Corona

Corona (pronounced kuh-roh-nuh)

(1) A white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body.

(2) In meteorology, such a circle or set of circles having a small radius and ranging in color from blue inside to red outside, attributable to the diffraction caused by thin clouds, mist, or sometimes dust (distinguished from halo).

(3) In solar astronomy, a faintly luminous envelope outside of the sun's chromosphere, the inner part consisting of highly ionized elements; also called aureola & aureole.

(4) A long, straight, un-tapered cigar, rounded at the closed end.

(5) In botany, a crown-like appendage, especially one on the inner side of a corolla, as in the narcissus.

(6) In anatomy, the upper portion or crown of a part, as of the head.

(7) In architecture, the projecting, slab-like member of a classical cornice supported by the bed molding or by modillions, dentils, etc., and supporting the cymatium.

(8) The tonsure of a monk or other cleric.

(9) In ecclesiastical dress, a gold-colored stripe around the lower edge of a clerical headdress, as of a miter.

(10) A chandelier of wrought metal, having the form of one or more concentric hoops.

(11) In zoology, the head or upper surface of an animal, such as the body of an echinoid or the disc and arms of a crinoid.

(12) As Coronaviruses, a group of viruses which infect mammals and birds.  In humans, they cause usually mild (including 229E, the common cold) respiratory infections but forms such as SARS, MERS the famous COVID-19 can be lethal.

1555–1565: From the Latin corōna (garland, crown) from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē or korōnis (crown, any curved object)), akin to korōnís (wreath; curved, beaked) & kórax (crow; raven); related was the Latin curvus (curved).  A doublet of crown, the plural forms are coronas & coronae.

COVID-19 and Coca-Cola

COVID-19 (an abbreviation of coronavirus disease 2019) was the name of the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.  The name was adopted in February 2020, chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses; until then, variously it had been called 2019-nCoV, Novel coronavirus or Wuhan coronavirus.  SARS-CoV-2 is related to MERS-CoV (which causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)) and SARS-CoV (which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)).

The Sun and its corona (left) and a depiction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (bottom).

The class to which these viruses belong is called corona because, when viewed under an electron microscope, there’s a resemblance to the crown-like corona (the halo or ring of fire) around the Sun, seem when viewed through an appropriate telescope or other device.  The corona around the sun has long been known but viruses have been seen only since the development of the electron microscope because human viruses are very small, typically 100 nanometers (1 metre = 1,000 mm = 1,000,000 micrometres = 1,000,000,000 nanometres).  In the evolutionary timeline of life on earth, it's believed bacteria emerged quite some time before viruses.  Bacteria appear to have been one of the earliest forms of life and, because no evidence of life has yet been detected anywhere else in the universe, they're perhaps among the oldest anywhere.  Single-celled organisms with a relatively simple structure and capable of independent reproduction, bacteria are thought to have appeared some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago (the Earth dating back 4.5 billion) and the evidence suggests the viruses emerged 2-3 billions years ago.  Unlike bacteria, viruses are not considered living organisms in the traditional sense because they cannot carry out metabolic processes or reproduce on their own; instead, they are genetic material (DNA or RNA) enclosed in a protein coat.

As far as is known, all life forms now extant (and all extinct forms known) are descended ultimately from the one initial instance; life started once which means humans are related to cats, dogs, trees & bananas as well as to bacteria & viruses.  That makes people, bacteria and just about everything else vulnerable to infection by one virus or another, the consequences ranging from nothing to death but the behavior can also be used to advantage and a certain class of virus, the bacteriophage, after a long period of neglect during the antibiotic era, is attracting new interest.

Some viruses can be helpful: A depiction of bacteriophages phaging.

Not all viruses are bad like SARS-CoV-2.  A bacteriophage, known almost always as a phage, is a virus which infects and replicates within bacteria.  Phages are composites of proteins that surround a DNA or RNA genome and may encode any number of genes from a handful to many hundreds.  Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into the target cytoplasm.  Phages exist naturally in the environment and are among the most common and diverse entities on earth.  Serious research began in several parts of Europe during the late nineteenth century and have been used for almost a century as anti-bacterial agents the former USSR and Central Europe.  In the West, phage therapy (using specific viruses to fight difficult bacterial infections) has been of interest for some time, attention heightened as the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (superbugs in the popular imagination) began to grow in severity (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attributes one death every 15 minutes in the US to superbugs).  Since the discovery of penicillin, antibiotics have been used as a reliable cure for those suffering from once lethal bacterial infections but, over decades, a handful (compared with the trillions and trillions killed) of bacteria have proved resistant to antibiotics and as these survivors multiply, new infections emerge.  Historically this had prompted the development of revised or new antibiotics but the biological arms race has reached the point where some infections caused by called antibiotic resistant bacteria cannot be treated and for many other serious infections, the number of potent “last resort” antibiotics is dwindling.

