January 2005 Archives
Tsunamis and related words: shallow-water wave;
tsunami; ring of fire; bathemetric
From an old joke: mutable; beddable (bedabble);
Eponyms (non-character) from writings: Baedeker;
Boswell; roorback; pasquinade; yapp binding; machiavellian; Knickerbocker
Etymologies in the Sky: moon;
meteoroid; meteor; meteorite; cosmos (cosmology)
For obvious reasons, this week is devoted to
words related to tsunamis. I have had to put some of this science together myself, trusting readers to provide any needed correction.
Before we can properly define 'tsunami', we must define a scientific concept.
shallow-water wave – a wave whose depth
is a very small, in comparison to its wavelength
The concept is relevant because with a shallow-water wave, one can simplify the
formula for determining how fast the wave moves. Basically, only one factor is
relevant: wave speed is proportional to the square root of wave depth. The deeper
the wave, the faster it moves.
Obviously, a shallow-water wave can be one of small depth, or one of great
wavelength. This point will lead us to the definition of 'tsunami', tomorrow.
The dictionaries will tell you that a
tsunami is a kind of 'tidal wave' or storm wave (Webster's, Hutchinson; Wordnet), or a
'large', 'great' or 'high' wave. (Webster's, OED;
AHD). That is shameful. In fact a tsunami it has nothing to do with the
tides or storms. And its strike is insidious precisely because, in the open
ocean it is not 'large' at all; it can barely be noticed.
We said that a "shallow-water wave" is one whose depth is a very
small, in comparison to its wavelength. That of course is achieved if a wave
has very long wavelength. Such a wave is called a tsunami.
tsunami – a series of waves of extremely long
wave length and long period (generated in a body of water by an impulsive
disturbance that vertically displaces the water)¹
For two reasons, a tsunami will strike with little warning. First, it crosses deep ocean very quickly, roughly as fast as a jet plane, and
with little energy loss. (Reason: with such great wavelength, even in deep ocean it still acts as a shallow-water wave.²) Second,
a bit of reflection shows that a tsunami – however big it may be when it hits
the land – is almost undetectably small while it is speeds across the ocean. As
you've read, it takes special sensors to detect it there. Ships at sea will not
even notice it, and hence provide no radio warnings, and we do not read of tsunami
damage to ships at sea.
Indeed, invisibility-at-sea is the source of the name tsunami. Fisherman who had had a calm and peaceful voyage, with no
extraordinary waves, would be baffled to return and find the port devastated.
The disastrous wave, it would seem, was one that had struck only in the harbor.
Hence it was a "harbor wave", which in Japanese is tsu-nami.
A tsunami becomes noticeable only when it slows, in shallow coastal waters.
There its size depends on harbor configuration, and may not be particularly
impressive. But the tsunami continues inexorably, and simply does not stop.
¹Source: US
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, which appears they have
taken the accepted scientific definition. A tsunami can have a wavelength in
excess of 100 km – some sources say much more – and period of several minutes
to an hour. Contrast typical wind-driven swells along a beach: wave length of
150 m and period of about 10 seconds.
²For such a wave, speed = √(g*depth), where g =
acceleration of gravity, 9.8 m/sec/sec. Work it out and you'll find a tsunami
travels through 5,000-meter ocean (which is not atypical) at almost 800 km/hr,
or 500 mph.
We've seen that a tsunami is generated in a
body of water by an impulse that vertically displaces the water. What could
that impulse be? Destructive tsunamis are most commonly caused by undersea
earthquakes (less commonly by submarine landslides, infrequently by submarine
volcanic eruptions and very rarely by a large meteorite striking the ocean from
above).
It follows that destructive tsunamis will most often occur in the most
earthquake-prone area of the ocean. That area is the
ring of fire – an extensive zone of
volcanic and seismic activity that coincides roughly with the borders of the
¹The next most
seismic region, 5-6% of earthquakes, is the Alpide
belt, extending from Mediterranean region eastward through
bathemetric – regarding
measurement of the depths of an ocean or other body of water
[T]he
– Tom Paulson, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec. 28, 2004, quoting
cutting-edge experts at the NOAA's Pacific Marine
Environmental Laboratory in
From an old joke
Old joke: Three
bachelors were kidding their married friend.
"You've
been married five years now, George," said one, "and still no childeren? Is your wife" (and here he tried a very bad
pun) "unbearable?"
Or," interjected another, "perhaps she's inconceivable?"
"Maybe
she's, uh, impregnable," joked the third.
George
shook his head sadly. "No, boys, you're all wrong. She's insurmountable
and inscrutable."
