Orchid

Orchid (pronounced awr-kid)

(1) Any terrestrial or epiphytic plant of the family Orchidaceae, often having flowers of unusual shapes and beautiful colors, specialized for pollination by certain insects and associated with of temperate and tropical regions.

(2) The flower(s) of any of these plants.

(3) A bluish to reddish purple.

1845: It was English botanist John Lindley (1799–1865) who in School Botanty (1845) coined the word orchid from the New Latin Orchideæ & Orchidaceae (Linnaeus), the plant's family name, from the Latin orchis (a kind of orchid), from the Ancient Greek orkhis (genitive orkheos) (orchid, literally "testicle") from the primitive Indo-European orghi-, the standard root for "testicle" (and related to the Avestan erezi (testicles), the Armenian orjik, the Middle Irish uirgge, the Irish uirge (testicle) and the Lithuanian erzilas (stallion).  The plant so called because of the shape of its root was said so to resemble testicles.  The earlier English (in Latin form) was orchis (1560s) and in the thirteenth century Middle English it was ballockwort (literally “testicle plant” and source of the more recent ballocks).  The extraneous -d- was added in an attempt to extract the Latin stem.  The construct was orch(is) (a plant) + -idae.  The irregular suffix –idae is the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek -ίδης (-ídēs), a patronymic suffix.  In Medieval writing, it was sometimes interpreted as representing instead the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek adjectival suffix -ειδής (-eidḗs) from εἶδος (eîdos) (appearance, resemblance).  It was adopted in 1811 at the suggestion of British entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850), to simplify and make uniform the system of French zoologist Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) which divided insect orders into sections; in taxonomy, it’s used to form names of subclasses of plants and families of animals.  Orchid is a noun & adjective, orchidology, orchidophile, orchidelirium, orchidomania, orchidomania, orchidist & orchidologist. are nouns, orchidaceous, orchidlike & orchidean & orchideous are adjectives; the noun plural is orchids.

Lindsay Lohan in pink orchid veavage swimsuit next to potted pink orchid, Phuket, Thailand, December, 2017.  It was during this holiday the wire services reported “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand”; almost instantly, the grammar Nazis tweeted on X (then known as Twitter) demanding proof the snake really was on holiday; standards have fallen since the demise of sub-editors.  Ms Lohan made a full-recovery; there was no word on the fate of the (presumably non-venomous) serpent.

The standard adjectival form (of or pertaining to orchids) is orchidaceous (the comparative “more orchidaceous”, the superlative “most orchidaceous”) but orchidean & orchideous are also used, all conveying the sense of “exotic in a rare, mysterious, alluring or sensual way”.  Through no fault of its own, the Schizanthus pinnatus (butterfly flower) is known as the “poor man's orchid”, dubbed thus because although orchid-like in appearance, its colors are less dramatic and its shape less alluring.  Despite the name, Hooker's orchid is not vulgar slang for the female genitalia but the common name for the Platanthera hookeri, a perennial wildflower found in temperate regions of North America between Iowa and Newfoundland.  It was named after the English botanist William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865) who in 1841 became the first director of Kew Gardens.  The study of orchids is called orchidology and one who works in the field is an orchidologist.  One who cultivates orchids is an orchidist, many of whom are orchidophiles (orchid enthusiasts).  The most obsessive orchidophiles are orchidomaniacs (those passionate about collecting or raising orchids) afflicted with orchidomania (an obsession with orchids; enthusiasm for raising or collecting orchids).  Orchidomania was first documented in the Victorian era (1837-1901) and there were tales of intrigue, low skulduggery (and even an alleged murder) among those who wandered the planet in search or rare or unique specimens.  In medical use, there is macroorchidism (having abnormally large testes) and macroorchidism (having abnormally small testes), monorchidism (having only one testicle within the scrotum), polyorchidism (possessing more than two testes), triorchidism (possessing three testes) and cryptorchidism (having one or two undescended testicles).  The surgical procedures include orchidectomy (also as orchiectomy) (the surgical removal of one or both testes; the alternative testectomy tends to be used only when both are removed (ie in a castration)) and orchiopexy (also as orchidopexy) (the fixation of a testis (ie to rectify cryptorchidism by moving an undescended testicle into the scrotum and keeping it there)).  

Plant porn

A lovely purple orchid in vase.

The lure of the orchid seems to attract a certain sort of obsessive, drawn by the beauty of the flowers and their sensual fragrance, they speak of its blatant sexuality and leaf slowly through the specialized catalogues which, to them, is botanical pornography.  It’s also a business and a cut-throat one, the retail value of the trade estimated at US$9 billion annually and, with some of the natural habitats under threat, the rarest are becoming more expensive.  Governments and quangos too have become involved, imposing regulations and limits on harvesting, the Geneva-based CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) rumored to be threatening to seek the power to raid even the private greenhouses of amateur collectors who may have violated their rules.  The idea of squads of international bureaucrats, escorted by local police, turning up outside the potting shed and demanding to inspect plants may sound Kafkaesque but lawyers have warned there are international treaties that, if ratified and recognized in domestic law, might permit exactly that.  It's of particular interest in countries with a federal constitutional arrangement in which sub-national governments (states & provinces etc) guarantee certain protection.  In those systems, (1) international treaties are sometimes entered into by national governments which tend to be vested with the head of power encompassing foreign affairs and (2) federal constitutions usually provide that when any conflict exists between national and sub-national laws, the former shall prevail.

