Virus

Virus (pronounced vahy-ruhs)

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

(2) A quantity of such infectious agents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before the internet: ARPANET network schematic 1973.

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

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

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

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

Diagram of a retrovirus.

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

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

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) assembly and egress.

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

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

Representation of a coronavirus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The admirable Megan Boni, on a couch.

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

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

Trust fund (critique: materialist).

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

Blue eyes (critique: racist and thus exclusionary)

That's all I want

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

Syndrome

Syndrome (pronounced sin-drohm or sin-druhm)

(1) In pathology and psychiatry, a group of symptoms which together are characteristic of a specific disorder, disease or the like.

(2) A group of related or coincident things, events, actions etc; a predictable, characteristic pattern of behavior, action, etc., that tends to occur under certain circumstances.

1535–1545: From the Medical Latin syndrome (a number of symptoms occurring together), from the Ancient Greek συνδρομή (sundromḗ) (concurrence of symptoms, concourse of people), from σύνδρομος (súndromos) (literally "running together" and often used in the sense of "place where several roads meet"), the construct being συν- (syn-) (with) + δρόμος (drómos) (a running, course), best understood as syn- + dramein + -ē (the feminine noun suffix).  The meaning, beginning in 1540s medical Latin, is thus derived from the Ancient Greek syndromos (place where several roads meet); the psychological sense emerging only in 1955.  In general use, the synonyms include malady, problem, disorder, ailment, sickness, complaint, sign, complex, infirmity, affection, symptoms, diagnostics & prognostics; in medical use, the term syndrome is something also used loosely but in text books or academic use use is more precise.  Syndrome is a noun and syndromic is an adjective; the noun plural is syndromes.

In medicine, a syndrome is a collection of symptoms (some of which clinicians sometimes classify variously as “definitive” & “indicative”) which often manifest simultaneously and characterize a particular abnormality or condition.  The term is commonly used in medicine and psychology and syndromes can either be codified as diagnosable conditions or just part of casual language to describe aspects of the human condition (such as “Paris Hilton Syndrome” or “Lindsay Lohan Syndrome”).  A syndrome describes patterns of observable symptoms but does not of necessity indicate a condition’s cause or causes.  A syndrome does not need to be widespread or even suffered by more than one patient and a single case is all that is required for a syndrome to be defined; the symptoms need only to be specific.  Diagnosing a syndrome typically involves clinicians identifying the common symptoms and ruling out other possible conditions, something often complicated by the variability in severity and presentation among different individuals, many syndromes being classic examples of “spectrum conditions”.  Like any condition, the course of the treatment regime for a syndrome will focus on (1) managing the symptoms and (2) dealing with the underlying causes when known.

COVID-19

Art inspired by the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 syndrome, created by medical professionals: Outsized, Overwhelming Impact of COVID-19 by Lona Mody.

COVID-19 is a syndrome and the name allocated on 11 February 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.  Although its origin remains most associated with Wuhan in late 2019, it may have been circulating earlier.  An acronym, COVID-19 stands for COronaVIrus Disease-2019 but the original working name for the virus causing the syndrome was 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) which the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) changed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).  The name is from the standard nomenclature of the discipline, chosen because the virus is a genetic cousin of the coronavirus which caused the SARS syndrome in 2002 (SARS-CoV).  The public tends not to distinguish between virus and syndrome, the popular names being Covid and corona.

Art inspired by the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 syndrome, created by medical professionals: Pipetting the Sample by Ali Al-Nasser.

First discovered in domestic poultry during the 1930s, coronaviruses cause a range of respiratory, gastrointestinal, liver, and neurologic diseases and are common in both humans and animals.  Only seven are known to cause disease in humans, four associated with the common cold; these have the catchy names 229E, OC43, NL63, and HUK1.  The three coronaviruses which cause serious lung infections (related to pneumonia) are SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) first noted in 2002, MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) which emerged in 2012 and SARS-CoV-2 (the COVID-19 pandemic).

Art inspired by the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 syndrome, created by medical professionals: Naturarte by Angela Araujo.

SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are zoonotic, beginning in an animal, transmitting, either directly or via another species, to people.  SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a mutated bat virus; bats host thousands of coronavirues and exist with them mostly in symbiotic harmony and it remains unclear whether the virus passed directly from bat to human or via some other creature.  Interestingly, while the nature of the COVID-19 syndrome hasn’t changed, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated and now circulates in many strains, one tending to emerge as the dominant means of transmission in a given geographical area.  The dominance of the mutated strain happened because the mutation made the virus much more infectious so, in a classic example of Darwinian natural selection, the entity able more efficiently to multiply is the one which becomes dominant.  Despite early speculation, the mutation seems not to account for reductions in the COVID-19 death rate, a phenomenon virologists attribute to improved treatment the “harvesting effect”, meaning the virus first kills those easiest to kill.  There was also the effect of many dying early in the pandemic because health systems were overwhelmed and unable to provide the treatment which would have ensured their survival.  This has been noted in past wars, epidemics, pandemics and localized disasters.

Omicron

Omicron (pronounced om-i-kron or oh-mi-kron)

(1) The fifteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabet and the sixteenth in Ancient archaic Greek; a short vowel, transliterated as o.

(2) The vowel sound represented by this letter.

(3) The common name designated (on 26 November 2021 by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE)) for the variant B.1.1.529 of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the condition COVID-19.

(4) In English, as “o” & “O” (fifteenth letter of the alphabet), a letter used for various grammatical and technical purposes.

Circa 1400: The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (oʊmɪkrɒn; the symbol Oo), literally "small o" (ὂ μικρόν (ò mikrón)), the construct being o + the Ancient Greek (s)mikros (small (source of the modern micro-) and so-called because the vowel was "short" in ancient Greek.  Omega (O) was thus the “long” (O) and omicron the “short” (o).  It’s from omicron both Latin and Cyrillic gained “O”.  Depending on the context in which it’s being written, the plural is omicrons or omicra.

The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet was derived from a character which in Phoenician was called 'ain or ayin (literally "eye") and represented by what most dictionaries record as something like "a most peculiar and to us unpronounceable guttural sound".  The Greeks also lacked the sound, so when they adopted characters from the Phoenician alphabet, arbitrarily they changed O's value to a vowel.  Despite the medieval belief, there is no evidence to support the idea the form of the letter represents the shape the mouth assumes in pronouncing it.  The Greeks later added a special character for the "long" O (omega), and the original thus became the "little o" (omicron).  In Middle English and later colloquial use, o or o' has a special use as an abbreviation of “on” or “of”, and remains literary still in some constructions (o'clock, Jack-o'-lantern, tam-o'-shanter, cat-o'-nine-tails, will-o'-the-wisp et al).  The technical use in genealogy is best represented by Irish surnames, the “O’” from the Irish ó (ua), which in the Old Irish was au (ui) and meant "descendant".

As a connective, -o- is the most common connecting vowel in compounds either taken or formed from Greek, where it is often the vowel in the stem.  English being what it is, it’s affixed, not only to constructions purely Greek in origin, but also those derived from Latin (Latin compounds of which would have been formed with the L. connecting or reduced thematic vowel, -i).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds the usage note that this occurred especially when what was wanted were compounds with a sense of Latin composition, which even if technically possible, would not be warranted but, were correct under the principles of Greek composition.  Similarly, blood type-O was in 1926 originally designated “0” (zero)" denoting the absence of any type-A & B agglutinogens but the letter O was adopted to align the group with existing nomenclature.  The standardized scale in railroads (O=1:48 (1:25 gauges)) dates from 1905.

As the character to represent the numerical value "zero", in Arabic numerals it is attested from circa 1600, the use based on the similarity of shape.  The similarity would later cause a Gaëtan Dugas (1952–1984), a Québécois Canadian flight attendant, mistakenly to be identified as "Patient Zero" (the primary case for HIV/AIDS in the United States).  The error happened because of a mistake made in 1984 in either the reading or transcription of a database maintained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which tracked the sexual liaisons and practices of gay and bisexual men, mostly those from California and New York. Dugas, because he was statistically unusual in having no relevant connections with either state, was coded as "Patient O" (indicating out-of-state) but this was at some point misinterpreted as "Patient 0 (Zero)".  Dugas was later identified as "Patient Zero" (ie the person who introduced HIV/AIDS to North America) in Randy Shilts's (1951-1994) book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987) which explored the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.  Shilts would later dismiss the significance of the technical error, claiming it made no difference to his point that Dugas engaged in behavior by which he either carelessly, recklessly or intentionally infected his many sexual partners with HIV (a claim subsequently contested by others).  Shilts died in 1994 from an AIDS-related condition.

