Janus

Janus (pronounced jey-nuhs)

(1) In Roman mythology, a god of doorways (and thus also of beginnings), and of the rising and setting of the sun, usually represented as having one head with two bearded faces back to back, looking in opposite directions, historically understood as the past and the future.

(2) When used attributively, to indicate things with two faces or aspects; or made of two different materials; or having a two-way action.

(3) In zoology, a diprosopus (two-headed) animal.

(4) In chemistry, used attributively to indicate an azo dye with a quaternary ammonium group, frequently with the diazo component being safranine.

(5) In astronomy, a moon of the planet Saturn, located just outside the rings.

(6) In figurative use, a “two-faced” person; a hypocrite.

(7) In numismatics, a coin minted with a head on each face.

(8) In architecture, as the jānus doorway, a style of doorway, archway or arcade, the name derived from the Roman deity Iānus being the god of doorways.

Mid-late 1500s: From the Latin Iānus (the ancient Italic deity Janus), to the Romans of Antiquity, the guardian god of portals, doors, and gates; patron of beginnings and endings.  The Latin Iānus (literally “gate, arched passageway”) may be from the primitive Indo-European root ei- (to go), the cognates including the Sanskrit yanah (path) and the Old Church Slavonic jado (to travel).  In depictions, Janus is shown as having two faces, one in front the other in back (an image thought to represent sunrise and sunset reflect his original role as a solar deity although it represents also coming and going in general, young and old or (in recent years) just about anything dichotomous).  The doors of the temple of Janus were traditionally open only during the time of war and closed to mark the end of the conflict, the origins of allusions to the “temple of Janus” being used metaphorically to mean conflict or wartime and the month of January is named after Janus, the link being to “the beginning of the year.  Janus is a noun or proper noun and Janian is an adjective.

Prosthetic in studio (left), Ralph Fiennes (b 1962) on-set in character (centre) and Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) imagined in the same vein (right).

The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children's fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Peter Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary".  If ever there's another film, the producers might reconsider and should his career in politics end (God forbid), he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved, fine though Mr Fiennes' performance surely was.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

An eighteenth century carving of Janus in the style of a herm.

A part of the etymological legacy of the Roman Empire, the name Janus appears in several European languages.  In Danish (from the Latin Iānus), it’s a Latinization of the Danish given name Jens.  In Faroese, it’s a male given name which begat (1) Janussson or Janusarson (son of Janus) and (2) Janusdóttir or Janusardóttir (daughter of Janus).  In Estonian it’s a male given name.  In Polish, it’s both a masculine & feminine surname (the feminine surname being indeclinable (a word that is not grammatically inflected).  There is no anglicized form of the Latin name Janus.  Although it was never common and is now regarded by most genealogy authorities as "rare", when used in the English-speaking world the spelling remain "Janus".  Often, when Latin names were adopted in English, even when the spelling was unaltered, there were modifications to suit local phonetics but Janus is pronounced still just as it would have been by a Roman.

Tristar pictures used the janus motif in the promotional material for I Know Who Killed Me (2007).

Dating from the 1580s, was from the Latin ianitor (doorkeeper, porter), from ianua (door, entrance, gate), the construct being ianus (arched passageway, arcade" + tor (the agent suffix).  The meaning “usher in a school” and later “doorkeeper” emerged in the 1620s white the more specific (and in Scotland and North America enduring) sense of “a caretaker of a building, man employed to attend to cleaning and tidiness” seems first to have been documented in 1708 (the now unused feminine forms were janitress (1806) & janitrix (1818).  Why janitor survived in general use in Scotland and North America and not elsewhere in the English-speaking world is a mystery although the influence of US popular culture (film and television) did see something of a late twentieth century revival and in  sub-cultures like 4chan and other places which grew out of the more anarchic bulletin boards of the 1980s & 1990s, a janitor is the (often disparaging) term for a content moderator for a discussion forum.

Augustus Orders the Closing of the Doors of the Temple of Janus (circa 1681), oil on canvas by Louis de Boullogne (1654–1733), Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Among the more annoying things encountered by those learning English are surely Janus words, those with opposite meanings within themselves.  Examples include:

Hew can mean cutting something down or adhering closely to it.  Sanction may mean “formal approval or permission” or “an official ban, penalty, or deterrent”.  Scan can mean “to look slowly and carefully” or “quickly to glance; a cursory examination”.  Inflammable, which many take to mean “easy to burn” but the treachery of the word lies in the in- prefix which is often used as a negative, with the result that inflammable can be deconstructed as “not flammable”.  Trip can (and usually does) suggest clumsiness but can also imply some nimbleness or lightness of foot, as in the saying “trip the light fantastic”.  Oversight is a particularly egregious example.  To exercise oversight over someone or something is provide careful, watchful supervision yet an oversight is an omission or mistake.  In the ever-shifting newspeak of popular culture, the creation of the janus-word is often deliberate.  Filth can mean “of the finest quality”, wicked can mean “very good” and in the way which might have pleased George Orwell "bad" has become classic newspeak.   “Bad weed” can  mean the drug was either good or bad depending on the sentence structure: “that was bad weed” might well suggest it was of poor quality while “man, that was some bad weed” probably means it was good indeed.  Saying nice now seems rarely to mean what dictionaries say nice has come to mean but can variously describe something appalling or disgusting.

