite this, there’s the association with melancholy and early death, expressed in Hamlet when Ophelia laments she has no Violets to give to the court because “they withered when my father died” and it’s Laertes’ wish that violets “may spring” from Ophelia’s grave.  There’s a duality of meaning in Ophelia’s statement; she’s lamenting not only the death of her father the lack of faithfulness and fidelity in the court.

Lindsay Lohan in sheer black gown with embroidered garlands, Francesco Scognamiglio's (b 1975) spring 2015 collection, Naples, June 2015.

Anorexia

Anorexia (pronounced an-uh-rek-see-uh)

(1) In clinical medicine, loss of appetite and inability to eat.

(2) In psychiatry, as anorexia nervosa, a defined eating disorder characterized by fear of becoming fat and refusal of food, leading to debility and even death.

(3) A widely-used (though clinically incorrect) short name for anorexia nervosa.

1590–1600: From the New Latin, from the Ancient Greek ἀνορεξία (anorexía), the construct being ἀν (an) (without) + ὄρεξις (órexis) (appetite; desire).  In both the Greek and Latin, it translated literally as "a nervous loss of appetite".  Órexis (appetite, desire) is from oregein (to desire, stretch out) and was cognate with the Latin regere (to keep straight, guide, rule).  Although adopted as a metaphorical device to describe even inanimate objects, anorexia is most often (wrongly) used as verbal shorthand for the clinical condition anorexia nervosa.  The former is the relatively rare condition in which appetite is lost for no apparent reason; the latter the more common eating disorder related to most cases to body image.  Interestingly, within the English-speaking world, there are no variant pronunciations.

Anorexia Nervosa and the DSM

The pro-ana community has created its own sub-set of standard photographic angles, rather as used car sites typically feature certain images such as the interior, the odometer, the engine etc.  Among the most popular images posted on "thinspiration" pages are those which show bone definition through skin and, reflecting the superior contrast possible, there's a tendency use grayscale, usually converted from color originals.  The favored body parts include the spine, hip bones, clavicles (collar bones) and the shoulder blades.     

Although documented since antiquity, the condition in its modern form wasn't noted in western medical literature until an 1873 paper presented to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) called “Anorexia Hysterica”, a description of a loss of appetite without an apparent gastric cause.  That same year, a similar condition was mentioned in a French publication, also called “l’anorexie hystérique”, and described food refusal combined with hyperactivity.  Although the author of the earlier work had within a year changed the descriptor to “Anorexia Nervosa”, the implication in all these papers was of an affliction exclusively female, something very much implied in “l’anorexie hystérique”, hysteria then a mainstream diagnosis and one thought inherently "a condition of women".

A slight Lindsay Lohan demonstrates "an anorexic look" which is something distinct from the clinically defined condition "anorexia nervosa" although there's obviously some overlap.

After its acceptance as a psychogenic disorder in the late nineteenth century, anorexia nervosa (AN) was the first eating disorder placed in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  In the first edition (DSM-I (1952)), it was considered a psycho-physiological reaction (a neurotic illness).  In the DSM-II (1968), it was listed with special symptoms & feeding disturbances, which also included pica and rumination.  In DSM-III (1980), eating disorders were classified under disorders of childhood or adolescence, perhaps, at least in part, contributing to the under-diagnosis of later-onset cases.  At that time, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) created two specific categories that formally recognized the diagnosis of eating disorders: AN and binge eating (called bulimia in DSM-III and bulimia nervosa (BN; the obsessive regurgitation of food) in both the revised DSM-III (1987) and DSM-IV (1994).  In the DSM-IV, all other clinically significant eating disorder symptoms were absorbed by the residual categories of eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) and binge-eating disorder (BED), noting the disorders were the subjects for further research.  Subsequently, When the DSM-IV was revised (2000), eating disorders moved to an independent section.  The DSM-5 (2013) chapter for eating disorders added to the alphabet soup.  In addition to pica, AN, BN and BED, DSM-5 added  avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED), the latter including some other peculiar pathological eating patterns, like atypical AN (where all other criteria for AN are met, but weight is in the normal range).

Mass

Mass (pronounced mas)

(1) A body of coherent matter, usually of indefinite shape and often of considerable size.

(2) A collection of incoherent particles, parts, or objects regarded as forming one body.

(3) Aggregate; whole (usually preceded by in the).

(4) A considerable assemblage, number, or quantity.

(5) Bulk, size, expanse, or massiveness.

