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.

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 but, although applied in 1953 to a one-off range based on commercial chassis, with the release of the Beta (1972-1984) 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.  The Beta was available in two four-door saloon bodies, a coupé, a three-door estate and, as a co-project with 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 Monte-Carlo sports car was badged as a Beta.  The survival rate of the Betas was low because of the dubious build quality and the poor quality of the steel used in construction, most of it reputedly from the USSR and often described as “porous” although some sources contest that and maintain it was poor design and inadequate corrosion-prevention measures which meant so many rusted so quickly.

1987 Lancia Thema 8·32.

By the standards of European front wheel drive mass-production, the Lancia Thema (1984-1994), available as a four-door saloon and a five door estate (although a tiny number of long wheelbase limousines were built) was completely conventional and mostly unexceptional but there was one exception, the Thema 8·32.  Introduced at the 1986 Turin Motor Show, instead of the variety of four and six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines used in the mainstream range, the 8·32 was fitted with a version of the three 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 by a year and the Mercedes-Benz 500E by seven but what made it especially bizarre was that it retained the Thema’s front wheel drive configuration.  That probably sounds like the daftest idea since Oldsmobile and Cadillac in the mid 1960s decided to offer big, front wheel drive personal coupés with 425 & 429 cubic inch (6.9 & 7.0 litre) V8s but the contemporary press reports suggest the 8·32, as a road car, was surprisingly good although those who tested 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.

1974 Lancia Stratos HF.

The Thema experiment wasn’t the first time Ferrari had provided engines for a Lancia. The Lancia Stratos HF (1973-1978; the HF stands for High Fidelity, a moniker sometimes attached to Lancia’s high performance variations) was named after a 1970 show car designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini, the Stratos Zero, although, except conceptually, the production vehicle bore little resemblance to that which lent the name.  The tiny, wedge-shaped coupe was powered by the 2.4 litre V6 with which Ferrari powered their Dino 246 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.

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 displacements, had powered the Flavia.  Although a decade old at its introduction, the two litre Flavia was still of an advanced specification including the then still unusual option of fuel injection.  Although the earlier Flavias were built as four-door saloons, two-door coupés & convertibles (including a quite strange looking coupé variant by Zagato), the 2000 was offered only with saloon and coupé coachwork, the latter so elegant that most forgive the front wheel drive.

1983 Lancia 037.

The last rear-wheel drive car to win the WRC, the Lancia 037 was a highly modified version of the Montecarlo, a Pininfarina-designed mid-engined coupé produced between 1975 to 1981 (and in some markets called the Beta Montecarlo to maintain a link with the more mainstream Beta models).  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; 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 began in 1973, the market was re-evaluated and the Montecarlo, now named X1/20, was re-positioned as a two litre, four cylinder car and handed to Lancia.  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.

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 and 1976 but the memorable version is the exquisite coupe produced between 1965-1977.  Mechanically similar to the saloon except that it was on a short wheelbase platform, the front wheel drive Fulvias were only ever offered with tiny V4 engines between 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, unusually, to look quite attractive).  The HF versions were built for competition with more spartan interior trim, aluminum doors and 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.  The definitive competition HF was released in 1969 with a 1.6 litre engine and was nicknamed the Fanalona (big headlamps), an allusion to the seven inch units which had replaced the earlier five inches.  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.

1930 Lancia Omicron with two and a half deck arrangement and a clerestoried upper 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, 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 two and a half deck models, the third deck 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.

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 chassis.  However, because it was so attractive, demand much exceed Lancia’s capacity to build sufficient numbers and the factory was forced to offer a model with a conventional chassis so coachbuilders could provide bodies to fill the supply gap.  All Lambdas were powered by advanced and compact narrow-angle aluminum overhead camshaft V4 engines between 2.1-2.6 litres and over eleven thousand were built.

Flurona

Flurona (pronounced floo-roh-nuh)

An (currently) informal term for a case in which a patient simultaneously is infected both with influenza and the SARS-Cov-2 virus (source of the COVID-19 (a coronavirus) disease).