Cheugy

Cheugy (pronounced chew-gee)

A specialized form describing the un-cool: either (1) out of touch with current coolness and continuing to adhere to fashions or following trends which have become unfashionable or (2) trying too hard to be trendy.

2013: Coined by Gaby Rasson (b 1998) of Los Angeles, California while a student in a Beverly Hills high school although a normally reliable source (urbandictionary.com) includes the claim cheugy was “a technical term used by software engineers beginning in the mid-2000's meaning poorly maintained, damaged but narrowly functional, full of security holes, or quaintly obsolete and probably broken”.  Cheugy, cheugier & cheugist are adjectives and cheug is a noun and; the noun plural is cheugs.  Cheugyness & cheuginess have been said to exist (as non-standard noun variations of the adjective) but not all lexicographers agree cheugy or any of its derivations are “real” words although none would deny they’re slang.  The objection is that other than multiple instances of definitions and deconstructions, there’s scant evidence the word is actually in real-world use.  Most of the interest in the word seems to have been to disparage (1) those using it (rare as such folk seem to be) and (2) those who comment on those who use it (some noting the irony, some not).

Ms Rasson said she coined cheugy for the perfectly reasonable reason that the word she needed didn’t exist.  At the time, she wanted a single word descriptor for those schoolmates trying without success “to be trendy” and “…there was a missing word that was on the edge [sic] of my tongue and nothing to describe it and cheugy came to me.  How it sounded fitted the meaning.”  Ms Rasson didn’t expand on the process but it may have been a thing of phonetic association with an expression like “eww” and a word like “ugly”.  Whatever the inspiration(s), cheugy seems not to have circulated beyond the inventor’s circle of acquaintances until 2021 when it went viral in the now traditional way: appearing in a TikTok video.  In the clip, cheugy was said to be the perfect word to describe those who posted TikTok videos in hopes of being thought cool or edgy but whose content was just cringeworthy (cringey in TicTok talk).  By mid-May #cheugy had gained over 10 million views, trending on Twitter within a year and clearly feeling proprietorial, Ms Rasson tweeted that she’d “…decided to do the cheugiest thing possible and make an NFT out of the word cheugy”, entreating “place your bids cheugs.”

The Gucci Double-G belt appears on most lists of cheugy stuff.

Similar terms of derision had before existed in slang (basic, normie et al) but they didn’t convey quite the same thing so, as long as it attains critical mass, cheugy might find a niche.  It’s too soon to tell whether the word will survive in democratic, unforgiving English but there’s definitely a cheugy aesthetic or, more correctly, a number of lists of the practices, preferences and proclivities of others judged to be cheugy.  The lists were presumably predictable to those immersed in the minutiae of such things and perhaps baffling to others.  More interesting was that cheuginess appeared to be (1) a weaponized label with which GenZ and the millennials could exchange cultural blows and (2) another way to disparage women, an arsenal already large.  There will be obsessives who will read the lists and worry but it’s hard to take seriously any list which condemns lasagna.

A thousand years shall pass and lasagna will never be cheugy.

It didn’t take long for the zeitgeisters wearily to observe that the very spike in the use of cheugy meant it had itself become cheugy, enjoying a brief, shining moment of newness, before becoming dated.  In linguistics the process is known as "the snake eating its tail", a fate which the coiner of "bedint" noted was probably the fate of his creation.  Technically then, cheugy is an auto-antonym or contronym, a word with multiple meanings, one of which is defined as the reverse of one of its other meanings (a phenomenon which in structural linguistics is called enantiosemy, enantionymy or antilogy).  The common way of expressing this is “Janus word”, the name derived from Roman mythology, Janus a god of doorways (and thus also of beginnings), and of the rising and setting of the sun, usually represented as having one head with two bearded faces back to back, looking in opposite directions, historically understood as the past and the future (and adopted in linguistics to describe a word with two, opposed meanings).  Still, the word is there to be used and, some cheugs being more cheugistic than others, the comparative is "more cheugy" (or cheugier) and the superlative "most cheugy" (or cheugiest).

Cheugy has "happened" but may or may not become embedded in English, something which relies on sustained use by a critical mass.  The size of the mass can vary, some embedded words used by a relatively small sub-set while other innovations (like "okay") are more widely adopted, sometimes even beyond English.  Fetch never happened (Mean Girls (2004)) although, as a convenient clipping of “fetching” (usually in the form quite fetching or very fetching and meaning “charming; captivating; compelling”), it might have had "fetching" not already having descended into the category of "dated".  By the early twenty-first century, "fetching" wasn't cheugy because it was so rare.

Sanction

Sanction (pronounced sangk-shuhn)

(1) Authoritative permission or approval, as for an action.

(2) Something that serves to support an action, condition, etc.

(3) Something that gives binding force, as to an oath, rule of conduct, etc.

(4) In (usually contract) law, a provision of a law enacting a penalty for disobedience or a reward for obedience.

(5)  A penalty or reward.

(6) In international law, action by one or more states (or a multi-national institution) toward another state, institution or individual(s), calculated to force it compliance with certain obligations.

(7) To authorize, approve, or allow; to ratify or confirm.