(6) In painting, an expanse of color or tone defining form or shape in general outline rather than in detail.

(7) A shape or three-dimensional volume that has or gives the illusion of having weight, density, and bulk.

(8) The main body, bulk, or greater part of anything.

(9) In physics, a physical quantity expressing the amount of matter in a body. It is a measure of a body's resistance to changes in velocity (inertial mass) and also of the force experienced in a gravitational field (gravitational mass); according to the theory of relativity, inertial and gravitational masses are equal.

(10) In pharmacology, a preparation of thick, pasty consistency, from which pills are made.

(11) In the Roman Catholic Church and certain Protestant Churches, the celebration of the Eucharist.

(12) In some religious rituals, the musical setting of certain parts of this service, as the Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei (sometimes with initial lowercase).

(13) In extractive mining, an irregular deposit of ore not occurring in veins.

Pre-900: From the Middle English masse, from the Old English mæsse from the Vulgar Latin messa & massa (mass; that which forms a lump) from the Church Latin missa, past participle of mittere (to send, dismiss), perhaps derived from the concluding dismissal in the Roman Mass, Ite, missa est, (Go, it is the dismissal).  Ultimate root was the Ancient Greek mâza (barley cake, lump, mass, ball), akin to mássein (to knead).  Mass is a noun, verb & adjective, massing is a noun & verb and massed is a verb; the noun plural is masses. 

The meaning "lump, quantity, size" is from the late fourteenth century, the sense a direct borrowing from the Old French masse (lump, heap, pile; crowd, large amount; ingot, bar") which had enjoyed the meaning since the eleventh century, under the influence of the Latine massa (kneaded dough, lump, that which adheres together like dough), probably from Greek mâza related to mássein from the primitive Indo-European root mag- (to knead); related was the Lithuanian minkyti (to knead), root of macerate.  The sense extended in English in the 1580s to "a large quantity, amount, or number" and the strict sense in physics is from 1704.  It was first used as an adjective in 1733 and was used thus in biology in the nineteenth century.  Mass-culture was first used (in sociology) in 1916; mass hysteria from 1914; mass media from 1923; mass movement from 1897; mass production from 1920; mass grave from 1918 and mass murder from 1880.

Increasing mass: Lindsay Lohan posts pregnancy progress pictures on Instagram.

Increasing Mass and the Higgs Field

In physics, mass is locked up energy; as an object accelerates, its mass will increase, mass here called “inertial mass”.  Inertial mass is the amount of resistance a physical object has to any change in its motion, this including the resistance a body has to acceleration or to directional changes.  According to the theory of relativity, gravitational mass is always the same as inertial mass; however, when describing an object’s mass increasing due to acceleration, it’s the inertial mass which increases.  So, as an object increases in speed, so does the amount of energy it has, this energy is what is referred to as “the increase in mass”.  It’s this relationship between mass and energy which explains why nothing can exceed the speed of light.  The energy of a particle diverges to infinity as it approaches the speed of light and because there cannot be infinite energy in a particle, the speed of light cannot be reached although particle physicists are divided about whether this was always true.  In the first fraction of a second after the big bang, almost all particles were massless, travelling at or beyond the speed of light until, sometime in that first second, the Higgs field came into existence, permeating the whole universe, giving mass to particles.

The now famous Higgs boson (known also as the Higgs particle) is a subatomic particle which was first described theoretically (as part of a mechanism which was initially referred to as the Higgs Mechanism and is now called the Higgs Field) in the 1960s by English theoretical physicist Peter Higgs (b 1929) and (independently) by a number of others.  The Higgs Field was “invented” because without its operation there was no way to account for the mass of bosons (one of two types of particles) and while bolting it onto the models physicists use for their calculations, it’s existence wasn’t proved until experiments conducted using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, a very big particle accelerator) at the Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire (CERN; the European Organization for Nuclear Research).  The formal announcement of the verification of the existence of the Higgs boson (and by implication the field) was made in July 2012, the Nobel Prize in Physic awarded the following year to Higgs and Belgian theoretical physicist François, Baron Englert (born 1932) (technically the field is properly known as the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, noting the contribution of US theoretical physicist Robert Brout (1928-2011).

Inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a high-energy particle collider mounted in a 17 mile (27 km) long tunnel in a loop deep under the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

The boson is associated with the Higgs field, a form of energy which permeates the entire universe and can be conceptualized as part of the universe’s “fabric” although it’s not helpful to visually that literally but particles acquire their mass by interacting with this field, the Higgs boson the quantum excitation of the field.  Electrically neutral, the Higgs boson is very short-lived, decaying almost at the point of creation and its very existence can be detected only indirectly by an observation of the particles into which it decays.  It took decades to detect because until the LHC was fully operational, a machine capable of sustaining the experiment didn’t exist.  However, while the work at CERN is thought proof of the existence of the field but nothing beyond; how or why the field exists and why some particles interact more than others remains unknown.

Satyriasis & Nymphomania

Satyriasis (pronounced sey-tuh-rahy-uh-sis or sat-uh-rahy-uh-sis)

(1) In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in men in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many women as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

(2) A disease involving swelling around the temples, causing the victim to resemble a satyr, based on the depiction in Hellenic art of satyriatic men as horned goats.

1650s: A creation of Medical Latin, from the Late Latin satyriasis, from the Ancient Greek στυρ́ησς (saturíēsis) (excessively great venereal desire in the male), from satyros, accusative plural of satyrus, from the Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos) (satyr-like).  The construct was στράω (saturiáō) +‎ -σις (-sis).  The –sis suffix was from the Ancient Greek -σις (-sis) and was used to forms noun of action), often via Latin but increasingly also from French; it had exactly the same effect as the Latin –entia and the English -ing.  Historically, the use in terms borrowed from Ancient Greek was comparatively rare but there are many modern coinages based on Ancient Greek roots, reflecting to ongoing reverence for the ancient languages.  Satyriasis, satyriasist, satyromaniac, satyrization & satyr are nouns, satyriatic is an adjective; the common noun plural is satyriasist.

In Greek mythology, a satyr was a deity or demigod, male companion of Pan or Dionysus, represented as part man and part goat, and characterized by riotous merriment and lasciviousness, depicted sometimes with a perpetual erection.  Although that’s the same symptom as the condition of priapism (morbidly persistent erection of the penis), a sufferer is not of necessity also satyriatic.  The noun priapism was from the Late Latin priapismus, from the Greek priapismos (lewdness), from priapizein (to be lewd), from Priapos (the god of male reproductive power).  In Roman mythology satyr was a synonym of faun and, by extension, a lecherous man.  In modern casual use, it’s referred to also as Don Juanism, an allusion to the fictional fourteenth century Spanish nobleman Don Juan, whose sexual exploits became a thing of legend.  The term satyriasis (if not the condition) is largely archaic although still used in literature and by clinicians with a sense of history, the more popular form being satyromania, a coining in Modern Latin from 1759 which first appeared in dictionaries of English in 1889.

Don Juan (circa 1911), oil on canvas by Charles Ricketts (1866–1931).

Nymphomania (pronounced nim-fuh-mey-nee-uh or nim-fuh-meyn-yuh)

In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in women in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many men as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

1775: From the New (Medical) Latin as nymphomania (morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire in women), from the Classical Latin nympha (labia minora), the construct thus nympho- +‎ -mania.  The first known instance of publication in English was in a translation of Nymphomania, or a Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1771) by French physician Jean Baptiste Louis de Thesacq de Bienville (1726-1813) on the model of the Ancient Greek nymphē (bride, young wife, young lady) + -mania (madness) and may have been influenced by the earlier French nymphomanie (a frenzied state of (usually erotic) emotion, especially concerning something or someone unattainable).  The adjective nymphomaniac was used first in 1861 in the sense “characterized by or suffering from nymphomania”, the specific reference to “a woman who is afflicted with nymphomania” first noted in medical literature in 1867.  In pre-modern medicine, the synonyms were the now obsolete furor uterinus and œstromania which, curiously, is said still to be mentioned in some textbooks.

Nymph was from the Middle English nimphe, from the Old French nimphe, from the Latin nympha (nymph, bride), from the Ancient Greek νύμφη (númphē) (bride) and a doublet of nympha.  The alternative spelling nymphe is archaic except as a poetic device.  In Greek & Roman mythology, a nymph was any female nature spirit associated with waterways, forests, grottos, the breezes etc and is common use was applied to beautiful or graceful young girls (often as nymphet or nymphette) although the specialized use in entomology to refer to (1) the larva of certain insects and (2) any of various butterflies of the family Nymphalidae is analogous with the nymphs of antiquity only in relation to fragility and gracefulness rather than anything specifically female.  The modern equivalent (Lolita & lolita) is decidedly “of youthful femininity”).  The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  Nymphomania is a noun, nymphomaniac is a noun & adjective and nymphomaniacal is an adjective; the usual noun plural is nymphomaniacs.