A thorough logophile would have more puns here. Let
us look at some words that would fit punningly, and
look at their true meanings.
George shook his head sadly. "The woman never even stops talking. She's simply not mutable."
A pun, because in fact mutable is not a form of to
mute, make silent.
mutable – prone to change; inconstant; also,
capable of change or of being changed
[The antonym, immutable, is more frequently used.]
Jack and Emily were
the monikers most frequently given to boys and girls in
– The Times, Jan. 5, 2005
George added, "She doesn't like bedabbling." George is punning on these two words:
bedabble - (trans. v, from 'dabble') to
dabble upon; to sprinkle or wet
beddable - (informal, from 'bed') sexually attractive or
available
His face was
round, white, pockmarked and bedabbled
with sweat like a
I stared upon his blood-bedabbled
breast
And sang my malediction with the rest.
– William Butler Yeats, A Woman Young and
Old
He still runs away
from danger when he can, still seduces, or is seduced by, every beddable
woman, still lies, flatters, and cajoles without scruple.
– - Anthony Lejeune, book review in National Review, July
10, 1995
Adrienne Shelley, star of Sudden Manhattan, says: "I got a call in
my car on my way to an audition from my agent. He said, 'The important thing is
that they think you are beddable."
Eponyms (non-character) from writings
Many eponyms are the names of characters in
literature, including mythology and the bible. We can speak of a Hercules
or a hermaphrodite, a Judas or a Jonah, a milquetoast
or a munchkin.
From the world of writings we also have occasional eponyms that are not merely
character names. Obviously, an author's name can used to mean "written by
or in the style of": a Shakespearean sonnet. A few of these
non-character eponyms have a larger sense. This week we'll look at some of
them, familiar and unfamiliar.
Baedeker – a guidebook to countries or a country; more generally, a
guidebook to places
[after Karl Baedeker, 1801-1859, who published a series of travel
guidebooks]
Without some
yet-to-be-written Baedeker, the casual visitor to
– Jan Ernst Adlmann, Art in America, Jan. 1995
Why traipse all over town searching for the perfect cut, wax, or brow tweese when
– Audrey Davidow,
Boswell – an assiduous and devoted recorder of another's life, words
and deeds.
[after James Boswell (1740-1795), renowned as
biographer of Samuel Johnson]
The black-capped
chickadee is a half-ounce bundle of feathers, unbridled energy and--as scientists
are discovering--amazing avian brainpower. And Susan Smith, no weirder than
most bird students, is its Boswell. Her 1991 book is a
notably readable summary of everything then known about the species.
– Les Line, Total recall - chickadee behavior, National Wildlife, Feb.
1, 1998
Chief Seattle's ecosermon in 1854, extolling the
virtues of living in harmony with nature, has become part of environmental
lore. The speech is quoted everywhere.
Except for one niggling detail: It's all bogus. Henry Smith, the frontier doctor who became Chief Seattle's
self-appointed Boswell, however, didn't actually publish a
translation of the Chief's speech until 1887--more than 30 years later
– Linda Marsa, Talk is Chief, Omni, Dec. 1992
In 2002 the Supreme
Court of India (at §12) quoted in full this bogus
Chief Seattle speech, with high praise, stating, "The reply is profound.
It is beautiful. It is timeless. It contains the wisdom of the ages. It is the
first ever and the most understanding statement on environment. The whole of it
is worth quoting as any extract from it is to destroy its beauty."
During James Polk's 1844 campaign for
The Chronicle had made a total fabrication. No such Baron existed; no such book
existed; the extract was lifted from a recent travel-book by George W. Featherstonhaugh, and altered by inserting Polk's name and
shifting the locale to near Polk's home. So today's eponym, the name of an
author, is uniquely that of an author who never existed.
roorback (or roorbach) – a defamatory lie, put out to smear a politician
Nor is the typical
American journalist's credulity confined to such canards and roorbacks from far places. He is often
victimized just as easily at home.
– H.L. Mencken, Journalism in
A longer Mencken extract
(ellipses omitted), leading up to his above sentence, will certainly be
amusing, and it may be timely. For Dan Rather of CBS News, following
controversy over a false news story he aired, has recently announced that he
will be taking early retirement
For
example, the problem of false news. How does so much of it get into the
American newspapers, even the good ones? [The checkers], facing the elemental
professional problem of distinguishing between true news and false, turned out
to be incompetent. Obviously, the way to diminish such failures in future is
not to adopt sonorous platitudes borrowed from the realtors, the morticians, the
sanitary plumbers and the Kiwanis, but to undertake an overhauling of the
faulty technic, and of the incompetent personnel
responsible for it. I don't think it will make demands that are impossible. The
bootlegging, legal or delicatessen professions, confronted by like demands,
would quickly furnish the talent necessary to meet them; I see no reason why
the profession of journalism should not measure up as well.