1555–1565: From the Latin sānctiōn- (stem of sānctiō (the establishment of an inviolable decree)), genitive sānctiōnis, the construct being sānct(us) (past participle of sancīre (to prescribe by law; to make law by decree) + -iōn (from the Latin suffix -iō (genitive -iōnis), appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action).  The Middle English borrowing came directly from the French sanction and the usual early form in English meant "confirmation or enactment of a law" and was sometimes used interchangeably with the Latin sanctionem (nominative sanctio) (“act of decreeing or ordaining” or “decree, ordinance" the noun of action from the past-participle stem of sancire (to decree, confirm, ratify, make sacred)) which was used especially of ecclesiastical decrees.  The verb form in the sense “confirm by sanction, make valid or binding” dates from 1778 and by 1797 it meant also “authoritatively to permit”, both derived from the noun.  The seemingly contradictory meaning "impose a penalty on" was first used in 1956 but is rooted in an old legalistic sense of the noun and, when deconstructed, the ambiguity dissolves, this use in international diplomacy first documented in 1900 as a plural of the noun sanction in the sense of "part or clause of a law which spells out the penalty for breaking it", a meaning which can be traced back to the 1650s.  From the Latin, influenced by the spread of Roman civil law, derivatives appear in many languages including Catalan (sanció), French (sanction), Galician (sanction), Italian (sanzione), Piedmontese (sansion), Portuguese (sanção), Russian (санкция (sankcija)) and Spanish (sanction).  Sanction & sanctioner are nouns, sanctioned & sanctioning are verbs and sanctionable, sanctionless & sanctionative are adjectives; the noun plural is sanctions.

Sanction busting

Although in some ways a simple language to learn, English has some quirks, notably a massive vocabulary in which one word can have many meanings and multiple words can mean the same thing.  There are also cases where a word can seem simultaneously to sustain two diametrically opposite meanings and these are called auto-antonyms (or contronym or Janus words), the technical term for the phenomenon being enantiosemy ((from the Ancient Greek ἐναντίος (enantíos) (opposite)).  Sanction can convey opposite meanings, depending on context, the Janus-faced nature more evident when used as a noun.  The noun historically referred to the "action of ordaining as inviolable under a penalty" but, in a manner not unfamiliar in English, it evolved in opposite directions, one relating to legal or ethical rules, the other to the penalties imposed for violating these rules.  From the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the verb tended to the positive, the negative meaning "penalize" in general use until the 1950s.  Sanction in this sense is most commonly used in official (though not exclusively governmental) contexts, most often when one government imposes economic measures on another to try to force it to comply with laws or expectations.  The linguistic evolution wasn’t deliberate because that’s not how English usually works; instead it was an adoption of the verbal shorthand of the world of diplomacy.

The Kim Dynasty's new (used) cars

Like his grandfather Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994), and father Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011), Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011), is a great admirer of big Mercedes and the regime is believed still to be the only outfit on earth owning a brace of long-roofed (presidential in collector slang) Mercedes-Benz 600s (W100, 1963-1981) Pullman Landaulets (only twelve of which were built).  The Supreme Leader however must have decided to update and it appears that in 2018, several "special" Mercedes-Benz were shipped from the Dutch Port of Rotterdam, via China and five other countries, to the DPRK.  The cars appear to be from the factory's "Guard" programme and there’s an unconfirmed rumor a toilet is installed in at least one for the Great Leader’s convenience.

The Great Leader's motorcade on the way to meet with Vladimir Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999), Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman Guard in front, Mercedes Maybach S62 following, Vladivostok, Russia, April 2019. 

The “Guard” range of vehicles are produced on a special post-production assembly line to meet the demand from heads of state, royalty, oligarchs and leading figures in organized crime for a vehicle which retains the traditional aura of a limousine while affording the levels of protection associated with the smaller armored personnel carriers (APC) & troop carriers used by the military.  The most expensive in the range is based on the opulent Mercedes-Maybachs and meet VR10 protection standards (defined under Directive BRV 2009 v2.0, only some of the specifications of which publicly are disclosed) but it’s known additional steel-alloy & composite panels are installed between the unibody and outer body panels, overlapped at key points to provide what’s described as “comprehensive ballistic protection”, a similar approach applied to the floor to deflect the blast from explosives (conforming to the ERV 2010 protocol).  The windows are thicker and coated with polycarbonate to prevent splintering with the panes permanently fixed (that approach may have been thought not suitable if the rumors of the toilet are true and the Great Leader's car is the previous version with an opening window).  Although the Guard has a wheelbase eight inches (200 mm) longer than the Standard Mercedes-Maybach platform and weights (presumably much) more, the factory lists the power-train as identical to the base vehicle, the 5.5 litre (365 cubic inch) twin-turbocharged V-12 rated at 523 horsepower and 612 lb-ft of torque.

Because sanctions imposed by the United Nations as punishment for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development are supposed to bar companies and individuals from selling luxury goods to North Korea, technically, The Supreme Leader shouldn’t have be able to buy them.  It’s however estimated that since 2015, some US$440 million in luxury goods have been imported by the DPRK, sourced from some ninety countries, almost all in violation of UN sanctions.  In response to questions, Daimler, which manufactures Mercedes-Benz, a spokesperson said they had "...no indication on how the mentioned vehicles were delivered and where they come from", later issuing a statement:

"For Daimler, the correct export of products in conformance with the law is a fundamental principle of responsible entrepreneurial activity.  Our company has had no business connections with North Korea for far more than 15 years now and strictly complies with EU and US embargoes.  To prevent deliveries to North Korea and to any of its embassies worldwide, Daimler has implemented a comprehensive export control process. Sales of vehicles by third parties, especially of used vehicles, are beyond our control and responsibility."