Fairly or not, Lindsay Lohan may in 2013 have cemented a reputation as a nymphomaniac when, in a Beverley Hills hotel room, she complied a list of three dozen "conquests" although it wasn't clear if the list was selective or exhaustive and it produced reactions among those mentioned ranging from "no comment" to a Clintonesque "I did not have sex with that woman".  In partially redacted form, the list was in 2014 published by In Touch magazine and points of interest included Ms Lohan's apparently intact short & long-term memory and her commendably neat handwriting.  She seems to favor the "first letter bigger" style in which the style is "all capitals" but the first letter (in each word in the case of proper nouns such as names) is larger.  In typography, the idea is derived from the "drop cap", a centuries-old tradition in publishing where the opening letter of a sentence is many times the size of the rest, the text wrapping around the big letter.  In many cases, a drop cap was an elaborate or stylized version of the letter.

Sex doesn't appear in the annals of psychiatry with quite the frequency suggested by the volume of material published for popular consumption but it's certainly a significant part of the development of the discipline and Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) thoughts on sex are better known even than his dream analysis.  Few would doubt that sexual behaviours are integral to some psychiatric diseases and while women are thought not ordinarily prone to nymphomania, it has been treated as expression of delusional disorder (which some, controversially, call late-onset paranoia, a rare condition which may be under-diagnosed because research suggests sufferers seem to avoid treatment.  It's of particular interest because while women with delusional disorder appear often develop a powerful sexual fixation, men's fixations arise usually in the absence of anything which could be diagnosed as a delusional disorder.  Such caveats aside, the profession has always been interested in the phenomenon of persistent, socially deviant sexual behavior accompanied by an excessive sexual appetite that may be maladaptive for the individual and the terms “compulsive sexual behavior”, “sex addiction”, “Don Juanism”, “satyriasis” & “nymphomania” are all expressions of “hypersexuality”.  Despite the long and well-documented history, when the editorial committee of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) met to discuss amendments and additions to the fifth edition (DSM-5, 2013), the members decided not to introduce hypersexual disorder as a distinct diagnostic category, apparently because of what was said to be a paucity of research on valid diagnostic criteria.

Nymphomaniacs, hysteria and steam-induced parosysm

The gender-neutral form of satyriasis and nymphomania is erotomania (abnormal exaltation of the sexual appetite which, perhaps surprisingly, predates the modern culture wars, noted in the medical literature since 1875.  The construct of erotomania was eroto- +‎ -mania, eroto from the Ancient Greek ἐρωτικός (erōtikós) (related to love), from ἔρως (érōs) (passionate or sexual love).  There were however in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, echoes of the culture wars because physicians were known to diagnose nymphomania in women they deemed “to enjoy sex too much”.  Some physicians however were sympathetic practical as well as sympathetic.  While they might diagnose women as “hysterical” (then an orthodox part of medicine without the exclusively “loaded” meaning of today, some were prepared to stimulate the vagina until "parosysm" (the then preferred terminology for orgasm) was achieved.   For the doctor however, it could be a tiring business, some taking longer to climax than others although (officially) the treatment was offered only to unmarried women, reducing the patient load, so there was that.

Dr Taylor’s steam-powered Manipulator. Still, hands and wrists must quickly have tired, thus the attraction of the vibrator, a device which pre-dates the use of electricity, crank-driven models (resembling a very specialised egg-beater) first produced in 1734 and the early, powered, vibrators of the nineteenth century were a deviation from the engineering practices of the day which were really a collection of techniques designed to optimize specific efficiencies.  By contrast, the early vibrators required inefficient motors.  While all motors have moving parts and will vibrate, engineers use precise tolerances to achieve balance, ensuring the vibrations are minimized because vibrations are just wasted energy.  However, by definition a vibrator needs to vibrate and at the time, the easy way to achieve this with an inefficient motor, thus the steam-powered Manipulator invented by US physician George Taylor (1821-1896) in 1869.  Steam-powered, it certainly vibrated as needed but was big and noisy, the steam engine installed in an room adjoining the surgery, the apparatus protruding through the wall.  However, as a proof-of-concept exercise it worked and Dr Taylor reported good results.   Since then the devices have evolved to be smaller, quieter and battery-powered and although electrical power has become ubiquitous, one innovation proved a cul-de-sac, the Electro-Spatteur (which augmented its vibrations with electric shocks) lacking sales appeal.  The un-powered devices however didn’t entirely disappear and early in the twentieth century, the Pulsocon was advertised in the Sears mail-order catalog (the amazon.com of the age) and as recent examinations (it’s not clear if the tests were practical) confirmed, it worked well as a vibrator, its promoters jailed in 1913 only because the other claims they were making for its efficacy (curing just about every ailment known) were variously unproven, unsustainable, unbelievable or simply lies.