2022: A portmanteau word, the construct being (in)flu(enza) + (co)rona.  Influenza was from the Italian influenza (influence), from the Latin influentia.  The word has been used in English since 1743 borrowed from the Italian where it had been used since at least the late fifteenth to describe diseases (not all of which would now be regarded as influenza) with symptoms similar to a severe cold accompanied by a high fever.  Italian picked up the word from the  Medieval Latin influentia in the astrological sense (visitation, influence (of the stars)), an inheritance from the Classical Latin where it carried the meaning "to be planet-struck, afflicted as if by an evil star" on the notion of the then inexplicable disease being the result of some astral, occult, or atmospheric influence.  Corona dates from 1555–1565 and was 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).  COVID-19 (an abbreviation of coronavirus disease 2019) is 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, it had been called variously 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)).  Flurona is a noun; the noun plural is fluronas.

Avoiding florona:  Donald Trump, crooked Hillary Clinton, Lindsay Lohan and Boris Johnson in face masks.

Flurona is one of those neologisms which are creations of a certain time and place and dictionaries tend to reserve judgement, so many words of this type fading from use as the circumstances which encouraged their creation recede.  Two things may count against flurona becoming embedded in the language: (1) flurona is thus far rare although it’s hard to be definitive because among those with minor or zero symptoms reporting is known to be low (it’s just unknown how low) and (2) even where cases are confirmed, it’s rare for a case of flurona to produce symptoms which are appreciably worse than single instances of either condition.  So the dictionaries will wait and see and there’s every chance a hundred years hence, flurona might appear in whatever form lexicographers will then use appended with an “archaic”, “extinct” or “obsolete”.

COVID-19 and Flu A/B Rapid Antigen Combo Test.

Flurona differs from the more established neologisms used in epidemiology and virology: twindemic & tripledemic (the respective constructs twin or triple + (pan or epi) + -demic.  There words reference respectively a combination of (1) influenza & Covid-19 or (2) influenza, COVID-19 & RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).  Both a twindemic and a tripledemic can thus be geographically limited (as in an epidemic) or, like a pandemic, widespread.  A case of flurona (not a single disease or a new strain of COVID-19) is thus two conditions diagnosed in one patient whereas twindemic or tripledemic are outbreaks of two different conditions happening simultaneously.

Quarantine

Quarantine (pronounced kwawr-uhn-teen or kwor-uhn-teen)

(1) In historic English common law, the period of 40 days during which a widow was entitled to remain in her deceased husband's home while any dower is collected and returned.

(2) A strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease and (by extension), any rigorous measure of isolation, regardless of the reason.

(3) A period, originally 40 days (the historic understanding of the maximum known incubation period of disease) of detention or isolation imposed upon ships, persons, animals, or plants on arrival at a port or place, when suspected of carrying some infectious or contagious disease; a record system kept by port health authorities in order to monitor and prevent the spread of contagious diseases.  The origin was in measures taken in 1448 in Venice's lazaret to avoid renewed outbreaks of the bubonic plague.

(4) In historic French law, a 40-day period imposed by the king upon warring nobles during which they were forbidden from exacting revenge or to continue warfare.

(5) A place where such isolation is enforced (a lazaret).

(6) In international relations, a blockade of trade, suspension of diplomatic relations, or other action whereby one country seeks to isolate another.

(7) In computing, a place where files suspected of harboring a computer virus or other harmful code are stored in a way preventing infection of other files or machines; the process of such an isolation.

(8) To withhold a portion of a welfare payment from a person or group of people (Australia).

(9) To quarantine someone or something.

1600–1610: From the Middle English quarentine (period a ship suspected of carrying contagious disease is kept in isolation), from the Norman quarenteine, from the French quarenteine, from the Italian quarantina, a variant of quarantena, originally from the upper Italian (Venetian) dialect as quaranta giorni (space of forty days, group of forty), from quaranta (forty) from the Medieval Latin quarentīna (period of forty days; Lent), from the Classical Latin quadrāgintā (four tens, forty) and related to quattuor (four), from the primitive Indo-European root kwetwer (four).  The difference between quarantine and isolation is one of context; while people might for many reasons be isolated, quarantine is a public health measure to deal with those exposed to or at risk of having been infected by a communicable disease, the duration of the quarantine being sufficient to ensure any risk of spreading the infection has passed.  The name is from the Venetian policy (first enforced as the 30 day edict trentino in 1377) of keeping ships from plague-stricken countries waiting off its port for forty days to ensure no latent cases remained aboard.  The extended sense of "any period of forced isolation" dates from the 1670s.  A doublet of carene and quadragene.