Flirting with risk of exposure to, inter-alia, Omicron: Lindsay Lohan in facemask during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The authorities discourage the use of masks with the one-way, non-return valves (this one a twin-valve model) during epidemics & pandemics because, while affording the usual protection to the wearer, there is a slight reduction in their effectiveness in reducing the risk of infecting others.

A variant of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes Covid-19, Omicron (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in November 2021 after being detected in Botswana.  Rapidly, it out-competed other SARS-CoV-2 strains to become the predominant variant in circulation, the primary transmission vector of that thought to be international air travel.  The WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) named variant B.1.1.529 “Omicron” in November 2021, skipping the Greek letters next in sequence (nu (Ν, ν) & xi (Ξ ξ)), the former not used because of the confusion envisaged by virtue of the English pronunciation (“new” virus) and the latter avoided so the feelings of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) weren’t hurt, the origins of Covid-19 being a sensitive issue among the CCP’s Central Committee.

Flirting virus: Omicron FLiRT variant.

Although a number of Omicron sub-variants have subsequently been identified, none has been found so structurally dissimilar that the TAG-VE felt constrained to allocate a different Greek letter.  Instead, such variants were tagged alpha-numerically according to the group’s established convention (BA.1, BA.2 etc; identified sub-variants of BA.5 listed in a BQ.n sequence).  By June 2024, Omicron and its sub-variants remain dominant globally although new strains continue to emerge, notably the “FLiRT" which sounds encouraging but the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provided a rather dry explanation: “F for L at position 456, and R for T at position 346 (references to specific mutations in the virus’s spike protein).  The FLiRT variants are sub-variants of the Omicron JN.1 strain and include notable strains such as KP.2, KP.3, and KP.1.1.  The FLiRT variants now account for a significant portion of cases in the United States.

The Omicron and others: Notable Lancias

1981 Lancia Beta Spyder (Zagato).

Vincenzo Lancia (1881–1937) used letters from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Lambda, Kappa, Omicron et al) as model names for many of his early vehicles and in 1953 returned to the practice for a one-off range based on a commercial chassis.  However, when the Beta (1972-1984) was released in 1972 it was the first time since 1945 the company had used letters from the Greek to designate a passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t Lancia’s first use of Beta, that had been the 1909 car which replaced the Alpha (also Alfa) and, although the 1972 car had been intended to be the model which would symbolize Lancia’s re-birth (il risorgimento), Beta rather than Alfa was chosen to avoid confusion with Alfa Romeo.  Over time, the Beta would be offered with two four-door saloon bodies and a coupé from which two variants were derived: (1) a three-door estate labeled HPE (high-performance estate) in the tradition of the "shooting brake" (a la the Reliant Scimitar et al) and (2) as a co-project with Lombardy-based coach-builder Zagato, a targa-style convertible with a structural arrangement vaguely similar to that used by the Triumph Stag.  In some markets, in an attempt to enhance the image, the Montecarlo sports car was badged as a Beta.  The survival rate of the Betas was low because of chronic rust but the oft-told tale the steel was of poor quality (described as “porous” and obtained in some sort of barter transaction between Italy and the Soviet Union) has been debunked, the Betas (like to contemporary Alfa Romeo Alfasud) crumbling away because of design flaws, inadequate corrosion-prevention measures and poor build quality, the latter due in part to the appalling state of the relations between capital & labor during the troubled 1970s.