A blue orchid.

More than just about any other (non-narcotic) plants, orchids seem to exert on people an attraction beyond what may be said to be a “normal” interest in houseplants.  Papers have been written exploring the reasons for this and the consensus seems to be there are six factors which contribute most to the interest becoming obsessive: (1) The technical challenge.  Removed from their very specific natural environment, orchids can be difficult to grow, light, humidity, irrigation and temperature all critical and the combination letting one orchid flourish may kill another.  They can take a long time to flower and for the obsessive, this builds anticipation so when finally a bloom finally appears, there’s a feeling of real achievement.  (2) Beauty.  The almost “sexual” attractiveness of orchids shouldn’t be overstated but they certainly don’t look like “typical” flowers, some mimicking insects, animals, or even faces.  This can of course be an adaptation to attract pollinators but the beauty is undeniable.  (3) The diversity.  With over 25,000 species identified thus far (and many more hybrids), Orchidaceae is one of the largest plant families on Earth; for collectors, such variety is a magnet because there is always some new color, shape or species to hunt (and, these days, post on Instagram). (4) Community and culture.  Orchid societies and clubs are vibrant and create strong social bonds (although there are also factions that are highly competitive).  (5) Rarity.  The most prized orchids genuinely are rare and, for collectors of anything (coins, stamps, Ferraris etc) there is prestige and social status in ownership.  (6) Fragrance.  Lurking behind the stunning visual appeal, some orchids (and not necessarily the most colourful) have complex fragrances (from sweet to spicy) and one attraction may be they remind many of chocolate, another substance known to attract obsessives.

A Lindsay Lohan selfie with pink and white orchid, October, 2014.

Useful introductions to the weird world of the orchid-obsessed include The Orchid Thief (2000) by Susan Orlean (b 1955), Orchid:A Cultural History (2016) by Jim Endersby (b 1972) and Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (2000) by Eric Hansen (b 1948).  Photographs can only hint at their sensual beauty but the obsessed differ on the best way to experience orchids, some saying nothing compares to their natural environment while others like to mix with them en masse, in a humid hothouse with sufficient air-flow to make them happy and permit the scent of the flowers to waft about.   

Orchidaceous

Orchidaceous (pronounced awr-ki-dey-shuhs)

(1) In botany, of, relating to, or belonging to the Orchidaceae, a family of flowering plants including (but not limited to) the orchids.

(2) Figuratively, characterized by ostentatiousness; showy; extravagant; excessive in some way.

1830–1840: From the New Latin Orchidace & Orchidaceae, the construct being orchidace + -ous.  It was English botanist John Lindley (1799–1865) who in School Botanty (1845) coined the word orchid from the New Latin Orchideæ & Orchidaceae (Linnaeus), the plant's family name, from the Latin orchis (a kind of orchid), from the Ancient Greek orkhis (genitive orkheos) (orchid (literally “testicle”)) from the primitive Indo-European orghi-, the standard root for “testicle” (and related to the Avestan erezi (testicles), the Armenian orjik, the Middle Irish uirgge, the Irish uirge (testicle) and the Lithuanian erzilas (stallion).  The plant so called because of the shape of its root was said so to resemble testicles (the Greek orkhis also was the name of a kind of olive, named also for its shape).  So striking did the writers of Antiquity fine the double roots of the plant that references appear in some texts.  The Roman historian Pliny the Elder (24-79) was (as was common at the time) also something of a naturalist and he was moved to observe: “Mirabilis est orchis herba sive serapis gemina radice testiculis simili.” (The orchis plant, also known as serapis, is remarkable with its twin roots resembling testicles.)  The noun plural is orchids, the field is orchidology and the breeders, collectors and other obsessives are called orchidologists.  Orchidaceous & orchidean are adjectives and orchidacity is a noun; the noun plural is orchidacities.

Earlier in English (in the Latinesque form) was the mid-sixteenth century orchis while in fourteenth century Middle English it was ballockwort (literally “testicle plant” and related to the more recent ballocks).  The extraneous -d- in the modern spelling was added in an attempt to extract the Latin stem and it is here to stay, the history of that the construct as orch(is) (the plant) + -id(ae).  The irregular suffix –idae is the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek -ίδης (-ídēs), a patronymic suffix which in medieval writing was sometimes interpreted as representing instead the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek adjectival suffix -ειδής (-eidḗs) from εἶδος (eîdos) (appearance, resemblance).  It was adopted in 1811 at the suggestion of British entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850), to simplify and make uniform the system of French zoologist Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) which divided insect orders into sections; in taxonomy, it’s used to form names of subclasses of plants and families of animals.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix –ic (as an example, sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

The sensual orchid.