In the context the L'Ancien Régime (pre-revolutionary France), it was a calque of the French quarantaine, following the edicts of Louis IX (and formalized by the quarantaine du Roi (1704) of Louis XIV which was a mechanism of quieting squabbling nobles).  Quarantine was introduced to international relations as a euphemism for "blockade" in 1937 because the Roosevelt administration was (1) conscious of public reaction to the effects on civilians of the Royal Navy’s blockade of Imperial Germany during World War I (1914-1918) and (2) legal advice that a “blockade” of a non-belligerent was, under international law, probably an act of war.  The use was revived by the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962).  The verb meaning "put under quarantine" came quickly to be used in any sense including figuratively (to isolate, as by authority) dates from 1804.  Predating the use in public health, in early sixteenth century English common law, the quarentine was the period of 40 days during which a widow was entitled to remain in her dead husband's home while any dower is collected and returned.  The alternative spellings quarentine, quarantin, quaranteen, quarantain, quarantaine, quarrentine, quarantene, quarentene, quarentyne, querentyne are all obsolete except in historic references).  While not of necessity entirely synonymous, detention, sequester, separation, seclusion, segregation, sequestration, lazaretto, segregate, confine, separate, seclude, insulate, restrict, detach & cordon, are at least vaguely similar.  Quarantine is a noun & verb, quarantiner is a noun, quarantinable is an adjective and quarantined & quarantining are verbs & adjectives.

In scripture, the number 40 often occurs although Biblical scholars, always anxious to dismiss musings from numerologists, new age practitioners and crystal-wearing basket weavers, reject the notion it has any special meaning beyond the idea of a “period of trial or struggle”, memorably expressed in the phrase “forty days and forty nights”.  In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth in the Great Flood, he delivered rain for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12).  After killing the Egyptian, Moses fled to Midian where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks (Acts 7:30) and subsequently he stood on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights (Exodus 24:18) and then interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days and 40 nights (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25).  In Deuteronomy 25:3, the maximum number of lashes a man could receive as punishment for a crime was set at 40.  The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan (Numbers 13:25), the Israelites wandered for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5) and before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years (Judges 13:1).  Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him (1 Samuel 17:16) and when Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).  The number 40 also appears in the prophecies of Ezekiel (4:6; 29:11-13) and Jonah (3:4).  In the New Testament, the quarentyne was the desert in which Christ fasted and was tempted for for 40 days and 40 nights (Matthew 4:2) and there were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (Acts 1:3).  Presumably, this influenced Western medicine because it was long (and still by some) recommended that women should for 40 days rest after childbirth.

Plague, the Venetians and Quarantino

The Plague of Justinian arrived in Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 541, brought from recently conquered Egypt across the Mediterranean by plague-ridden fleas in the fur of rats on ships bringing loot from the war.  From the imperial capital it spread across Europe, Asia, North Africa and Arabia, killing an estimated thirty to fifty million, perhaps a quarter the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean.  Plague never really went away, localized outbreaks happening periodically unit it returned as a pandemic some eight-hundred years later; the Black Death, which hit Europe in 1347, claimed some two-hundred million in just four years and demographically, Europe would not for centuries recover from the Black Death.

There was at the time little scientific understanding of contagion but it became clear it was related to proximity so officials in Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik in Croatia) resolved to keep newly arrived sailors in isolation until it was apparent they were healthy.  Initially, the sailors were confined to their ships for thirty days, formalized in a 1377 Venetian law as a trentino (thirty days), which radically reduced the transmission rate and by 1448, the Venetians had increased the forced isolation to forty days (quarantine), which, given bubonic plague’s thirty-seven day cycle from infection to death, was an example of a practical scientific experiment.  The word soon entered Middle English as quarantine (already in use in common law as a measure of certain rights accruing to a widow), the origin of the modern word and practice of quarantine.  The English had many opportunities to practice quarentine.  In the three-hundred odd years between 1348 and 1665, London suffered some forty outbreaks, about once a generation (or every twenty years), the significance of this pattern something which modern epidemiologists would later understand.  Quarentine laws were introduced in the early sixteenth century and proved effective, reducing the historic medieval death-rates to about twenty percent.

