Maiden

Maiden (pronounced meyd-n)

(1) A girl or young unmarried woman; a maid (archaic but still in literary and poetic use).

(2) A female virgin (archaic); used also of unmarried young females in the sense of a “bachelorette” (a spinster being “a maiden aunt”).

(3) In horse racing, a horse which has never won a race.

(4) In horse racing, a race open only to maiden horses.

(5) As “clothes maiden”, a northern English dialect form describing a frame on which clothes are hung to dry (a clothes horse).

(6) A machine for washing linen (obsolete).

(7) An instrument resembling the guillotine, once used in Scotland for beheading criminals.

(8) As “maiden name”, a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage.

(9) In land management, as virgin soil, virgin forest etc, an area in its natural state; unexploited.

(10) In pre-modern agriculture, the last sheaf of grain harvested, decorated with ribbons and regarded as a talisman (by extension the end of the harvest) (archaic).

(11) In botany, a tree or shrub grown from seed and never pruned.

(12) In cricket, as “maiden over”, for a bowler to complete an over (now six legitimate deliveries) without conceding a run; a “wicket maiden” is an over in which a wicket fell with no runs being scored (thus double-wicket maiden & hat-trick maiden).

(13) Of, relating to, or befitting a girl or unmarried woman (archaic but preserved in phrases such as “her maiden virtues”. “a maiden blush” etc).

(14) Of an unmarried woman, older than a certain age (generally past middle age), often in the form “maiden aunt”.

(15) Something made, tried, appearing etc, for the first time (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc).

(16) In military slang, an untested (or untried in battle) knight, soldier or weapon; a fortress never captured or violated.

Pre-1000: From the Middle English mayden & meiden, from the Old English mæden  & mægden (unmarried woman (usually young); virgin; girl; maidservant), originally a diminutive of mægð or mægeð (virgin, girl; woman, wife), the construct being mægd, mægth or mægeth, from the Proto-West Germanic magaþ, from the Proto-Germanic magaþs & magadin (young womanhood, sexually inexperienced female) (and cognate with the Old Norse mogr (young man), the Old Irish maug & mug (slave), and the Gothic magaths) + -en (the diminutive suffix).  The Proto-Germanic was the source also of the Old Saxon magath, the Old Frisian maged, Old High German magad (virgin, maid), the German Magd (maid, maidservant), the German Mädchen (girl, maid) from Mägdchen (little maid), the feminine variant of the primitive Indo-European root maghu- (“young of either sex; “unmarried person” and the source also of the Old English magu (child, son, male descendant), the Avestan magava- (unmarried) and the Old Irish maug & mug (slave)).  Maiden is a noun & adjective, maidenly is an adjective, maidenship & maidenhood  are nouns and maidenish is an adjective; the noun plural is maidens.

Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band active since 1975, their eponymous album in 1980 the debut release of studio-recorded material.  Their album cover-art has become something of a motif and is widely reproduced in posters, T-shirts and such, their music is said to possess a similar consistency.

In thirteenth century Middle English, “maiden” could be used as a slur to refer to “a man lacking or abstaining from sexual experience” and in Scotland it was the official term for a guillotine-like device used to behead criminals.  In horse racing, a maiden horse is one which has never won a race (although in the mid-eighteen century it was sometimes used of horses which had not previously contested a race.  A maiden race is one restricted to maiden horses (which can be mares, stallions or geldings).  The figurative sense of "new, fresh, untried” (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc) seems first to have been used in the 1550s.  The idea of the maiden name (a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage) dates from the 1680s.  The noun maidenhood (state of being a maiden; state of an unmarried female; virginity) was from the Old English mægdenhad while the adjective maidenly (like a maid, becoming to a maid; gentle, modest, reserved) was first documented in the mid 1600s.

Headbanger Lindsay Lohan in Iron Maiden T-shirts.

is inquisitions.

In 2008, the (not updated since 2017) blog Metal Inquisition was most impressed by Lindsay Lohan donning a vintage Iron Maiden T-shirt.  Whether any inquisitor (or anyone else) ever used the "iron maiden" (reputed to be one of many apparatuses of gruesome torture known in medieval & pre-Enlightenment Europe) for its alleged purpose is doubted by many historians.