In the spirit of the figurative use (and usually of women’s fashion), although they’re non-standard, the adjective orchidaceousness and the adverb orchidaceously have been formed and in that vein, the only thing which would make orchidaceous difficult to use as a noun would be forming the plural (orchidaceoux would appall the purists).  Usually though, those commenting on what appears on the catwalks & red carpets seem content with the comparative (more orchidaceous) and the superlative (most orchidaceous).  Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noted the old spelling (orchis) was “applied chiefly to the English wild flowers and is accordingly the poetic and country word”.  The very idea of “the country word” is now dated and was a particular sort of regionalism: one used by those tied by linguistic tradition to rural England rather than certain locations, and if orchis endures as a literary or poetic device, it’s rare.  Of flowers, although orchidaceous can mean “of, relating to, or belonging to the Orchidaceae”, such is the beauty of orchids, those who write of the things seem drawn to use sexual imagery and rarely can resist “seductive” and other lovely plants are sometimes also described as orchidaceous.

The original etymology survives in medicine as orchidectomy although the construct of that was the Latin orchis (wrongly interpreting orchid- as the stem) +‎ -ectomy (the surgical removal of); the correct term is actually orchiectomy (the surgical removal of one or both testes).  The synonym is testectomy which is interesting because the use of that within the profession (usually by veterinarians) does not of necessity imply something surgical.  The -ectomy suffix was from the Ancient Greek -εκτομία (-ektomía) (a cutting out of), from ἐκτέμνω (ektémnō) (to cut out), the construct being ἐκ (ek) (out) + τέμνω (témnō) (to cut).  In surgery, it was appended to the name of whatever is being removed (eg an appendectomy being the surgical removal of the appendix) although it's borrowed (often for jocular purposes) by plumbers, carpenters and others in professions where there often a need to "cut things off", a "roofectomy" being the process by which a coach-builder converts a coupé (or other closed vehicle) into some sort of convertible.

Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden print gown (the list price a reputed Stg£4,040) at the launch of the One Family NGO (non-governmental organization), Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017 (left) and Taylor Swift in Etro navy and yellow silk floral ball gown at the Golden Globes award ceremony, The Beverly Hilton, Los Angeles, January 2020 (right).

Neither cutting-edge nor retro in the conventional sense of the word, Lindsay Lohan’s gown was mostly well-received and for students of intricacy it was worth studying although probably few would have called it orchidaceous because it conveyed such a sense of the conservative; only a burqa could have been more modest.  That’s why the blue was such a good choice; in scarlet there would have been mixed messages.  Some thought it Rococo and perhaps thematically it could have been done with just a ruffled collar, the pussy bow a detail too many, but the patterning was clever and accentuated the lines.  While it’s not certain the vivid floral patterns on Taylor Swift’s gown were actually intended to be suggestive of orchids, the effect was orchidaceous.  It was an exercise in monumentalism which swished around as wafted about, recalling the flowers of an orchid in a breeze.

Orchidacity in Solid colors: Gigi Hadid and the Met Gala, New York, May 2022 (left), Sophie Monk at the TV Week Logie Awards-Gold Coast, Australia, June 2019 (centre) and Carolina Gaitan at the Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2022 (right).

Although dedicated (ie obsessional) orchidologists adhere to the language from botanical taxonomy (Epidendrum, Ludisia, Masdevallia, Erythraeum, Promenaea, Spathoglottis, Psychopsis, Angraecum, Encyclia cochleata etc) when classifying their collections, most people describe them in terms of the dominant color or, when a combination is particular striking (as many of the blues & purples especially are) that mix is referenced (orange/yellow, purple/white etc) but that doesn’t mean that for some object to be thought orchidaceous it must be multi-hued.  That’s because the allure of an orchid lies not in the colors but in the sensuality of the shape; they are the sexiest of flowers, soft, feminine things which seem to draw one in to be enveloped.

Giulia Salemie (b 1993, left) & Dayane Mello (b 1989, right), Venice Film Festival, Italy, September 2016.

The trend in recent years for the “naked dress” to become the red carpet motif of the era might have been thought to limit the possibility of the creations being thought orchidaceous because the focus is so much on flesh rather than fabric, of which there’s often precious little.  However, on a fortuitously warm and not too windy September day during the Venice Film Festival, two Italian models proved the naked look could be combined with voluminous folds; it was all in the cut.  For the reasons discussed, the dresses could not be called anything but orchidaceous although the internet had already suggested VVD (visible vag(ina) dress)) which in general was wrong (although the initialism was OK) because correctly the hint was of a visible vulva and on that day in Venice, the models actually wore (that may not be the right word) color-coordinated (ie the same fabric as the dresses) adhesive micro-knickers, held in place with a skin-friendly surgical glue.  In a nice touch, their appearance came during the festival’s premiere of The Young Pope (the first time a television production had been included in the program).