Eggs à la Lohan

In self-imposed quarantine in March 2020, Lindsay Lohan was apparently inspired by a widely shared motivational poem by Kitty O’Meara (on the internet dubbed the "poet laureate of the pandemic") which included the fragment:

And the people stayed home.  And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.  And listened more deeply.  Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.  Some met their shadows.  And the people began to think differently.

One of Lindsay Lohan's recommendations for a time of quarantine was to take the time to cook, posting a photograph of Eggs à la Lohan, a tasty looking omelet.  The poem also contained the words:

And the people healed.  And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.  And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Unfortunately, viewed from early 2023, it would seem Ms O'Meara's hopes quarantine might have left us kinder, gentler and more thoughtful may not have be realized.  It may be Mr Putin didn’t read poem and just ate omelet. 

Diagnosis & Prognosis

Diagnosis (pronounced dahy-uhg-noh-sis)

(1) In clinical medicine, the process of determining by examination the nature and circumstances of a diseased condition.

(2) The decision reached from such an examination; the abbreviation is Dx.

(3) In general use, a determining or analysis of the cause or nature of a problem or situation; an answer or solution to a problematic situation.

(4) In taxonomy (particularly in biology), a written description of a species or other taxon serving to distinguish that species from all others.  Historically, this was applied especially to a description written in Latin and published.

1675–85: A borrowing from the New Latin diagnōsis, from the Ancient Greek διάγνωσις (diágnōsis) (a distinguishing, means or power of discernment), from διαγιγνώσκω (diagignṓskō or diagignōskein (to distinguish; to discern (literally "to know thoroughly" or "know apart (from another)”)) from gignōskein (inquiry, investigation, knowing; come to know).  The construct was διά (diá) (through) + γιγνώσκω (gignṓskō) (to know).

The early precise meaning in medical Latin was “pre-scientific discrimination" applied especially in pathology, soon becoming a general "recognition of a disease from its symptoms".  The noun plural is diagnoses and derived forms include the nouns diagnostician & the rare (technical use only) prediagnosis (now more often as pre-diagnosis) and the adjective diagnostic.  One that probably should be more common than it appears, given the frequency with which it happens, is misdiagnosis.

Prognosis (pronounced prog-noh-sis)

(1) In clinical medicine, forecasting of the probable course and outcome of a disease, especially of the chances of recovery.

(2) In general use, a forecast or prognostication.

1645-1655: A borrowing from the Late Latin prognōsis, from the Ancient Greek πρόγνωσις (prógnōsis) (foreknowledge, perceiving beforehand, prediction), the construct being προ- (pro-) (before) + γνῶσις (gnôsis (gignōskein)) (inquiry, investigation, knowing; come to know), from γιγνώσκω (gignṓskō) (to know); the primitive Indo-European root was gno- (to know).  The general (non-medical) use in English dates from 1706 and there were (now rare) back-formations, the verb prognose noted in 1837 and the adjective prognostical as early as the 1680s.  In the Classical Latin prognostica meant "sign to forecast weather".

Prognostic (prognostick the obsolete spelling) & prognostication are nouns, prognosticable is an adjective, prognosticate is a verb.  From the Latin root English gained prognosis, French pronostic, German Prognose, Italian prognosi, Norman prog'nose (Jersey), Spanish pronóstico & Hungarian prognózis; in the invented international language of Esperanto, it is prognozo.

Clinical use

Prognosis is the companion word to diagnosis and the two are sometimes confused.  A diagnosis is an identification of a disease via examination or the result of some diagnostic test.  What follows is a prognosis, which is a prediction of the course of the disease as well as the treatment and results.  The schoolbook trick to remember the difference is (1) that a diagnosis comes before a prognosis, and diagnosis is before prognosis alphabetically and (2) diagnosis and detection both start with "d" whereas prognosis and prediction both start with "p".