Although Daimler seemed to imply The Supreme Leader was now reduced to buying used cars (something never suggested of The Great Leader or The Dear Leader), neither Berlin nor Pyongyang commented on the diplomatic slight.

In the matter of Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018), New York’s highest appellate court dismissed Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V and rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.  Take-Two Interactive Software had requested sanctions be imposed, claiming “Lindsay Lohan complains that her image and persona have been wrongfully used by Take-Two in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, but her claim is so legally meritless that it lacks any good-faith basis and can only have been filed for publicity purposes” and was thus an abuse of process.  Both the trial and appellate judges declined to impose sanctions.

In civil legal proceedings, it's possible in some jurisdictions for a party to request a judge to “sanction” the opposing side by imposing a penalty or punishment for some form of misconduct or violation of the rules of the court.  Typically, sanctions are sought when one party believes the other has engaged in improper behavior, such as failing to comply with discovery obligations, disobeying court orders, or engaging in frivolous or abusive litigation tactics including using the administrative processes of the court to "string out" the length of the hearing, usually in the hope of exhausting an opponent's financial resources, compelling them to discontinue the action.  In most jurisdictions this technically doesn’t extend to “vexatious litigation” (the determination of which remains the preserve of the court) but counsel may raise essentially the same issue as “an abuse of process”.  The mechanism of the sanction is to promote equity of access, fairness of procedure, ensure compliance with court rules, and deter inappropriate conduct during proceedings. The specific sanctions available depend on the jurisdiction and the rules of the court.  Some common types of sanctions include:

(1) Fines may be imposed (payable to the court) or compensation to the other party might be ordered.

(2) Orders may be issued restricting or limiting a party's ability to present certain evidence or arguments related to the issues in the case.  This sanction is invoked where attempts are made to introduce material which is irrelevant, repetitive or in excessive volume.  Pleadings or statements of claim may also be excluded.

(3) In extreme cases of willful or deliberate misconduct, a judge may find the party in contempt of court and this may result in the imposition of fines or even terms of imprisonment. 

Atrophy & Hypertrophy

Atrophy (pronounced a-truh-fee)

(1) In pathology, a wasting away of the body or of an organ or part, or a failure to grow to normal size as the result of disease, defective nutrition, nerve damage or hormonal changes.

(2) Degeneration, decline, or decrease, as from disuse.

1590–1600: From the earlier Middle French atrophie and Late Latin atrophia from the Ancient Greek ἀτροφία (atrophía) (a wasting away), (derived from trephein (to feed)) from ἄτροφος (átrophos) (ill-fed, un-nourished), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) + τροφή (trophḗ) (nourishment) from τρέφω (tréphō) (I fatten).  Atrophic is the most familiar adjectival form.  The a- prefix, a proclitic form of preposition, is from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (not, without) and is used to form taxonomic names indicating a lack of some feature that might be expected.  In Middle English a- (up, out, away) was from the Old English ā- (originally ar- & or-) from the Proto-Germanic uz- (out-), from the primitive Indo-European uds- (up, out); it was cognate with the Old Saxon ā- and the German er-.  The suffix –ia is from Classical Latin from the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia) and was used to form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It creates names of countries, diseases, flowers, and (rarely) collections of things such as militaria & deletia).  The spelling atrophia is obsolete.  Atrophy is a noun and atrophic is an adjective; the noun plural is atrophies.  The noun atrophication is non-standard and seems to be restricted to the pro-ana community, usually as "self-atrophication".

Self-atrophication: Lindsay Lohan during "thin phase".

In pathology there are specific classes of atrophy including encephalatrophy (atrophy of the brain), fibroatrophy (atrophy of fibres), dermatrophy (atrophy (a thinning) of the skin), lipoatrophy (the loss of subcutaneous fatty tissue), scleroatrophy (Any of various atrophic conditions characterized by a hardening of tissue, including atrophic fibrosis of the skin, hypoplasia of the nails, and palmoplantar keratoderma), hemiatrophy (atrophy that affects only one half of the body) and the mysterious pseudoatrophy (where tissue (typically muscle), appears to have reduced in size or wasted away but the perceived reduction is really caused by factors such as swelling, inflammation, or the presence of fluid in surrounding tissues that make the muscle look smaller than it actually is).  In genetics, atrogene describes any gene which has some influence on atrophy of muscle tissue and in biochemistry atrophins are any of a class of proteins found in nervous tissue.

Hypertrophy (pronounced hahy-pur-truh-fee)

(1) In physiology, the abnormal (but usually non-tumorous) enlargement of an organ or a tissue as a result of an increase in the size rather than the number of constituent cells.

(2) In bodybuilding, an increase in muscle size through increased size of individual muscle cells (responding to exercise such as weightlifting); it is distinct from muscle hyperplasia (the formation of new muscle cells).

(2) Excessive growth or accumulation of any kind.

1825–1835: A compound word hyper- + -trophy.  Hyper is from the French hypertrophie, from the Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér) (over, excessive), from the primitive Indo-European upér (over, above) (from which English gained over), from upo (under, below) (source of the English up). It was cognate with the Latin super- and is a common prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “over,” usually implying excess or exaggeration (eg hyperbole); on this model used, especially as opposed to hypo-, in the formation of compound words.  Hypertrophy is a noun & verb, hypertrophic, hypertrophical, hypertrophous & hypertrophical are adjectives and hypertrophically is an adverb; the noun plural is hypertropheries.  For those for whom the successively multi-syllabic is a fetish or compile scripts for speech therapy practice, there's hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy (in pathology, a paraneoplastic condition characterised by clubbing and periostitis of the long bones of the arms and legs).

Two “Chernobyl mutant catfish” (left) and one with a human for scale (right).  They're now found in the cooling ponds of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor which in 1986 suffered a meltdown and subsequent explosion.

Their huge size is not a radiation-induced mutation but a result of the absence of a predator since humans were removed from their environment.  As far as is known, radiation-induced mutations very rarely lead to a generalized hypertrophy and it's much more common for an affected specimen to grow “less efficiently” and for a variety of reasons they can be less capable of catching food and thus not live as long as is typical for the species.  The “Chernobyl mutant catfish” which gained their infamy in the early days of the internet were no more the result of nuclear contamination than the “Fukushima mutant wolfish” of the social media age.  Genetically, there’s nothing novel about the size of the bulky inhabitants of the Chernobyl ponds.  While it’s not typical, the wels catfish (Silurus glanis) can weigh over 350 kg (770 lb), examples recorded both in scientific research and by fishers although up to 150 kg (330 lb) is more common for a large example.  So, to describe the big fish as “hypertrophic” is to use the word in a loose way because the growth registered is “extreme” rather than excessive, something made possible by them living without predators, in a suitable habitat with ample food.  With humans no longer killing them, the catfish have become both apex-level predators and scavengers, enjoying fish, amphibians, worms, birds and even small mammals; they appear to eat just about anything (dead or alive) which fits into their large mouths.  They can live for many decades and scientists are monitoring their progress in what is a close to unique experiment.  Thus far, despite some being tested as being some 16 times more radioactive than normal, the indications are they’re continuing happily to feed, re-produce and grow but because the hypertrophied state is function of genetics interacting with an ideal environment, it’s thought unlikely they’ll ever exceed the recorded maximum size.

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) announces the Liberal Party's new policy advocating the construction of multiple nuclear power-plants in Australia.  The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children's fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Peter Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary".  If ever there's another film, the producers might reconsider and should his career in politics end (God forbid), he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

Pressing

Pressing (pronounced pres-ing)

(1) Urgent; demanding immediate attention; Insistent, earnest, or persistent.

(2) Any phonograph record produced in a record-molding press from a master.

(3) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force; to move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position; to weigh heavily upon.

(4) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.

(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.

(6) To extract juice, sugar, oil etc by applying pressure.

(7) To produce shapes from materials by applying pressure in a mold; a component formed in a press.

(8) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.

(9) A ancient form of torture and execution.

(10) The process of improving the appearance of clothing by improving creases and removing wrinkles with a press or an iron.

(11) A memento preserved by pressing, folding, or drying between the leaves of a flat container, book or folio (usually with a flower, ribbon, letter, or other soft, small keepsake).

1300-1350: From the Middle English presing, from the Classical Latin pressāre, (frequentative of premere (past participle pressus)).  In Medieval Latin pressa was the noun use of feminine pressus, similar to Old French presser (from Late Latin pressāre).  In English, the meaning “exerting pressure" dates from the mid-fourteenth century and sense of "urgent, compelling, forceful" is from 1705.  In the sense of a machine for printing, this spread from the machine itself (1530s) to publishing houses by the 1570s and to publishing generally by 1680.  In French, pressing is a pseudo-Anglicism.

The construct was press + ing.  Press dates from the late twelfth century and was from the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus) and in Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus).  The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare.  Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French.  The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc".  The sense of "urgency, urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s.  It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959.  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  Pressing is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is pressings.

Tarpeia Crushed by the Sabines (circa 1520) by Agostino Veneziano (Agostino de' Musi; circa 1490–circa 1540).

In Roman mythology it was said that while Rome was besieged by the Sabine king Titus Tatius, the commander of the Sabine army was approached by Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, commander of the Roman citadel.  Tarpeia offered the attacking forces a path of entry to the city in exchange for "what they bore on their left arms." Although it was sometimes spun that she actually meant they should cast of their shields and enter in peace, the conventional tale is she wanted their gold bracelets.  The Sabines (sort of) complied, throwing their shields (which they carried upon their left arms) upon her, pressing her until she died.  Her body was then cast from (although some accounts say buried beneath) a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill which has since been known as the Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium (Tarpeian Rock (Rupe Tarpea in Italian)). 

Cassius Convicted of Political Wrong-Doing is Killed by Being Thrown from the Tarpeian Rock Rome (circa 1750), woodcut by Augustyn Mirys (1700–1790).

The Sabines were however unable to conquer the Rome, its gates miraculously protected by boiling jets of water created by Janus, the legend depicted in 89 BC by the poet Sabinus following the Civil Wars as well as on a silver denarius of the Emperor Augustus circa 20 BC.  Tarpeia would later become a symbol of betrayal and greed in Rome and the cliff from which she was thrown was, during the Roman Republic, the place of execution or the worst criminals: murderers, traitors, perjurors and troublesome slaves, all, upon conviction by the quaestores parricidii (a kind of inquisitorial magistrate) flung to their deaths.  The Rupes Tarpeia stands about 25 m (80 feet) high and was used for executions until the first century AD.