Hence the interest in phages, a type of “friendly virus” which can be weaponized to fight even the most virulent and persistent bacterial infections.  Phages work as well as they do because viruses like the tiresome SARS-Cov-2 that makes humans sick, phages can infect only bacteria and are selective about which they target, a vital aspect of their role in medicine because human survival depends on the billions of bacteria in our bodies.  These phages are far from rare, existing in the natural environment almost everywhere on the planet and scientists conducting research find dirty waterways or damp, aerated, warm, decaying soil (both areas where high bacterial growth might be expected) are good places to collect samples.  The advantages phages offer are well known but there are also drawbacks and indeed some of the features of phages manifest as both.  For example, the great specificity of phages helpful in that they can be administered safely with the knowledge that no other organisms will be harmed but this can be a practical disadvantage in clinical medicine when it’s not known exactly which bacteria need to be targeted, which is why broad-spectrum antibiotics proved so effective at scale.  Being wholly natural, the shelf-life of phages is highly variable and there’s little experience in their administration beyond some communities in Eastern Europe where they’ve been part of medical practice for over a century.  Additionally, bacteria can develop resistance even to phages and one practical impediment to deployment not well recognized until recent years is that compared to chemical molecules, phages are quite big and there are sites in the human body which will be inaccessible.

Electron micrograph of a Coronaviruses in colorized and in grey-scale.

The images captured from electron microscopes are always in black-and-white but are often artificially colored in the post-production process for better visualization and to assist with analysis.  Because of the resolution limit of the optical microscope, even at the highest magnification, viruses couldn’t be seen because their size meant they lay beyond the spectrum of visible light, the range of resolution being limited by the wavelength of the visible light that illuminates the specimen.  It was the resolution of the electron microscope, developed in the early 1930s, and able to offer an illumination with a wavelength much smaller than visible light which first made viruses visible.  An electron has the properties both of a particle and a wave so an electron’s wavelength is determined by its energy (or speed).  If an electron is accelerated to a speed of a million meters per second (circa 2.2 million mph (3.5 million km/h)) the physical wavelength is around one-tenth of a nanometer or about the size of an atom.  This permits an electron microscope to probe the structure of atoms in a crystal and thus see viruses.

Lindsay Lohan taking a 330ml lunch.

In February 2021, at a time when the official number of people with COVID-19 was around 107 million, mathematicians calculated all the COVID-19 causing SARS-COV-2 virus then circulating the planet easily would fit in a single (330ml) Coca-Cola can.  Using a model based on the viral load per currently infected victim (which varies during the duration of the infection), it was estimated there were at the time around two-hundred quadrillion (200 million billion or 2x10¹⁷). SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world.  Using that number, knowing the size of the virus, it was possible to calculate the total volume and even after accounting for the distinctive projecting spike proteins meaning the spherical particles will leave gaps when stacked together, the total is still less than the internal volume of the 330 millilitre can.

Two-hundred quadrillion is a really big number, there are said to be about that many grains of sand on the planet, but Sars-CoV-2 particles are really small, around a hundred nanometres (one nanometre is a billionth of a meter) so the radius of Sars-CoV-2 is roughly a thousand times thinner than a human hair.  The mathematicians multiplied the numbers, worked out the wastage of space caused by the troublesome spikes accounted for about a quarter of the total volume and concluded that in February 2021, the volume of SARS-CoV-2 in the world was 160 millilitres.  By mid-2021, cases had almost doubled so by then, either the can would be full or, given the margin of error associated with such calculations, a second can might be required.  The caveat to all this is that the math is based on the official number of infected people and nobody knows what the real is although all agree it will be higher but by what factor is guesswork, reliable data just not available to build a model.  Guesses have been proffered ranged from double to twenty times higher.  Depending on which of those is closest, a six-pack or a carton of cans might be filled.

Rare collector’s item: Lindsay Lohan MH Corona Extra tobacco card #480: US$5.00 on eBay.  Unrelated to this card is the specification of the corona cigars, straight-shaped cigars with rounded tops (the end taken to the lips) and defined by length: a corona about 5½ inches (140 mm) long; a petit corona (or corona chica) about 5 inches (125 mm) long, a tres petit corona about 4½ inches (115 mm) long & a half corona about 3¾ (95 mm) inches long.

The Toyota (Corona) 1600GT

1958 Toyota Corona "Van".

It was the Toyota Corona (1957-2001) which not only established the company in the vital US market but lent respectability to the very idea of the “Japanese car”, that term in the early 1960s not the by-word for quality and reliability it would in subsequent decades become.  Noting the success of the small (by US standards) Volkswagen Beetle and other imports, the company shipped a small number of Coronas to the US in the late 1950s but they were unsuitable for the environment (as indeed were a number of the diminutive European models which lacked the ruggedness of the VW) and interest was minimal, the Corona withdrawn from sale in 1960 although unsold models lingered on the lots for another year.