The term Hiroshima maiden (or A-bomb maiden) was in the 1950s used to refer to the Japanese & Korean women disfigured by the radiation from the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945, the term coming into use in 1955 when they were sent to the US for reconstructive plastic surgery.  In Norse mythology, the billow maidens were any of the nine daughters of the sea-god Ran and a skjaldmær (shieldmaiden) was a female virgin who had chosen to fight as a warrior in battle.  In several tales from mythology, an ice maiden was one of the ice people (or people of the ice), a woman from a place of snow and ice (in popular culture, the idea was borrowed in fantasy writing.  In idiomatic use, an ice maiden (also ice princess or ice queen) is a beautiful but cold (heartless) woman.  In Westminster parliamentary systems, the maiden speech of a member is their first substantive address to a chamber.  By convention it is (1) uncontroversial and (2) listened to by the house in polite silence although in cases where the member has not followed the convention, there have been some famous interjections.  Maiden ventures by machinery have sometimes become infamous.  Ships have sunk on their maiden voyages including RMS Titanic (1912) and the Wasa (or Vasa), a Swedish warship at the time one of the fastest and most heavily gunned in the world (1628).  In aviation, many aircraft have crashed on their maiden flights (test pilots are truly intrepid types) although it’s a myth that included the Supermarine Spitfire.  Less fortunate was the German industry in the later stages of World War II (1939-1945) when development was being rushed and at least two prototypes are known to have either crashed or suffered severe damage during their maiden test flights including the Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (People's Fighter).  In the case of the He 162 the maiden flight actually ended without incident and it was only a subsequent investigation of the airframe (after another prototype He 162 had crashed) which revealed the adhesive used to bond wooden components was so acidic it caused the timber to disintegrate.

An iron maiden towering above other instruments of torture.

The infamous torture chamber known as the iron maiden is now though to be mythical and an invention of those who wished to characterize the Middle Ages as a time of barbarism and savagery.  It was said to be a solid iron cabinet with a hinged front, large spikes fitted throughout the interior and designed to be large enough to accommodate an adult human.  Once the door was closed, it was said to be impossible to avoid being “spiked” and with every movement, one became “more spiked”.  Although their existence has been disproved, iron maidens (most apparently built in the nineteenth century) are a popular exhibit in “museums of torture”, some probably genuine “torture coffins” to which the spikes were a latter addition.  Quite why it was felt necessary to “invent” the iron maiden given there were so many examples of equally gruesome Medieval torture devices isn’t clear but it may be there was some desire to exonerate the torturers of Antiquity who really did use such things; among post Renaissance historians, such was the veneration for the Classical world that wherever possible, things were blamed on the Middle Ages.

In the English legal system, maiden assize came to mean an assize (periodic courts with on a circuit basis were conducted around England and Wales until 1972,) at which there were no criminal cases to be heard although originally it was an assize at which no prisoner was condemned to die.  There used to be some ritualism attached to the declaration of a maiden assize and the tradition wasn’t unknown in the US:  If a judge, upon opening a session of their assize found there were no cases to be heard, the clerk of the court would present him with a pair of white gloves, the marker of a maiden assize, the significance being that judges, as a mark of submission to the Crown, were always gloveless when executing the royal commission.

Inquisition

Inquisition (pronounced in-kwuh-zish-uhn)

(1) An official investigation, especially one of a political or religious nature, historically characterized by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments.

(2) In informal use, harsh, difficult, or prolonged questioning.

(3) The act of inquiring; inquiry; research; an inquest; questioning.

(4) An investigation or process of inquiry, especially a judicial or official inquiry.

(5) In technical use, the finding of a jury, especially such a finding under a writ of inquiry.

(6) Historically, a judicial institution (1232–1820) of the Roman Catholic Church, founded to discover and suppress heresy.

1350–1400: From the Middle English inquisicioun & inquisicion, from the twelfth century Old French inquisicion (inquiry, investigation (inquisition in modern French)), from the Latin inquisitionem (the nominative form in Legal Latin was inquīsītiō) (a seeking of grounds for accusation; a searching into, legal examination) the noun of action from past participle stem of inquirere.  The construct was inquīsīt(us) (past participle of inquīrere (to inquire)) + iōn.  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 word is now most often used, sometime critically, to describe bodies such as royal commissions which are by nature inquisitorial.  Inquisition, inquisitionist & inquisitor are nouns and inquisitorial & inquisitional are adjectives; the noun plural is inquisitions.

In 2008, the (not updated since 2017) blog Metal Inquisition was most impressed by Lindsay Lohan donning a vintage Iron Maiden T-shirt.  Whether any inquisitor (or anyone else) ever used the "iron maiden" (reputed to be one of many apparatuses of gruesome torture known in medieval & pre-Enlightenment Europe) for its alleged purpose is doubted by many historians.

The noun inquisitor dates from the early fifteenth century and was the title of the inspector (one who makes inquiries), from the Anglo-French inquisitour, from either the Old French inquisiteur or directly from the Latin inquisitor (searcher, examiner; a legal investigator, collector of evidence), the agent noun from the Latin inquirere.  In the Church, it was the formal title of an officer of the Inquisition from the 1540s.  The feminine forms were inquisitress (1727) & inquisitrix (1825).  In the Church, the role (though not the title) of inquisitor dates from 382, but the ecclesiastical court charged with finding, suppressing and punishing heretics wasn’t formed as an institutionalized standing body until appointments were made by Pope Innocent III (1161–1216; pope 1198-1216) early in the thirteenth century to what was first called the Congregation of the Holy Office.  The English word inquisition began to be used in this sense (and with a capital initial letter) during the 1490s and in the popular imagination has long most been associated with office's reorganization (1478-1483) in Spain, where it fell under the control of the state as what is commonly called the Spanish Inquisition, noted especially for its obsessional secrecy, the severity of its methods of torture and the numbers burned at the stake.

Principle tortures of the Inquisition, woodcut by unknown artist, printed in History of the Inquisition (1850) by Charles H Davie.

Technically, the Inquisition was a group of institutions within the system of the Catholic Church which interacted to varying degrees with the judicial and investigatory offices of secular authorities and it began significantly to grow in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  It expanded from its French origins to other European countries, most famously in the form of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, both of which operated as inquisitorial courts throughout their empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  In 1808, Napoleon conquered Spain and ordered the Inquisition there to be abolished although after Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) defeat in 1814, Ferdinand VII (1784–1833; King of Spain 1808 & 1813-1833) attempted a revival but was prevented by the French government upon which his tenuous hold on the throne depended.  With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was defunct by 1834, surviving only in the Roman Curia, renamed in 1908 the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and known since 1965 as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The Inquisitor and a recalcitrant.  The "...not the time to be making enemies." is often attributed to Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) but there's no proof of origin.  Certainly it's something Voltaire on his deathbed would like to have liked to have said to an earnest priest and it's hard to thing of anyone more likely to have done so. 

Except among historians and Church scholars, all of who have their own favourites, the best known Inquisitor is doubtlessly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022; the future Pope Benedict XVI, pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), appointed by Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) to the office of Prefect (the new (touchy-feely) brand-name for the Inquisitor) of the CDF.  The quarter-century Benedict spent as Inquisitor was both an interesting prelude to his still under-estimated pontificate and the just reward for his abandonment of the youthful indiscretion that was his enthusiasm for reform and change in the Church.  He’d been hopeful, optimistic even, about the possibilities for modernization offered by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II 1962-1965) but having witnessed the social convulsions and the riots across Europe in 1968, which at some moments seemed to verge on revolution, he became disturbed at the effect on youth and the challenge to Church teachings.  He was then the ideal Inquisitor with which the Church could enter the third millennium and updated the philosophical doctrine under which he’d been trained, realizing the great enemies of the Church were no longer communism, homosexuality & Freemasonry but were now Islam, homosexuality & Freemasonry.  Unfortunately, his time as Inquisitor coincided with the need to deal with distasteful, worldly matters rather than the heresy and fine theological points in which he’d more happily have allowed himself to become immersed.  Regrettably too, the powers of the CDF were more limited than in medieval times and a defrocking (laicization) was the most extreme punishment he was able to recommend, the last hanging by the Inquisition being a Spanish schoolmaster in 1826, the last burning at the stake seventy years earlier.

Concord & Concorde

Concord or Concorde (pronounced kon-kawrd)

(1) Agreement between persons, groups, nations, etc.; concurrence in attitudes, feelings, etc; unanimity; accord; agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) In formal grammar, a technical rule about the agreement of words with one another (case, gender, number or person).

(3) A treaty; compact; covenant.

(4) In music, a stable, harmonious combination of tones; a chord requiring no resolution.

(5) As concordat, under Roman-Catholic canon law, a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Church and the state in matters that concern both.

(6) In law, an agreement between the parties regarding land title in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant (obsolete).

(7) A popular name for locality, commercial operations and products such as ships, cars etc.

(8) In horticulture, a variety of sweet American grape, named circa 1853 after Concord, Massachusetts, where the variety was developed.

1250-1300: From the Middle English and twelfth century Old French concorde (harmony, agreement, treaty) & concorder, from the Latin concordare & concordia, (harmonious), from concors (of the same mine; being in agreement with) (genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”)).  The construct was an assimilated form of com (con-) (with; together) + cor (genitive cordis (heart) from the primitive Indo-European root kerd (heart)).  The "a compact or agreement" in the sense of something formal (usually in writing) dates from the late fifteenth century, an extension of use from the late fourteenth century transitive verb which carried the sense "reconcile, bring into harmony".  From circa 1400 it had been understood to mean "agree, cooperate, thus a transfer of sense from the Old French & Latin forms.  Concorde was the French spelling which eventually was adopted also by the British for the supersonic airliner after some years of linguistic squabble.  Concord is a noun & verb, concordance & concordat are nouns, concorded & concording are verbs and concordial & concordant are adjectives; the noun plural is concords.

The Concorde and other SSTs

Promotional rendering of Concorde in British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) livery.  BOAC was the UK's national carrier between 1940-1974 when merged with British European Airways (BEA) to form British Airways (BA).

Concorde was an Anglo-French supersonic airliner that first flew in 1969 and operated commercially between 1976-2003.  It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.04; 1,354 mph (2,180 km/h)) and seated 92-128 passengers.  Man breaking the sound barrier actually wasn’t modern; the cracking of a whip, known for thousands of years, is the tip passing through the sound barrier and engineers were well aware of the problems caused by propellers travelling that fast but it wasn’t until 1947 that a manned aircraft exceeded Mach 1 in controlled flight (although it had been achieved in deep dives though not without structural damage).  The military were of course immediately interested but so were those who built commercial airliners, intrigued at the notion of transporting passengers at supersonic speed, effectively shrinking the planet.  By the late 1950s, still recovering from the damage and costs of two world wars, France and the UK were never going to be in a position to be major players in the space-race which would play-out between the US and USSR but civil aviation did offer possibilities for both nations to return to the forefront of the industry.  France, in the early days of flight had been the preeminent power (a legacy of that being words like fuselage and aileron) and UK almost gained an early lead in passenger jets but the debacle of the de Havilland Comet (1949) had seen the Boeing 707 (1957) assume dominance.  The supersonic race was thought to be the next horizon and the UK’s Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) was in 1956 commissioned with the development of a Supersonic Transport (SST) for commercial use.

Concordes exist in a number of flight simulator programs; this is Colimata's Concorde v1.10 in BA livery.

The committee’s early research soon established it was going to be an expensive undertaking so the UK sought partners; the US declined but in 1962 the UK and France signed the Anglo-French Concorde agreement, a framework for cooperation in the building of the one SST.  The choice of name actually came some months after the engineering concord was signed, the manufacturers submitting to the UK cabinet the names Concord and Concorde, it being thought desirable to have something which sounded and meant the same in both languages (the French had already agreed it shouldn’t be called the Super-Caravelle the project name for a smaller SST on which some work had been done in 1960).  The other suggestions put to cabinet were Alliance or Europa.  In the cabinet discussions in London, Alliance was thought to be "too military" and Europa offended those Tories who still hankered for the "splendid isolation" which had been the British view on European matters in the previous century.  Even in the nineteenth century age of Pax Britannica splendid isolation had been somewhat illusory but in the Tory Party the words still exerted a powerful pull.  

The French-built Concorde 001's roll-out, Toulouse Blagnac airport, 11 December 1967.

There is some dispute about whether the cabinet ever formally agreed to use the French spelling but, like much in English-French relations over the centuries, the entente proved not always cordial and the name was officially changed to Concord by UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (later First Earl Stockton, 1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) in response to him feeling slighted by Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1958-1969) when Le President vetoed the UK’s application to join the European Economic Community (the EEC which evolved into the present Day EU of which the UK was a member between 1973-2020).  However, the Labour party won office in the 1964 general election and by the time of the roll-out in Toulouse in 1967, the UK’s Minister for Technology, Tony Benn (Anthony Wedgwood Benn, 1925–2014, formerly the second Viscount Stansgate) announced he was changing the spelling back to Concorde.  There were not many eurosceptics in the (old) Labour Party back then.

Concorde taking off, 1973 Paris Air Show, the doomed Tupolev Tu-144 in the foreground.

The engineering challenges were overcome and in 1969, some months before the moon landing, Concorde made its maiden flight and, in 1973, a successful demonstration flight was performed at the same Paris air show at which its Soviet competitor Tupolev Tu-144 crashed.  Impressed, more than a dozen airlines placed orders but within months of the Paris show, the first oil shock hit and the world entered a severe recession; the long post-war boom was over.  A quadrupling in the oil price was quite a blow for a machine which burned 20% more fuel per mile than a Boeing 747 yet typically carried only a hundred passengers whereas the Jumbo could be configured for between four and five hundred.  That might still have been viable had have oil prices remained low and a mass-market existed of people willing to pay a premium but with jet fuel suddenly expensive and the world in recession, doubts existed and most orders were immediately cancelled.

Three of the greatest landmarks of the analogue era: Space shuttle Enterprise (OV-101, the first orbiter, used for atmospheric test flights and never flew in space) atop NASA 905 SCA (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, one of two modified Boeing 747s used to ferry shuttles from landing sites back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and a BA (British Airways) Concorde taking off, Paris Air Show, 1983.

Concorde 002 on public display at BAC's (British Aircraft Corporation) airfield, Filton, Bristol, site of its construction.

Eventually, only twenty were built, operated only by BOAC (BEA/BA) and Air France, early hopes of mass-production never materialized; while orders were taken for over a hundred with dozens more optioned, the contracts were soon cancelled.  By 1976 only four nations remained as prospective buyers: Britain, France, China, and Iran; the latter two never took up their orders and by the time Concorde entered service, the US had cancelled their supersonic project and the Soviet programme was soon to follow.  Even without the oil shocks of the 1970s and the more compelling economics of wide-bodied airliners like the Boeing 747, there were problems, the noise of the sonic boom as the speed of sound was exceeded meaning it was impossible to secure agreement for it to operate over land at supersonic speed.  Accordingly, most of its time was spent overflying the Atlantic and Pacific and BA and Air France sometimes made profit from Concorde only because the British and French governments wrote off the development costs.  Concorde was an extraordinary technical achievement but existed only because the post-war years in the UK and France were characterised by national projects undertaken by nationalised industries.  Under orthodox modern (post Reagan cum Thatcher) economics, such a thing could never happen. 

Concorde F-BTSC (Air France Flight 4590), Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France, 25 July 2000.

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, bound for New York, crashed on take-off out of Paris, killing all 109 on board and a further four on the ground. It was the only fatal accident involving Concorde, the cause determined to be debris on the runway which entered an engine, causing catastrophic damage.  In April 2003, both Air France and British Airways announced that they would retire Concorde later that year citing low passenger numbers following the crash, the slump in air travel following the 9/11 attacks and rising maintenance costs.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998)

Fictional works are usually constructed cognizant of physical reality and technological innovations have always influenced what's possible in plot-lines.  The cell phone for example offered many possibilities but also rendered some situations either impossible or improbable (although Hollywood has sometimes found either of those no obstacle in a screenplay).  The retirement of Concorde also had to be noted.  Not only had it long been used as a symbol of wealth but there was also the speed so plot-lines which included the relativities of the duration of commercial supersonic versus subsonic trans-Atlantic travel were suddenly no loner possible.  Lindsay Lohan's line in The Parent Trap (1998) since 2003 (and for the foreseeable future) is a "stranded relic" of the Concorde era.     

Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO reporting name: Charger).

The Tu-144 was the USSR’s SST and it was the first to fly, its maiden flight in 1968 some months before Concorde and sixteen were built.  It was also usually ahead of the Anglo-French development, attaining supersonic speed twelve weeks earlier and entering commercial service in 1975 but safety and reliability concerns doomed the project and its reputation never recovered from the 1973 crash.  The Soviet carrier Aeroflot introduced a regular Moscow-Almaty service but only a few dozen flights were ever completed, the Tu-144 withdrawn after a second crash in 1978 after which it was used only for cargo until 1983 when the remaining fleet was grounded.  It was later used to train Soviet cosmonauts and had a curious post-cold war career when chartered by NASA for high-altitude research.  The final flight was in 1999.

Boeing 2707.

While perfecting supersonic military aircraft during the early 1950s, Americans had explored the idea of SSTs as passenger aircraft and had concluded that while it was technically possible, in economic terms such a thing could never be made to work and that four-engined jets like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC8 were the future of commercial aviation.  However, the announcement of the development of Concorde and the Soviet SST stirred the Kennedy White House into funding what was essentially a vanity project proving the technical superiority of US science and engineering.  Boeing won the competition to design an SST and, despite also working on the 747 and the space programme, it gained a high priority and the 2707 was projected to be the biggest, fastest and most advanced of all the SSTs, seating up to three-hundred, cruising at Mach 3 and configured with a swing-wing.  Cost, complexity and weight doomed that last feature and the design was revised to use a conventional delta shape.  But, however advanced US engineering and science might have been, US accountancy was better still and what was clearly an financially unviable programme was in 1971 cancelled even before the two prototypes had been completed.

Lockheed L-2000.

Lockheed also entered the government-funded competition to design a US SST.  Similar to the Boeing concept in size, speed and duration, it eschewed the swing-wing because, despite the aerodynamic advantages, the engineers concluded what Boeing would eventually admit: that the weight, cost and complexity acceptable in military airframes, couldn’t be justified in a civilian aircraft.  As the military-industrial complex well knew, the Pentagon was always more sanguine about spending other people's money (OPM) than those people were about parting with their own.  Lockheed instead used a slightly different compromise: the compound delta.  After the competition, Boeing and Lockheed were both selected to continue to the prototype stage but in 1966 Boeing’s swing-wing design was preferred because its performance was in most aspects superior and it was quieter; that it was going to be more expensive to produce wasn’t enough to sway the government, things being different in the 1960s.  Reality finally bit in 1971.

Depiction of a Boom Overture in United Airlines livery.

In mid-2021 US carrier United Airlines (UA) announced plans to acquire a fleet of fifteen new supersonic airliners which they expected to be in service by 2029.  It wasn’t clear from the press release what was the most ambitious aspect of the programme: (1) that Colorado-based Boom (which at the time had not achieved supersonic flight), would be able by 2029 to produce even one machine certified by regulatory authorities for use in commercial aviation, (2) that the aircraft would be delivered at close to the budgeted US$200 million unit cost, (3) that what United describe as “improvements in aircraft design since Concorde” will eliminate, reduce or mitigate (all three have at various times been suggested) the effects of the sonic boom, (4) that it won’t be “any louder than other modern passenger jets while taking off, flying over land and landing”, (5) that sufficient passengers will be prepared to pay a premium to fly at Mach 1.7 in a new and unproven airframe built by a company with no record in the industry or that (6) Greta Thunberg (b 2003) will believe Boom which says Overture will operate as a "net-zero carbon aircraft".

Looking sceptical: Greta Thunberg.

The suggestion was the Overture will run on "posh biodiesel", made from anything from waste cooking fat to specially grown high-energy crops although whether this industry can by 2029 be scaled-up to produce what will be required to service enough of the aviation industry to make either project viable isn’t known.  Still, if not, Boom claimed "power-to-liquid" processes by which renewable energy such as solar or wind power is used to produce liquid fuel will make up any shortfall.  Boom does seem a heroic operation: they expect the Overture to be profitable for airlines even if tickets are sold for the same price as a standard business-class ticket.  One way or another, the flight-path (figuratively and literally) of the Boom Overture follows is going to become a standard case-study in university departments although whether that's in marketing, engineering or accountancy might depend matters beyond Boom's control.

Boom XB-1 in subsonic flight.

Boom’s progress can’t however be denied because on 10 February, 2025, its XB-1 “proof of concept” test platform accomplished what orthodox physics once deemed impossible.  On that day if flew over California’s Mojave Desert at speeds beyond the sound barrier without generating a sonic boom, the announcement surprising some sceptics but doing little to quell the doubts among analysts unable to build models which show a sustained profitable life for the project.  What Boom did with the XB-1 was use an implementation of “Mach cut-off” technology which exploits atmospheric conditions by manipulation, redirecting shock waves upward rather than toward the ground.  This is achieved by operating the airframe in a certain four-dimensional envelope (a window created by specific atmospheric conditions within a certain height range up to a certain speed).  Flying within these parameters, the airframe minimizes the unwanted effects of pressure waves, dispersing them without forming the concentrated pressure front that creates the dreaded sonic booms.  Whatever the sceptical economic modelers may conclude, it was an impressive display of Boom’s technology and engineering with the ground-level impact eliminated, at least in the ideal, controlled conditions of a test flight.

Scripps Climate Physics explains Mach Cut-Off.

What the economists noted was the XB-1 was able to achieve the much vaunted “silent-supersonic” at around 1,200 km/h (750 mph) and the math indicates the means to implement Mach cut-off when travelling faster (certainly the 2,100 km/h (1300 mph; Mach 1.7) which apparently remains Boom’s target) doesn’t yet exist, even at the level of theory.  On land, sea or air, for centuries what has determined commercial viability is the speed-cost trade-off and notional profitability was for at least some of Concorde’s years of operation achieved because it offered a quicker trans-Atlantic flight-time (typically the Concorde at Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph, 2,180 km/h) would take 3 hours 30 minutes while at Mach 0.85 (565 mph, 910 km/h), a Boeing 747 would need 7-8 hours).  In truth that profitability was a fudge subsidized by taxpayers (a remarkably common phenomenon in modern capitalism) because the French & British governments “wrote off” the development costs (some Stg £1.3 billion by the late 1970s at a time when a billion pounds was still a lot of money and even that may have been a deliberate under-estimate to conceal the true cost which has been estimated (in 2023 Sterling value terms) as high as Stg£21 billion).

Boom XB-1 taking off.

Rich customers or those with tickets paid for by OPM (other people’s money) were prepared to pay the significant premium charged for a seat on Concorde just to avoid sitting an additional 4-5 hours on a wide-bodied subsonic aircraft and that’s the market Boom is interested in for a trans-continental (New York City (NYC) to Los Angeles (LA)) US service.  Subsonic flight times on the NYC-LA route are typically 5-6 hours while Boom will be able to achieve that in under two hours if their silent subsonic plans can be realized; that would mean the road transport components of a trip elements to and from the NYC & LA airports could be longer than the time in the air.  If able to offer a 3-4 hour reduction in NYC-LA travel time, genuinely that’s a marketing advantage but one which can be leveraged only if there are enough customers willing (with the required frequency) to spend somebody’s money to fill the seats of UA’s 15 silentsonics.  If, as Boom once indicated to venture capitalists (VC) and others (JAL (Japan Airlines has reportedly invested US$10 million), the tickets on the NYC-LA route would retail at around the subsonic business-class level, then few doubt their model will work but it remains to be seen whether what’s necessary can be achieved (1) by 2029 or (2) ever.  Hopefully, Boom does succeed so delta-winged supersonics can make a (quieter) return to the skies though it’ll be a shame if the marketing department insisted on changing the corporate name to something like “Boomless”, “No Boom”, “Boom-Free” or whatever.  “Boom” is a really good name for an aviation outfit has some history in the field, “Boom” the nickname of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard (First Viscount Trenchard, 1873–1956) who was instrumental in the formation of Britain’s RAF (Royal Air Force) although he gained the moniker because of the tone of his voice rather than anything to do with fluid dynamics.

Shunamitism

Shunamitism (pronounced shunn-ah-might-izm)

The ancient practice of an old man sleeping with, but not necessarily having sex with, a young virgin, either to preserve youth or restore health.

Biblical (1 Kings 1-4): From Shunamite +‎ -ism, after Abishag (אבישג‎ (Avishag) in the Hebrew), a Shunamite woman who served this purpose for King David.  A Shunamite was an inhabitant of the Biblical village of Shunem.  The –ism suffix is ultimately either from the Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós), a suffix that forms abstract nouns of action, state, condition, doctrine; from stem of verbs in -ίζειν (-ízein) (whence the English -ize), or from the related suffix Ancient Greek -ισμα (-isma), which more specifically expressed a finished act or thing done.

Still recommended

Shunamitism is the practice of an old man sleeping with, but not necessarily having sex with, a young virgin to preserve his youth.  A legitimate medical theory of the time, the rationale was heat and vitality of the young maiden would revitalize the old man.

The term is based on the Biblical story of King David (1 Kings 1-4) and Abishag, a young woman from Shunem.  The King was very old and could not stay warm so his servants procured the young Abishag to sleep with him; they did not enjoy intimacy but Abishag also provided another footnote in royal history.  After a power-struggle with his brother Adonijah, Solomon was crowned king and when Adonijah asked for Abishag in marriage, Solomon, fearing another attempt to usurp the throne, had him put to death.

As late as the eighteenth century, physicians were still prescribing shunamitism and, in emergency medicine, it remains a recommended method to treat hypothermia when no medical facilities are available, though without mention of the necessity to secure a young virgin.

A work in progress: Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) with wife Jerry Hall (b 1956), Barbados, 2019.

Reports in June 2022 were circulating that Mr & Mrs Murdoch had separated and, after six year of marriage, were to divorce.  A usually reliable source for the details of such matters, the Murdoch tabloids, were as silent as they'd been when last Mr Murdoch sundered a marriage but no denial was issued, this taken as a confirmation by those who read between the lines.  Anything involving Mr Murdoch is an event of note, not least because he probably ranks with Billy Hughes (1862-1952), MacFarlane Burnett (1899-1985) and Germaine Greer (b 1939) as the most influential Australians of the last hundred-odd years.

Laurel

Laurel (pronounced lawruhl or lor-uhl)

(1) A small European evergreen tree, Laurus nobilis, of the laurel family, having dark, glossy green leaves (Known also as the bay tree or sweet bay).

(2) Any tree of the genus Laurus.

(3) In general use, any of various similar trees or shrubs, as the mountain laurel or the great rhododendron.

(4) The foliage of the laurel as an emblem of victory or distinction.

(5) A branch or wreath of laurel foliage.

(6) In the plural (laurels or victory laurels), an award conferred (literally or figuratively) as an honor for achievement in some field or activity.

(7) An English gold coin minted in 1619, so called because the king's head was crowned with laurel.

(8) In many color charts, a green of a darker hue.

(9) To adorn or enwreathe with laurel.

(10) To honor with marks of distinction.

1250–1300: A dissimilated variant of the Middle English laurer (laurel), from the Anglo-Norman, from the twelfth century Old French laurier & lorier (bay tree; laurel tree), the construct being lor (bay) + -ier, from the Medieval Latin laurārius, from the Latin laurus (laurel tree), thought related to the Greek daphne (laurel), probably from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language.  The French suffix -ier was from the Middle French -ier & -er, from the Old French, from the Latin -ārium, the accusative of -ārius.  It was used to form the names of trees, ships, jobs etc.  The second -r- in the Middle English laurer changed to -l- by process of dissimilation.  Laurel is a noun, a proper noun & verb and laureled (also laurelled) & laureling (also laurelling) are verbs; the noun plural is laurels.

Lindsay Lohan fridge magnet by Alexanton.

The use to describe an emblem of victory or of distinction (hence the phrase “to rest on one’s laurels” (the original form was “repose upon”)) which dates from 1831.  The phrase is now mostly used in the cautionary sense “don’t rest on your laurels”, a warning not to rely on a reputation gained through past successes but instead continue to strive and improve.  The companion phrase “look to your laurels” is an idiomatic expression known in Antiquity meaning one need to be vigilant and attentive to your accomplishments, skills or position because there will be those eager to surpass or outshine you.  Like “don’t rest on your laurels”, it stresses the importance of maintaining one’s competitive edge.

Sirens and the Night (1865) by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Although most associated with women, Laurel is a unisex given name and the feminine variants include Laura, Lauren, Lori, and Lorraine.  It was related also to the German Lorelie.  In several tales from Germanic mythology in which the maiden Lorelei (luring rock), who lives upon a rock in Rhine River, lures fishermen to their deaths by singing songs of such beauty they can’t resist, a variation of the story of Odysseus and the Sirens.  In Greek mythology, Sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, they’d sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the tales from antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Roman said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae (all places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs).  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and died.

#metoo: Apolo persiguiendo a Dafne (Apollo chasing Daphne (circa 1637)), oil on canvas by Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The feminine proper name Daphne was from the Greek daphne (laurel, bay tree) and in mythology was the name of a nymph.  Etymologists conclude the word is related to the Latin laurus (laurel) although the mechanism has been lost in time.  In Greek mythology, Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, was a nymph with whom the God Apollo fell in love; he was provoked by Cupid, having disputed with him the power of his darts which Apollo, the recent conqueror of the Python, belittled.  When he pursued her to the banks of the Peneus, she was saved from being ravished by the god who transformed her into a Laurel tree, the origin of Apollo being so often depicted crowned with laurel leaves.  None of the writers from Antiquity seem ever to have pondered whether the nymph, had she been offered the choice between being ravished by a Greek god or being eternally arboreous, might have preferred to permit a slice to be cut from the loaf.  Still, being a sentimental chap, Apollo adopted the laurel as his favorite tree so there’s that.  The site of temples and a stadium, the Grove of Daphne was a pleasure resort of renowned natural beauty, dedicated to Apollo and located near Antioch.

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) in a “laurel leaves” hat designed by Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018), photograph by Howell Conant (1916–1999), Switzerland, February 1962.

As an adjective, laureate (crowned with laurels as a mark of distinction) dates from the late fourteenth century and the earliest reference was to poets of particular distinction, from the Latin laureatus (crowned with laurel), from laurea (laurel crown; emblematic of victory or distinction in poetry), from the feminine laureus (of laurel).  The first known use of Laureat poete is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s (circa 1344-1400) Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) in reference to Scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), and it was used in Middle English of Greek fabulist Aesop (circa 620–564 BC) and, by the early fifteenth century of Chaucer himself.  In English the inverted form “poet laureate” was in imitation of Latin word order and although used informally since the early 1400s, the evidence suggests the first to be appointed by the state was probably (and perhaps posthumously) Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572–circa 1637) (1638) in 1638 although the first from whom the letters patent remain extant was John Dryden (1631–1700).  In the UK, the position of Poet Laureate is an honorary office in the gift of the monarch but these days, appointed on the advice of the prime minister.  Because many prime-ministers know nothing of poetry, they take advice on the matter.  There was a time when the Poet Laureate was an exalted character but these days there’s less interest and the best remembered is probably still Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) and then less for his verse than the calls by feminists to boycott his works because he had Sylvia Plath’s (1932-1963) “blood on his quill”. The noun came into existence in the 1520s, either an evolution from the adjective or through a mistaken reading of poet laureate and laureateship has been in use since 1732.  Laureate is most frequently used of Nobel prize winners, a use that began in 1947.