Former US President Donald Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 after a positive result to a test.  His prognosis was based on (1) what’s known generally about COVID-19 and (2) risk-factors specific to his case.  His risk factors included:

(1) Old: (74).

(2) Overweight (BMI 30+).

(3) Male (varies between countries but male death rate tends to be higher).

(4) He is sub-Human although, as a risk-factor, this remains speculative.  It’s mostly only some black Africans who are pure Humans; the rest of the world’s population is a sub-human mongrel blend, descendants of inter-breeding between humans and Neanderthals thousands of years ago.  It’s being hypnotized the unexpectedly good outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa during pandemic suggest some genetic advantage in being a pure Human; the research is not complete and there may be other factors (or some statistical quirk) but it is possible a genetic risk-factor related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus was inherited from archaic Neanderthals some sixty-thousand years ago.

Bug

Bug (pronounced buhg)

(1) Any insect of the order Hemiptera, especially any of the suborder Heteroptera (a hemipteran or hemipteron; a hemipterous insect), having piercing and sucking mouthparts specialized as a beak (rostrum) and known loosely as the “true bug”.

(2) Any of various species of marine or freshwater crustaceans.

(3) In casual use, any insect or insect-like invertebrate (ie used often of spiders and such because of their supposed “bug-like” quality).

(4) In casual use, any micro-organism causing disease, applied especially to especially a virus or bacterium.

(5) An instance of a disease caused by such a micro-organism; a class of such conditions.

(6) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a defect or imperfection, most associated with computers but applied also to many mechanical devices or processes.

(7) A craze or obsession (usually widespread or of long-standing).

(8) In slang, a person who has a great enthusiasm for such a craze or obsession (often as “one bitten by the bug”).

(9) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a hidden microphone, camera or other electronic eavesdropping device (a clipping of bugging device) and used analogously of the small and effectively invisible (often a single-pixel image) image on a web page, installed usually for the purpose of tracking users.

(10) Any of various small mechanical or electrical gadgets, as one to influence a gambling device, give warning of an intruder, or indicate location.

(11) A mark, as an asterisk, that indicates a particular item, level, etc.

(12) In US horse racing, the five-pound (2¼ kg) weight allowance able to be claimed by an apprentice jockey and by extension (1) the asterisk used to denote an apprentice jockey's weight allowance & (2) in slang, US, a young apprentice jockey (sometimes as “bug boy” (apparently used thus also of young female jockeys, “bug girl” seemingly beyond the pale.)).

(13) A telegraph key that automatically transmits a series of dots when moved to one side and one dash when moved to the other.

(14) In the slang of poker, a joker which may be used only as an ace or as a wild card to fill a straight or a flush.

(15) In commercial printing, as “union bug”, a small label printed on certain matter to indicate it was produced by a unionized shop.

(16) In fishing, a any of various plugs resembling an insect.

(17) In slang, a clipping of bedbug (mostly UK).

(18) A bogy; hobgoblin (extinct).

(19) In slang, as “bug-eyed”, protruding eyes (the medical condition exophthalmos).

(20) A slang term for the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1; 1938-2003 & the two retro takes; 1997-2019).

(21) In broadcasting, a small (often transparent or translucent) image placed in a corner of a television program identifying the broadcasting network or channel.

(22) In aviation, a manually positioned marker in flight instruments.

(23) In gay (male) slang in the 1980s & 1990s as “the bug”, HIV/AIDS.

(24) In the slang of paleontology, a trilobite.

(25) In gambling slang, a small piece of metal used in a slot machine to block certain winning combinations.

(26) In gambling slang, a metal clip attached to the underside of a table, etc and used to hold hidden cards (a type of cheating).

(27) As the Bug (or Western Bug), a river in Eastern Europe flows through Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine with a total length of 481 miles (774 km).  The Southern Bug (530 miles (850 km)) in south west Ukraine flows into the Dnieper estuary and is some 530 miles (850 km) long.

(28) A past tense and past participle of big (obsolete).