1966 "shovel-nose" Toyota Corona.

It was the third generation Corona, launched in September 1964 in an array of body styles, which was the Toyota passenger car to achieve international success, including in the US.  It was a thoroughly conventional design (ie mechanically a scaled down US sedan) with a body which was modern, inoffensive and practical although some thought the reverse-slanted nose strange.  It came to be nick-named the “shovel-nose” and proved ahead of its time, adopted in 1972 by Lancia for the Beta and in 1976 it appeared on Ford’s Escort RS2000 before variations of the shape eventually became the default for manufacturers seeking to eke out as much aerodynamic efficiency as possible.

The "shovel-nose" caught on: 1972 Lancia Beta (left) & 1976 Ford Escort RS2000 (right).  

The export range appeared in volume but the most desirable models were reserved for the JDM (Japanese domestic market), a long-standing, industry-wide practice which has had the effect of creating a minor export business for those who can satisfy the demand in markets like Australia, New Zealand & North America for the high-performance versions which have something of a cult-following.  The 1967 1600GT (or GT-5 for those with the optional five-speed gearbox) coupé (for this JDM “halo” model the Corona badge wasn’t used) was modest compared with some of the wild machinery which would appear in subsequent decades but by the standards of its time, there was some genuine sophistication.  The body was the standard two-door hardtop but the centrepiece was a double overhead camshaft (DOHC) cylinder head atop the 1600 cm³ four cylinder engine, the head designed by Yamaha which had also developed the one used on the straight-six in the exotic Toyota 2000 GT sports car made famous by the appearance of a custom built roadster version in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967).

1967 Toyota 2000GT roadster.  Two 2000GT coupés were converted into roadsters for You Only Live Twice (one used for filming, the other a "back-up"), the work undertaken by Toyota’s special Toyopet Service Centre in Tsunashima.  The wire wheels were exclusive to the roadsters (15×5 inch magnesium wheels were used on the coupés) and the pair were very much movie props, neither vehicle fitted with side windows or a soft-top.  The "back-up car" is now on display in the Toyota Automobile Museum.

Known internally as the 9R, the 1600GT engine took a traditionally English approach to increasing power: twin carburetors, big valves and a high-compression ratio, the combination yielding a then impressive 110 horsepower at 6200rpm, the latter number something to note given the crankshaft was supported by only three main bearings.  Still, being a Toyota engine, reliability was solid and no history of bottom-end failure emerged; whether the unusual firing order (1243) had anything to do with this seems not to be discussed anywhere.  To cope with the new-found power, the Corona’s suspension was strengthened with re-calibrated springs and dampers along with two torque rods to locate the back axle.  That improved things but the Japanese manufacturers, although matching the Europeans in power, still had some way to go in achieving their dynamics; the 1600 GT was no cut-price Alfa Romeo.  It was though very well equipped, another lesson Toyota and other Japanese factories would (painfully) teach the West.  Always a low volume model, production of 1600 GTs totalled 2222, the last built late in 1968.

1967 Toyota 1600GT.  They were available also in red and white.

1974 Toyota Corona advertising.

The 1600GT's cult following notwithstanding, it really wasn't representative of the Coronas which went around the world and for decades provided owners and fleets with reliable, if uninspiring transport (very much the Camry of their time).  That made them memorable for many who may have enjoyed the charms of British, French or Italian machinery but found the quirks, oil-leaks, fragility or apparently insoluble issues electrical issues (often described as "gremlins") made ownership tiresome.  Toyota were aware of the advantage their approach (which put a premium on basic engineering and quality control over the finer points of handling and high-speed braking) and their advertising for the Corona in the 1970s said explicitly: "When your heart says Europe but your head says Japan".  People increasingly followed their heads and by 1989 Toyota released the Lexus, proving they were as good at building a Mercedes-Benz as they were at building Toyotas.  It took many attempts for Mercedes-Benz to become (almost) as good at building Toyotas.

Blip

Blip (pronounced blip)

(1) A spot of light on a radar screen indicating the position of a plane, submarine, or other object (also as pip); any similar use on other electronic equipment such as an oscilloscope.

(2) By adoption from the use in radar (and applied very loosely), any small spot of light on a display screen.

(3) In any tracked metric (typically revenue, sales etc), a brief and usually unexpected.

(4) In general use, an aberration, something unexpected and (usually) fleeting (often in the expression “blip on the radar”).

(5) In electronic transmissions (audible signals), a pip or bleep (also both onomatopoeic of short, single-pitch sounds).

(6) By extension, any low level, repetitive sound (rare).

