Reaper

Reaper (pronounced ree-per)

(1) A machine for cutting standing grain; reaping machine; a machine used to harvest crops.

(2) One who reaps; a person employed to harvest crops from the fields by reaping; a machine operator who controls a mechanical reaper.

(3) A short form of grim reaper (often capitalized), the personification of death as a man or cloaked skeleton holding a scythe.

(4) The recluse spider (Loxosceles and Sicarius spp).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English reper, repare & repere (a harvester, one who cuts grain with a sickle or other instrument) from the Old English compound rīpere (the agent-noun from the verb reap), the construct being reap (from the Middle English repen, from the Old English rēopan & rēpan, variants of the Old English rīpan (to reap), from the Proto-Germanic rīpaną and related to the West Frisian repe, the German reifsen (to snatch) and the Norwegian ripa (to score, scratch); source was the primitive Indo-European hireyb- (to snatch)) + -er (from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, probably borrowed from Latin –ārius and later reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European –tōr; the suffix was added to verbs to form an agent noun).  The agent noun meaning "a reaper" is from the 1590s whereas the sense of "a machine for cutting grain" dates from 1841 and that of a “machine for reaping and binding field crops" appeared in 1847.  Variations of the spelling including Riper, Ryper & Riper appear in pre-1000 parish records as surnames and the presumption is most would have had some sort of vocational relationship to “reap”; Repere was first noted as a surname in the early fourteenth century.  Reaper is a noun; the noun plural is reapers.

The Grim Reaper as often depicted.

The use as the name of a personification of death dates from 1818 and “grim reaper” was first attested in 1847 although the association of grim and death is document from at least the seventeenth century with actual common use probably much earlier; a Middle English expression for "have recourse to harsh measures" was “to wend the grim tooth” and has been found as early as the 1200s.  The adjective grim was from the Old English grimm (fierce, cruel, savage; severe, dire, painful), from the Proto-Germanic grimma- (source also of the Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German & German grimm (grim, angry, fierce), the Old Norse grimmr (stern, horrible, dire), the Swedish grym (fierce, furious), from the primitive Indo-European ghremno- (angry), thought to be imitative of the sound of rumbling thunder (and may thus be compared with the Greek khremizein (to neigh), the Old Church Slavonic vuzgrimeti (to thunder) and the Russian gremet' (thunder).  Grim by the late twelfth century had lost the worst of the earlier connotations of violence and foreboding, by then understood to impart a sense of "dreary, gloomy".  The verb form in the Old English was grimman (past tense gramm; past participle grummen), while the noun grima (goblin, specter) may also have been a proper name or attribute-name of a god, the source of its appearance as an element in so many place names.

The Grim Reaper: Public health initiative, Australia, 1987.

The Grim Reaper was a 60 second-long television advertisement, run in 1987 as part of a public health campaign to increase awareness of the danger of HIV/AIDS.  It depicted the Grim Reaper of popular imagination in a ten-pin bowling alley, using a seven foot high (2.1 m) bowling ball to knock over men, women and child "pins", each of which represented a victim of the disease.  It was part of what would later be called a multi-media campaign which included radio broadcasts and printed material and certainly provoked a reaction, more sophisticated consumers of messaging thinking it at least banal and perhaps puerile while others found it disturbing and reported it scared their children.  The public response was hardly “hysterical” as has sometimes been claimed although the even then assertive gay community didn’t like that they were explicitly mentioned, fearing scapegoating although, given the publicity which by then had been documenting the track of AIDS for some four years, that horse had already bolted.  It was by the standards of the time confronting and criticism meant the government cancelled broadcasting, three weeks into a run which was intended to be twice the duration yet the public health community was pleased with the results and the programme was praised internationally, the direct Australian approach influencing others.  Some Australian state governments subsequently used even more graphic imagery in public health initiatives around matters such as smoking and road safety but it’s notable that attempts to use similar techniques to promulgate messages during the COVID-19 pandemic were thought a failure.  With various platforms having desensitized most to all but the most horrific sights, the public’s capacity to be shocked may have moved beyond what television advertising agencies can manage.

Blue Öyster Cult (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976) © Donald Roeser (b 1947).

All our times have come

Here but now they're gone

Seasons don't fear the reaper

Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be like they are

 

Come on baby, don't fear the reaper

Baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper

We'll be able to fly, don't fear the reaper

Baby I'm your man

 

La, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la

 

Valentine is done

Here but now they're gone

Romeo and Juliet

Are together in eternity, Romeo and Juliet

40,000 men and women everyday, Like Romeo and Juliet

40,000 men and women everyday, Redefine happiness

Another 40,000 coming everyday, We can be like they are

 

Come on baby, don't fear the reaper

Baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper

We'll be able to fly, don't fear the reaper

Baby I'm your man

 

La, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la

 

Love of two is one

Here but now they're gone

Came the last night of sadness

And it was clear she couldn't go on

Then the door was open and the wind appeared

The candles blew then disappeared

The curtains flew then he appeared, saying don't be afraid

 