Fugacious

Fugacious (pronounced fyoo-gey-shuhs)

(1) Fleeting; transitory.

(2) In botany, falling or fading early.

1625–1635: From the Classical Latin fugāci- (fleeing, likely to flee), stem of fugāx (apt to flee, timid, shy) and a derivative of fugere (to flee).  The construct was fugāci- + -ous.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example, sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The Latin forms derived from fugiō (I flee) included fugācius, comparative of fugāciter (evasively, fleetingly).  From this root, English gained fugitive, refuge and subterfuge and the synonyms of fugacious include brief, ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting, impermanent, momentary, passing, short-lived, temporal, temporary, transient.  The related forms include the adverb fugaciously and the nouns fugaciousness & fugacity.

The most fugacious of the orchids (family: Orchidaceae), the Calypso bulbosa (Calypso orchid) is categorized a spring ephemeral, flowering with the first warmth of spring, the blooms lasting but a few days.  Calypso orchids are found most often on the forest floor, popping out from a carpet of ferns and moss.  They’re often referred to by their popular names (Fairy Slipper, Lady Slipper & Venus Slipper), rarely exceed six inches (150mm) in height and are seen usually in shades of pink, white & purple, including flecked combinations.  The blue varieties are especially rare and prized by collectors.

Lindsay Lohan selfie with fugacious orchid, October, 2014.

Ambiguous

Ambiguous (pronounced am-big-yoo-uhs)

(1) Open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal.

(2) In linguistics, of an expression exhibiting constructional homonymity; having two or more structural descriptions.

(3) Of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify.

1528: From the late Middle English ambiguous (of doubtful or uncertain nature, open to various interpretations) Latin ambiguus (moving from side to side, of doubtful or uncertain nature, open to various interpretations), from ambigere (to dispute about (figuratively "to hesitate, waver; be in doubt" and literally “to wander; go about; go around”) the present active infinitive of ambigō from ambi (around) +‎ agō or agere (I drive, move).  The first known citation in English is in the writings of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) in 1528 but most scholars maintain the noun ambiguity had been in use since circa 1400 in the sense of "uncertainty, doubt, indecision, hesitation", from the Old French ambiguite and directly from Latin ambiguitatem (nominative ambiguitas) (double meaning, equivocalness, double sense), the noun of state from ambiguus (having double meaning, doubtful),  The meaning "obscurity in description" emerged in the early fifteenth century.  The adjective unambiguous dated from the 1630s while the noun disambiguation (removal of ambiguity) is documented since 1827.  Ambiguous is an adjective, ambiguate is a verb and ambiguity, ambiguation & ambiguousness are nouns; the most common noun plural is ambiguities. 

Structural ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity & lexical ambiguity

Lindsay Lohan in pink orchid veavage swimsuit next to potted pink orchid, Phuket, Thailand, December, 2017.  It was during this holiday the wire services reported “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand”; almost instantly, the grammar Nazis tweeted on X (then known as Twitter) demanding proof the snake really was on holiday; standards had fallen since sub-editors went extinct.  Ms Lohan made a full-recovery; there was no word on the fate of the (presumably not venomous) serpent.

One of the core concepts in structural linguistics is that the meaning of many combination or words (ie a compound, sentence or phrase) is derived not merely from the meanings of the individual words but also from the way in which they’re combined.  It’s a simple idea which academics have managed to make sound complex, calling the process “compositionality” (that meaning is a construct of word meanings plus morphosyntactic structures).  So, because a structure can contribute to meaning, it follows that changing the order of the words can lead to a different meaning even if the same words are used.  When a word, phrase, or sentence has more than one meaning, it is ambiguous and “ambiguous” has a specific meaning in structural linguistics because it doesn’t mean simply that a meaning is vague or unclear: It means two or more distinct meanings are available and this is called structural ambiguity or syntactic ambiguity (as distinct from when a word has more than one distinct meaning which is known as lexical ambiguity.  Sometimes, the intended meaning can be unclear but often context can be used to assist the deconstruction and although technically ambiguous, most readers probably understood what happened in the "Lindsay Lohan snake incident".

China, the renegade province of Taiwan and strategic ambiguity

Taiwan (aka Formosa) is an island off the coast of China which separated, politically, from the mainland in 1949.  The Chinese government regards Taiwan as “a renegade province”; the island’s administration maintains a position of structural autonomy without actually declaring independence.  Since 1950, the US has maintained a security guarantee for the de facto independence of Taiwan which has been sometimes explicit, sometimes vague, the latter paradigm known as a policy of strategic ambiguity.

The origins of the guarantee lie in the Korean War.  In 1950, Dean Acheson (1893–1971; US secretary of state 1949-1953) delineated the US security perimeter in Asia and included neither Taiwan nor South Korea.  Chinese leader Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) and Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994), in an interpretation endorsed by their senior partner, Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), concluded Washington would not defend either country.  The DPRK acted first, invading South Korea in June 1950 which shocked the US into assembling a military response under the flag of the UN and, fearing further Communist incursions in Asia, sent the Seventh Fleet to deter any attempt by Peking to invade Taiwan.

In 1954, China probed US policy by shelling some Taiwanese islands in what came to be known as the First Taiwan Strait Crisis; the US responded by entering into defense treaties with both Taiwan and South Korea.  The probing continued, notably with the second crisis in 1958 and in the 1960 presidential campaign, both candidates, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), pledged to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.  During the 1960s, in a kind of military choreography, US-China standoffs continued.  By 1972, things had changed.  The US sought China’s assistance, both to extricate themselves from the quagmire of the Vietnam War and to become something of a strategic partner against the USSR, Peking having long split from Moscow.  In a communique issued from Shanghai, Washington affirmed Peking’s “one China” principle that Taiwan is part of China saying it was a matter for China and Taiwan to work out the relationship peacefully. 

The nine dash line.

Despite that, the US-Taiwan Treaty remained but it needed now to be viewed in the context of Richard Nixon's Guam Doctrine, issued in 1969, in which the president noted "…the US would assist in the defense… of allies and friends" but would not "undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world."  For Taiwan, and presumably everyone else, strategic ambiguity thus began.  Seven years after the Shanghai statement, later, the Carter administration recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC, the old Red China), severed formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and terminated the treaty.  Strategic ambiguity has shrouded Washington’s position on Taiwan ever since.  US presidents have on occasion suggested both something more robust and something less so it appears to remain the position that the US might defend Taiwan were China to invade but it might not.  It would depend on the circumstances.  For seventy-odd years, the US position has been enough to deter China from exercising the military option to restore the renegade province to the motherland but a multi-dimensional chess game will play-out over the next decade in the South China Sea.

Lush

Lush (pronounced luhsh)

(1) Of vegetation, plants, grasses etc, luxuriant; succulent; tender and juicy; characterized by luxuriant vegetation.

(2) Of fruit (especially tropical varieties), succulent and fleshy; of food in general, savory, delicious (now rare).

(3) Characterized by luxuriousness, opulence etc.

(4) A habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated, applied usually as disparaging and offensive term and applied disproportionately to women.

(5) Alcoholic drink (archaic).

(6) In musical criticism (of sopranos in Opera), a notably rich, expressive voice; in music generally an antonym for austere or sparse, a use also extended to literature.

(7) In internet slang (of the young of any gender), beautiful, sexy; used also as a synonym generally for amazing, cool, fantastic, wicked (should be used only by the youthful).

(8) Of ground or the soil, in dialectal use, mellow; soft; easily turned; fertile.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English lusch (slack, relaxed, limp, loose), from the Proto-Germanic laskwaz (weak, false, feeble), from the primitive Indo-European lēy- (to let; leave behind).  It was akin to the Old English lysu (bad) & lǣc (lax), the Middle Low German las & lasch (slack), the Middle High German erleswen (to become weak), the Middle Low German lasch (slack, languid, idle),the Low German lusch (loose), the Old Norse lǫskr (weak, feeble) and the Gothic lasiws (weak, feeble).  A doublet of lusk.  Source was probably the Old French lasche (lax, lazy) from the Latin laxus (loose), from the Late Latin laxicare (become shaky) from the primitive European root sleg- (be slack, be languid).

Among the tropical lushness: Lindsay Lohan in pink orchid veavage swimsuit next to potted pink orchid, Phuket, Thailand, December, 2017.  It was during this holiday the wire services reported “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand”; almost instantly, the grammar Nazis tweeted on X (then known as Twitter) demanding proof the snake really was on holiday; standards have fallen sine the demise of sub-editors.  Ms Lohan made a full-recovery; there was no word on the fate of the (presumably not venomous) serpent.

It began to be applied to dense vegetation circa 1600 when used that way by Shakespeare who was alluding to the languid appearance of foliage and the modern sense “luxuriant in growth" developed organically from there.  The Shakespearian origin is generally accepted but some etymologists have noted a link to a word in Gypsy (Romany) or Shelta (tinkers' jargon).  The use relating to alcoholic drink dates from circa 1790, the origin unknown but presumed to be a facetious link to the idea of juicy vegetation, saturated with liquid.  The early slang referred to the drink itself; in 1790 a “lush ken” was an alehouse but by 1890 had come to mean "drunkard" and as early as 1811 was used as a verb meaning “to drink heavily”, the adjective being lushey.    In 1823, Lushington was recorded as a humorous generic name for a heavy drinker which was perhaps unfortunate for some, it being a real surname.  It was in the twentieth century, perhaps in reaction to the greater social acceptability of women taking drink, that lush came to be an almost exclusively female descriptor; the linguistic shift part of the long (and continuing) tradition of men finding new ways to disparage women.  Lush is a noun & adjective, Lusher & lushest are adjectives, lushness is a noun and lushly an adverb.

Martha Mitchell, who got a bit of fun from life

John and Martha Mitchell, Washington DC, 1971.

Martha Mitchell (1918-1976) was the wife of John Mitchell (1913–1988; US attorney-general 1969–1972) who served under Richard Nixon (1913-1994; POTUS 1969-1974) as attorney general.  She gained a not undeserved reputation as a lush, Nixon’s chief of staff (HR Halderman 1926-1993; chief of staff to the president 1969 1973) noting in his diary early in 1970 that “Martha’s behavior was sometimes outlandish, due to both emotional and drinking problems”.  More than once in the White House there was discussion about her being an embarrassment to her husband and the administration and a term emerged: "the Martha problem”.

Martha Mitchell, Time magazine cover, 30 November 1970.

The attorney-general’s wife being a lush not good but was tolerated, her husband actually attracting some sympathy, but, as the Nixon administration proceeded along its historic course, Martha’s drunken ramblings, including to journalists, raised real concerns.  Pillow-talk being a thing, she raised concerns about the dirty tricks and actual illegalities in which the administration was involved, especially the conduct of the 1972 election campaign which included the famous Watergate building break-in.  Figures in the administration then arranged to kidnap her so she could be kept incommunicado, the idea being the cover-up that was the Watergate affair would be better conducted without her around, part of the kidnapping having her forcefully sedated and locked up.  However, her accusations soon emerged and in little more than a year, Nixon would be forced to resign.  Martha had raised many of matters in an attempt to defend her husband who she believed was being set-up as the administration's “fall-guy” but, early in the scandal he resigned, later to be convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy and jailed for some two years.  Soon after his resignation, the couple separated; they would never meet again.  To his dying day Nixon blamed Martha for the Watergate scandal, insisting she was such a distraction for the attorney-general that he neglected the oversight of the 1972 campaign, allowing others in the team to do bad things.  As a reading of the Old Testament's Book of Genesis would suggest, there's a long tradition of men finding a woman to blame for things going wrong.

The Martha Mitchell Effect

The "Martha Mitchell Effect" is from the literature of psychiatry and refers to instances where a clinician labels a patient's accurate description of actual events as delusional, resulting in a misdiagnosis.  The significance of the Martha Mitchell Effect is that, strictly speaking, its application should be limited to those instances of misdiagnosis which arise because the clinician either relied upon or was unduly influenced by factors particular to the patient but not directly relevant to case being discussed.  Thus, because Martha was a notorious lush given to rambling, drunken accusations and claims of conspiracies, she was erroneously assumed to be displaying symptoms of mental illness.

New York Daily News, 26 June 1972.

In the profession, the Martha Mitchell Effect is something which can affect many (cognitive bias, misdiagnosis, diagnostic overshadowing, iatrogenic & over-diagnosis) of the circumstances which can produce false positives, a particular problem in psychiatry, where there are few objective clinical tests for most disorders, diagnosis relying so often on the subjectivity of both the patient report and interpretation of these symptoms by clinicians.  In real-world conditions, there’s no obvious way to create protocols to ensure the Martha Mitchell Effect doesn’t infect a diagnosis.  However, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 2013) did change some of the criteria for delusional disorders, notably no longer requiring that delusions must be non-bizarre, a change which while obviously not removing subjectivity from the process, did offer some equality between patient and clinician.  The specifier for bizarre type delusions carried over from DSM-IV (1994), the demarcation of delusional disorder from psychotic variants of obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder augmented with a new exclusion criterion, which required the symptoms must not be better explained by conditions such as obsessive-compulsive or body dysmorphic disorder with absent insight/delusional beliefs.  In DSM-5, a delusional disorder is no longer separated from a shared delusional disorder.  In theory, the changes in DSM-5 might have gained Martha a more sympathetic diagnosis, one she'd doubtless have celebrated with a drink.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse (pronounced green-hous)

(1) A structure usually with a skeletal frame supporting panes of glass, Perspex or other translucent materials in which conditions such as temperature, humidity and irrigation are maintained within a desired range, used for cultivating delicate plants or growing plants out of season.

(2) In UK military slang, the clear material of an aircraft’s cockpit (now rare).

(3) In automotive design, the glass (and Perspex) between the beltline and roofline (also called the "glasshouse").

(4) In surgical medicine, a structure shielding an operating table and designed to protect from the transmission of bacteria.

(5) In climatology, as “greenhouse effect”, a description of the general global consequences of the increasing atmospheric concentrations of “greenhouse gases”, notably carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) etc).

(6) In climatology, a hot state in the global climate.

(7) To place (plants) in a greenhouse and (figuratively), to nurture something in some way to promote growth or development.

1655–1665: From the late Middle English greenhouse (house for growing greens), the reference to the vegetables grown (the produce of various colors but much of the foliage was green during the growing process).  The construct was green + house and the form green-house, while now less common, still runs in parallel.  Green was from the Middle English grene, from the Old English grēne, from the Proto-West Germanic grōnī, from the Proto-Germanic grōniz, from the primitive Indo-European ghreh (to grow).  The related forms include the North Frisian green, the West Frisian grien, the Dutch groen, the Low German grön, green & greun, the German grün, the Danish & Norwegian Nynorsk grøn, the Swedish grön, the Norwegian Bokmål grønn and the Icelandic grænn.  The noun use to refer to the color developed from the earlier references to vegetables and having “grened”.  House was from the Middle English hous & hus, from the Old English hūs (dwelling, shelter, house), from the Proto-West Germanic hūs, from the Proto-Germanic hūsą (and comparable with the Scots hoose, the West Frisian hûs, the Dutch huis, the German Haus, the German Low German Huus, the Danish hus, the Faroese hús, the Icelandic hús, the Norwegian Bokmål hus, the Norwegian Nynorsk hus & Swedish hus).  The Germanic forms may have been from the primitive Indo-European skews & kews-, from skewh & kewh- (to cover, to hide).  The word supplanted the non-native Middle English meson & measoun (house), from the Old French maison (house).  The now rare (and effectively probable extinct) plural housen was from the Middle English husen & housen.  In the Old English the nominative plural was hūs.  Greenhouse is a noun & verb and greenhousing & greenhoused are verbs; the noun plural is greenhouses.

Greenhouse: The Orchid House, Kew Gardens.

As structures used to create artificial, environments, optimized for the cultivation of plants, greenhouse has several synonyms.  The earlier noun conservatory dates from the 1560s in the sense of “a preservative”, a development of the adjectival use (having the quality of preserving), from the Latin conservator (keeper, preserver, defender), an agent noun from conservare.  The meaning “a place for preserving or carefully keeping anything” emerged in the 1610s and when used for the growing of flowers & vegetables, such structures came in the 1650s be called greenhouses.  In English, the formal use in musical education as “a school of music; a place for the performing arts” dates from 1805, from the Italian conservatorio or the French conservatoire (places of public instruction and training in some branch of science or the arts, especially music), from the Medieval Latin conservatorium.  The first places so described were Italian and the word came into use in France after the Revolution (1789); the Italian word was used in English after 1771.  Among gardeners and horticulturalists, by the mid-nineteenth century earthier terms such as “planthouse” and “hothouse” were in use, even in places of serious scientific study such as London’s Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens) which, for practical reasons, adopted for various greenhouses pragmatic descriptions such as “Palm House”, “Orchid House” etc.

Lindsay Lohan with a pair of ratchet loppers, pruning cuttings for the potting shed, May 2015.

A twentieth century coining was the “poly house”, an allusion to the use of thick, translucent polythene which in the 1930s, supplied at low cost in rolls by the US petrochemical industry, was instant popular, enabling greenhouses to be built quickly and cheaply.  The related “poly tunnel” & “poly-tube” described the use of the same material to produce even smaller micro-environments with the fabrication of long, “roofs” (semi-circular with the appearance of a tube although without a base) which covered the rows of plants; depending on the crop, such structures could be only a few inches high.  There was also the “potting shed” which was different in that it wasn’t a place with any form of climate control and simply a place a gardener (professional or amateur) could work with their tools, pots etc falling conveniently to hand.  “Potting shed” however has been a “loaded” euphemism and metonym since the publication of DH Lawrence’s (1885–1930) Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) which wasn’t generally available in the UK until 1961 when R v Penguin Books was decided.  That was a test case of recent legislative amendments in which a jury found the novel satisfied the new provision that the work was “in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern”.  According to some (and they still exist in the Conservative Party), society has since been in decline.  In the novel, more was fertilized in the potting shed than the plants.

August 1912: By the time reports about global warming appeared in the popular press, understandings of the basics of human-induced climate change had been understood for almost a century.

Most reputable sources define the greenhouse effect (on Earth and other heavenly bodies) as something like: “The radiative effect of all infrared absorbing constituents in the atmosphere”.  The operation of the greenhouse effect is not unique to the Earth of the post-industrial revolution but what makes it historically unusual is (1) the rapidity of the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and (2) that so much of the increase is due to human activity (mostly the burning of fossil fuels).  In the early nineteenth century, French scientists had published papers describing what would later come to be known as the greenhouse effect, deconstructing the consequences of differing compositions in the Earth’s atmosphere and it was a Swedish meteorologist who first applied the term “greenhouse”, an example of the use of a term the general population would find more accessible than the sometime arcane language of science.  The term “greenhouse seems first to have appeared in print in 1937 but for decades, perception of the phenomenon as a problem was restricted to a handful of specialists and even in the scientific community there were many who viewed it as something benign or even beneficial, there being an awareness a rising temperature would make more of the planet habitable and the increasing volume of CO₂ would encourage plant growth, thus benefiting agriculture.  At the time, climate science was in its infancy, satellites and the big computers needed to model the climate system were decades away and the data on which to develop theories simply didn’t exist.  Additionally, it wasn’t until well into the second half of the century those emissions began radically to increase, the assumptions long that any possible problems probably wouldn’t emerge for centuries.

A chilly looking Greta Thunberg (b 2003), during School Strike for Change, protesting against global warming outside the Swedish Parliament, November 2018.  On 3 January 2024, the world's most famous weather forecaster turned 21.

So “greenhouse effect” never really worked as a term successfully to convey the degree of seriousness the issue deserved.  Accordingly, academics, the activist communities and sympathetic journalists began in the late 1970s to use other words but “global warming” although accurate, really wasn’t much of an improvement because “warm” is a generally “positive” word, used to covey the idea of “kindness, friendliness or affection” and while many people probably thought their climate was already hot enough, more (especially those in the “global north”) would probably have welcomed generally warmer weather.  So that didn’t gain the necessary traction and by the early 1990s, “climate change” began to be used interchangeably with “global warming”, the old “greenhouse effect” by now abandoned.  The scientific rationale for this was that in the narrow technical sense, global warming describes only increased surface warming, while climate change describes the totality of changes to Earth's climate system.  However, until well into the twenty-first century, for most of the population in the First World, what in retrospect have come to be understood as manifestations of climate change, things were hardly obvious.  By the 2020s, the linguistic implications in messaging seemed finally understood and “climate crisis”, “climate emergency” and “climate catastrophe” became the preferred terms and while the “climate change deniers” seem now less numerous (at least some perhaps having perished from heat stroke or drowned in one of the “once in 500 year floods” which seem now frequent).  In the political discourse, "climate crisis" and "global heating" seem now the popular forms. 

The Automotive Greenhouse

1970 Series 2 Fiat 124 Coupé (left) and 2022 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE (right).

The Fiat and Chevrolet represent two approaches to the coupé greenhouse (styled also as the "glasshouse") and both attracted some comment from critics, the Fiat because it was judged around an inch (25 mm) too high to achieve aesthetic success and the Chevrolet because it was too low (the estimates of by how much varied).  The Italian car however was much admired and enjoyed strong demand for most of its life (1967-1975 and given what followed the end of production was probably premature), and at least some of the success was attributable to the comfortable cabin with its generous headspace and the greenhouse which provided outstanding visibility in all directions, an important aspect of what was coming to be understood as “passive safety” (as opposed to “active safety” elements such as seat-belts or crumple-zones).  The low roof-line on the Chevrolet was thought by some to give the car a “cartoonish” quality although it’s a subjective judgment whether that detracted from the look and certainly it lent the thing a low-slung, sporty appearance which was after all presumably what most appealed to the target market.  The practical drawback was the abbreviated greenhouse meant a dark cabin and some compromise in the ease of ingress & egress although descriptions suggesting the space was “claustrophobic” or “oppressive” seem hyperbolic.  As a retro take on the original Camaro (1967-1969), the fifth (2010-2015) & sixth (2016-2024) generation models were well executed although greenhouse and other details unsettled some.  Ms Thunberg approves of neither although, depending on how one deconstructs the numbers, it's debatable which contributes more to the climate crisis.

Standard and Spezial coachwork on the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962).  The "standard" four-door hardtop was available throughout the run while the four-door Cabriolet D was offered (off and on) between 1958-1962 and the Spezials (landaulets, high-roofs etc), most of which were for state or diplomatic use, were made on a separate assembly line in 1960-1961.  The standard greenhouse cars are to the left, those with the high roof-line to the right.

The 300d (W189, 1957-1962) was a revised version of the W186 (300, 300b & 300c; 1951-1957) which came to be referred to as the "Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (West Germany) 1949-1963).  Although the coachwork never exactly embraced the lines of mid-century modernism, the integration of the lines of the 1950s with the pre-war motifs appealed to the target market (commerce, diplomacy and the old & rich) and on the platform the factory built various Spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The high roofline appeared sometimes on both the closed & open cars and even then, years before the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), the greenhouse sometimes featured “bullet-proof” glass.  As well as Chancellor Adenauer, the 300d is remembered also as the Popemobile (although not then labelled as such) of John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963).

Two from the Daimler-Benz Spezial line: The 1965 Papal Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100) Landaulet (left) built for Pope Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) (left) and the one-off short wheelbase (SWB) 600 Landaulet (right) built for racing driver Graf von Berckheim (Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim, 1924-1984).

The Papal 600 used the higher roof-line which was a feature of some of the Spezial Pullmans & Pullman Landaulets.  The attractions of the high-roof coachwork was (1) greater headroom which afforded more convenient ingress & egress (a practical matter given the cars were sometime parade vehicles used by royalty and military dictators, both classes given to wearing crowns or big hats) and (2) the extended greenhouse made it easier for crowds to see the occupants.  Count von Berckheim's car used the standard roof-line and was the only SWB Landaulet, the other 59 all built on the LWB Pullman platform.