(29) As ISO (international standard) 639-2 & ISO 639-3, the language codes for Buginese.

(30) To install a secret listening device in a room, building etc or on a telephone or other communications device.

(31) To badger, harass, bother, annoy or pester someone.

1615–1625: The original use was to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes structural sense (ie remove a bug, as opposed to the sense of “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are regarded as standard.

The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.  The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a fearsome sight and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620s and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish flu” pandemic.

Like the rest of us, even scientists, entomologists and zoologists generally probably say “bug” in general conversation, whether about the insects or the viruses and such which cause disease but in writing academic papers they’ll take care to be more precise.  Because to most of us “bugs” can be any of the small, creepy pests which intrude on our lives (some of which are actually helpful in that quietly and unobtrusively they dispose of the really annoying bugs which bite us), the word is casually and interchangeably applied to bees, ants, bees, millipedes, beetles, spiders and anything else resembling an insect.  That use may be reinforced by the idea of the thing “bugging” us by their very presence.  To the professionals however, insects are those organisms in the classification Insecta, a very large class of animals, the members of which have a three-part body, six legs and (usually) two pairs of wings whereas a bug is a member of the order Hemiptera (which in the taxonomic system is within the Insecta class) and includes cicadas, aphids and stink bugs; to emphasize the point, scientists often speak of those in the order Hemiptera as “true bugs”.  The true bugs are those insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking, contained usually in a beak-shaped structure, a vision agonizingly familiar to anyone who has suffered the company of bedbugs.  That’s why lice are bugs and cockroaches are not but the latter will continue to be called bugs, often with some preceding expletive.

9 September 1947: The engineer's note (with physical evidence) of electronic computing's "first bug".

In computing, where the term “bug” came to be used to describe “glitches, crashes” and such, it has evolved to apply almost exclusively to software issues and even if events are caused by hardware flaws, unless it’s something obvious (small explosions, flame & smoke etc) most users probably assume a fault in some software layer.  The very first documented bug however was an interaction recorded on 9 September 1947 between the natural world and hardware, an engineer’s examination of an early (large) computer revealing an insect had sacrificially landed on one of the circuits, shorting it out and shutting-down the machine.  As proof, the unfortunate moth was taped to the report.  On a larger scale (zoologically rather than the hardware), the problem of small rodents such as mice entering the internals of printers, there to die from various causes (impact injuries, starvation, heat et al) remains not uncommon, resulting sometimes in mechanical damage, sometimes just the implications of decaying flesh.

The idea of a bug as a “defect, flaw, fault or glitch” in a mechanical or electrical device was first recorded in the late 1800s as engineer’s slang, the assumption being they wished to convey the idea of “a small fault” (and thus easily fixed, as opposed to some fundamental mistake which would necessitate a re-design).  Some sources suggest the origin lies with Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who is reported as describing the consequences of an insect “getting into the works”.  Programmers deploy an array of adjectives to "bug" (major, minor, serious, critical & non-critical et al) although between themselves (and certainly when disparaging of the code of others) the most commonly heard phrase is probably “stupid bug”.  The “debugging” (also as de-bugging) process is something with a wide definition but in general it refers to any action or set of actions taken to remove errors.  The name of the debug.exe (originally debug.com) program included with a number of (almost all 16 & 32-bit) operating systems was a little misleading because in addition to fixing things, it could be used for other purposes and is fondly remembered by those who wrote Q&D (quick & dirty) work-arounds which, written in assembler, ran very fast.  The verb debug was first used in 1945 in the sense of “remove the faults from a machine” and by 1964 it appeared in field service manuals documenting the steps to be taken to “remove a concealed microphone”.  Although the origin of the use of “bug” in computing (probably the now most commonly used context) can be traced to 1947, the term wasn’t widely used beyond universities, industry and government sites before the 1960s when the public first began to interact at scale with the implications (including the bugs) of those institutions using computerized processes.  Software (or any machinery) badly afflicted by bugs can be called “buggy”, a re-purposing of the use of an adjective dating from 1714 meaning “a place infested with bugs”.