Come on baby, and she had no fear

And she ran to him, then they started to fly

They looked backward and said goodbye, she had become like they are

She had taken his hand, she had become like they are

Come on baby, don't fear the reaper

Although they’d led a discursive existence since 1967, by the early 1970s, Blue Öyster Cult was in the crowded field of post-psychedelic acts blending quasi-classical motifs, mysticism, neck-snapping riffs and pop panache.  Coming from this milieu, the commercial success in 1976 of the single (Don't Fear) The Reaper was unexpected although more predictable was the controversy triggered by the lyrics being interpreted as advocating suicide.  It’s tempting to read the words that way, the eye drawn to the mention of Shakespeare's star-cross'd lovers, but the musician who wrote the lyrics claimed the song was about mortality and the inevitability of death, not its hastening and that in Romeo and Juliet he saw a couple with a faith in eternal love, not icons of a death cult.  The forty-thousand souls mentioned being taken by the reaper is way too high to refer to the daily suicide toll and actually references the total daily death take, the “forty thousand” being a bit of artistic license because the real number (125-135,000 at the time the lyrics were penned) would have too many syllables for the rhythm of the music.

Coming & going, dressed for the occasion.  Lindsay Lohan in Grim Reaper mode fulfilling a court-mandated community service order at LA County Morgue, October, 2011.

Psychopomp

Psychopomp (pronounced sahy-koh-pomp)

In mythology and religion, a spirit, deity, person etc., who guides the spirits or souls of the dead to the other world or after-life.

1835: From the Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós or psȳchopompós) (conductor (guide) of souls), the construct being ψῡχή (psūkhḗ) (the soul, mind, spirit) + πομπός (pompós) (guide, conductor, escort, messenger). Psyche was from the Latin psychē, from the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  The modern word psychology was from the French psychologie, from the Latin psychologia, the construct being the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul) +-λογία (-logía) (study of).  Pomp was from the Middle English, from the Old French pompe, from the Latin pompa (pomp), from the Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ) (a sending, a solemn procession, pomp”), from πέμπω (pémpō) (I send), from pempein (to send, dispatch, guide, accompany) of unknown origin.  Etymologists note the verb has no etymology drawn from Indo-European traditions and nor does it display the characteristics of loanwords or a pre-Greek vocabulary.  In Classical Latin the nominative was psȳchopompus, the genitive psȳchopompī, the dative psȳchopompō, the accusative psȳchopompum, the ablative psȳchopompō & the vocative psȳchopompe.  Psychopomp is a noun.  The noun plural is psychopomps.

Psychopomps were entities (variously spirits, angels, creatures, birds or even people) in a number of cultures and religions whose role was to guide the souls or spirits of the newly dead from Earth to the afterlife.  Wholly non-judgmental, they impartially took the soul in hand and lead them to the hereafter where, according to tradition, what awaited was perhaps a final judgment but sometimes not.  In both sacred and pagan art, psychopomps have been depicted in (often ethereal) human form, as winged angels, animals such as horses and, very often as winged creatures, most famously ravens or vultures, the birds often in large flocks, massed above and circling, awaiting the death of the dying.  To classicists, the word is most associated with Hermes or Charon but by far the psychopomp which resonates most in popular culture is the Grim Reaper.

Psychopomps of note

La barca de Caront (Charon's boat (circa 1932)) oil on canvas by José Benlliure y Gil (1855 - 1937), Museu de Belles Arts de València.

Although famous in Greek mythology as a pschopomp, Χάρων (Charon, written sometimes as Kharon) was more mercenary than most.  Known as the ferryman of Hades who carries the souls of just deceased who had received the rites of burial, across the river Acheron (pain) (in later accounts, the river Styx (hate)) that divided the world of the living from that of the dead.  Traditionally, Charon’s fee was a single coin (an obolus or danake) which the family left on the lips of the corpse and in some of the myths (there are many variations in Greek mythology), those whose families had not a coin to leave or who were denied funereal rites were condemned to wander the “shores of the river for a hundred winters”.  In the manner of modern container shipping, Charon also carried cargo on his return voyages, the catabasis mytheme recording that heroes (including Sisyphusm, Heracles, Dionysus, Hermes, Odysseus, Orpheus, Theseus & Psyche) were brought back across the river from the underworld in Charon’s boat (although what he charged is not recorded).

Beyond ecumenical, Azrael, the Angel of Death, appears in both Jewish and Christian mythology but in Islamic mythology he uniquely assumes the role of a psychopomp, said to take straight to Allah, every soul directly upon death.  Unlike some traditions in which a role in the timing of someone’s demise is delegated to the pyschopomp, in Islamic theology, only Allah is said to know and decide the precise moment when someone is supposed to die so Azrael has no power of life and death; he is but the cab or the rank, the taxi driver who can never refuse a fare.  In the world of the living, some have tried to help Azrael: there was once a Berber chieftain who instructed his mean to shave their heads, leaving a single tuft of hair so that when their time came, Azrael would have something to which to grab.