Pressing by elephant.

Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in south and south-east Asia.  The elephant had great appeal because, large and expensive to run, they could be maintained as a symbol of power and authority and there were few better expressions of a ruler’s authority that the killing of opponents, trouble-makers or the merely tiresome.  Properly handled, an elephant could be trained to torture or kill although, being beasts from the wild, things could go wrong and almost certainly some unfortunate souls ear-marked for nothing but the brief torture of a pressing under the elephant’s foot (for technical reasons, they don’t have hooves) ended up being crushed to death.  Even that presumably added to the intimidation and in some places in India, this means of dispatch was said to be known as Gajamoksha (based on the Gajendra Moksha (The Liberation of Gajendra (the elephant)), an ancient Hindu text in which elephants were prominent) although these stories are now thought to have been a creation of the imaginations of British writers who, in the years before, found a ready audience for fantastical tales from the Orient.  As told, a Gajamoksha seems to have been more a trampling than a pressing and the political significance of the business was it was done in public; the manufacturing of entertainment and spectacle apparently common to just about every regime in human history.  That there were public displays of torture and execution using elephants is part of the historical record but the surviving depictions seem to suggest pressing rather than trampling was the preferred method.  A trampling elephant does sound like something which may have had unintended consequences.

As a asset in the inventory, elephants were versatile and in addition to helping to pull or carry heavy loads to battlefields, they could be also a potent assault weapon and, sometimes outfitted with armor (historically of thick leather), were used in a manner remarkably close in concept to the original deployment of tanks by the British Army in 1916, charging the line, breaking up fortifications and troop formations, allowing the infantry to advance through the gaps.  While opponents being trampled underfoot by a charging elephant may not have been the prime military directive, it was a useful adjunct.  For those who survived, it may only have been a stay of execution and while there’s little to suggest elephants were widely used in the bloodbaths which sometimes followed battlefield defeat, there are records of them ritualistically pressing to death a vanquished foe.

A pressing in progress; presumably this profession attracted those who really enjoyed their work and found it a calling.

It’s a myth Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) invented pressing but he certainly adopted it as a method of torture with his usual enthusiasm.  Across the channel, under the French civil code, Peine forte et dure (forceful and hard punishment) defined pressing: When a defendant refused to plead, the victim would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the subject to breathe, fatal suffocation would occur.

Enthusiastic about if not innovative in torture, Henry VIII continues to influence modern fashion.  His combination of a loose jacket, short skirt and tights is here reprised by Lindsay Lohan.

Not all Kings of England have been trend-setters but Henry VIII’s style choices exerted an influence not only on his court and high society but also elsewhere in Europe.  What came to be known as the “Tudor style” was really defined by him and the markers are elaborate embellishments, rich fabrics (velvet, silk, and brocade much favoured), intricate embroidery and many decorative details.  The Tudor style also took existing motifs such as the codpiece (the pouch or flap covering the front opening of men's trousers or hose) and in the early sixteenth century these became larger and more exaggerated, the function in formal wear more decorative than practical.  He also made popular (again) the padded shoulders and sleeves which had been seen for centuries but Henry’s innovation was deliberately to reference the lines used on suits of armor, something which added to what in later years was his broad & imposing figure and modern critics have noted this was something which would visually have re-balanced his increasingly portly figure.  London wasn’t than the centre of fashion it later became and some historians have noted the distinctly French influence which entered the court after the arrival of Henry’s first wife, the Spanish-born Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536; Queen of England 1509-1533) and at least some of what was imported with the unfortunate bride became part of the Tudor style.

Mutation

Mutation (pronounced myoo-tey-shuhn)

(1) In biology (also as “break”), a sudden departure from the parent type in one or more heritable characteristics, caused by a change in a gene or a chromosome.

(2) In biology, (also as “sport”), an individual, species, or the like, resulting from such a departure.

(3) The act or process of mutating; change; alteration.

(4) A resultant change or alteration, as in form or nature.

(5) In phonetics (in or of Germanic languages), the umlaut (the assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants).

(6) In structural linguistics (in or of Celtic languages), syntactically determined morphophonemic phenomena that affect initial sounds of words (the phonetic change in certain initial consonants caused by a preceding word).

(7) An alternative word for “mutant”

(8) In cellular biology & genetics, a change in the chromosomes or genes of a cell which, if occurring in the gametes, can affect the structure and development of all or some of any resultant off-spring; any heritable change of the base-pair sequence of genetic material.

(9) A physical characteristic of an individual resulting from this type of chromosomal change.

(10) In law, the transfer of title of an asset in a register.