Some bugs gained notoriety.  In the late 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon for the press to refer to the potential problems of computer code using a two-numeral syntax for years as the “Y2K bug” which was an indication of how wide was the vista of the common understanding of "bug" and one quite reasonable because that was how the consequences would be understood.  A massive testing & rectification effort was undertaken by the industry (and corporations, induced by legislation and the fear of litigation) and with the coming of 1 January 2000 almost nothing strange happened and that may also have been the case had nothing been done but, on the basis of the precautionary principle, it was the right approach.  Of course switching protocols to use four-numeral years did nothing about the Y10K bug but a (possible) problem 8000 years hence would have been of little interest to politicians or corporate boards.  Actually, YxK bugs will re-occur (with decreasing frequency) whenever a digit needs to be added.  The obvious solution is trailing zeros although if one thinks in terms of infinity, it may be that, in the narrow technical sense, such a solution would just create an additional problem although perhaps one of no practical significance.  Because of the way programmers exploit the way computers work, there have since the 1950s been other date (“time” to a computer) related “bugs” and management of these and the minor problems caused has been handled well.  Within the industry the feeling is things like the “year 2029 problem” and “year 2038 problem” will, for most of the planet, be similarly uneventful.

The DOSShell, introduced with PC-DOS 4.0; this was as graphical as DOS got.  The DOSShell was bug-free.

Bugs can also become quirky industry footnotes.  As late as 1987, IBM had intended to release the update of PC-DOS 3.3 as version 3.4, reflecting the corporation’s roadmap of DOS as something of an evolutionary dead-end, doomed ultimately to end up in washing machine controllers and such while the consumer and corporate market would shift to OS/2, the new operating system which offered pre-emptive multi-tasking and access to bigger storage and memory addressing.  However, at that point, both DOS & OS/2 were being co-developed by IBM & Microsoft and agreement was reached to release a version 4 of DOS.  DOS 4 also included a way of accessing larger storage space (through a work-around with a program called share.exe) and more memory (in a way less elegant than the OS/2 approach but it did work, albeit more slowly), both things of great interest to Microsoft because they would increase the appeal of its upcoming Windows 3.0, a graphical shell which ran on top of DOS; unlike OS/2, Windows was exclusive to Microsoft and so was the revenue stream.  Unfortunately, it transpired the memory tricks used by PC-DOS 4.0 were “buggy” when used with some non-IBM hardware and the OS gained a bad reputation from which it would never recover.  By the time the code was fixed, Microsoft was ready to release its own version as MS-DOS 4.0 but, noting all the bad publicity, after a minor updates and some cosmetic revisions, the mainstream release was MS-DOS 4.01.  In the code of the earlier bug-afflicted bits, there is apparently no difference between MS-DOS 4.01 the few existing copies of MS-DOS 4.0.

Lindsay Lohan with Herbie the "Love Bug", Herbie: Fully Loaded (Disney Pictures, 2005). 

In idiomatic and other uses, bug has a long history.  By the early twentieth century “bugs” meant “mad; crazy" and by then “bug juice” had been in use for some thirty years, meaning both “propensity of the use of alcoholic drink to induce bad behaviour” and “bad whiskey” (in the sense of a product being of such dubious quality it was effectively a poison).  A slang dictionary from 1811 listed “bug-hunter” as “an upholsterer”, an allusion to the fondness bugs and other small creatures show for sheltering in the dark, concealed parts of furniture.  As early as the 1560s, a “bug-word” was a word or phrase which “irritated or vexed”.  The idea of “bug-eyed” was in use by the early 1870s and that’s thought either to be a humorous mispronunciation of bulge or (as is thought more likely) an allusion to the prominent, protruding eyes of creatures like frogs, the idea being they sat on the body like “a pair of bugs”.  The look became so common in the movies featuring aliens from space that by the early 1950s the acronym BEM (bug-eyed monster) had become part of industry slang.  The correct term for the medical condition of "bulging eyes" is exophthalmos.