(7) In the slang of software developers, a minor bug or glitch (retrospectively dubbed blips if promptly fixed (or re-labeled as “a feature”)).

(8) A specific data object (individual message or document) in the now defunct Google Wave software framework.

(9) In informal use, to move or proceed in short, irregular movements.

(10) In automotive use, briefly to apply the throttle when downshifting, to permit smoother gear-changing (the origin in the days of pre-synchromesh gearboxes, especially when straight-cut gears were used) and still used in competition to optimize performance but most instances by drivers of road cars are mere affectations (used as noun & verb).

(11) In informal use, abruptly to change a state (light to dark; on to off etc), sometimes implying motion.

(12) In broadcast media (and sometimes used on-line), to replace offensive or controversial words with a tone which renders them inaudible (a synonym of “bleep”, both words used in this contexts as nouns (a bleep) and verbs (to bleep out).  In live radio & TV, a junior producer or assistant was usually the designated “blipper” or “bleeper”.

1894: An onomatopoeic creation of sound symbolism, the speculation being it may have been based on the notion of “blink” (suggesting brevity) with the -p added to bli- as symbolic of an abrupt end, the original idea to capture the experience of a “popping sound”.  The use describing the sight and sound generated by radar equipment was first documented in 1945 but may have been in use earlier, the public dissemination of information about the technology restricted until the end of World War II (1939-1945).  The verbs (blipped & blipping) came into use in 1924 & 1925 respectively while the first documented use of the noun blipper dates from 1966 although “bleeper” appeared some fifteen year earlier and the role was acknowledge as early as the 1930s.  Blip is a noun & verb, blipped & blipping are verbs and blippy, blippier & blippiest are adjectives; the noun plural is blips.

The blipster

One unrelated modern portmanteau noun was blipster, the construct a blend of b(lack) + (h)ipster, used to refer to African-Americans (and presumably certain other peoples of color (PoC)) who have adopted the visual clues of hipster culture.  Whether the numbers of blipsters represent the sort of critical mass usually associated with the recognition of sub-cultures isn’t clear but as in medicine where a novel condition does not need to be widely distributed (something suffered even by a single patient can be defined and named as a syndrome), the coining of blipster could have been inspired by seeing just one individual who conformed to being (1) African American and (2) appearing in some ways to conform to the accepted parameters of hipsterism.  Labeling theory contains reservations about this approach but for etymologists it’s fine although there is always the risk of a gaboso (generalized observation based on single observation).  Predictably, there is debate about what constitutes authentic blipsterism because there are objections by some activists to PoCs either emulating sub-cultures identified as “white” or taking self-defining interest in aspects of that culture (such as those associated with hipsterism).  What seems to be acceptable is a stylistic fusion as long as the fashions are uniquely identifiable as linkable with traditional (ie modern, urban) African-American culture and the cultural content includes only black poets, hip-hop artists etc.

The Blipvert

The construct of blipvert (also historically blip-vert) was blip + vert.  Vert in this context was a clipping of advertisement (from the Middle French advertissement (statement calling attention)), the construct being advertise +‎ -ment.  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgment et al), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  In modern use, judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.

As both word and abbreviation “vert” has a number of historic meanings.  One form was from the Middle English vert, from Old French vert, from Vulgar Latin virdis (green; young, fresh, lively, youthful) (syncopated from Classical Latin viridis)  In now archaic use it meant (1) green undergrowth or other vegetation growing in a forest, as a potential cover for deer and (2) in feudal law a right granted to fell trees or cut shrubs in a forest.  The surviving use is in heraldry where it describes a shade of green, represented in engraving by diagonal parallel lines 45 degrees counter-clockwise.  As an abbreviation, it's used of vertebrate, vertex & vertical and as a clipping of convertible, used almost exclusively by members of the Chevrolet Corvette cult in the alliterative phrase "Vette vert", a double clipping from (Cor)vette (con)vert(ible).

Vette vert: 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible which sold at auction in 2013 at Mecum Dallas for US$3,424,000, a bit short of the L88 coupé which the next year realized US$3,850,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale; that remains the record price paid for a Corvette at auction.  The L88 used a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 with a single four barrel carburetor, tuned to produce between 540-560 (gross) horsepower although for official purposes it was rated at 430, slightly less than the advertised output of the L71 427 which, with three two barrel carburettors was the most powerful version recommended for “street” use.  The L88 was essentially a race-ready power-plant, civilized only to the extent cars which used it could be registered for road use but, demanding high-octane fuel available only in a limited number of locations and not offered with creature comforts like air-conditioning, it really was meant only for race tracks or drag strips.  For technical reasons, L71 buyers couldn’t order air-conditioning either but were at least allowed to have a radio, something the noise generated by the L88 would anyway have rendered mostly redundant.

When humans emulated CGI: Max Headroom, 1986, background by Amiga 1000.

A blipvert is a very brief advertisement (a duration of one second or less now the accepted definition although originally they could three times as long).  The concept first attracted widespread attention in the 1980s when it was an element in the popular television show Max Headroom, a production interesting for a number of reasons as well as introducing “blipvert” to a wide audience.  In Max Headroom, blipverts were understood as high-intensity television commercials which differed from the familiar form in that instead of being 20, 30 or 60 seconds long, they lasted but three, the line being they were a cynical device to discourage viewers from switching channels (“channel surfing” not then a term in general use).  The character Max Headroom (actually an actor made up to emulate something rendered with CGI (computer generated imagery)) was said to be pure software which had attained (or retained from the downloaded “copy” of the mind taken from a man killed after running into a “Max Headroom” warning sign in a car park) some form of consciousness and had decided to remain active within the television station’s computer network.  In this, the TV show followed a popular trope from science fiction, one which now underpins many of the warnings (not all by conspiracy theorists) about the implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  Although a creation of prosthetics rather than anything digital, the technique was made convincing by using a background generated on an Amiga 1000 (1985), a modest machine by today’s standards but a revelation at the time because not only was the graphics handling much better than on many more expensive workstations but even by 1990, despite what IBM and Microsoft were telling us, running multi-tasking software was a better experience on any Amiga than trying it on a PS/2 running OS/2.

On television, the stand-alone blipvert never became a mainstream advertising form because (1) it was difficult, (2) as devices to stimulate demand in most cases they appeared not to work and (3) the networks anyway discouraged it but the idea was immensely influential as an element in longer advertisements and found another home in the emerging genre of the music video, the technique perfected by the early 1990s; it was these uses which saw the accepted duration reduced from three seconds to one.  To the MTV generation (and their descendents on YouTube and TikTok), three seconds became a long time and prolonged exposure to the technique presumably improved the ability of those viewers to interpret such messages although that may have been as the cost of reducing the attention span.  Both those propositions are substantially unproven although it does seem clear the “video content generations” do have a greater ability to decode and interpret imagery which is separate for any explanatory text.  That is of course stating the obvious; someone who reads much tends to become better at interpreting words than those who read little.  Still, the blipvert has survived, the advertising industry finding them especially effective if used as a “trigger” to reference a memory created by something earlier presented in some form and those who find them distasteful because they’re so often loud and brash just don’t get it; that’s the best way they’re effective.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell (b 1943)) being re-sensitised (blipvert by blipvert) in Stanley Kubrick's (1928-1999) file adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (1971).

The concept of the blipvert is sometimes attributed to US science fiction (SF) writer Joe Haldeman (b 1943) who described something close to the technique in his novel Mindbridge (1976) and it’s clearly (albeit in longer form) used in the deprogramming sessions in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) but use predates both books.  In 1948, encouraged by their success in countering the Partito Comunista d'Italia (PCd'I; the Communist Party of Italy) in elections in the new Italian republic (the success achieved with a mix of bribery, propaganda, disinformation and some of the other tricks of electoral interference to which US politicians now so object when aimed at US polls), the newly formed US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) turned their attentions to France where the perception of threat was even greater because the infiltration of the press, trade unions, universities, the military and many other organs of state was rife.  The US was well-placed to run effective propaganda campaigns because, uniquely in devastated, impoverished Europe, it could distribute the cubic money required to buy advertising space & airtime, employ cooperative journalists, trade union leaders & professors and even supply scarce commodities like newsprint and ink.  To try to avoid accusations of anything nefarious (and such suggestions were loud, frequent and often not without foundation) much of the activity was conducted as part of Marshall Plan Aid, the post-war recovery scheme with which the US revived post-war European economies with an injection of (what would in 2024 US$ terms) be something like US$182 billion.  As well as extensively publicizing the benefits of non-communist life compared with the lot of those behind the iron curtain, the CIA published books and other pieces by defectors from the Soviet Union.  One novelty of what quickly became an Anglo-American psychological operation (the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE) having honed successful techniques during wartime) was the use of 2-3 second blipverts spliced into film material supplied under the Marshall Plan.  The British were well aware the French were especially protective of what appeared in cinemas and would react unfavourably to blatant propaganda while they might treat something similar in print with little more than a superior, cynical smile.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The blipvert is sometimes grouped with subliminal advertising and that’s convenient but they’re different both in practice and definitionally and the rule of thumb can be expressed as (1) if it can (briefly) be seen it’s a blipvert and (2) if it can’t be seen it’s subliminal.  No doubt media studies academics (of which there seem now to be many) could punch holes in that and cite a dozen or more exceptions but as a definition it at least hints in the right direction.  What subliminal advertising involves is the presentation of understandable information (which can be images, sound or text) at a level below the conscious awareness of the viewer, the idea being (unlike the confrontational blipvert) to bypass conscious perception.  The extent to which subliminal messaging is an effective way to influence consumer behaviour is debated (as is the notion of whether it’s manipulative and unethical) but the continued use of the technique in political campaigns does suggest that in that specialized field of consumer behaviour, there must be many convinced of the efficacy.  Certainly it appears to work although the less subtle forms are quickly deconstructed and critiqued, such as the sudden adoption in sports, almost as soon as tobacco advertising was banned, of color schemes triggering memories of cigarette packets.

A Marlboro Man lights up.  The "Marlboro 100s" in the gold & white pack were so-named because each stick was 100 mm (4 inch) long.

After some years of prevarication, in 2005 the European Union (EU) banned tobacco advertising “in the print media, on radio and over the internet” at the same prohibiting “tobacco sponsorship of cross-border cultural and sporting events”.  Making unlawful the promotion of a known carcinogen responsible over a lifetime of use for shortening lifespan (on average) by just under a decade sounds now uncontroversial but at the time it had been bitterly contested by industry.  Of interest to some was that despite the introduction of the laws being known for some two years, only couple of months earlier, Ferrari had signed a fifteen year, billion dollar sponsorship deal with Philip Morris, best known for their Marlboro cigarette and “Marlboro Man” advertising campaign which featured a variety of men photographed in outdoor settings, five of whom ultimately died of smoking-related diseases.

Variations on a theme of red & white.  Ferrari Formula One cars: F2007 (2007) in Marlboro livery (left), F10 (2010) with "bar code" (centre) and F14 (2014) in post bar-code scheme.

Ferrari’s lawyers took their fine-toothed legal combs to the problem and came up with a way to outsmart the eurocrats.  The Formula One (F1) cars Scuderia Ferrari ran began to appear in what had become the traditional red & white livery (the same combination used on Marlboro’s signature packets) but in the space where once had been displayed the Marlboro logo, there was instead a stylized “bar code”.  In response to a number of accusations (including many by those in the medical community) that the team was guilty of “backdoor advertising” of cigarettes, in 2008 a statement on the company website said it was “baffled”:

"Today and in recent weeks, articles have been published relating to the partnership contract between Scuderia Ferrari and Philip Morris International, questioning its legality.  These reports are based on two suppositions: that part of the graphics featured on the Formula 1 cars are reminiscent of the Marlboro logo and even that the red colour which is a traditional feature of our cars is a form of tobacco publicity.  Neither of these arguments have any scientific basis, as they rely on some alleged studies which have never been published in academic journals. But more importantly, they do not correspond to the truth.  "The so-called barcode is an integral part of the livery of the car and of all images coordinated by the Scuderia, as can be seen from the fact it is modified every year and, occasionally even during the season. Furthermore, if it was a case of advertising branding, Philip Morris would have to own a legal copyright on it.  "The partnership between Ferrari and Philip Morris is now only exploited in certain initiatives, such as factory visits, meetings with the drivers, merchandising products, all carried out fully within the laws of the various countries where these activities take place. There has been no logo or branding on the race cars since 2007, even in countries where local laws would still have permitted it.  The premise that simply looking at a red Ferrari can be a more effective means of publicity than a cigarette advertisement seems incredible: how should one assess the choice made by other Formula 1 teams to race a car with a predominantly red livery or to link the image of a driver to a sports car of the same colour? Maybe these companies also want to advertise smoking!  It should be pointed out that red has been the recognised colour for Italian racing cars since the very beginning of motor sport, at the start of the twentieth century: if there is an immediate association to be made, it is with our company rather than with our partner.”

When red & white was just the way Scuderia Ferrari painted their race cars: The lovely, delicate lines of the 1961 Ferrari Typo 156 (“sharknose”), built for Formula One's “voiturette” (1.5 litre) era (1961-1965), Richie Ginther (1930–1989), XXIII Grosser Preis von Deutschland (German Grand Prix), Nürburgring Nordschleife, August 1961.

The suggestion was of course that this was subliminal marketing (actually unlawful in the EU since the late 1950s) the mechanics being that Ferrari knew this would attract controversy and the story was that at speed, when the bar code was blurred, it resembled the Marlboro logo; racing cars do go fast but no evidence was ever produced to demonstrate the phenomenon happened in real world conditions, either when viewed at the tracks or in televised coverage.  It was possible using software to create a blurred version of the shape and there was a vague resemblance to the logo but that wasn’t the point, as a piece of subliminal marketing it worked because viewers had been told the bar code would in certain circumstances transform into a logo and even though it never did, the job was done because Marlboro was on the mind of many and doubtlessly more often than ever during the years when the logo actually appeared.  So, job done and done well, midway in the 2010 season, Ferrari dropped the “bar code”, issuing a press release: “By this we want to put an end to this ridiculous story and concentrate on more important things than on such groundless allegations.”

Lunt

Lunt (pronounced luhnt or loont)

(1) A match; the flame used to light a fire.

(2) Smoke or steam, especially smoke from a tobacco pipe.

(3) To emit smoke or steam.

(4) To smoke (historically a pipe, later cigarettes).

(5) To kindle a fire.

(6) To light a pipe, torch, etc.

(7) A match, torch, or port-fire once used for discharging cannon.

(8) The lock and appurtenances of a match-lock gun such as a musket.

(9) In Polish military slang, a cigarette.

1540–1550: From the Dutch lont (match, wick fuse) and related to the Danish & Middle Low German lunte (match, wick), the Old Norse lunta (to emit smoke) and the Swedish lunta (match, fuse).  In dialectical Scots English, lunting was the action of walking while smoking a pipe.  Middle English picked up the meaning of lunta from the Old Norse: "a whiff or puff of smoke" and in Middle English, it evolved into "lunt", again referring to a small quantity or puff of smoke.  In the way English does things, the meaning of "lunt" expanded, coming to be associated with a glowing match or a piece of burning material used to ignite a fire and it came to be used especially of firearms.  In the slang or dialects of several languages, "lunt" evolved to describe the glowing end of a cigar or a pipe and form this to refer to smoking in general although most forms are now archaic.  Lunt is a noun & verb and lunted & lunting are verbs; the noun plural is lunts. 

The place, the name, the road sign

Lunting Lindsay Lohan.

Unrelated to fuses and smoke, there is also the proper noun Lunt which serves both as surname and place-name.  A suggested alternative etymology linking Lunt to grassland never attracted much support.  As a surname, it’s English, but of pre-seventh century Norse-Viking origins; Recorded variously as Lunt, Lund, Lound, Lount and Lynt, it’s locationally associated with one of the various places called Louth, Lund or Lunt in different parts of the north and East Anglia.  These were areas of England under Viking control or influence for several centuries until the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Lunt's street signs are often defaced but a campaign in 2008 to change the name received little support.

The English village of Lunt lies in the parish of Sefton, close to to Liverpool.  Like the surname, the locality name was from the Old Old Norse Lundr or the Old Swedish lunder (grove or copse").  It's thought this was a reference to the remnants of a large ancient forest which substantially still stood when the settlement was founded.  The first known reference to the village dates from the parish records in the Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey, an entry from 1251 mentioning it was known as "de Lund".  The combination of a liveable climate, reliable sources of water and areas of arable land meant the location has long been associated with human habitation, archaeological digs revealing structures from the mesolithic (5800 BC), the indications being the inhabitants were hunter-gatherers.  For a certain sub-set of the population, the signage in Lunt's public spaces to just too tempting and defacement is common.  Those who deface are presumably from the population which which contributes to Urban Dictionary's definitions for the word, many of which, predictably, are used to degrade women, a category which must make up a remarkable percentage of the site's entries.

Efficacy

Efficacy (pronounced ef-i-kuh-see)

(1) A capacity for producing a desired result or effect; effectiveness; an ability to produce a desired effect under ideal testing conditions.

(2) The quality of being successful in producing an intended result; effectiveness; a measure of the degree of ability to produce a desired effect.

1520-1530: From the Old French efficace (quality of being effectual, producing the desired effect), from the Late Latin efficācia (efficacy), from efficāx (powerful, effectual, efficient), genitive efficacis (powerful, effective), from stem of efficere (work out, accomplish).  In eleventh century English, in much the same sense was efficace from the Old French eficace from the same Latin root efficācia; there was also the early fifteenth century efficacite from the Latin efficacitatem.  The sixteenth century adjective efficacious (certain to have the desired effect) was often used of medicines (presumably a favorite of apothecaries), the construct being the Latin efficaci-, stem of efficax from the stem of efficere (work out, accomplish)  + -ous.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example, sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The noun inefficacy (want of force or virtue to produce the desired effect) dates from the 1610s, from the Late Latin inefficacia, from inefficacem (nominative inefficax), the construct being in- (not, opposite of) + efficax.

The most familiar related form in modern use is efficacious but in general use this is often used in a more nuanced way than the pass/fail dichotomy of "efficacy" familiar in medical trials.  In general use, efficacious is a "spectrum word" which describes degrees of the ameliorative effects of treatments although while the comparative is "more efficacious", a more common form is "quite efficacious"; the superlative "most efficacious" appears to be popular among the small subset of the population who use efficacious at all.  Efficacy, efficacity & efficaciousness are nouns, effectuate is a verb, effectual & efficacious are adjectives and efficaciously is an adverb; the noun plural is efficacies.

Clinical trials in the pharmaceutical industry

In the development of vaccines (and medicinal drugs in general), efficacy trials (sometimes called phase III or explanatory trials) determine the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group, under the most favorable conditions, which is with the subjects housed in a hospital equipped to handle intensive care patients.  Conducted on human subjects if tests on animals proved satisfactory, it’s a purely clinical exercise, practiced since 1915 and can be done as a double-blind, randomized study if no safety concerns exist.  One potentially distorting aspect of both efficacy and (particularly) safety trials is a historic bias towards healthy young males as the subjects.  The antonym of the adjective efficacious is inefficacious but the word is rarely used when drug trials produce unsatisfactory results: the punchier "failed" is almost always used.  Under normal circumstances, the testing process can take many years, the industry usually referring to trials as phases:

Phase I: Safety Trial

Phase I trials are done to test a new biomedical intervention for the first time in a small group of people (typically 20-100) to evaluate safety.  Essentially, this determines the safe dosage range and identifies side effects.

Phase II: Efficacy Trial

Phase II trials are done to study an intervention in a larger group of people (several hundred or more depending on the product) to determine efficacy (ie whether it works as intended) and further to evaluate safety.

Phase III: Clinical Study

Phase III studies are done to study the efficacy of an intervention in large groups of trial participants (often thousands) by comparing the intervention to other standard or experimental interventions (or to non-interventional standard care).  Phase III studies are also used to monitor adverse effects and to collect information that will allow the intervention to be used safely.

Phase IV: Efficiency Study

Phase IV studies are done after the drug has been released and is being prescribed.  These studies are designed to monitor the effectiveness of the approved intervention in the general population and to collect information about any adverse effects associated with widespread use over longer periods of time.  They may also be used to investigate the potential use of the intervention in a different condition, or in combination with other therapies.

Proven efficacy: Adderall.

Adderall and Mydayis are trade names for a combination drug called mixed amphetamine salts (a mix of four salts of amphetamine).  In all Western jurisdictions  Belonging to a class of drugs known as stimulants, Adderall is a prescription medication and it contains two active ingredients: the amphetamines and dextroamphetamine.  As a prescribed medicine, primarily Adderall is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.  Adderall works by increasing the levels of certain neurotransmitters (most critically dopamine and norepinephrine) in the brain, these both mechanisms which play some role in regulating attention, focus, and impulse control.  Beyond ADHD, Adderall is sometimes prescribed off-label for the treatment of narcolepsy, a sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden, unpredictable episodes of sleep.

Adderall also has something of a cult following among those who seek to experience some of its more desirable side-effects.  Like many of the earlier amphetamines (most famously Tenuate Dospan (diethylpropion or amfepramone) an appetite suppressant of legendary efficacy), Adderall can assist in weight-loss and can safely be used for this by most people but because of its potential for dependence, it should be taken (for whatever purpose) only under clinical supervision.  For those prescribed Adderall, in some circumstances, it may continue to be taken (at the prescribed level) even if one is in a substance rehabilitation facility as was the case in 2013 when Lindsay Lohan completed a 48-hour drug detox at the Betty Ford Clinic in Indio, California.  Ms Lohan was prescribed Adderall after being diagnosed with ADHD but the standard protocol used by rehab clinics is that doctors routinely re-evaluate (1) the ADHA diagnosis and (2) the efficacy of the treatment regime.  Depending on their findings, doctors can prescribe alternative drugs or cease drug intervention entirely.  Ms Lohan was quoted as saying she’d been using Adderall "for years" and that she cannot function without it and her choice of rehab facility was once which would permit both smoking (tobacco) and the use of Adderall.

As she earlier explained it: “I have severe ADD. I can’t stand still.  So, I take Adderall for that; it calms me.”  Ms Lohan further noted she was not unaware there were those who took Adderall for its side-effects, notably weight loss or the ability to function effectively for extended durations without needing to sleep but that she wasn’t someone who needed to regulate her weight and that her sleeping patterns were normal.  However, the cult if anything is growing and in the US shortages of Adderall were reported (not for the first time) in late 2022.  The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded by issuing a statement noting that while there was nothing unusual about episodic shortages of generic drugs at any given time because the profit margins are low and production is sometimes restricted to avoid a sacrifice in the opportunity cost vis-a-vis higher margin products, Adderall was “a special case because it is a controlled substance and the amount available for prescription is controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).”  The FDA added that because there had been “a tremendous increase in prescribing” because of virtual medicine (e-consultations) and a general trend towards over-prescribing and over-diagnosing, the periodic shortages were likely to continue.  THE FDA’s conclusion was that “if only those who needed these drugs got them, there probably wouldn't be a [stimulant medication] shortage” but the diagnosis of ADHD continues to grow and the desire for rapid weight-loss solutions remains strong.