The Pulsocon.

Sabotage

Sabotage (pronounced sab-uh-tahzh (U) or sab-oh-tahzh (non-U))

(1) Any underhand interference with production, work etc, in a plant, factory etc, as by enemy agents during wartime or by employees during a trade dispute; any similar action or behavior.

(2) In military use, an act or acts with intent to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of a country by willfully injuring or destroying, or attempting to injure or destroy, any national defense or war materiel, premises, or utilities, to include human and natural resources.

(3) Any undermining of a cause.

(4) To injure or attack by sabotage.

1907: From the French sabotage from saboter (to botch; to spoil through clumsiness (originally, to strike, shake up, harry and literally “to clatter in sabots (clog-like wooden soled shoes)”).

The noun sabotage is said to have been absorbed by English in 1907, having been used as a French borrowing since at least 1903.  The sense of the French usage was “malicious damaging or destruction of an employer's property by workmen", a development from the original idea of mere deliberate bungling and inefficiency as a form of ad-hoc industrial action.  Contemporary commentators in England noted "malicious mischief" was likely the “nearest explicit definition” of sabotage before point out “this new force in industry and morals” was definitely something associated with the continent.  As the meaning quickly shifted from mere lethargy in the means to physically damaging the tools of production, the story began to circulate that the origin of the word was related to instances of disgruntled strikers (something the English were apt to ascribe as habitual to French labour) tactic of throwing their sabots (clog-like wooden-soled shoes) into machinery.  There is no evidence this ever happened although it was such a vivid image that the tale spread widely and even enjoyed some currency as actual etymology but it was fake news.  Instead it was in the tradition of the French use in a variety of "bungling" senses including the poor delivery of a speech or a poorly played piece of music, the idea of a job botched or a discordant sound, like the clatter of many sabots on as a group walked on a hardwood floor.  The noun savate (a French method of fighting with the feet) from French savate (literally "a kind of shoe") is attested from 1862 and although linked to footwear, is unrelated to sabotage.

Prepared for sabotage: Lindsay Lohan in Gucci Black Patent Leather Hysteria Platform Clogs with wooden soles, Los Angeles, 2009.  The car is a 2009 (fifth generation) Maserati Quattroporte leased by her father.

What sabotage was depended also from where it was viewed.  In industry it was thought to be a substitute for striking in which the workers stayed in his place but proceeded to do his work slowly and badly, the aim being ultimately to displease his employer's customers and cause loss to his employer.  To the still embryonic unions seeking to organize labour, it was a reciprocal act of industrial democracy, going slow about the means of production and distribution in response to organized capital going slow in the matter of wages.  The extension by the military to describe the damage inflicted (especially clandestinely) to disrupt in some way the economy by damaging military or civilian infrastructure emerged during World War I (1914-1918).  The verb sabotage (to ruin or disable deliberately and maliciously) dates from 1912 and the noun saboteur (one who commits sabotage) was also first noted in the same year (although it had been used in English since 1909 as a French word); it was from the French agent noun from saboter and the feminine form was saboteuse.

The word exists in many European languages including Catalan (sabotatge), Czech (sabotáž), Danish (sabotage), Dutch (sabotage), Galician (sabotaxe), German (Sabotage), Hungarian (szabotázs), Italian (sabotaggio), Polish (sabotaż), Portuguese (sabotagem), Russian (сабота́ж) (sabotáž), Spanish (sabotaje), Swedish (sabotage) & Turkish (sabotaj).  Sabotage is so specific that it has no direct single-word synonym although, depending on context, related words include destruction, disruption, subversion, treachery, treason, vandalism, cripple, destroy, disrupt, hamper, hinder, obstruct, subvert, torpedo, undermine, vandalize, wreck, demolition, impairment, injury & disable.  Sabotage is a noun & verb, sabotaged is a verb & adjective, saboteur is a noun, sabotaging is a verb and sabotagable is an adjectival conjecture; some sources maintain there is no plural of sabotage and the correct form is “acts of sabotage” while others list the third-person singular simple present indicative form as sabotages.

Franz von Papen.

Although his activities as German Military Attaché for Washington DC during 1914-1915 would be overshadowed by his later adventures, Franz von Papen’s (1879–1969) inept attempts at sabotaging the Allied war effort would help introduce the word to the military vocabulary.  He attempted to disrupt the supply of arms to the British, even setting up a munitions factory with the intension of buying up scare commodities to deny their use by the Allies, only to find the enemy had contracted ample quantities so his expensive activities had no appreciable effect on the shipments.  Then his closest aide, after falling asleep on a train, left behind a briefcase full of letters compromising Papen for his activities on behalf of the central powers.  Within days, a New York newspaper published details of Papen’s amateurish cloak & dagger operations including his attempt to induce workers of Austrian & German descent employed in plants engaged in war production for the Allies to slow down their output or damage the goods.  Also in the briefcase were copies of letters he sent revealing shipping movements.

Even this wasn’t enough for the US to expel him so he expanded his operations, setting up a spy network to conduct a sabotage and bombing campaign against businesses in New York owned by citizens from the Allied nations.  That absorbed much money for little benefit but, undeterred, he became involved with Indian nationalists living in the US, arranging with them for arms to be shipped to India where he hoped a revolt against the Raj might be fermented, a strategy he pursued also with the Irish nationalists.  Thinking big, he planned an invasion of Canada and tried to enlist Mexico as an ally of the Central Powers in the event of the US entering the war with the promise California and Arizona would be returned.  More practically, early in 1915 he hired agents to blow up the Vanceboro international rail bridge which linked the US and Canada between New Brunswick and Maine.  That wasn’t a success but of greater impact was that Papen had departed from the usual practices of espionage by paying the bombers by cheque.  It was only his diplomatic immunity which protected him from arrest but British intelligence had been monitoring his activities and provided a file to the US State Department which in December 1915 declared him persona non grata and expelled him.  Upon his arrival in Berlin, he was awarded the Iron Cross.

Hopelessly ineffective though his efforts had proved, by the time Papen left the US, the words sabotage and saboteur had come into common use including in warning posters and other propaganda.  Papen went on greater things, serving briefly as chancellor and even Hitler’s deputy, quite an illustrious career for one described as “uniquely, taken seriously by neither his opponents nor his supporters”.  When one of the Weimar Republic's many scheming king-makers suggested Papen as chancellor, others thought the noting absurd, pointing out: "Papen has no head for politics."  The response was: "He doesn't need a head, his job is to be a hat".  Despite his known limitations, he proved one of the Third Reich’s great survivors, escaping purges and assassination and, despite being held in contempt by Hitler, served the regime to the end.  Even its coda he survived, being one of the few defendants at the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946) to be acquitted (to be fair he was one of the few Nazis with the odd redeeming feature and his sins were those of cynical opportunism rather than evil intent) although the German courts did briefly imprison him, albeit under rather pleasant conditions.

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual (SSFM) was published in 1944 by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  Its original purpose was as a resource for OSS field agents to use in motivating or recruiting potential foreign saboteurs and permission was granted permission to print and disseminate portions of the document as needed.  The idea was to provide tools and instructions so just about any member of society could inflict some degree of damage of a society and its economy, the rationale being that of a “death of a thousand cuts”.  In contrast, the more dramatic and violent acts of sabotage (high-risk activities like killings or blowing stuff up) were only ever practiced by a handful of citizens.  The SSFM was aimed at US sympathizers keen to disrupt war efforts against the allies during World War II (1939-1945) in ways that were barely detectable but, in cumulative effect, measurable and thus contains instructions for destabilizing or reducing progress and productivity by non-violent means. The booklet is separated into headings that correspond to specific audiences, including: Managers and Supervisors, Employees, Organizations and Conferences, Communications, Transportation (Railways, Automotive, and Water), General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion & Electric Power.  The simplicity of approach was later adopted by the CIA when it distributed its Book of Dirty Tricks.

Of great amusement to students (amateur and professional) of corporate organizational behavior was that a number of the tactics the SSFM lists as being disruptive and tending to reduce efficiency are exactly those familiar to anyone working in a modern Western corporation.

Middle Management

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.

(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

Senior Management

(8) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers.

(9) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.

(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.

(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

(12) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

Employees

(13) Work slowly.

(14) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can.

(15) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.

(16) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.