To “bug someone” in the sense of “to annoy or irritate” seems not to have been recorded until 1949 and while some suggest the origin of that was in swing music slang, it remains obscure.  The now rare use of “bug off” to mean “to scram, to skedaddle” is documented since 1956 and is of uncertain origin but may be linked to the Korean War (1950-1953) era US Army slang meaning “stage a precipitous retreat”, first used during a military reversal.  The ultimate source was likely the UK, Australian & New Zealand slang “bugger off” (please leave).  The “doodle-bug” was first described in 1865 and was Southern US dialect for a type of beetle.  In 1944, the popular slang for the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (the V-1 (reprisal weapon 1) which was the first cruise missile) was “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”) but the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots preferred “doodle-bug”.

The ultimate door-stop for aircraft hangers: Bond Bug 700.

The popularity of three wheeler cars in the UK during the post-war years was a product of cost breakdown.  They were taxed at a much lower rate than conventional four-wheel vehicles, were small and thus economical and could be operated by anyone with only a motorcycle licence.  Most were actually genuine four-seaters and thus an attractive alternative for families and, being purely utilitarian, there were few attempts to introduce elements of style.  The Bond Bug (1970-1974) was an exception in that it was designed to appeal to the youth market with a sporty-looking two-seater using the then popular “wedge-styling” and in its most powerful form it could touch 80 mph (130 km/h), faster than any other three wheeler available.  However, the UK in 1973 introduced a value-added tax (VAT) and this removed many of the financial advantages the three-wheelers.  In an era of rising prosperity, the appeal of the compromise waned and coupled with some problems in the early productions runs, in 1974, after some 2¼ thousand Bugs had been built, the zany little machine was dropped; not even the oil crisis of the time (which had doomed a good number of bigger, thirstier cars) could save it.  Even in its best years it was never all that successful, essentially because it was really a novelty and there were “real” cars available for less money.  Still, the survivors have a following in their niche at the lower end of the collector market.

The business of spying is said to be the “second oldest profession” and even if not literally true, few doubt the synergistic callings of espionage and war are among man’s earliest and most enduring endeavors.  Although the use of “bug” to mean “equip with a concealed microphone” seems not to have been in use until 1946, bugging devices probably go back thousands of years (in a low-tech sort of way) and those known to have been used in Tudor-era England (1485-1603) are representative of the way available stuff was adapted, the most popular being tubular structures which, if pressed against a thin wall (or preferably a door’s keyhole) enabled one to listen to what was being discussed in a closed room.  Bugging began to assume its modern form when messages began to be transmitted over copper wires which could stretch for thousands of miles and the early term for a “phone bug” was “phone tap”, based upon the idea of “tapping into” the line as one might a water pipe.  Bugs (the name picked-up because many of the early devices were small, black and “bug-like”), whether as concealed microphones or phone taps, swiftly became part of the espionage inventory in diplomacy, commerce and crime and as technology evolved, so did the bugging techniques.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (1902–1985), US Ambassador to the UN (United Nations) at a May 1960 session of the Security Council, using the Great Seal bug to illustrate the extent of Soviet bugging.  The context was a tu quoque squabble between the Cold War protagonists, following Soviet revelations about the flight-paths of the American's U2 spy planes.  Lodge would be Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) running mate in that year's presidential election.     

A classic bug of High Cold War was the Great Seal bug, (known to the security services as the thing), a Soviet designed and built concealed listening device which was so effective because it used passive transmission protocols for its audio signal, thereby rendering it invisible to conventional “bug-detection” techniques.  The bug was concealed inside large, carved wooden rendition of the US Great Seal which, in 1945, the Kremlin presented as a “gift of friendship” to the US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman (1891-1986); in a nice touch, it was a group of Russian school children who handed over the carving.  Sitting in the ambassador’s Moscow office for some seven years, it was a masterpiece of its time because (1) being activated only when exposed to a low-energy radio signal which Soviet spies would transmit from outside, when subjected to a US “bug detection” it would appear to be a piece of wood and (2) as it needed no form of battery or other power supply (and indeed, no maintenance at all), its lifespan was indefinite.  Had it not by chance been discovered by a communications officer at the nearby British embassy who happened to be tuned to the same frequency while the Soviets were sending their signal, it may well have remained in place for decades.  Essentially, the principles of the Great Seal bug were those used in modern radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems.