Serendipity

Serendipity (pronounced ser-uhn-dip-i-tee)

(1) The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident; a combination of events which have come together by chance to make a surprisingly good or wonderful outcome.

(2) Luck, good fortune.

(3) As the serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum volkensii), a tropical dioecious rainforest vine in the family Menispermaceae, native to tropical Africa from Sierra Leone east to Eritrea, and south to Angola and Mozambique.

1754: The construct was Serendip + -ity.  The proper noun Serendip (Serendib the alternative form) was an archaic name for the island of Ceylon (सिंहल (siṃhala (Sri Lanka”) after 1972 from द्वीप (dvīpa) (island)), from the Arabic سَرَنْدِيب‎ (sarandīb), from the Persian سرندیپ‎ (sarandip), from the Prakrit sīhaladīva & Sanskrit सिंहलद्वीप (siṃhaladvīpa (literally “island of the Sinhala people”)).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.

Serendipity berries, one of the “miracle berries”.

The serendipity berry is noted as a source of monellin, an intensely sweet protein and if chewed, alters the perception of taste to make tart, acidic or bitter food taste sweet.  Pills containing synthesized monellin are sold as “miracle fruit tablets” for this purpose (a lemon eaten after sucking on one of these tablets quite a revelation) and as “miracle fruit”, serendipity and related berries are widely used in African folk medicine although there’s scant evidence for their efficacy as a treatment for the many diseases they’re said to cure.  Words with a similar meaning include fluke, happenstance, blessing, break and luck but serendipity carries the particular sense of something very useful and wholly unexpected being the result while The phrases “Murphy's law” & “perfect storm” are close to being antonyms.  In science and industry, serendipity has played a part in the discovery or development of vaccination, insulin to treat diabetes, penicillin, quinine, Viagra, x-rays, radioactivity, pulsars, cosmic microwave background radiation, Teflon, vulcanized rubber, microwave ovens, Velcro and 3M's (originally Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing) post-it notes (though it seems its part in the invention of stainless steel may be a myth).  Serendipity & serendipitist are nouns, serendipitously is an adverb and serendipitous is an adjective; the noun plural is serendipities.  Serendipiter & serendipper are non-standard noun forms adopted in popular culture.

Serendipity was in 1754 coined by the English Whig politician & author writer Horace Walpole (1717–1797), derived from the fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, the three, Walpole noted, “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”.  The Three Princes of Serendip was an English version of Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo, printed in 1557 by Venetian publisher Michele Tramezzino (1526-1571), the text said to have been the work of a Cristoforo Armeno who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book One of Amir Khusrau's Hasht-Bihisht (1302). The story was translated into French before the first English edition was published and Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694–1778) used the tale in his 1797 novella Zadig ou la Destinée (Zadig or The Book of Fate), an intriguing fusion of fiction and philosophy which influenced systematic science, the evolution of creative writing about crime and even horror stories.

Portrait of Horace Walpole (1728), aged ten by William Hogarth (1697-1784) in gilt frame, Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham.  He was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), the Whig politician who between 1721-1742 served as first lord of the Treasury, chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons; by virtue of this, he came to be recognized as Britain's first prime-minister.

Walpole used serendipity first in a letter (dated 28 January 1754) he wrote to Florence-based British diplomat Sir Horace Mann (1706–1786) but which seems not to have been published until 1833, the new word remaining almost unnoticed until the 1870s when there was a brief spike; it was in the early-mid twentieth century it became popular and until then it was rare to find a dictionary entry although the adjective serendipitous appeared as early as 1914.  Walpole was compelled to coin serendipity to illustrate his delighted surprise at finding a detail in a painting of Bianca Cappello (1548–1587 and latterly of the clan Medici) by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574).  The charm of the word is such that it’s been borrowed, unaltered, by many languages and it frequently appears in "favorite word" or "words of the year" lists.

Portrait of Bianca Cappello, Second Wife of Francesco I de' Medici (circa 1580), fresco by Alessandro Allori (1535-1607), Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze.

The twenty-two-year-old Walpole fell under the charm of the long dead Bianca Cappello while staying in Florence during his grand tour of the continent.  Besotted by the portrait of the peach-skinned Venetian beauty which hung in the Casa Vitelli, it's not clear what immediately drew his eye but a diary note by the French writer Montaigne (1533–1592), who in 1580 had the pleasure of meeting her, might provide a hint: “...belle à l’opinion italienne, un visage agréable et imperieux, le corsage gros, et de tetins à leur fouhait” ("...according to the Italians she is beautiful.  She has an agreeable and imposing face, and large breasts, the way they like them here…").  He confided his passion to Mann who around 1753 purchased the work, sending it to his friend who had by then returned to England, his cover letter including the revelatory “It is an old acquaintance of yours, and once much admired by you... it is the portrait you so often went to see in Casa Vitelli of Bianca Capello… to which, as your proxy, I have made love to for a long while… It has hung in my bedchamber and reproached me indeed of infidelity, in depriving you of what I originally designed for you”.  These days, such things are called objectum sexuality or fictosexualism but in the eighteenth century it was just something the English aristocracy did.