(11) In ornithology, one of the collective nouns for the thrush (the more common forms being “hermitage” & “rash”)

1325–1375: From the Middle English mutacioun & mutacion (action or process of changing), from the thirteenth century Old French mutacion and directly from the Latin mūtātion- (stem of mūtātiō) (a changing, alteration, a turn for the worse), noun of action from past-participle stem of mutare (to change), from the primitive Indo-European root mei- (to change, go, move).  The construct can thus be understood as mutat(e) +ion.  Dating from 1818, the verb mutate (to change state or condition, undergo change) was a back-formation from mutation.  It was first used in genetics to mean “undergo mutation” in 1913.  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process. The use in genetics in the sense of “process whereby heritable changes in DNA arise” dates from 1894 (although the term "DNA" (deoxyribonucleic acid) wasn't used until 1938 the existence of the structure (though not its structural detail) was fist documented in 1869 after the identification of nuclein).  In linguistics, the term “i-mutation” was first used in 1874, following the earlier German form “i-umlaut”, the equivalent in English being “mutation”.  The noun mutagen (agent that causes mutation) was coined in 1946, the construct being muta(tion) + -gen.  The –gen suffix was from the French -gène, from the Ancient Greek -γενής (-genḗs).  It was appended to create a word meaning “a producer of something, or an agent in the production of something” and is familiar in the names of the chemical elements hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.  From mutagen came the derive forms mutagenic, mutagenesis & mutagenize.  Mutation, mutationist & mutationism is a noun, mutability is a noun, mutable & mutant are nouns & adjectives, mutated & mutating are verbs & adjectives, mutational & mutationistic are adjective and mutationally is an adverb; the noun plural is mutations.  For whatever reasons, the adverb mutationistically seems not to exist.

In scientific use the standard abbreviation is mutat and forms such as nonmutation, remutation & unmutational (used both hyphenated and not) are created as required and there is even demutation (used in computer modeling).  In technical use, the number of derived forms is vast, some of which seem to enjoy some functional overlap although in fields like genetics and cellular biology, the need for distinction between fine details of process or consequence presumably is such that the proliferation may continue.  In science and linguistics, the derived forms (used both hyphenated and not) include animutation, antimutation, backmutation, e-mutation, ectomutation, endomutation, epimutation, extramutation, frameshift mutation, hard mutation, heteromutation, homomutation, hypermutation, hypomutation, i-mutation, intermutation, intramutation, intromutation, macromutation, macromutational, megamutation, mesomutation, micromutation, missense mutation, mixed mutation, multimutation, mutationless, mutation pressure, nasal mutation, neomutation, nonsense mutation, oncomutation, paramutation. Pentamutation, phosphomutation. point mutation, postmutation, premutation, radiomutation, retromutation, soft mutation, spirant mutation, stem mutation, stereomutation, ultramutation & vowel mutation.

Ginger, copper, auburn & chestnut are variations on the theme of red-headedness: Ranga Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the possibilities.

Red hair is the result of a mutation in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene responsible for producing the MC1R protein which plays a crucial role also in determining skin-tone. When the MC1R gene is functioning normally, it helps produce eumelanin, a type of melanin that gives hair a dark color.  However, a certain mutation in the MC1R gene leads to the production of pheomelanin which results in red hair.  Individuals with two copies of the mutated MC1R gene (one from each parent) typically have red hair, fair skin, and a higher sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) light, a genetic variation found most often in those of northern & western European descent.

A mutation is a change in the structure of the genes or chromosomes of an organism and mutations occurring in the reproductive cells (such as an egg or sperm), can be passed from one generation to the next.  It appears most mutations occur in “junk DNA” and the orthodox view is these generally have no discernible effects on the survivability of an organism.  The term junk DNA was coined to describe those portions of an organism's DNA which do not encode proteins and were thought to have no functional purpose (although historically there may have been some).  The large volume of these “non-coding regions” surprised researchers when the numbers emerged because the early theories had predicted they would comprise a much smaller percentage of the genome.  The term junk DNA was intentionally dismissive and reflected the not unreasonable assumption the apparently redundant sequences were mere evolutionary “leftovers” without an extant biological function of any significance.

However, as advances in computing power have enabled the genome further to be explored, it’s been revealed that many of these non-coding regions do fulfil some purpose including: (1) A regulatory function: (the binary regulation of gene expression, influencing when, where, and how genes are turned on or off; (2) As superstructure: (Some regions contribute to the structural integrity of chromosomes (notably telomeres and centromeres); (3) In RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules: Some non-coding DNA is transcribed into non-coding RNA molecules (such as microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs), which are involved in various cellular processes; (4) Genomic Stability: It’s now clear there are non-coding regions which contribute to the maintenance of genomic stability and the protection of genetic information.  Despite recent advances, the term junk DNA is still in use in mapping but is certainly misleading for those not immersed in the science; other than in slang, in academic use and technical papers, “non-coding DNA” seems now the preferred term and where specific functions have become known, these regions are described thus.

There’s also now some doubt about the early assumptions that of the remaining mutations, the majority have harmful effects and only a minority operate to increase an organism's ability to survive, something of some significance because a mutation which benefits a species may evolve by means of natural selection into a trait shared by some or all members of the species.  However, there have been suggestions the orthodox view was (at least by extent) influenced by the slanting of the research effort towards diseases, syndromes and other undesirable conditions and that an “identification bias” may thus have emerged.  So the state of the science now is that there are harmful & harmless mutations but there are also mutations which may appear to have no substantive effect yet may come to be understood as significant, an idea which was explored in an attempt to understand why some people found to be inflected with a high viral-load of SARS-Cov-2 (the virus causing Covid-19) remained asymptomatic.

