Slime

Slime (pronounced slahym)

(1) Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; thin, glutinous, viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature that is moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud containing metallic ore, obtained in the preparatory dressing.

(2) Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals (typically fish, snails or slugs) or vegetable (eg fungi); any ropy or viscous liquid matter, especially of a foul kind.

(3) In slang, as slimeball, an informal, derogatory term for a sneaky, unethical, repulsive or otherwise despicable person.

(4) In video gaming, a monster appearing as a slimy blob or in some other way slimy.

(5) Human flesh, seen disparagingly (an obsolete figurative use).

(6) In slang as “Jew’s slime”, bitumen (offensive and obsolete).

(7) In the African-American vernacular (more recently adopted in MTE (my thoughts exactly) slang)), a friend; “a homie”.

(8) In biology, as the acronym SLIMEs (also as abbreviated SLMEs & SLiMEs), subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems, a type of endolithic ecosystems which manifest as agglomerations of bacteria and fungi which inhabit pores in the interlocking mineral grains of igneous rock beneath Earth's surface.

(9) In biology, as slime-mold, a broad term often referring to roughly six groups of Eukaryotes (organisms the cells of which contain a nucleus).

(10) In computing, as the acronym SLIME (Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs), an Emacs mode for developing Common Lisp applications.

(11) To cover or smear with or as if with slime.

(12) In industrial processing, to remove slime from, as fish for canning (technically a clipping from de-slime so slime can be both a synonym and antonym of de-slime).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English slime, slyme, slim & slym from the Old English slīm.  The Old English slīm may be from the Old English lim (birdlime; sticky substance) but is probably from the Proto-Germanic slīmą, from the primitive Indo-European sley- (smooth; slick; sticky; slimy), the source slao of the Old Norse slim.  The English forms were related to a remarkable number of similar words in many languages including the Dutch slijm (phlegm), the Danish slim, the Old Frisian slym, the Old Norse slīm, the German Schleim (mucus, slime), the Saterland Frisian Sliem, the Latin limus (alime, mud or mire), the Sanskrit linati (sticks, stays, adheres to; slips into, disappears), the Russian slimak (snail), the Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē) (marsh), the Old Church Slavonic slina (spittle), the Old Irish sligim (to smear) & leinam (I follow (literally "I stick to")), the Welsh llyfn (smooth), the Greek leimax (snail), limne (marsh, pool, lake) & alinein (to anoint, besmear), the Old High German slīmen (to smooth), and the Latin līmax (snail).  The main influence on the changes in spellings noted in the Medieval period is thought to have been the Latin limus (slime, mud or mire) & linere (to daub, besmear, rub out, erase).  Slime & sliming are nouns and verbs, slimed is a verb, slimy is a noun & adjective and slimily is an adverb and slimier & slimish are adjectives; the noun plural is slimes.

Slime is available in designer colors.

Slime was used as an insult to a person from the early-fifteenth century when the phrase “to cover with slime" appeared (apparently the first use of slime as a verb) although slimeball appears not to have appeared until the twentieth and, unusually in English, hyphenation is rare.  Similar words in English include sludge, mud, goo, gunk, mucus, mire, scum, ooze, fungus & glop and, ever inventive, English has a wide range of alternatives for slimeball as an insult.  In biology, the slime-mold dates from 1880 and those with a morbid fear of slime are said to be suffering from blennophobia, from the Ancient Greek βλέννος (blénnos) (mucus, slime) + -phobia.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).

Slime is a popular motif in political satire, used here by Glenn McCoy (b 1965) to sum up crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) past and the 2016 presidential campaign between her and Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021).  The use of "slime" in this context plays on the almost universal human revulsion to such substances.  

An unverified representation of the Earth’s human population as a slimeball, plonked in New York’s Central Park (a place that’s seen not a few slimeballs).  This is actually a revival of the word "slime" in the now obsolete way it was used as a disparaging reference to human flesh.  At the time it was rendered, total population was some 7.88 billion souls and the calculation used was a human density of 985 kg/m³ (2172 lb/35 cubic foot) at an average human body mass of 62 kg (137 lb).  This would create a slimeball just under 1 km (820 yards) wide but the Earth’s population may just have reached 8 billion so the slimeball’s mass will have increased by 0.010152%.

Slimeballs are where one finds them:  Crooked Hillary Clinton with Harvey Weinstein.  In some places, “slimebucket” is used to convey the same meaning.

A depiction of Laura Croft, of Tomb Raider fame, being slimed.

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).

Ooze

Ooze (pronounced ooz)

(1) Of moisture, liquid etc, to flow, percolate, or exude slowly, as through holes or small openings.

(2) To move or pass slowly or gradually, as if through a small opening or passage:

(3) The act of oozing, to make by oozing; to exude (moisture, air etc) slowly.

(4) Something that oozes; the product or the result from oozing.

(5) In geology, the technical word for a calcareous or siliceous mud composed chiefly of the shells of one-celled organisms, covering parts of the ocean bottom; a soft thin mud found at the bottom of lakes and rivers

(6) In commercial tanning, an infusion of vegetable matter, such as sumach or oak bark.

(7) Secretion, humor (said now to be rare).

(8) Juice, sap (obsolete except when used as a verb describing process).

(9) Of something abstract, such as information or confidence, to appear or disappear slowly or imperceptibly (often followed by out or away).

Pre 900: The noun wass from the Middle English wose (sap), from the Old English wōs (sap, froth, juice, moisture) and wāse (soft mud, mire), from the Proto-Germanic wōsą & wosan (related to the Middle Low German wose (scum), the Old High German wasal (rain) and the Old Swedish os & oos), from the primitive Indo-European wósehz (sap) (related to the Sanskrit वसा (vásā) (fat)).  Also of influence was the Old English wāse (mud), related to the Old French wāse and the Old Norse veisa.  The other Proto-Germanic link was waison (source also of the Old Saxon waso (wet ground, mire) and the Old Norse veisa (pond of stagnant water), probably from a primitive long-lost Indo-European root meaning "wet".  The modern spelling is from the mid-1500s.  The verb form meaning (1) "to flow as ooze, percolate through the pores of a substance" (intransitive) and (2) "to emit in the shape of moisture" (transitive) emerged in the late fourteenth century.  Wosen (the Old English verb was wesan) was a verbal derivative of the Old English noun wos (sap, froth, juice, moisture)," from Proto-Germanic wosan from same source as the noun ooze (n.).  The modern spelling is from the late sixteenth century.  Ooze is a noun & verb; oozed, oozle & oozing are verbs and oozy is an adjective; the noun plural is oozes.

Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) watching industrial lubricant ooze into a 209 litre (the old 44 gallon (Imperial)) drum.

Lindsay Lohan having just had her T-shirt oozed upon in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

The adjective was oozy which existed in Old English as wosig (juicy, moist) but the original sense is long obsolete, the meaning "containing or resembling fine soft mud; having the consistency of wet mud or slime" is from 1560s and the related form, ooziness, though rare, remains in occasional use.  Ooze and its derivatives are, to some degree, associated with words such as slime, mud, muck, sludge, marsh, bog, goo, silt, gunk, drain, seep, leak, dribble, percolate, trickle, exude, bleed, mire, fluid, gook, glop & alluvium yet none of them appear to evoke the same distaste as what is said to be the most disliked word in English: “moist”.

Calcareous-siliceous sediment distribution: The worldwide distribution of ooze.

Limn

Limn (pronounced lim)

(1) To represent in drawing or painting; to delineate (rare except as literary device and also used figuratively).

(2) To portray in words; to describe (rare except as literary device).

(3) To illuminate (in the archaic sense) manuscripts; to decorate with gold or some other bright colour (obsolete except in historic references)

1400–1450: From the late Middle English limnen, limyne, lymm, lymn & lymne (to illuminate (a manuscript)), a variant of the Middle English luminen (to illuminate (a manuscript)), a short-form variant of enluminen or enlumine (to shed light upon, illuminate; to enlighten; to make bright or clear; to give colour to; to illuminate (a manuscript); to depict, describe; to adorn or embellish with figures of speech or poetry; to make famous, glorious, or illustrious), from the Old & Middle French enluminer (to illumine (a manuscript)), from the Latin illūminō (to brighten, light up; to adorn; to make conspicuous), the construct being il- (a variant of in- (the prefix used in the sense of “in, inside”)) + lūminō (to brighten, illuminate; to reveal), the construct being from lūmen (genitive luminis) (radiant energy; light; (and used poetically) brightness”) (from the primitive Indo-European lewk- (bright; to shine; to see)) + -ō (the suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).  The more familiar derived form in Latin was inlūmināre (to embellish; to brighten (literally “light up”), related obviously to related to lucere (to shine), the idea identifiable in the Modern English lustre.

Limn’s figurative sense of “portray, depict” which persists in literary and poetic use (some journalists also like the archaic flourish) was in use by the 1590s.  The derived forms include the verbs dislimn, dislimns, dislimning & dislimned (to remove the outlines of; to efface); enlimn enlimns, enlimning & enlimned) (to adorn (a book, manuscript etc) by illuminating or ornamenting with coloured and decorated letters and figures, the adjective unlimned (not limned or depicted), outlimn (to sketch out or delineate) and the noun limner (plural limners) (one who limns or portrays.  The use of limning as a noun described a depiction (the definitional boundaries of which shifted over the centuries).  The spelling limne was (obsolete) by the seventeenth century.  Limn & limned are verbs, limner is a noun & limming is a noun & verb; the two nouns plural are limners & limnings.

Two limnings in miniature from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. 

In the popular imagination, the illuminate manuscript is one where the art has a quality of vibrancy, the colors vivid, typified by Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) (1413-1416) by Dutch miniature painters, the brothers Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg from the city of Nijmegen.  The volume is now in the collections of the Musée Condé in the Château de Chantilly, Chantilly, France.  January (left) and September (right) were two of a number of illustrations in a seasonal theme and as well as of interest to historians of art, the depictions have been used as documentary evidence of aspects of lifestyle as varied as the place of animals in society to the colors of garments.  In the tradition of the International Gothic of fourteenth & fifteenth centuries (the successor epoch to the High Gothic) the book is noted for its detail, refinement and use of gold leaf though quite how reliable as a historic record such documents are has been questioned; while not exactly the Instagram of the age, they were certainly idealized and produced for whomever it was prepared to pay for the commission.

Limnophile Lindsay Lohan lingers to look with longing at a lake's languid waters, Georgia Rule (2007).

Limno- is a word-forming element used in science in the sense of “of or pertaining to lakes and fresh water; the study of bodies of fresh water” and dates from 1892 when the name for the discipline appeared in scientific papers, the first to use the term apparently the Swiss geologist François-Alphonse Forel (1841-1912).  The related forms are limnological, limnetic, limnophile (there seem not to be any limnophobes), limnologist and the marvellous adjective limnophilous (loving or having an affinity towards lakes).  The noun limnology does not describe the study of illuminated manuscripts and despite the spelling is unrelated, the construct being limno-, from the Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē) (pool of standing water, tidal pool, pond, marsh, lake," a word of uncertain origin but perhaps connected to the Latin limus (mud), from the primitive Indo-European root slei & lei- (slime), via the notion of “moistness, standing water), from or closely related to λιμήν (limḗn) (harbor) & λειμών (leimṓn) (moist place, meadow) +‎ -(o)logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).

Two folio pages from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. 

Intriguingly different from most in the genre is the Black Hours Manuscript (known also as the Morgan Black Hours), created between 1460-1480 (some sources claim the final artwork was completed by 1475) in Bruges in what is now the Flemish Region of Belgium.  Created probably for a patron or member of the Burgundian Court, it’s now held in Manhattan’s Morgan Library and Museum.  What is most striking about the Black Hours is the extensive use of dark blueish hues as the predominant background shading.  Highly unusual in any artistic form in this era, the color occurs because of the extremely corrosive process used to dye the vellum with iron gall ink.  The black pages are a rarity (and at the time an expensive one) and the miniatures all use tones, the palette throughout very limited and restricted to blue, old rose, green, gray and white, with a few touches of gold, a radical departure from the usual splashes of yellow and scarlet, the margins decorated with blue borders, gold acanthus leaves and the expected drolleries.  So distinctive are the stylistic elements that historians of art continue to debate the influences on the creators and traces of its motifs appear often in modern graphic art.

Obliterate

Obliterate (pronounced uh-blit-uh-reyt (U) or oh-blit-uh-reyt (non-U))

(1) To remove or destroy all traces of something; do away with; destroy completely.

(2) In printing or graphic design, to blot out or render undecipherable (writing, marks, etc.); fully to efface.

(3) In medicine, to remove an organ or another body part completely, as by surgery, disease, or radiation.

1590–1600: From the Latin oblitterātus, perfect passive participle of oblitterō (blot out), from oblinō (smear over) and past participle of oblitterāre (to efface; cause to disappear, blot out (a writing) & (figuratively) cause to be forgotten, blot out a remembrance), the construct being ob- (a prefixation of the preposition ob (in the sense of “towards; against”)) + litter(a) (also litera) (letter; script) + -ātus (-ate).  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  True synonyms include black out, eliminate, exterminate, annihilate, eradicate, delete, erase & expunge because to obliterate something is to remove all traces.  Other words often used as synonyms don’t of necessity exactly convey that sense; they include obscure, ravage, smash, wash out, wipe out, ax, cancel and cut.  Obliterate & obliterated are verds & adjetives, obliteration & obliterator are nouns, obliterature & obliterating are nouns, verb & adjective, obliterable & obliterative are adjectives and obliteratingly is an adverb; the noun plural is obliterations.

Social anxiety can be "obliterated".  Who knew?

The verb obliterate was abstracted from the phrase literas scribere (write across letters, strike out letters).  The noun obliteration (act of obliterating or effacing, a blotting out or wearing out, fact of being obliterated, extinction) dates from the 1650s, from the Late Latin obliterationem (nominative obliteratio), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of oblitterāre (to efface; cause to disappear, blot out (a writing) & (figuratively) cause to be forgotten, blot out a remembrance).  The related late fourteenth century noun oblivion (state or fact of forgetting, forgetfulness, loss of memory) was from the thirteenth century Old French oblivion and directly from the Latin oblivionem (nominative oblivio) (forgetfulness; a being forgotten) from oblivisci, the past participle of oblitus (forget) of uncertain origin.  Oblivion is if interest to etymologists because of speculation about a semantic shift from “to be smooth” to “to forget”, the theory based on the construct being ob- (using ob in the sense of “over”) + the root of lēvis (smooth).  For this there apparently exists no documentary evidence either to prove or disprove the notion.  The Latin lēvis (rubbed smooth, ground down) was from the primitive Indo-European lehiu-, from the root (s)lei- (slime, slimy, sticky).

Obliterature

The noun obliterature is a special derived form used in literary criticism, the construct being oblit(erate) + (lit)erature.  It describes works of literature in some way "obliterated or mad void", the most celebrated (or notorious according to many) being those which "interpreted" things in a manner not intended by the original author but the words is applied also to texts deliberately destroyed, erased or rendered unreadable, either as an artistic statement or as a result of censorship, neglect, or decay.  La biblioteca de Babel" (The Library of Babel (1941)) by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was a short story which imagined a universe consisting of an infinite library containing every possible book but all volumes are some way corrupted or comprise only random strings of characters; all works wholly unintelligible and thus useless.  The chaotic library was symbolic of the most extreme example of obliterature in that all works had been rendered unreadable and devoid of internal meaning.

Nazis burning books, Berlin, 1933.

Probably for a long as writing has existed, there has been censorship (and its companion: self-censorship).  Some censorship is official government policy while countless other instances exist at institutional level, sometimes as a political imperative, some time because of base commercial motives.  The most infamous examples are literary works banned or destroyed as political or religious repression including occasions when the process was one of public spectacle such as the burning of books in Nazi Germany, aimed at Jewish, communist and other “degenerate or undesirable” authors.   The critique: “They burn the books they cannot write” is often attributed German-Jewish poet, writer and literary critic Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) whose work was among the thousands of volumes placed on a bonfire in Berlin in 1933 but it’s a paraphrase of a passage from his play Almansor (1821-1822), spoken by a Muslim after Christian had burned piles of the holy Quran: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.”  (That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.")

The Address Book (1983) by French conceptual artist Sophie Calle (b 1953) was based on an address book the author found in the street which, (after photocopying the contents) she returned to the owner.  She then contacted those in the book and used the information they provided to create a narrative about the owner, a man she had never met.  This she had published in a newspaper and the man promptly threatened to sue on the grounds of a breach of his right to privacy, demanding all examples of the work in its published form be destroyed.  Duly, the obliterature was performed.  Thomas Phillips' (1937–2022) A Humument: A treated Victorian novel (in various editions 1970-2016) is regarded by most critics as an “altered” book, a class of literature in which novel media forms (often graphical artwork) are interpolated to change the appearance and sometimes elements of meaning.  Phillips use as his base a Victorian-era novel (William (WH) Mallock's (1849–1923) A Human Document (1892)) and painted over its pages, leaving only select words visible to create new narratives, many of which were surreal.  This was obliterature as artistic device and it’s of historic interest because it anticipated many of the techniques of post modernism, multi-media productions and even meme-making.

Erasure Poetry takes an existing text and either erases or blacks-out (the modern redaction technique) words or passages to create a new poem from the remaining words; in the most extreme examples almost all the original is obliterated, with only fragments left to form a new work.  Ronald Johnson (1935–1998) was a US poet who in 1977 published the book-length RADI OS (1977), based on John Milton's (1608–1674) Paradise Lost (1667-1674) and used the redactive mechanism as an artistic device, space once used by the obliterated left deliberately blank, surrounding the surviving words.

Some critics and literary theorists include unfinished and fragmentary work under the rubric of obliterature and while that may seem a bit of a definitional stretch, the point may be that such texts in many ways can resemble what post modern (and post-post modern) obliterature practitioners publish as completed work.  There are many unfinished works by the famous which have been “brought to conclusion” by contracted authors, the critical response tending to vary from the polite to the dismissive although, in fairness, it may be that some things were left unfinished for good reasons.  The Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was extraordinarily prolific and apparently never discarded a single page, leaving a vast archive of unfinished, fragmented, and often unreadable manuscripts, the volume so vast many have never been deciphered.  It’s interesting to speculate that had Pessoa had access to word processors and the cloud whether he would have saved as much; if he’d lived in the age of the floppy diskette, maybe he’d have culled a bit.

The obliteration of animal carcasses with explosives

Strictly speaking, “to obliterate something” means “to remove or destroy all traces” which usually isn’t the case when explosives are used, the result more a wide dispersal of whatever isn’t actually vaporized but there’s something about the word which attracts those who blow-up stuff and they seem often to prefer obliteration to terms which might be more accurate.  As long as the explosion is sufficiently destructive, one can see their point and obliteration does memorably convey the implications of blowing-up stuff.  The word clearly enchanted the US Forest Service which in 1995 issued their classic document Obliterating Animal Carcasses with Explosives, helpfully including a step-by-step guide to the process.  Given it’s probably not a matter about which many have given much thought, the service explained obliterating large animal carcasses was an important safety measure in wilderness recreation areas where the remains might attract bears, or near picnic areas where people obviously wouldn’t want rotting flesh nearby.  A practical aspect also is that in many cases there is no way conveniently to move or otherwise dispose of a large carcass (such as a horse or moose which can weigh in excess of 500 kg (1100 lb) which might be found below a steep cut slope or somewhere remote.  So, where physical transportation is not practical, the chemistry and physics of explosives are the obvious alternative, the guide recommending fireline devices (specially developed coils containing explosive powder), used also to clear combustible materials in the path of a wildfire. 

Interestingly, the guide notes there will be cases in which the goal might not be obliteration.  In some ecosystems, what is most desirable is to disperse the carcass locally into the small chunks suited to the eating habits of predators in the area and when properly dispersed, smaller scavenging animals will break down the left-overs, usually within a week.  To effect a satisfactory dispersal, the guide recommends placing 20 lb (9 kg) of explosives on the carcass in key locations, then using a detonator cord to tie the charges together, the idea being to locate them on the major bones, along the spine.  However, in areas where there’s much human traffic, obliteration is required and the guide recommends placing 20 lb (9 kg) pounds of explosives on top and a similar load underneath although it’s noted this may be impossible if the carcass is too heavy, frozen into the ground, floating in water or simply smells too ghastly for anyone to linger long enough to do the job.  In that case, 55 lb (25 kg) of fireline should be draped over the remains although the actual amount used will depend on the size of the carcass, the general principle being the more explosives used, the greater the chance obliteration will be achieved.  Dispersal and obliteration are obviously violent business but it’s really just an acceleration of nature’s decomposition process.  Whereas a big beast like a horse can sit for months without entirely degrading, if explosives are used, in most cases after little more than a week it’d not be obvious an animal was ever there.  With regard to horses however, the guide does include the warning that prior to detonation, “horseshoes should be removed to minimize dangerous flying debris.”  Who knew?

It’s important enough explosives are used to achieve the desired result but in carcass disposal it's important also not to use too much.  In November 1970, the Oregon Highway Division was tasked with blowing up a 45-foot (14 m) eight-ton (8100 kg) decaying whale which lay on the shores near the town of Florence and they calculated it would need a half-ton (510 kg) of dynamite, the presumption being any small pieces would be left for seagulls and other scavengers.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.  The viewing crowds had been kept a quarter-mile (400 m) from the blast-site but they were forced to run for cover as large chunks of whale blubber started falling on them and the roof of a car parked even further away was crushed.  Fortunately there were no injuries although most in the area were splattered with small pieces of dead whale.  Fifty years on, Florence residents voted to name a new recreation ground Exploding Whale Memorial Park in honor of the event.

Capsule

Capsule (pronounced kap-suhl (U), kap-sool (non-U) or kap-syool (non U))

(1) In pharmacology, a gelatinous case enclosing a dose of medicine.

(2) In biology and anatomy, a membranous sac or integument; a cartilaginous, fibrous, or membranous envelope surrounding any of certain organs or parts, especially (1) the broad band of white fibres (internal capsule) near the thalamus in each cerebral hemisphere and (2) the membrane surrounding the eyeball.

(3) Either of two strata of white matter in the cerebrum.

(4) The sporangium of various spore-producing organisms, as ferns, mosses, algae, and fungi.

(5) In botany, a dry dehiscent (one that that liberates its seeds by splitting, as in the violet, or through pores, as in the poppy) fruit, composed of two or more carpels.

(6) A small case, envelope, or covering.

(7) In aerospace, a sealed cabin, container, or vehicle in which a person or animal can ride in flight in space or at very high altitudes within the earth's atmosphere (also called space-capsule).

(8) In aviation, a similar cabin in a military aircraft, which can be ejected from the aircraft in an emergency, complete with crew and instruments etc; an outgrowth of the original escape device, the ejector-seat.  The concept is used also by some sea-going vessels and structures such as oil-rigs where they’re essentially enclosed life-boats equipped for extended duration life-support.

(9) A thin cap or seal (made historically from lead or tin but now usually of plastic), covering for the mouth of a corked (ie sealed with some sort of stopper) bottle.

(10) A concise report; brief outline.

(11) To furnish with or enclose in or as if in a capsule; to encapsulate; to capsulize.

(12) In bacteriology, a gelatinous layer of polysaccharide or protein surrounding the cell wall of some bacteria and thought to be responsible for the virulence in pathogens.  The outer layer of viscous polysaccharide or polypeptide slime of the capsules with which some bacteria cover their cell walls is thought to provide defense against phagocytes and prevent the bacteria from drying out.

(13) In the fashion industry (as a modifier), a sub-set of a collection containing the most important or representative items (a capsule-collection).

(14) In chemistry, a small clay saucer for roasting or melting samples of ores etc, known also as a scorifier (archaic); A small, shallow evaporating dish, usually of porcelain.

(15) In ballistics, a small cup or shell, often of metal, for a percussion cap, cartridge etc.

1645–1655: From the Middle English capsula (small case, natural or artificial), from the French capsula (a membranous sac) or directly from the Latin capsula (small box or chest), the construct being caps(a) (box; chest; case) + -ula (the diminutive suffix).  The medicinal sense is 1875, the origin of the shortened form being that in 1942 adopted by British army quartermasters in their inventory and supply lists (eg Cap, ASA, 5 Gr (ie a 5 grain capsule of aspirin)).  The use to describe the part of a spacecraft containing the crew is from 1954, thought influenced by the number of military personnel involved during the industry’s early years, the sense from the jargon of ballistics meaning "shell of a metallic cartridge" dating from 1864 (although the word in this context had earlier been used in science fiction (SciFi or SF)).  Capsule has been applied as an adjective since 1938.  The verb encapsulate (enclose in a capsule) is from 1842 and was in figurative use by 1939 whereas the noun encapsulation didn’t appear until 1859 but was a figurative form as early as 1934.  Capsule is a noun & verb, capsuler, capsulization & encapsulation are nouns, encapsule, capsulizing, encapsulated & encapsulating are verbs, capsulated and capsuliferous & capsuligenous are adjectives; the noun plural is capsules.  In medicine, the adjective capsuloligamentous is used in anatomical science to mean "relating to a capsule and a ligament".

Science (especially zoology, botany, medicine & anatomy) has found many uses for capsule (because in nature capsule-like formations occur with such frequency) as a descriptor including the nouns capsulotomy (incision into a capsule, especially into the lens of the eye when removing cataracts), (the generation and development of a capsule), capsulorhexis (the removal of the lens capsule during cataract surgery) & capsulectomy (the removal of a capsule, especially one that surrounds an implant) and the adjective capsuloligamentous (of or relating to a capsule and a ligament).  Science also applied modifiers as required, thus forms such as intercapsule, pseudocapsule, microcapsule, macrosapsule & subsapsule.  Industry found a use: the noun capsuler describing "a machine for applying the capsule to the cork of a wine bottle" and the first "space capsules" (the part of spaceships with the life-support systems able to sustain life and thus used as the crew compartment) appeared in SF long before any were built or launched.  The derived forms most frequently used are encapsulate and its variations encapsulation and encapulated.  

The Capsule in Asymmetric Engineering

Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Eurl (Owl).

Unusual but far from unique in its structural asymmetry, and offset crew-capsule, the Blohm & Voss BV 141 was tactical reconnaissance aircraft built in small numbers and used in a desultory manner by the Luftwaffe during WWII.  A specification issued in 1937 by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM; the German Air Ministry) had called for a single-engine reconnaissance aircraft, optimized for visual observation and, in response, Focke-Wulf responded with their Fw 189 Eurl (Owl) which, because of the twin-engined, twin-boomed layout encountered some resistance from the RLM bureaucrats but it found much favor with the Luftwaffe and, over the course of the war, some nine-hundred entered service and it was used almost exclusively as the German's standard battlefield reconnaissance aircraft.  In fact, so successful did it prove in this role that the other configurations it was designed to accommodate, that of liaison and close-support ground-attack, were never pursued.  Although its performance was modest, it was a fine airframe with superb flying qualities and an ability to absorb punishment which, on the Russian front where it was extensively deployed, became famous and captured exampled provide Russian aeronautical engineers with ides which would for years influence their designs.

Arado Ar 198.

The RLM had also invited Arado to tender but their Ar 198, although featuring an unusual under-slung and elongated cupola which afforded for the observer a uniquely panoramic view, proved unsatisfactory in test-flights and development ceased.  Blohm and Voss hadn't been included in the RLM's invitation but anyway chose to offer a design which was radically different even by the standards of the innovative Fw 189.  The asymmetric BV 141 design was intriguing with the crew housed in an extensively glazed capsule, offset to starboard of the centre-line with a boom, offset to the left, housing the single-engine in front and tail to the rear.  Prototypes were built as early as 1938 and the Luftwaffe conducted were operational trials over both the UK and USSR between 1939-1941 but, despite being satisfactory in most respects, the Bv 141 was hampered by poor performance, a consequence of using an under-powered engined.  A re-design of the structure to accommodate more powerful units was begun but delays in development and the urgent need for the up-rated engines for machines already in production doomed the project and the Bv 141 was in 1943 abandoned.

Blohm & Voss BV 141 prototype.

Blohm & Voss BV 141.

Despite the ungainly appearance, the test-pilots reported the Fw 141 was a nicely balanced airframe, the seemingly strange weight distribution well compensated by (1) component placement, (2) the specific lift characteristics of the wing design and (3) the choice of rotational direction of both crankshaft and propeller, the torque generated used as a counter-balance.  Nor, despite the expectation of some, were there difficulties in handling whatever behavior was induced by the thrust versus drag asymmetry and pilots all indicated some intuitive trimming was all that was needed to compensate for any induced yaw.  The asymmetry extended even to the tail-plane, the starboard elevator and horizontal stabilizer removed (to afford the tail-gunner a wider field of fire) after the first three prototypes were built; surprisingly, this was said barely to affect the flying characteristics.  Focke-Wolf pursued the concept, a number of design-studies (including a piston & turbojet-engine hybrid) initiated but none progressed beyond the drawing-board.

Lindsay Lohan's promotion of Los Angeles-based Civil Clothing's capsule collection, November 2014.  The pieces were an ensemble in black & white, named "My Addiction".

The capsule on the circuits

Bisiluro Damolnar, Le Mans, 1955.

The concept of the asymmetric capsule made little impact in aviation but it certain made an impression on “Smokey” Yunick (Henry Yunick 1923–2001).  Smokey Yunick was American mechanic and self-taught designer who was for years one of the most innovative and imaginative builders in motorsport.  A dominant force in the early years of NASCAR where his team won two championships and dozens of races, he continued his involvement there and in other arenas for over two decades including the Indianapolis 500, his car winning the 1960 event.  During WWII, Yunick had piloted a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress for the 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy), flying some fifty missions out of Amendola Field, Italy and on one run, he’d had seen in the skies over Germany a Blohm & Voss BV 141 and was intrigued by the outrigger capsule in which sat the crew, immediately trying to imagine how such a layout would affect the flying characteristics.  The image of the strange aircraft stayed with him and a decade later he noted the Bisiluro Damolnar which ran at Le Mans in 1955, the year of the horrific accident in which eighty-four died.  He must have been encouraged by the impressive pace of the Bisiluro Damolnar rather than its high-speed stability (it was blown (literally) of the track by a passing Jaguar D-Type) and to contest the 1964 Indianapolis 500, he created a capsule-car.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Like many of the machines Yunick built, the capsule-car was designed with the rule-book in one hand and a bucket of the sponsor’s money in the other, Hurst Corporation in 1964 paying US$40,000 (equal to circa US$335,000 in 2021) for the naming rights.  Taking advantage of the USAC’s (the Indianapolis 500’s sanctioning body) rules which permitted the cars to carry as much as 75 gallons (284 litres) of fuel, some did, the placement of the tanks being an important factor in the carefully calculated weight-distribution.  The drawback of a heavy fuel load was greater weight which, early on, decreased speed and increased tyre wear but did offer the lure of less time spent re-fueling so what Yunick did was take a novel approach to the "fuel as ballast" principle which balanced the mass by placing the driver and fuel towards the front and the engine to the rear, the desired leftward bias (the Indianapolis 500 being run anti-clockwise) achieved by specific placement.  His great innovation was that using a separate, left-side capsule for the driver, he created three different weight masses (front, rear and left-centre) which, in theory, would both improve aerodynamic efficiency and optimize weight distribution.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Despite the appearance, the capsule-car was more conventional than intended.  The initial plan had been to use a turbine engine (as Lotus later would, almost successfully) and a single throttle/brake control but, for various reasons, it ended up using the ubiquitous Offenhauser power-plant and a conventional, two-pedal setup.  Upon arrival at the track, it made quite an impression and many understood the theories which had inspired the design.  Expectations were high.  Unfortunately, the theories didn’t work in practice and the car struggled to reach competitive speeds, an attempt at a qualifying lap delayed until the last available day.  Going into turn one at speed, a problem with the troublesome brakes caused a loss of control and the car hit the wall, the damage severe enough to preclude any chance of repairs being made in time for the race.

Hurst Floor Shifter Special, Indianapolis, 1964.

Yunick wasn’t discouraged and remained confident a year was enough time to develop the concept and solve the problem the shakedown on the circuit had revealed but the capsule-car would never race again, rule changes imposed after a horrific crash which happened early in 1964 race meaning it would have been impossible for it to conform yet remain competitive.  Effectively rendered illegal, the capsule-car was handed to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where it's sometimes displayed.

Japanese Hotels: The Pod and the Capsule

The term "capsule hotel" is a calque of the Japanese カプセルホテル (kapuseru hoteru).  The capsule hotel is a hotel with very small accommodation units which certainly can’t be called “rooms” in any conventiona sense of the word although the property management software (PMS) the operators use to manage the places is essentially the same (though simplified because there’s no need to handle things such as mini-bars, rollaway beds et al).  Although not exclusive to Japan, it’s Japanese cities with which the concept is most associated, the first opened in Osaka in 1979 and they were an obvious place for the idea to emerge because of the high cost of real estate.  Although the market has softened since the “property bubble” which in 1989 peaked with Tokyo commercial space alone reputedly (at least as extrapolated by the theorists) worth more than the continental United States, the cost per m² remains high by international standards.  Because one typical hotel room can absorb as many m³ as a dozen or more capsules, the optimized space efficiency made the economic model compelling, even as a niche market.

Anna in Capsule 620.

Many use the terms “pod hotel” (pod used here in the individual and not the collective sense) & “capsule hotel” interchangeably to describe accommodation units which compact sleeping spaces with minimal additional facilities but in Japan the industry does note there are nuances of difference between the two.  Both are similar in that structurally the design is one of an array of small, pod-like sleeping units stacked side by side and/or atop each other in a communal space.  In a capsule hotel, the amenities are limited usually to a bed, small television and usually some (limited) provision of personal storage space with bathroom facilities shared and located in the communal area.  The target market traditionally has been budget travellers (the business as well as the leisure market) but there was for a while the phenomenon of those booking a night or two just to post the images as something exotic on Instagram and other platforms.  Interestingly, "female only" capsule hotels are a thing which must be indicative of something. 

Entrance to the world of your capsule, 9h nine hours Suidobashi, Tokyo.

The “Pod Hotel” came later and tended to be (slightly) larger, some 10-20% more expensive and positioned deliberately as “upmarket”, obviously a relative term and best thought of as vaguely analogous with the “premium economy” seats offered by airlines.  Compared with a capsule, a pod might have adjustable lighting, a built-in entertainment system supporting BYD (bring your own device) and somewhat more opulent bedding.  Demand clearly existed and a few pod hotels emerged with even a private bathroom and additional storage space although the sleeping area tended to remain the same.  It’s part of Japanese urban folklore that these more self-contained pods are often used by the famous “salarymen” who find them an attractive alternative to finding their way home after an evening of karaoke, strong drink, the attention of hostesses and such.  That aspect of the salaryman lifestyle predated the 1980s and capsules and pods were just a more economic way of doing things.  Not however predicted in a country which had since the mid-1950s become accustomed to prosperity, full-employment and growth were the recessions and consequent increase in unemployment which became part of the economy after the bubble burst in 1990.  In this environment, the capsules and especially the pods became low-cost alternative accommodation for the under-employed & unemployed and while estimates vary according to the city and district, it may be that at times as many as 20% of the units were rented on a weekly or monthly basis by those for whom the cost of a house or apartment had become prohibitive.