Lindsay Lohan in a Michael Kors (b 1959) pussy-bow, polka-dot silk blouse with Valentino sneakers, enjoying a frozen hot chocolate, Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, January 2019.

Whatever other pleasures the oil on canvas bought him, Walpole must also have devoted some attention to detail for he would soon write back to Mann: “I must tell you a critical discovery of mine a propos in a book of Venetian arms.  There are two coats of Capello… on one of them is added a fleu de luce on a blue ball, which I am persuaded was given to the family by the Grand Duke” (of Medici who was Bianca's second husband (who may have murdered the first)).  Much pleased at having stumbled upon this link between the two families in a book of Venetian heraldry he happened at the time to be reading in the search for suitable emblems with which to adorn the painting's frame, he told his dear friend: “This discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call SERENDIPITY”.

Pussy

Pussy (pronounced poos-ee or puhs-ee)

(1) In informal use, a cat, especially a kitten (also as puss & pussy-cat).

(2) In colloquial use (now rare), an affectionate term for a woman or girl, seen as having characteristics associated with kittens such as sweetness or playfulness.

(3) Anything soft and furry; a bloom form; a furry catkin, especially that of the pussy willow

(4) An alternative name for the tipcat (rare).

(5) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term referring to a timid, passive person (applied almost exclusively to men).

(6) In vulgar slang, the vulva (used as an alternative to the many other slang terms which includes beaver, box, cunt, muff, snatch, twat poontang, coochie, punani, quim & slit); considered by some to be the least offensive and probably the one most used by women.

(7) In vulgar slang, sexual intercourse with a woman

(8) In vulgar slang of male homosexuals, the anus of a man who is the passive participant in gay sex (ie “the bottom” as used by “the top”).

(9) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term for women collectively, a form of reductionism which treats women as sex objects.

(10) In medical use (pronounced puhs-ee), something puss-like or something from which puss emerges; containing or resembling pus.

(11) As pussybow (or lavallière, pussycat bow or pussy-bow) a style of neckwear worn with women's blouses and bodices. A bow, tied (usually loosely) at the neck, the name is though derrived from the bows owners sometimes attach to their domestic felines (pussy cats).

1580s: The construct was puss +‎ -y (the diminutive suffix).  It may be from the Dutch poesje, a diminutive of poes (cat; vulva), akin to the Low German pūse (vulva) and the Old English pusa (bag).  Puss was probably from the Middle Low German pūs or pūskatte or the Dutch poes (puss, cat (slang for vulva)), ultimately from a common Germanic word for cat, perhaps ultimately imitative of a sound made to get its attention and therefore similar in origin to the Arabic بسة (bissa).  Some sources declare puss in the sense of "cat" dates from the 1520s but this is merely the earliest known documented source and use probably long predates this instance.  The same or similar sound is a conventional name for a cat in Germanic languages and as far off as Afghanistan; it is the root of the principal word for "cat" in the Rumanian (pisica) and secondary words in the Lithuanian (puž (word used for calling a cat)), the Low German (puus) and the Irish puisin (a kitten).  It was akin to the West Frisian poes, Low the German Puus & Puuskatte, the Danish pus, the dialectal Swedish kattepus & katte-pus and the Norwegian pus.  The form is known in several European, North African and West Asian languages and may be compared with the Romanian pisică and Sardinian pisittu; there is also a Celtic thread, the Irish pus (mouth, lip), from the Middle Irish bus.  The noun plural was pussies.

The French village Pussy sits on the eastern slope of Mont Bellachat above the left bank of the Isère, 5½ miles (9 km) north-west of Moûtiers; it is part of commune of La Léchère in the Savoie département of France.  The name is from Pussius, the owner of the region during the Roman occupation of Gaul.

Pussy was first used as a term of endearment for a girl or woman in the 1580s and (by extension), was soon used disparagingly of effeminate men and) and applied childishly to anything soft and furry.  The use to refer to domestic cats & kittens was exclusive by the 1690s but as early as 1715 it was applied also to rabbits.  The use as slang for "female pudenda" is documented from 1879, but most etymologists don’t doubt it had long been in oral use; perhaps from the Old Norse puss (pocket, pouch) (related to the Low German puse (vulva)) or else a re-purposing of the cat word pussy on the notion of "soft, warm, furry thing.  In this it may be compared with the French le chat, which also has a double meaning, feline and genital.  The earlier uses in English are difficult to distinguish from pussy, “pussie” noted in 1583 being applied affectionately to women.  Pussy-whipped in the sense of "hen-pecked" seems to date from 1956, a gentler form perhaps than the fifteenth century Middle English cunt-beaten (an impotent man).  Despite the feeling among many that the history in vulgar slang is long, etymologists note the rarity (sometimes absence) of pussy in its ribald sense from early dictionaries of slang and the vernacular before the late nineteenth century and the frequent use as a term of endearment in mainstream literature.