1987 Lancia Thema 8·32.

By the standards of European front wheel drive mass-production, the Lancia Thema (1984-1994 and available as a four-door saloon, a five door estate and a low-volume long wheelbase (LWD) limousine) was completely conventional and mostly unexceptional but there was one memorable diversion: the Thema 8·32.  Introduced at the 1986 Turin Motor Show, instead of the predictable variety of four & six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines used in the mainstream range, the 8·32 was fitted with a version of the 3.0 litre V8 Ferrari used in their 308 and Mondial models.  By the mid-1980s, although it was no longer novel to put powerful engines into previously nondescript saloons, the 8·32 was in the avant garde of the more extreme, pre-dating the BMW M5 (E28) by some months and the Mercedes-Benz 500E (W124) by seven years but what made it truly bizarre was it retained the Thema’s front wheel drive (FWD) configuration.  That probably sounds like the daftest idea since Oldsmobile and Cadillac in the mid 1960s decided to offer big FWD "personal coupes" (which eventually would be offered with V8 engines as large as 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre)) but journalists who tested the 8·32 declared it a surprisingly good good road car although those who tried them on racetracks did note the prodigious understeer.  Ferrari supplying Lancia with a V8 was actually returning a favor: In 1954, it was the Lancia D50 Formula One car which became the first Ferrari V8.  By 1986, even the V8-powered Cadillac DeVille range had switched to FWD but it was a very different machine from the 8·32 and many DeVille owners probably neither noticed nor cared the configuration had changed although they would have appreciated the flat floor and additional interior space.

1974 Lancia Stratos HF.

The 8·32 experiment (which Lancia opted not the repeat) wasn’t the first time Ferrari had provided engines for a Lancia. The Stratos HF (1973-1978, the HF standing for "High Fidelity", a moniker sometimes attached to Lancia’s high performance variations) was named after the Stratos Zero, a 1970 show car designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) although, except conceptually, the production vehicle bore little resemblance to that which lent the name.  The diminutive wedge was powered by the 2.4 litre V6 with which Ferrari used in the Dino 246 (1969-1974) and it was one of the outstanding rally cars of the 1970s, winning the 1974 Targa Florio and taking the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1974, 1975 & 1976.  Still competitive in the late 1970s when factory support was withdrawn because Fiat, the conglomerate which by then owned Lancia, wished to use its activities in motorsport to promote more mainstream models, it continued in private hands to win events into the 1980s and replicas have since been produced.  Such is the appeal of the Stratos that Torino-based coach-builder Manifattura Automobili in 2018 announced a run (said to be limited to 25) of the "New Stratos", based on the (shortened) platform of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia (2007). 

1971 Lancia 2000 Coupé.

The Lancia Flavia was in production between 1961 and 1971 before it was re-named the 2000, a reference to the two litre flat-four, introduced in 1969, an enlarged version of the power-plant which, in 1.5 and 1.8 litre form had powered the Flavia.  Although a decade old at its introduction, the 2000 was still of an advanced specification including the then still uncommon option of fuel-injection.  Although the earlier Flavias were built as four-door saloons, two-door coupés & convertibles (including a quite strange looking coupé by Zagato), the 2000 was offered only with saloon and coupé coachwork, the latter so elegant that most were prepared to forgive the FWD beneath, something the Lancia cognoscenti (a most devoted crew) inexplicably believe is a good idea.

1983 Lancia 037.

The last rear-wheel drive car to win the WRC, the 037 (the mysterious name merely a carry-over of the original project code) was a highly modified version of the Montecarlo, a Pininfarina-designed mid-engined coupé produced between 1975 to 1981 (in some markets called the Beta Montecarlo to maintain a link with the more mainstream Beta models and in North America sold as the Scorpion).  The Montecarlo had begun life as a project undertaken by Pininfarina to replace Fiat’s much admired but outdated 124 Coupé but Bertone’s X1/9 design was thought so outstanding it was instead chosen for immediate production while the 124 continued.  Pininfarina’s bigger, heavier car was then designated the Fiat X1/8, envisaged to compete as an up-market, mid-engined, three litre V6 sports car.  However, after the first oil shock in 1973, the market was re-evaluated and, now code-named named X1/20, it was re-positioned as a two litre, four cylinder car and handed to Lancia to become the Montecarlo.  In development since 1980, the competition version, the Lancia Rally 037, was released late the next year and in its first competitive season in Group 5 rallying proved fast but still fragile although, it was certainly promising enough for the factory to return in 1983 when, fully developed, it won the WRC.  It was however the end of an era, the 037 out-classed late in the season by the all-wheel-drive competition which has since dominated the WRC.  In one aspect however it remains a WRC benchmark: no competitor since has looked as good.

1971 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Coupé.

The slightly frumpy looking Fulvia saloon was the mass-selling (a relative term) model of Lancia’s range between 1963-1976 but the memorable version was the exquisite coupé (1965-1977).  Mechanically similar to the saloon except that it was on a short wheelbase  (SWB) platform and the FWD Fulvias were only ever offered with V4 engines of modest displacement (1.1-1.6 litres), the relatively high-performance achieved by virtue of light weight, high specific output and, in the two-door versions, a surprisingly efficient aerodynamic profile, belying the rather angular appearance (except for the usual special coupes by Zagato which managed almost to look attractive, not something which could be guaranteed to emerge from their drawing boards).  The HF versions were built for competition with more spartan interior trim, aluminum doors & non-structural panels, the engines tuned for higher power.  Produced in small runs, the early Flavia HFs used quite highly-strung 1.2 & 1.3 litre engines (the last batch gaining a five-speed gearbox) but the definitive competition HF was released in 1969 with a 1.6 litre engine and nicknamed Fanalona (big headlamps), an allusion to the seven inch units which had replaced the earlier five inch versions.  Almost mass-produced by earlier standards, over thirteen hundred were build and it delivered for the factory-supported Squadra Corse team, winning the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally.  The success inspired the factory to capitalize on the car’s success, a purely road-going version, the 1600 HF Lusso (Luxury) with additional interior appointments and without the lightweight parts manufactured between 1970-1973.  This one really was mass-produced; nearly four thousand were made and they remain much coveted.

1930 Lancia Omicron Autoalveolari with two and a half deck arrangement and a clerestoried upper-deck windscreen.

The Lancia Omicron was a bus chassis produced between 1927-1936; over 600 were built in different wheelbase lengths with both two and three-axle configurations.  Most used Lancia's long-serving, six-cylinder commercial engine but, as early as 1933, some had been equipped with diesel engines which were tested in North Africa where they proved durable and, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria, once petrol powered Omicron chassis were being re-powered with diesel power-plants from a variety of manufacturers as late as the 1960s.  Typically of bus use, coachbuilders fabricated many different styles of body but, in addition to the usual single and double deck arrangements, the Omicron is noted for a number of “double deck and a half” models, the elevated third deck (a layer architects would probably class as a “mezzanine”) configured usually as a first-class compartment but in at least three which operated in Italy, they were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.  Domestically, those with the so-called “double deck and a half” coachwork were known as the Autoalveolari (honeycombs) and that yet again proves how just about anything sounds better in Italian.

Autoalveolari on the streets of il Duce's Roma.

The Autoalveolari were intended to be used as short range, mass-transit buses to transport workers between Rome and its outskirts but although the passenger capacity was impressive, when laden, they proved quite unsuited to the city’s hilly terrain, the claimed top speed of 45 km/h (28 mph) rarely attained with at least part of most journeys undertaken at less than 20 Km/h (12 mph).  Given that, plans to build extended versions able to carry and ambitious 190 passengers never materialized.  Interestingly, the big busses were envisaged only as a stop-gap.  As part of the project to modernize Italy (remembered, if misleadingly as part of “making the trains run on time”) the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) in mid-1920s embarked on a capital works programme to replace the steam tramways lines which, like much of Italy’s infrastructure, were in a state of decay.  Thus the attraction of large-capacity busses but reality soon prevailed and fleets rapidly had to re-equip with more, smaller units.

Lancia proved both imaginative and inventive when naming their bus and truck chassis.  One backbone of the nation’s post-war transportation system was the Lancia Esatau, some 13,000 of which were delivered between 1947-1973 and that name was a blend using the Italian pronunciation of the Greek letter Σ (Sigma) and the letter T (Tau) (thus esa + tau).  There was also the Lancia Esagamma, produced between 1962-1973, the name another blend.  In Italian, the term esa corresponds to the Greek & Latin prefix hexa- (six) while gamma (sixth letter in the Greek alphabet) was often used to mean “range” or “series” which, as a suffix, was often appended to indicate a generation or class of products.  In the case of the Esagamma, the name was constructed to focus on the new six-cylinder diesel engines used in the chassis, their novelty being what was in the era their unusually light weight which reduced fuel consumption and thus operating costs.  Highly regarded though Lancia’s truck and bus chassis were, the Esagamma was the company’s last design as an independent entity, the financial troubles afflicting other divisions leading to Fiat taking control and Lancia’s commercial vehicle division was later absorbed into Fiat Veicoli Industriali (Fiat’s commercial vehicle division).

The 1959 Plymouth.

In the industry, Lancia was far from unique in creating compound words for product names and linguistically, Chrysler was more adventurous still in 1956 with the release of TorqueFlite, the new automatic transmission, the use of the first element obvious, torque from the Latin torqueō (to twist), from the Proto-Italic torkeō, from the primitive Indo-European terk- (to turn).  The companion value of power, torque is a measure at a certain point of the force something’s rotational or twisting effect and it’s transmitted (and, with some engineering, “multiplied”) by a transmission.  The element “flite” however was a distinctive spelling a la “nite” or “lite”, something often seen in commerce and Chrysler meant it in the sense of “flight”, implying speed.  Presumably the corporation assumed not many would explore the historic meaning of flite because it meant variously (1) a dispute, quarrel, wrangle or brawl, (2) to scold or jeer and (3) to make a complaint.  Flite was either from (1) the Middle English flit, from the Old English flit & ġeflit (strife, contention), from the Proto-West Germanic flit or (2) the Middle English flyten (to argue, quarrel), from the Old English flītan (to strive, contend), from the Proto-West Germanic flītan (to strive, contend).  Chrysler need not have been concerned about any tarring with the linguistically associative brush, the TorqueFlite transmission attracting few complaints, being robust and, by the standards of the time, efficient.

After a hiatus, TorqueFlite returned.

The practice of forming compound words while retaining the capitalization of the original components is called CamelCase (when the capitalization follows an internal hump (iPhone)) or PascalCase (when each word starts with a capital letter (PowerPoint)).  The “camel” is a reference to the visual clue of a hump (and upper case character) appearing in the middle of a word) and in the broader linguistic or typographic sense, the class is called “intercapping”, the general term for inserting capital letters within a word (such as TorqueFlite) and now most associated with IT products and terminology.  Chrysler made the choice just to gain a marketing gimmick (although the corporation would also use Torqueflite, Torque-flite  & Torque-Flite) but the tradition in IT was to some degree technologically deterministic, the file systems in many early operating systems not supporting the gap between characters created at the application level by tapping a keyboards space-bar (and some file systems didn’t use lower case characters).  From that CamelCase became something of a signature for IT products including variants: (1) lowerCamelCase (eBay), (2) StudlyCaps (seemingly random capitalization within a word, often for stylistic or meme purposes (iNiQUiTY BBS), (3) the self-explanatory aLtErNaTiNg CaPs and (4) Snake_Case (file_name) which began as a work-around in those cases where a visual break between two elements in a text string was desired but a space either wouldn’t have been recognized by the system or would have created an internal conflict.

Visualizing variants CamelCase variants makes it possible to interpret unseparated text strings like those sometimes on license plates.  Different meanings are conveyed by "A nu start" and "Anus tart". 

The elegant Fiat 130s (left) and the dull Lancia Gammas (right).

When the Beta was released in 1971, Lancia revived the pre-war tradition of borrowing from the Greek alphabet and, by now part of the Fiat conglomerate, they returned to Greek also when naming their new up-market sedan and coupé.  Fiat had dabbled in the sector between 1969-1977 with the 130 range but, although dynamically in many ways impressive (and the styling of the 130 Coupé was a rectilinear masterpiece), that it was marketed as a Fiat proved a handicap in a market segment where the names Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar carried such cachet.  Making the Gamma (1976-1984) a Lancia certainly made sense but unlike the 130s, the Gamma was front-wheel-drive (FWD) which tended to be associated with small, low-powered machines and the Gamma, in an expanded market, proved little more successful than the 130. 

1928 Lancia Lambda series 7 tipo Siluro Bateaux (torpedo) "Casaro".

One of the most innovative designs of the 1920s, the Lamba was produced between 1922-1931 and was the first car to enter volume production using a stressed, unitary body.  It featured very effective four-wheel brakes (something surprisingly rare at the time) and independent front suspension, the competence of which was such that it was able to more than match the point-to-point performance of many cars much more powerful but with more brutishly simple solid axles attached to a chassis.  However, because it was so attractive, demand much exceeded Lancia’s capacity to build sufficient numbers and the factory was forced to offer a model with a conventional chassis so coach-builders could provide bodies to fill the supply gap.  All Lambdas were powered by advanced, compact narrow-angle aluminum overhead camshaft V4 engines between 2.1-2.6 litres and over 11,000 were built.