In genetics, a mutation is a change in the DNA sequence of an organism and it seems they can occur in any part of the DNA and can vary in size and type.  Most associated with errors during DNA replication, mutations can also be a consequence of viral infection or exposure to certain chemicals or radiation, or as a result of viral infections.  The classification of mutations has in recent years been refined to exist in three categories:

(1) By the Effect on DNA Sequence:  These are listed as Point Mutations which are changes in a single nucleotide and include (1.1) Substitutions in which one base pair is replaced by another, (1.2) Insertions which describe the addition of one or more nucleotide pairs and (1.3) Deletions, the removal of one or more nucleotide pairs.

(2) By the Effect on Protein Sequence: These are listed as: (2.1) Silent Mutations which do not change the amino acid sequence of the protein, (2.2) Missense Mutations in which there is a change one amino acid in the protein, potentially affecting its function, (2.3) Nonsense Mutations which create a premature stop codon, leading to a truncated and usually non-functional protein and (2.4) Frameshift Mutations which result from insertions or deletions that change the reading frame of the gene, often leading to a completely different and non-functional protein.

(3) By the Effect on Phenotype: These are listed as (3.1) Beneficial Mutations which provide some advantage to the organism, (3.2) Neutral Mutations which have no apparent significant effect on the organism's fitness and (3.3) Deleterious Mutations which are harmful to the organism and can cause diseases or other problems.

(4) By the Mechanism of Mutation: These are listed as (4.1) Spontaneous Mutations which occur naturally without any external influence, due often to errors in DNA replication and (4.2) Induced Mutations which result from exposure to mutagens environmental factors such as chemicals or radiation that can cause changes in DNA),

Because of the association with disease, genetic disorders and disruptions to normal biological functions, in the popular imagination mutations are thought undesirable.  They are however a crucial part of the evolutionary process and life on this planet as it now exists would not be possible without the constant process of mutation which has provided the essential genetic diversity within populations and has driven the adaptation and evolution of species.  Although it will probably never be known if life on earth started and died out before beginning the evolutionary chain which endures to this day, as far as is known, everything now alive (an empirically, that means in the entire universe) ultimately has a single common ancestor.  Mutations have played a part in the diversity which followed and of all the species which once have inhabited earth, a tiny fraction remain, the rest extinct.

Nuclear-induced mutations

Especially since the first A-Bombs were used in 1945, the idea of “mutant humans” being created by the fallout from nuclear war or power-plants suffering a meltdown have been a staple for writers of science fiction (SF) and producers of horror movies, the special-effects and CGI (computer generated graphics) crews ever imaginative in their work.  The fictional works are disturbing because radiation-induced human mutations are not common but radiation can cause changes in DNA, leading to mutations and a number of factors determine the likelihood and extent of damage.  The two significant types of radiation are: (1) ionizing radiation which includes X-rays, gamma rays, and particles such as alpha and beta particles.  Ionizing radiation has enough energy to remove tightly bound electrons from atoms, creating ions and directly can damage DNA or create reactive oxygen species that cause indirect damage.  In high doses, ionizing radiation can increase the risk of cancer and genetic mutations and (2) non-ionizing radiation which includes ultraviolet (UV) light, visible light, microwaves, and radiofrequency radiation.  Because this does not possess sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules, which there is a risk of damage to DNA (seen most typically in some types of skin cancer), but the risk of deep genetic mutations is much lower than that of ionizing radiation.  The factors influencing the extent of damage include the dose, duration of exposure, the cell type(s) affected, a greater or lesser genetic predisposition and age.

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) announces the Liberal Party's new policy advocating the construction of multiple nuclear power-plants in Australia.

The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children's fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Mr Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary".  If ever there's another film, the producers might reconsider and should his career in politics end (God forbid), he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

On paper, while not without challenges, Australia does enjoy certain advantages in making nuclear part of the energy mix: (1)  With abundant potential further to develop wind and solar generation, the nuclear plants would need only to provide the baseload power required when renewable sources were either inadequate or unavailable; (2) the country would be self-sufficient in raw uranium ore (although it has no enrichment capacity) and (3) the place is vast and geologically stable so in a rational world it would be nominated as the planet's repository of spent nuclear fuel and other waste.  The debate as it unfolds is likely to focus on other matters and nobody images any such plant can in the West be functioning in less than twenty-odd years (the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gets things done much more quickly) so there's plenty of time to squabble and plenty of people anxious to join in this latest theatre of the culture wars.  Even National Party grandee Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) has with alacrity become a champion of all things nuclear (electricity, submarines and probably bombs although, publicly, he seems not to have discussed the latter).  The National Party has never approved of solar panels and wind turbines because they associate them with feminism, seed-eating vegans, homosexuals and other symbols of all which is wrong with modern society.  While in his coal-black heart Mr Joyce's world view probably remains as antediluvian as ever, he can sniff the political wind in a country now beset by wildfires, floods and heatwaves and talks less of the beauty of burning fossil fuels.  Still, in the wake of Mr Dutton's announcement, conspiracy theorists have been trying to make Mr Joyce feel better, suggesting the whole thing is just a piece of subterfuge designed to put a spanner in the works of the transition to renewable energy generation, the idea being to protect the financial positions of those who make much from fossil fuels, these folks being generous donors to party funds and employers of "helpful" retired politicians in lucrative and undemanding roles.