Two versions of Valkyrie (1864 (left) & 1869 (right)) by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831–1892), oil on canvas, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

In Norse mythology there were other psychopomps (Frejya and Odin would sometimes act as psychopomps) but the most famous were the Valkyries, the beautiful maidens who circled high in sky above battlefields, choosing which soldiers would live and which would die.  Half the dead would be taken to Fólkvangr (Freyja's afterlife) and half the Valkyries would take to Valhalla, where they would become einherjar (single fighters) and await the onset of Ragnarök, the climactic “twilight of the gods”.  On the rare occasions when peace reigned and no battles were being fought on Midgard, (the Old Norse name for the soil on which humans dwell), the Valkyries attended the einherjar in the banquet hall of Valhalla, serving them mead (an alcoholic beverage, often described as “fermented honey water” and made by fermenting honey mixed with water, hops and various fruits & spices).  Seen often accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected with swans and especially horses, thanks to innumerable painters of the romantic era and Richard Wagner (1813-1883), (whose Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (the second of the four musical dramas of his Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung (1870)), is probably is best-known fragment), an aura surrounds the Valkyries but if one digs into the Norse myths, they emerge as not always wholly virtuous, sometimes behaving rather like the mean girls of the age.

Late Period Solid-cast copper alloy figure of Anubis, British Museum, London.

Anubis (νουβις in the Ancient Greek, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian and romanized as Anoup) was an Egyptian psychopomp but also assigned a variety of roles under different ruling dynasties including a protector of graves, the god of death & the afterlife, mummification and embalming.  Depicted usually as a man with a canine head (thought sometimes during the First Dynasty as the beast alone).  Anubis' female counterpart was Anput and his daughter was the serpent goddess Kebechet.  In his role as a psychopomp, the jackal-headed god was tasked with guiding souls to Duat, the Egyptian underworld, where they would be judged according to the goodliness done during their earthly existence.  The Egyptians (usually) believed the heart was the repository of the soul so Anubis weighted the organ against a single feather representing truth.  Were the heart lighter than the feather, their journey continued but if too heavily laden with sin, Anubis would cast it to Ammit, a demon known as the “Devourer of the Dead” who would consume it.

The versatile, multi-tasking Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, thieves (and there’s some overlap there) and athletes.  However, he was also the messenger of the gods and thus the fleet-footed Hermes was able to travel between worlds, explaining why he was also the god of border crossings.  Uniquely, Hermes was the only Olympian god able to visit Heaven, Earth, and Hades something he never tired of mentioning to the other, realm-bound gods, and another of his tasks was to lead the souls of the dead to the entrance of Hades, where they awaited the boat of Charon to pick them up. Among the best remembered of Hermes’ charges were the suitors of Odysseus’ wife Penelope, all of whom were killed when the hero finally returned from Troy.

Coming & going, dressed for the occasion.  Lindsay Lohan in Grim Reaper mode fulfilling a court-mandated community service order at LA County Morgue, October 2011.

In the modern age it’s the Grim-Reaper who is the archetypal psychopomp.  Depicted since the fifteenth century as a scythe-carrying skeleton (the enveloping black cloak soon became de rigueur), his (there have in the West been some depictions of the reaper as female (although well-known elsewhere) but a male identity is usually at least implied although, at the artistic level, most imagery is genderless which must be right because, having no soul, the reaper is unworldly) mode of operation varies depending on the source.  Some say he selects the souls to harvest by tapping his victim on the shoulder, a notice to quit the world, while others insist he merely gathers the souls of the departed.  In English, the Grim Reaper was first (at p 11) mentioned in The Circle of Human Life (1847, 113 pp) by Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck (1799–1877), a slim volume published in Edinburgh (by Myles Macphail book-binding) which discussed the stages in the life of a good Christian.

 “There are many who suppose that a clear and certain foreknowledge of the day of their death would exert a very powerful influence upon their mind. In this opinion, however, there must be some deception.  All know full well that life cannot last above seventy, or at the most eighty years.  If we reach that term without meeting the grim reaper with his scythe, there or there about, meet him we surely shall.  Death being thus the most certain of all certain events, why not begin at once the work of preparation for it?”

Not all mythology was written with the intricate plots and tales of the Greek.  In Etruscan mythology, Charun was with good cause known as the “Demon of Death” and often appeared with Vanth, a goddess of the underworld.  His role in death and the harvesting of souls was a efficient but not subtle.  When someone was deemed ready to die, Charun would appear before them and smash their skull with his great hammer until they were dead.  He and Vanth would then take the soul to the underworld; those souls declared evil or unworthy, Charun would punish by taking up his hammer, repeatedly striking them for all eternity.

Virus

Virus (pronounced vahy-ruhs)

(1) An sub- or ultra-microscopic (20 to 300 nm diameter), metabolically inert, non-cellular infectious agent that replicates only within the cells of living hosts, mainly bacteria, plants, and animals: composed of an RNA or DNA core, a protein coat, and, in more complex types, a surrounding envelope.  Because viruses are unable to replicate without a host cell, they are not considered living organisms in conventional taxonomic systems (though often referred to as live (in the sense of active) when replicating and causing disease.

(2) A quantity of such infectious agents.

(3) In informal use, metonymically, A disease caused by such an infectious agent; a viral illness.

(4) Venom, as produced by a poisonous animal etc (extinct in this context). 

(5) Figuratively, any malicious or dangerous entity that spreads from one place or person to another; a corrupting influence on morals or the intellect. 

(6) In computing, a segment of often self-replicating code furtively planted in a computer program, either to damage a system or for financial gain by a variety of fraudulent techniques.

(7) In computing (loosely used), any form of malware.

Late 1300s: From the Middle English virus (poisonous substance (this meaning now extinct in this context)), from the Latin vīrus (slime; venom; poisonous liquid; sap of plants; slimy liquid; a potent juice), from rhotacism from the Proto-Italic weisos & wisós (fluidity, slime, poison) probably from the primitive Indo-European root ueis & wisós (fluidity, slime, poison (though it may originally have meant “to melt away, to flow”), used of foul or malodorous fluids, but in some languages limited to the specific sense of "poisonous fluid") which was the source also of the Sanskrit visam (venom, poison) & visah (poisonous), the Avestan vish- (poison), the Latin viscum (sticky substance, birdlime), the Greek ios (poison) & ixos (mistletoe, birdlime), the Old Church Slavonic višnja (cherry), the Old Irish fi (poison) and the Welsh gwy (poison).  It was related also to the Old English wāse (marsh).  Virus is a noun & a (rare) verb and viral is an adjective; the noun plural is viruses.

The original meaning, "poisonous substance”, emerged in the late fourteenth century and was an inheritance from the Latin virus (poison, sap of plants, slimy liquid, a potent juice) from the Proto-Italic weis-o-(s-) (poison), probably from the primitive Indo-European root ueis-, thought originally to mean "to melt away, to flow" and used of foul or malodorous fluids, but with specialization in some languages to mean "poisonous fluid".  It’s the source of the Sanskrit visam (venom, poison) & visah (poisonous), the Avestan vish- (poison), the Latin viscum (sticky substance; birdlime) the Greek ios (poison) & ixos (mistletoe, birdlime), the Old Church Slavonic višnja (cherry). The Old Irish fi (poison) and the Welsh gwy (poison).  The meaning "agent that causes infectious disease" emerged in the 1790s, the medical literature of the time describing their manifestation in  especially disgusting terms (the word pus most frequent) and one dictionary entry of 1770 contains the memorable: "a kind of watery stinking matter, which issues out of ulcers, being endued with eating and malignant qualities".  As early as 1728 (borrowing from the earlier sense of "poison"), it had been used in reference to venereal disease, the first recognizably modern scientific use dating from the 1880s.  The first known citation in the context of computing was by Gregory Benford (b 1941) who published The Scarred Man (1970) although it’s often credited to David Gerrold (b 1944), who used the word in this context in When HARLIE Was One (1972).

Before the internet: ARPANET network schematic 1973.

In computing, theoretical work on the self-replicating code (which is the core of a digital virus) was published as early as 1971 and what’s regarded as the first object to behave like a virus (though technically, it would now be called a worm) was released as a harmless amusement on ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) (ARPANET), the internet’s precursor network.  It was called “creeper, catch me if you can!" and, perhaps predictably, other nerds rose to the challenge and release the “reaper” their own worm which killed whatever creepers it found.  Creeper & reaper conducted their cat & mouse game on Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) PDP-10, predecessor to the famous PDP-11 mini-computer and at this point, viruses were genuinely harmless (if time wasting) activities conducted between consenting nerds in the privacy of their parochial networks.  However, it was the development of the personal computer (PC) from 1975 and especially the subsequent adoption by business of the IBM-PC-1 (1981) and its clones which created the population in which viruses could spread and while relatively harmless creations like Stoned (1987) tended to amuse because they did little more that display on the screen of an infected device the message "Your PC is now Stoned", there were many others which were quite destructive.  The first which came to wide public attention was probably Melissa (1999) which caused much economic loss and the discussion of which (by mostly male writers in the specialist press) excited some criticism from feminists who objected to headlines like "Melissa was really loose, and boy did she get around".    

The late John McAfee (1945–2021) who led an interesting life.

In medicine, the first antivirus was available in 1903, an equivalent (shrink-wrap) product for computers apparently first offered for sale in 1987 although there seems no agreement of which of three authors (Paul Mace, Andreas Lüning & the late John McAfee) reached the market first.  The adjective viral (of the nature of, or caused by, a virus) dates from 1944 as applied in medicine whereas the now equally familiar, post world-wide-web sense of stuff "become suddenly popular through internet sharing" is attested by 1999 although most seem convinced it must have been in use prior to this.

The rhinovirus (one of a group of viruses that includes those which cause many common colds) was first described in 1961, the construct being rhino- (from the Ancient Greek rhino (a combining form of rhis (nose) of uncertain origin) + virus.  The noun virology appeared in 1935 to describe the then novel branch of science and parvovirus (a very small virus), the construct being parvi- (small, little) + the connecting element -o- + virus was coined in 1965 to describe the decreasingly small objects becoming visible as optical technology improved.  The rotavirus (a wheel-shaped virus causing inflammation of the lining of the intestines), the construct being rota (wheel) + virus dates from 1974.

Diagram of a retrovirus.

The adjective virulent dates from circa 1400 in reference to wounds, ulcers etc (full of corrupt or poisonous matter), from the Latin virulentus (poisonous), from virus; the figurative sense of "violent, spiteful" attested from circa 1600; virulently the related form.  The mysterious reovirus was a noun coined in 1959 by Polish-American medical researcher Dr Albert Sabin (1906-1993), the “reo-“ and acronym for “respiratory enteric orphan”, to describe viruses considered orphans in the sense of not being connected to any of the diseases with which they were associated.  More technical still was the (1977) retrovirus, an evolution of the (1974) retravirus (from re(verse) tra(nscriptase) + connective -o- + virus), explained by it containing reverse transcriptase, an enzyme which uses RNA instead of DNA to encode genetic information, thus reversing the usual pattern.  While these things are usually the work of committees, there seems to be nothing in the public record to suggest why “retro-“ was preferred to “retra-“, the assumption being “retro-“ more explicitly indicated "backwards."

In 2014, while in the South Pacific, Lindsay Lohan contracted Chikungunya, an infection caused by the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), spread by two types of mosquito.  On Twitter and Instagram, she recommended the use of bug spray.  The condition was first isolated in Tanzania in 1952, the word Chikungunya from the Kimakonde language which translates literally as "to become contorted" although the World Health Organization (WHO) lists the common symptoms as a persistent headache, swollen joints, muscle pain and a rash which typically appears first on the extremities.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) assembly and egress.

Not alive in the technical sense defined in biology, a virus is a biological agent which reproduces inside the cells of living hosts.  When infected by a virus, a host cell is forced quickly to produce thousands of identical copies of the original; unlike actual living things, viruses do not have cells that divide, new viruses being assembled in the infected host cell.  Unlike simpler infectious agents, viruses contain genes so they mutate and evolve and thousands are known to exist.  Viruses are tiny, much smaller than bacteria and it can require more than a million of them, side by side, to reach one inch (25 mm) and although a theory of viruses was constructed after French and Russian experiments in the 1880s, it wasn’t until the electron microscope became available in 1931 that the first images were captured.  Where there is life, there are viruses and it’s thought likely they have existed either since, or very shortly after, the first living cells evolved; it’s not impossible the first cellular forms would now, technically, be classified as viruses.  Viruses can be benign and bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria, used in eastern Europe since the nineteenth century to treat infection but almost ignored since the development of antibiotics.  With the growth in antibiotic resistance, there’s now renewed interest.  Viruses also perform a useful role in ecology, killing around a fifth of oceanic biomass, the increased respiration in the seas ultimately reducing the atmospheric carbon dioxide by some three gigatons per year.

During the initial 2019 outbreak in Wuhan of what is now called COVID-19, both virus and disease were mostly referred to as "coronavirus", "Wuhan coronavirus" or "Wuhan pneumonia".  There had been a long tradition of naming diseases after the geographical location where they were first reported (Hong Kong flu, Spanish flu etc) but this could be misleading.  The Spanish flu, associated with the pandemic of 1918-1920, was actually first detected elsewhere, either on the World War I battlefields of France or (more probably) a military camp in the United States but, because Spain was a neutral in the conflict, there was no military censorship to limit reporting so warnings about this especially virulent influenza were printed in the Spanish press.  From here, it was eventually picked up and publicized as “Spanish flu” although, doctors there, in an early example of contract tracing, were aware of vectors of transmission and insisted it was the “French flu” because this was where their back-tracing led.  This had no effect beyond Spain and it’s ever since been known as “Spanish flu” although the practice of using geographical references has now been abandoned, a linguistic sanitization which has extended to anything likely to cause offence, the recently topical Monkeypox now called Mpox which seems hardly imaginative.     

Representation of a coronavirus.

In January 2020, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) recommended the name 2019-nCoV & 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease as interim names for virus and disease respectively (although “human coronavirus 2019”, “HCoV-19” & “hCoV-19” also exist in the record).  The committee’s recommendation conformed to the conventions adopted after it was decided in 2015, to avoid social stigma, to cease the use of geographical locations or identities associated with specific people(s) in disease-related names.  Although well understood by scientists, the WHO must have thought them a bit much for general use and in February 2020, issued SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 as the official nomenclature: CO=corona, VI=virus, D=disease & 19=2019 although for a while, confusingly, documents issued by the WHO sometimes referenced “COVID-19 virus” rather than the correct SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; the name adopted because of the close genetic relationship to the first SARS outbreak in 2003 (now retrospectively listed as SARS-Cov-1).

One of civilizations modern quests in the hunt for the “viral video” (video content posted to the internet which rapidly and at scale is passed from user to user in a pattern analogous to the spread of a virus).  A viral video can bring one (at least a transitory fifteen minutes) fame, cash and perhaps a spike in the traffic to one’s OnlyFans page but, depending on the content and context, what can also ensue is infamy, cancellation or incarceration so, as the Justine Sacco (b 1985) “incident” illustrates, caution should be a prelude to posting.  A minor industry has sprung up to advise all who aspire to be content providers and one popular theme is what makes a clip go viral.  On the basis of posted advice, it seems clear there’s no one set of parameters which need be used but there’s certainly a collections of characteristics which encourage sharing and while virality remains unpredictable, most clips which spike do share common traits although with some obvious exceptions, the phenomenon tends to be siloed, a clip which wildly goes vial among one market segment can be almost un-shared within another.  The markers likely to trigger a viral reaction have been categorized thus:

(1) Original content: This need not of necessity be something novel or in any way unique but both those qualities can be valuable, something genuinely new most likely to grab attention.

(2) Creativity: This can mean something unconventional in approach or the use of existing techniques with high production values.

(3) Emotional Resonance:  Known also as “emotional manipulation”, content which can evoke feelings of joy, awe surprise, sadness, rage, disgust etc are more likely to be shared.

(4) Brevity: Most viral are videos which are short (less than two minutes is typical) and to some extent this is technologically deterministic, so much viral media coming from sites which curate such material and this has encouraged a ecosystem of what are now called “viral sites” (BuzzFeed, Upworthy, Distractify, LittleThings, Thought Catalog, UPROXX, Vox, Daily Dot, Ranker, Words etc).  Students of cause & effect can ponder the interplay between the emergence of these platforms and the alleged shortening of the planet’s collective attention span.

(5) The hook: Two minutes is a long time in the context of scrolling and while it’s not impossible for a clip where the “best big” comes at the end to go viral, it is less likely because not enough viewers will have persisted for it to gain critical mass (hence the oft-seen plaintive plea "watch to the end!").  Ideally, interest to the point of being committed to watch to the end should be captured in the first few seconds.  If the material is in the form of music, it should appeal (in a TikTok sort of way) with the sort of formula the pop music generators perfected in decades past.

(6) Entertaining: Clips go viral for all sorts of reasons but nothing seems to work better that something which makes people laugh; it’s more popular even than outrage, the internet’s other way of life.

(7) Relatability: Relatability (that with which people can identify) is a concept which can be vertical (something with great appeal to certain section of the population) or horizontal (something with general appeal to many sections of the population).  Content with a universal appeal (cross-cultural relevance) should in theory produce the greatest numbers but something aimed specifically at one market can produce greater tangible results (revenue).

(8) A twist: The ultimate viral video content is probably something with a hook at the start which grabs the attention, maintains a commitment to watching and then concludes with a dramatic, unexpected or funny ending.

(9) Ease of sharing: When file formats were not (more or less) standardized and cross-platform compatibility couldn’t be assumed, this was something to consider but now most content is optimized for the majors (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube etc), the process close to effortless.

(10) A Call-to-Action: This means something which encourages sharing and that can be explicit (“please share”) or a subliminal message which induces in viewers either a desire to share or a feeling they are somehow obliged to share.  Those which are controversial (the more polarizing the better) and which enable users to engage in “virtue signalling” (sharing a clip as a display of moral superiority) should produce more reaction.

(11) Relevance: If it’s funny enough nothing else really matters but something tied to the zeitgeist tends most quickly to gain traction.  These can be tied to trending hashtags or challenges on social media and are the most obvious form of encouraging interaction without demanding any real commitment.

(12) Celebrity association.  This need not be an endorsement (there evidence there’s now much cynicism about this) but if a celebrity shares something, it should be an accelerant in the process.

A classic viral clip: Man in Finance mixed by DJs Billen Ted & David Guetta, written and sung by Megan Boni (Girl on Couch).

I'm looking for a man in finance
Trust fund
Six-five (ie 6 foot, five inches tall)
Blue eyes
That's all I want

The lyrics to the track Man in Finance (sometimes as Looking for a Man in Finance) were written by Megan Boni (b 1997 and now better known as @girl_on_couch).  In April 2024 Ms Boni uploaded the clip (as a cappella piece) to TikTok and she says it was a parody of the unrealistic expectations of men held by young single women such as herself.  Attached to the original (a viral-friendly 19 seconds in duration) upload, Ms Boni requested DJs in her audience to “…make this into an actual song plz just for funzies.”  The DJs responded, the edited clip went viral and Ms Boni quit her “9 to 5” to enter the music industry.

The admirable Megan Boni, on a couch.

Catchy though it was, Ms Boni did take a risk because on the internet are those waiting to be offended (or disrespected, marginalized etc) and in an interview with The BBC she did note one comment on her post was that wanting a man with “blue eyes” meant she must be “racist” but there was little support for that and she escaped cancellation.  Still, the risks were clearly there because each line was laden with offence for anyone anxious to be outraged:

I'm looking for a man in finance (critique: supports a system which is exploitative and exists alienate to people from the fruits of their labor).

Trust fund (critique: materialist).

Six-five (critique: heightist and thus exclusionary).

Blue eyes (critique: racist and thus exclusionary)

That's all I want

Really, people should just enjoy the beat.  As a parody it works well, a young spinster lamenting her status as a singleton by restricting the acceptable catchment of who might seek courtship to (1) “a man” (thereby excluding half the population), (2) employed in the “finance” industry (a tiny fraction of the male population), (3) the beneficiary of a “trust fund” (a tiny fraction of men working in the finance industry) (4) “six-five” tall (a tiny fraction of men working in the finance industry who are the beneficiaries of a trust fund) and (5) has “blue eyes” (an unknown but small percentage of 6’ 5" (1.95 m) tall men who are the beneficiaries of a trust fund and employed in the finance industry).  That math is of course what makes the last line (That’s all I want) so funny.  Ms Boni should maintain her high standards because she deserves to find the man of her dreams.

Fringe

Fringe (pronounced frinj)

(1) A decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip; an edging consisting of hanging threads, tassels etc.

(2) In architecture, engineering, gardening, interior decorating etc, anything resembling or suggesting this (sometimes used loosely).

(3) An outer edge; margin; the periphery.

(4) In political science, something regarded as peripheral, marginal, secondary, or extreme in relation to something else; Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views (famously as the “lunatic fringe”).

(5) In optical physics, one of the alternate light and dark bands produced by the diffraction or interference of light.

(6) In tax law, as “fringe benefit”, a non-cash element of earning treated as income for taxation purposes (sometimes at a concessional rate).

(7) To furnish with or as if with a fringe; to serve as a fringe for, or to be arranged around or along so as to suggest a fringe; to be a fringe.

(8) In hairdressing, a style in which hair sits vertically across the forehead (synonymous with “bangs”, the predominant US form although the latter describes a wider range of cuts and, under the influence of social media, is now widely used).

(9) In botany, the peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.

(10) In structured performance art, a series of events conducted in parallel with (though not formerly a part of) an established festival (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe etc).

1325–1375: From the Middle English frenge (ornamental bordering; material for a fringe), from the Old French frenge (thread, strand, fringe, hem, border) (which endures in Modern French as frange), from the Vulgar Latin frimbia (a metathetic variant of the Late Latin plural fimbria (fibers, threads, fringe)), from the Latin fimbriae (fringe) of uncertain origin.  It was related to the German Franse and Danish frynse and came to replace the native Middle English fnæd (fringe), byrd (fringe) & fasel (fringe) from the Old English fæs (fringe) & fnæs (fringe).  As a verb which described “to decorate with a fringe or fringes”, use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The meaning “a border, a boundary, an edge” dates from the 1640s while the figurative sense of “an outer edge, the margin” didn’t come into use until the 1890s although fringe had been an adjective since 1809.  The use of the technical term “fringe benefits” was first recorded in 1952.  Fringe is a noun, verb & adjective, fringed & fringing are verbs and fringeless, fringelike & fringy are adjectives; the noun plural is fringes.

For those seeking an example of the fecundity of the human imagination, Urban Dictionary has listing of their contributor’s suggesting of forms in which fringe is an element including mini-fringe, fringe fries, Tetris fringe, stoner fringe, wannabe fringe, minge fringe, vagina fringe, fringe of wisdom, fringe sex, clunge fringe, stu fringe, fringed purse, fringe flicker, pube fringe, fringe binge, fanny fringe, block fringe, fringed unicorn, fringe wizzle, chocolate fringe, box fringe, fringe of darkness, fringe sleeper, fucking fringe & grunge fringe.  Especially in those with some anatomical reference, there may be some overlap in meaning but it remains an impressive list.

Slides from the research which identified the Beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase lunatic fringe gene (now called LFNG), an an essential mediator of somite segmentation and patterning.

In the science of genetics, “lunatic fringe” was too tempting to resist. As in many fields in science, the privilege of allocating a name for a gene is granted to whomever discovered it and those working on fruit flies and other creatures concocted, inter alia: Tinman (fruit flies with a mutated Tinman gene do not develop a heart); Casanova (Zebrafish with a mutation in the Casanova gene develops two hearts); INDY (I’m not dead yet (a reference to a line in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) a mutation in the INDY gene prolongs the lifespan of fruit flies; Cheap Date (fruit flies with a mutation in the Cheap Date gene become highly sensitive to alcohol); Dracula (Zebrafish with a mutated Dracula gene are hyper-sensitive to light and soon die; Sonic Hedgehog (Fruit fly embryos with mutated Sonic hedgehog gene develop spikes that resembles a hedgehog); Pinhead (a fruit fly gene which resembled humans colloquially called "pinheads"); Groucho Marx (a gene in metazoa that induces excess facial bristles); Ken & Barbie (Mutations in Ken and Barbie result in fruit flies without external genitalia; Grim & Reaper (the genes Grim & Reaper regulate the death process (apoptosis) in fruit flies).  Even the names of some of genes discovered in fruit fly (and other non-human) research proved to be controversial because so many were shared with humans and accordingly the Human Genome Organization’s (HUGO) gene naming committee was petitioned to change them.   As part of this linguistic sanitization, three christened during the decoding of the human genome (Lunatic Fringe, Manic Fringe & Radical Fringe) were anonymized respectively as LFNG, MFNG & RFNG.

Lunatic Fringe, Canterbury, England.

In parts of the English-speaking world, it’s not uncommon to find a hairdressing salon called Lunatic Fringe but it’s less common in North America where the preferred term for what in the UK, Australia etc was traditionally called a fringe, is “bangs”.  Under the influence of social media and other cultural exports, the Americanism has spread and bangs is now commonly heard everywhere and it’s proved technically useful for professional hairdressers who often distinguish between the classic fringe and a variety of cuts called bangs (which might be considered partial fringes), typically a cut which involves some strands cut short in front of the face or longer, usually thicker strands at the sides to “frame the face”.  The origin of the use of “bangs” in this context is mysterious, some claiming it was a clipping of the hairdresser’s phrase “bang off” which meant to cut the hair in front of the face short, straight & even while others suggest a link with “bang tail”, a dressage cut done to horsetails for equestrian events where the tail hairs would be cut straight across.

Lindsay Lohan with fringe cut with the alluring “dangling in the eyes” look, known as early as 1875 as "the lunatic fringe" (left), in costume as Cleopatra in Liz & Dick (2012) with straight cut fringe (centre) and with curtain bangs which are layered but not quite a bottleneck (right).

There is art & science associated with bangs because not all variations suit all face shapes and certainly aren’t suitable (or even technically possible) with all types of hair.  Additionally, some really work only if complementary makeup is applied but the core base for the decision is almost always the shape of the face, particularly the curve of the jaw-line and essentially they pivot from four points: above the brows, at eye level, at cheekbone level and at the jaw-line.  As a general principle, the hairdresser’s four point rule for bangs is (1) square or heart-shaped faces look best with something wispier or feathered fringe to add softness, (2) oblong face shapes work well with blunt-cut bangs, (3) round faces can gain the effect of elongation with side-swept or curtain bangs and (4) oval-shaped faces will usually accommodate any bang.  In the jargon of professionals there are curtain bangs, bottleneck bangs, blunt bangs, curly bangs, side-swept bangs, layered bangs, choppy bangs, braided bangs, wispy bangs, wavy bangs, micro bangs, shaggy bangs, piecey bangs, JBF bangs & clip-in bangs.

Ali Lohan (b 1993) photographed with her pregnant sister wearing Sandal-Malvina Fringe Tank Dress (left).  The shoes are Alexandre Birmen Clarita Platforms although, as the pregnancy progresses, the Instagram feed can be expected increasingly to feature sensible and comfortable footwear such as Nike’s Air Vapormax Multicolor sneakers (right).

Fringe “festivals” (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe etc).are events which “piggy-back” on mainstream “official” events (Edinburgh Festival; Adelaide Festival etc).  They began as “pirate events” but often became so popular they really came to be considered part of the event and schedules of both came to be designed in conjunction.  The notion of them being “fringe” referenced (1) their components being exhibited or preformed not in the main performance spaces but in places on the periphery and (2) their content being (allegedly) avant-garde (“edgy” in arty talk) or too controversial to be staged in the main event.

Theodore Roosevelt in fringed jacket with Winchester Model 1876, customized with a half-round octagonal barrel, pistol grip, deluxe checkered wood, case-hardened receiver and a shotgun-style butt.

The “lunatic fringe” is really not a phrase from political science (although not a few academics seem to enjoy using it); and in this context it was coined by a politician and is a favorite in popular journalism.  Although many dictionaries early in the twentieth century are said to have described “lunatic fringe” as “a splendidly prejudicial British phrase, with its suggestion of hair dragged villainously low over the forehead or edging the circumference of the face in the way that magistrates disapprove of”, it seems first to have been used of political matters by Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in a letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) on 4 November 1913.   In the letter, he wrote: “I have got some very amusing letters from the lunatic fringe. . . . It is extraordinary how they take hold of people who are just a little mad themselves.”

Lindsay Lohan with "lunatic fringe".

Thereafter, the phrase became widely known and has since been used of extremist groups or individuals with radical or unconventional views.  It’s in a sense a successor to the way “ultra” was earlier used (ultimately as both noun and adjective) as a prefix (ultra-Tory, ultra-revolutionary etc) before emerging in its own right as a “curtailed word”.  In modern use, it’s handy in that it’s politically agnostic: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) could say of his Democratic Party challenger, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) that he was “…a candidate that will destroy this country and he may not do it himself. He will be run by a radical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country” as effortlessly as earlier Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) could describe the Republican Party’s Tea Party faction as “… a lunatic fringe which the Republican leadership should reign in or else the country would suffer.”  However, although President Roosevelt may have thought he was coining something original, some forty years earlier the phrase had some currency among hairdressers in West Virginia, the Wheeling Daily Register in July 1875 reporting “…lunatic fringe is the name given to the fashion of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang down over the forehead.”