Lindsay Lohan in a Michael Kors (b 1959) pussy-bow, polka-dot silk blouse with Valentino sneakers, about to enjoy a frozen hot chocolate, Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, January 2019.

The pleonastic noun pussy-cat (also pussycat) which describes a domestic cat or kitten dates from 1773 and came soon to be applied to people although there appears to be no written record prior to 1859.  By the early twentieth century it came to be applied to smoothly running engines, the idea being they “purred like a pussycat”.  The noun pussy-willow was by 1835 a popular name of a type of common American shrub or small tree, so-called for the small and very silky catkins produced in early spring; in the 1850s the tree was also referred to as a pussy-cat but use soon faded.  To “play pussy” was World War II Royal Air Force (RAF) slang for "take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition."  The medical use, the other (disgusting) adjectival forms of which are pussier & pussiest, dates from circa 1890 although in this sense Middle English had the mid-fifteenth century pushi, a variant of the Latin pus (definite singular pussen or pusset) which in pathology describes the yellowish fluid associated with infected tissue.

Kate Moss in pussy-bow blouse on video link.

As a set-piece event, about the only thing which could have added to the spectacle of the Depp v Heard (John C Depp II v Amber Laura Heard (CL–2019–2911)) suit & counter-suit defamation trial in Fairfax County, Virginia, might have been Ms Heard (b 1986) afforcing her legal team with Rudy Giuliani (b 1944).  Whatever difficulties Mr Giuliani has had with judges, he was good with juries and may have been better at persuading the tribunal assembled in Virginia to ignore the many irrelevant revelations which so tantalized those running commentaries on social media.  As it was, there was something in the trial for just about everyone and one thing claimed by some to have exerted a subliminal influence on judge and jury was what model Kate Moss (b 1974 and appearing as a character witness for Mr Depp (b 1963) which whom she’d enjoyed a predictably well-publicized relationship during the 1990s) wore for her brief testimony.  That she appeared at all was because Ms Heard made the mistake of mentioning her name during testimony, thereby permitting Mr Depp's counsel to call her as a witness.  Looking stunning as expected, her appearance was quickly deconstructed and pronounced as crafted to convey “authority and authenticity”, the key points being (1) a simple hair-style, (2) an “authoritative jacket”, (3) “natural make-up” and (4) a blouse with a pussybow “casually tied” to avoid the appearance of a contrived “court appearance look”.  In other words, she’d been styled to look like a witness appearing in court, not an actor playing a witness appearing in court.  Her three minutes on the stand via a video link should not, according to some lawyers, have been treated by the jury as substantive but what attracted most comment was her choice of a white, spotted pussybow blouse, a feature described in one gushing critique as “…subtly subversive” with an origin as a kind of feminist battledress for those beginning the march through the institutions of male space; a challenge to the “traditional dress codes”.

Lindsay Lohan in black, semi-sheer pussy-bow blouse, Saint Laurent fashion show, Paris Fashion Week, February 2019.  Clearly, Ms Lohan likes polka-dots.

Items recognizably pussybowish had been worn for centuries but the re-purposing to an alleged political statement is traced to the early 1960s when Coco Chanel (1883-1971) added more voluminous bows to silk blouses, the bulk and projection of the fabric off-setting the more severe linens and tweeds with which they were paired.  From there, the pussybow as feminist statement is held to have become overt in 1966 with the debut of Yves Saint Laurent's (1936-2008) Le Smoking design which legitimized the presence of the pantsuit in catalogues and, increasingly, on the catwalk.  The 1966 piece was a revived tuxedo, tailored to the female form, in velvet or wool and notable for being softened with a silk pussybow blouse which was interesting in that had it been combined with the traditional tie worn by men (which wouldn’t then have been anything novel), it would probably have been condemned, not as subversive but as a cliché.  As it was, the pussybow lent sufficient femininity to the redefined pantsuit for it to be just radical enough to be a feminist fashion statement yet not be seen as too threatening.  Despite the claims of some, it wasn’t the first time the pussybow had been paired with trousers but it was certainly the first appearance at a mainstream European show and it proved influential although YSL, so pleased with his models, perhaps didn’t envisage the look on latter-day adopters like crooked Hillary Clinton.

Whether the judge or jury in Virginia were pussybow-whipped into finding substantially for Mr Depp isn’t known but it was certainly interesting Ms Heard lost in the US but won in the UK in 2020 despite both trials being essentially about the same thing: Did Mr Depp subject Ms Heard to violence and other forms of abuse?  Technically, there were differences, Mr Depp in the UK suing not his ex-wife but The Sun, a tabloid newspaper which had published a piece with a headline describing Mr Depp as a "wife beater".  By contrast, the US case revolved around an article in The Washington Post written by Ms Heard, the critical passages being three instances where she alleged she had been a victim of domestic abuse.  Mr Depp sued not the newspaper but Ms Heard, claiming her assertions were untrue and (although he wasn’t explicitly named as the perpetrator), that he’d thus been defamed.  The jury agreed Ms Heard (1) had indeed implied she was the victim of Mr Depp’s violence, (2) that her claims were untrue, (3) that purposefully she was being untruthful and (4) that her conduct satisfied the legal standard of “actual malice”, a critical threshold test in US law (dating from a ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1964 in New York Times v Sullivan) which imposes on public figures the need to prove statements (even if anyway technically defamatory) were made with the knowledge they were false or with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not, before damages may be recovered.

Melania Trump (b 1970, US First Lady 2017-2021 and since 2025) in pussybow blouse, Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention (anti-cyber-bullying) summit at the Health Resources and Service Administration, Rockville, Maryland, 20 August 2018.

More significant still was probably that in London, the trial took place before a high court judge who ruled on both matters of law and fact.  By contrast, in the Fairfax County Courthouse, the judge ruled on matters of law but it was the jury which alone weighed the evidence presented and determined matter of fact.  Thus in London one legally trained judge assessed the evidence which hung on the issue of whether Mr Depp subjected Ms Heard to violent abuse during their brief and clearly turbulent union.  The judge found he had whereas seven lay-people, sitting as a jury concluded he had not.  The two processes are difficult to compare because judges provide written judgments (comprising the ratio decidendi (the reasons for the finding) and sometimes some obiter dictum (other matters of interest not actually critical in reaching the decision)) whereas juries operate in secret and what was discussed in the three days they took to deliberate isn’t known although there are hints in the list of questions they presented to the judge before delivering the verdict.  Those hints however hardly compare with Mr Justice Nichol’s (b 1951) ruling of some 67,000 words.

Sue Lyon (1946-2019) in pussybow blouse in the film Lolita (1962) (left) and with pussy (right) in an image from a pre-release publicity set for the film, shot in 1960 by Bert Stern (1929-2013).

What happened in the two trials was not exactly comparable.  In the US, much was made of several statements earlier made by Ms Heard which, although not directly concerned with the matters being litigated, once proved untrue, were used by Mr Depp’s legal team to undermine Ms Heard’s credibility.  The matter of the US$7 million divorce settlement was for example mentioned by Mr Justice Nichol as an example of Ms Heard’s credibility because she didn't profit from divorcing Mr Depp, citing her announcement that she would donate the settlement to charity.  That she failed to do and perhaps remarkably, it wasn’t something at the time challenged by Mr Depp’s lawyers so the judge accepted it as fact.  Whether, had the judge known the truth, his findings would have be different will never be known.  Of interest too is that as a matter of law, Ms Heard's lawyers were not allowed to tell the jury the result of the UK trial and that in London Mr Depp's lawyers had made it clear they felt it unfair they were compelled to sue the newspaper and not Ms Heard.  In Virginia, as a defendant, Ms Heard became the focus and it did seem much of what was presented to the jury discussed her credibility, not of necessity relating to the substantive matters of the case but also of previous statements and conduct.

When the judgment in London was appealed, that was rejected by two judges of the Court of Appeal which may encourage Ms Heard.  Proceeding with an appeal in the US is a high-risk business and there are financial impediments even to lodging the papers but it is something which will not involve a jury, decided instead on points of law and procedure by judges less likely than jury members to be influenced by films they’ve seen, pussybows or other extraneous material.

Pussy Riot band members Yekaterina Samutsevich (b 1982), Maria Alyokhina (b 1988) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (b 1989) in glass-walled dock during a court hearing, Moscow, Friday 17 August, 2012.

My darling Pussy: The letters of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson, 1913-1941, (1975), edited by the English historian Alan John Percivale (A.J.P.) Taylor (1906–1990).

Even though it was well into the twenty-first century and the nation had long since succumbed to decadence, Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) still raided a few eyebrows when he and his girlfriend moved into No 10 Downing Street, the Tory Party’s few remaining blue stockings outraged because not only were they the first couple to take up official residence there without benefit of marriage but he was at the time still married to his second wife and the mother of four of his children.  History however recalls things had been more debauched, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) sharing the house during his premiership with not only his wife bit also his mistress, Frances Stevenson (1888–1972), the former usually ensconced upstairs in the prime-ministerial bed while her husband enjoyed his younger companion’s affections a few floors down.

The very modern-sounding arrangement was made possible by Ms Stevenson having been appointed by Lloyd-George as his secretary while he was chancellor of the exchequer, a job offer which was conditional upon her accepting concubinage as part of the job description and it’s never been doubted Lloyd-George was an earlier adopter of KPIs (key performance indicators).  The press were aware of the situation but things were done differently then and not a word of the unusual domestic setup appeared in the papers and surprisingly, even foreign journalists turned a blind eye when Lloyd George attended the Paris Peace Conference (1919) in the company of Ms Stevenson and though the rumor mill among the diplomats would have worked as efficiently then as now, the fiction she was “just his secretary” publicly was maintained by all.  In the lovers’ private conversations, she was his “Pussy” and he her “Tom Cat”, the feline theme taken up in his son’s 1960s biography when he noted of his father: “…with an attractive woman, he was as much to be trusted as a Bengal tiger with a gazelle.”  In 1975, Weidenfeld and Nicolson published My darling Pussy: The letters of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson, 1913-1941, edited by A.J.P. Taylor.

Ffion Hague, Baroness Hague of Richmond, DBE.

Flawed like us all, Lloyd George was one of the great characters of twentieth century politics and one of the more noted political machinators, his life continuing to attract historians.  In writing The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life (2008) Ffion Hague (b 1968 and the wife of William Hague (b 1961; leader of the British Conservative Party 1997-2001)) was, as a Welsh nationalist, perhaps biased and in much the same way A.J.P. Taylor’s hero-worship of Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) made his 1972 biography of the press lord so vivid, Lady Hague’s views are not so much between the lines as the lines themselves but this is not a criticism of what is a most readable text.  Whether or not Lady Hague was a feminist was something some once felt compelled to debate although there is little to suggest she much dwelt on the matter but in declining to censure Lloyd George for his exploitive sexual relationships with women, she doubtlessly disappointed some of the sisterhood.  Her take on his many conquests was that things were really symbiotic; the women involved being well-informed individuals who knew what they were doing and ultimately gained from the relationships, brief though often they proved.  Her book was certainly a change from the tradition of treating Lloyd George’s proclivities as cynically and shamelessly transactional but, of course, as has long been known, there may also have been something of the physiologically deterministic in it.  When Albert James (A.J.) Sylvester (1889–1989; principal private secretary (PPS) to Lloyd George, 1923-1945) in 1947 published The Real Lloyd George, drawn from his diaries, the entry which drew most comment an admiring comment about the Welsh Wizard’s penis: “…the biggest I have ever seen.”  Disappointing some, Mr Sylvester didn't burden his readers with the details or extent of the observational history which made his comparison possible but it's presumed he was on some basis an empiricist.

CHAZZ Pussy Chips.

Formed in 2018, CHAZZ Chips is a Lithuanian company with origins in the Trakai district.  The operation describes itself as a “crazy young team” which was inspired to enter the potato chip (crisps in some places) business because of “totally boring and unhealthy snack shelves!”, thus the goal to “bring a variety of bold flavours and offer a healthier alternative to snacks.”  Using potatoes, beetroot and carrots grown on Lithuanian farms, the range of flavours is wide including some the company describes as being “things that most people probably wouldn't even dare to think about!”  That approach (“different, bold, inventive, proactive”) yielded the “first and only Putė and Pimpalo flavored chips in the world” but CHAZZ became most famous for their skandalingi-produktai (scandalous products) such as the (1) the Virginity Set (including Pussy flavor and Dick flavor), (2) the Naughty Valentine Set, a gift box which included the Virginity range as well as ChoClits and Sparkling Willies and (3 & 4) a brace of Libido Booster chips, the two recipes advertised as “for him” and “for her” which seems anachronistic given both could be gifts for him or her depending on their proclivities and some might enjoy both.  There is much science to the development of taste and smell in the food business but CHAZZ unfortunately don’t document the processes involved in creating (and presumably taste-testing) the Pussy and Dick flavours. 

Response

Response (pronounced ri-spons (U) or ree-spons (non-U))

(1) The act of responding; a reply or reaction; a reaction to a stimulus or provocation.

(2) In the card game bridge, a bid based on an evaluation of one's hand relative to the previous bid of one's partner.

(3) In liturgical use in Christianity, a word, phrase or short sentence recited or sung by the choir or congregation in reply to the priest or officiant at a church service (usually in the plural and used (loosely) also of any versicle or anthem said or sung during or after a lection).

(4) In electronics the ratio of the output to the input level, at a particular frequency, of a transmission line or electrical device.

(5) In pathology, any pattern of glandular, muscular, or electrical reactions induced by stimulation of the nervous system.

(6) In biology, any behavior of a living organism that results from an external or internal stimulus.

(7) In engineering, the reaction of a mechanical device to changes in energy input.

(8) In legal proceedings (and other forms), reply to an objection.

(9) In the calculation of online advertising performance metrics, a measure representing one click-through from an online ad to its destination URL.

1250–1300: From the Latin respōnsum (answer), noun use of the neuter past participle of respondēre (to reply, respond, answer, the construct being re- (in the sense of “again”) + spondere (to pledge), nominal use of the neuter form of respōnsus, the perfect passive participle of respondeō, the construct being from re- + spondeō (promise).  It replaced the Middle English respounse & respons, from the Middle French respons, from the Old French respons, respuns & response (which endures in Modern French as réponse), from the same Latin source.  Response, responsion, responsure & responsiveness are nouns, responsal, responsory & responsorial are nouns & adjectives, responsive is an adjective and responsively is an adverb; the noun plural is resposes.

Depending on context, a response might also be called a feedback, reply or return and in science, medicine and engineering, derived forms such as responseless, counter-response, allergic response, autonomous response, host response etc are coined as required.  In law enforcement and military use, the coinings include armed response, artillery response, naval response etc.  The adjective responsive was an early fifteenth century form meaning “making answer, responding” and was from the Old French responsif and directly from Late Latin responsivus (answering), from the Classical Latin respons-, past-participle stem of respondere.  The use in the sense of “responding readily to influence or action, able or inclined to respond” was documented first in 1762, the adverb responsively & noun responsiveness both appearing within a decade.  In Christianity, the use to mean “a part of the liturgy said or sung by the congregation in reply to the priest” dates from the 1650s.  The transferred sense (adopted in literature, poetry and psychology) of feelings or actions was part of the Romantic movement early in the nineteenth century.  One of the best known “responses” was the adjectival “Pavlovian Response” which dates from 1911 and came from the experimental work of Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), the best known example of which was the conditioned salivary reflexes of dogs in response to the mental stimulus of the sound of a bell being associated with food.  The term “response time” seems first to have been used in the US in 1958 and was associated with the increasingly precise measurements needed as transistors replaced vacuum tubes in electronics.

Boris Yeltsin, who got a bit of fun out of life.

The phrase “diplomatic response” isn’t really part of the study of international relations.  It’s used in general discourse to describe ways of communicating that are polite, tactful and intended to ensure reasonable relationships are maintained and the self-help sections in bookshops often contain titles which include guides on the topic, their advice on the matter probably usually suggesting the salient points are (1) Politeness (using courteous language to show respect), (2) Neutrality (avoiding taking sides or making definitive statements that might be thought controversial), (3) Constructiveness (focusing on solutions and positive outcomes), (4), Empathy (acknowledging the other person's feelings or perspectives) and (5) Caution (being careful with word choice to avoid misunderstandings or offense).  In diplomacy proper, there are examples such as when Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007; President of Russia 1991-1999) announced he would decline a Japanese offer of help in dealing with a natural disaster because they might use it as leverage in territorial disputes, the Japanese Foreign Ministry responded by saying: “He must have been misquoted”.  Lindsay Lohan in 2017 followed the example when asked about comments made by Donald Trump in 2004 when he said she was: “probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed. How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they're always the best in bed?”  Her response was to say: “I wish him the best. We live in a world of societies that consistently find fault in people. I think it’s a really scary factor. Taking someone else down is never the answer, and I think we all know that.”  It’s not believed Mr Trump responded.

Responses of some who survived political assassination attempts

That photograph.

The compositional elements of the photograph destined to become one of the classics of US political history are so perfect it would have been assumed to be an AI (artificial intelligence) meme had the moment it captured not been witnessed by so many:  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, fist raised in defiance, his blood staining his face, being hustled to safety by his Secret Service detail after an assassin’s bullet was a fraction of an inch to the left; one zephyr during its 125 metre (410 feet) travel and Trump would likely be dead.  The image, taken by AP (Associated Press) photographer Evan Vucci (b 1977) was a an extraordinary piece of serendipity for the Trump campaign, being almost entirely of red, white & blue with the Stars & Stripes flying as a backdrop, the whole thing recalling the famous photograph by AP’s Joe Rosenthal (1911–2006) which captured US Marines planting the flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.  Quite how the incident will affect the election campaign can’t be assumed but it’s unlikely to be detrimental to the Trump cause and the photograph will help, the strident defiance of the stance exactly what appeals to the base and probably attractive to not a few of the undecided, the contrast with the less dynamic Biden obviously striking.  As a response from someone who has just cheated death, his presence of mind in having the Secret Service delay his evacuation from the stage by a few seconds so he could provide AP their photo-opportunity will guarantee publicity the Republican Party couldn’t buy no matter how many millions they spent.

Senator Marco Rubio (b 1971; senator (Republican) for Florida since 2011 and the "little Marco" of Mr Trump's 2016 nomination campaign) was quick to tweet "God protected" Mr Trump which was noted by those running the betting markets for the 2024 running mate on the Republican ticket.  On his own Truth social platform, Mr Trump said much the same thing and previously, there have been those who made much of being saved from assassination by "providence" and it's not impossible Mr Trump is now persuaded it was indeed "divine intervention".  In the last decade, Mr Trump has done well by pretending to be religious to court the Christian vote: they knew he was lying and he knew that they knew he knew but such was the political symbiosis that all involved ignored the facts and focused on outcomes.  Now, he may start believing his own publicity.          

The footage was viewed world-wide within minutes and almost immdeiately questions were asked including (1) why was a line-of-shot available within 150 m (500 feet) of the target and (2) why were Secret Service agents allocated who were not even tall enough to reach his shoulder (they are as a last resort, human body armor).  The photograph was political gold for the campaign but it should never have been allowed to happen; Mr Trump should have been smothered with Secret Service bodies and immediately taken from the stage.  Some agreed the presence of the shooter was an obvious lapse but that what happened on stage followed protocol and there's never been any policy (or practice) of allocating agents on the basis of their height matching that of the protectee.    

Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt (1903) by John Singer Sargent.

In October 1912, a man shot Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) while he was on the campaign trail for that year’s presidential election.  What saved Roosevelt was the bullet having to pass through a metal spectacles case and, tellingly, a folded, 50 page copy of the speech he was about to deliver on behalf of his Progressive Party.  The enraged crowd were holding and threatening to lynch the shooter but Roosevelt intervened, ensuring he was handed to the safe custody of the Wisconsin police.  Roosevelt had spent much of his life hunting big game and, on the basis he was not coughing up blood, correctly concluded that bullet was lodged in his muscle and had not punctured the lung, the relative lack of external bleeding suggesting no vital artery or vein had been severed.  His response to what would have put most men into a state of shock was to proceed to the hall and deliver his speech as planned.  Lodged too precariously to extract, the bullet remained with him until, peacefully, he died in his sleep at Oyster Bay, New York.

Men in frock coats: The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters, Quai d'Orsay, Paris.  Left to right: David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952; Italian prime minister 1917-1919), Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921).

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) was a physician who turned to politics via journalism, a not unfamiliar trajectory for many; at a time of national crisis, he undertook his second term as premier, providing the country’s politics with the stiffness needed to endure what was by then World War I (1914-1918); he was nick-named le tigre (the tiger) in honor of his ferociously combative political demeanour.  In February 1919, while travelling from his apartment a meeting associated with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), he was shot several times, his assailant an anarchist carpenter & joiner, Émile Cottin (1896-1937) and two decades on, another leader would learn carpenters can be assassins. Le tigre was lucky, the bullets missing his vital organs although one which passed through the ribcage ending up lodged close to his heart; too close to that vital organ to risk surgery, like Roosevelt, there it remained until his death (from unrelated causes) ten years later.  Cottin’s death sentence was later commuted to a ten year sentence and he would die in battle, serving with the anarchist Durruti Column during the early days of the Spanish Civil War.  The Tiger’s response to his survival was to observe: “We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range.  Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”  In the circumstances, deploring the state of French marksmanship displayed a certain French sang froid.

Although the details of most at the time weren’t known, there were so many plots to kill Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) that books were written exploring the topic, the most comprehensive of which was Killing Hitler (b 2006) by British historian Roger Moorhouse (b 1968).  For a variety of reasons, none succeeded but the first to come close was in Munich in 1939 when a bomb (it would now be called an IED (improvised explosive device) was fabricated by German carpenter and joiner, Georg Elser (1903–1945) and secreted in a pillar directly behind where Hitler was scheduled to be standing while delivering to his old comrades one of his annual set-piece addresses.  However, on the night, because he wanted to return early to Berlin to resume planning his latest foreign policy adventure, he cut short his speech and the bomb detonated a quarter hour after he and his entourage had left; it killed eight and injured dozens.  Hitler’s response was to say his survival was “…proof to me that Providence wants me to reach my goal.”  Surprisingly, Herr Elser, apprehended almost by chance, wasn’t executed, the fate of many who had done much less, but until 1945 was a “privileged prisoner” in relatively pleasant conditions; Hitler, who for years clung to the idea the man must have had some connection with the British secret service, ordered him hanged only when it was obvious he’d be of no use as a hostage.

Hitler again thanked providence when he survived the most celebrated of the attempts, the bomb in July 1944 planted by an army colonel and timed to explode during a military conference.  Hitler on that occasion avoided death because (1) a table’s heavy socle deflected much of the blast, (2) only one of the planned two charged was primed and (3) the conference was moved from an enclosed underground bunker to a building on the surface with walls and windows which were “blown-out” in the explosion, dissipating much energy.  Those details were lost on the Führer who chose again to attribute this life being spared to “providence”.  One of those convince was the visiting Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943), by then a much diminished puppet dictator of a puppet statelet sustained by the German military.  Dutifully the vassal Duce responded to Hitler: “Absolutely I agree with you, it’s a sign from providence”.  That decided, Hitler’s response to this “stab in the back” from his own army was savage, some 7000 rounded up, 5000-odd of which would be executed, the leading figures in the conspiracy dying in an especially gruesome manner, a event filmed although there are contradictory reports about whether it was something Hitler ever chose to view.  In the way of Nazi crack-downs, not all those executed were actually connected with this or any other plot, the security services using the operation as a pretext to dispose of those of one of their many lists of “undesirables”.

A prototype Humber Imperial fitted with a 273 cubic inch (4.5 litre) Chrysler LA V8.  By the mid 1960s the Humber Super Snipe (1964-1967) was essentially a mid-1950s US sedan being produced in England, a phenomenon which was emblematic of a malaise afflicting much of the UK's motor industry.  The Imperial was an up-market, better-appointed Super-Snipe and after Chrysler took a stake in the company, perhaps as many as six V8 prototypes were built but the advantages gained were few and the project never proceeded to general production.  When Chrysler in 1967 took over Rootes Group (the corporation of which Humber was a part) the Super Snipe range was discontinued, replaced in the UK market by Australian-produced Chrysler Valiants, chosen in preference to the US-built versions because they were available in right-hand drive configuration and the Commonwealth Preference scheme meant they attracted lower import tariffs.  Although only ever a niche product in the UK market and never approaching the sales volumes achieved by the big Humbers, the Valiants remained available until 1976.      

Arthur Augustus Calwell (1896-1973; Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader of the opposition 1960-1967) was a rare Australian target of an attempted political assassination.  Two years after being knighted by Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) (his Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) apparent unrelated to the attempt on his life), Calwell was sitting in the front passenger seat (it’s an Australian tradition) of his official car when 19 year-old student Peter Kocan (b 1947), at point blank range, fired a shell from a sawn-off rifle, aimed directly at his target.  In 1966, the Commonwealth’s car fleet still included their last intake of British-built cars and Calwell was sitting in a Series V Humber Super Snipe (1964-1967), an outdated machine but one which was stately & roomy and thus enjoyed by politicians who found their replacement, the lower Ford Galaxie, less comfortable, especially the ingress and egress.  Fortunately for Calwell, the side glass in the old-fashioned Humber was thick and instead of penetrating the pane, it shattered, absorbing most of the bullet’s energy; it was spent by the time it had travelled those few feet, lodging harmlessly in the lapel of the target’s jacket, Mr Calwell's injuries limited to some minor cuts from the broken glass.  Kocan was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, sent initially to Sydney's Long Bay Gaol before being transferred to Morriset Psychiatric Hospital for the criminally insane.  There he studied literature and after his release became a prize winning poet and novelist, eventually graduating from the University of Newcastle with a BA (Hons) & MA.  Calwell’s response to the man who tried to kill him was to pay a visit to the hospital and, although a great hater in the ALP tradition, he was also a good Catholic, sending a letter of forgiveness.

Arthur Calwell leaving hospital in his Humber Super Snipe, the presence in numbers of the New South Wales (NSW) Police suggesting they were going to make sure nothing more happened to him before he returned to Victoria.  The police cars are locally assembled Rambler Classics and in Australia, various AMCs were in small volumes assembled and sold under the Rambler name until 1977.

In an example of how difficult it can be for security services to monitor and intercept those who plan to kill political figures, the motive of the man who in March 1981 shot Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) was to impress an actress with whom he’d become obsessed.  That was something even less likely to attract the attention of the authorities than the earlier case when a botched attempt had been made by a member of Charles Manson’s (1934-2017) “Family” cult to assassinate Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977).  Mr Reagan’s injury was life-threatening and was saved only by surgical intervention.  When greeted by the surgeons who were to perform the operation, his response was to tell them he hoped they “…were all Republicans”.  In an example of good bedside manner they assured him he was in safe political hands although one later confessed to being a lifelong Democrat.  When his wife arrived at the hospital, he delivered the line “Honey, I forgot to duck”, borrowed from boxer Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) who said it to Mrs Dempsey on the night he'd lost a bout to Gene Tunney (1897–1978).