When the means are readily at hand, [the news editor] often attempts to
check it, and sometimes even rejects it. But when such checking presents difficulties – in other words, when deceit is
especially easy, and hence should be guarded against most vigilantly – he
succumbs nine times out of ten, and without a struggle. It was precisely by
this process that the editors of the Times made that paper ridiculous.
In the face of great improbabilities, they interpreted their inability to
dispose of them as a license to accept them as truth. Journalism will be a
sounder and more dignified profession when a directly contrary interpretation
of the journalist's duty prevails. There will then be less news in the papers,
but it will at least have the merit of being true.
pasquinade – a satire or lampoon, esp. one ridiculing a specific person. verb: to ridicule with a pasquinade (pasquin; pasquil –
rarer terms; same meanings; can also mean 'one who lampoons')
In 1501, an ancient statute was unearthed and set up in a public square in
To give you the full flavor, I must quote a pasquinade at length.
When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light
– F. Scott
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
[During the hullabaloo when P.T. Barnum brought Jumbo the Elephant to
– A. H. Saxon, P.T.
Barnum
yapp binding – a style of leather bookbinding, with soft limp edges that
overlap and thus protect the exposed edges of the pages.
Illustrated here.
Use is almost completely confined to religious books.
[After William Yapp, bookseller in the latter part of the 19th century,
who designed the style for pocket-bibles.]
machiavellian – cunning,
scheming, and unscrupulous
[Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), It. statesman
who, in The Prince (written ~1513, publ. 1532)
advises that unethical methods may be needed to get and use political power]
There are of course machiavellian
manipulators everywhere who seek only to place themselves first.
–
Knickerbocker – a New Yorker descended from the early Dutch settlers; or,
more broadly, a New Yorker
In 1809 an ad in the New York Post sought
the whereabouts of one Deitrich Knickerbocker,
an elderly gentleman "not in his right mind." A later announcement
told that, the man not being found, his creditors would publish an odd
manuscript of his to satisfy his debts. Soon, there appeared Knickerbocker's History of New York.
It was a literary hoax. There was no such gentleman. The actual author was a
young and then-unknown fellow, Washington Irving. The work, hilariously
satirical, was a great success, and its exact title will give you a taste:
A History of
So extravagant an origin calls for an
extravagant illustration.
Suzanne couldn't
help herself. After all, he was only a laborer, and an Irish one at that. His
long dark lashes lowered, and when he looked up from under them, his gaze was
potently seductive. "Are you going to meet me, Miss Vanderkemp?"
Suzanne did not have to think about it. Soon she would marry some pale, boring Knickerbocker, or maybe some moneyed
newcomer. It wouldn't be horrid, but it would hardly be exciting. She wanted
Jake O'Neil.
– Brenda Joyce, After Innocence (excerpted)
Etymologies in the Sky
This week we'll present the interesting
etymologies of some familiar words from astronomy. My grateful acknowledgement
to AR Tullock, whose article in The Scotsman
provided the idea of this theme and much of the information, to which I have
added.
moon – from an Indo-European root meaning 'to measure"; a month is
measured by the phases of the moon
If I understand correctly, in many of the Indo-European languages the words for
"moon" and "month" are identical or are cognates: German,
Sanskrit, Irish, Lithuanian, Avestan, Persian, Old
Irish, Welsh. In other languages (Greek, Armenian) they were originally
cognates, until another term was substituted for "moon".
It would seem obvious that the words meteor
and meteorology must be related, and yet they have entirely different
meanings: meteorology is the study of weather and other aspects of the
atmosphere, not the study of meteors. What then is the connection
between the two words?
We understand that lightning, streaking across the night sky, is a phenomenon
of the atmosphere. The ancients, seeing the differently-shaped steak of light
which we today call a meteor or shooting star, had no reason to
think it too was anything other than atmospheric. The English word meteor
meant 'an atmospheric phenomena of any type'.¹ Only in
the 1800s did it become generally understood that the streak of a shooting star
was something fundamentally different. With that, the word meteor became
confined to a shooting star, and new forms of the word emerged:
�.
meteoroid² – a stone in interplanetary space,
too small to be an asteroid
�.
meteor – the streak of light as that stone passes through the earth's
atmosphere; also, the stone itself during that passage
�.
meteorite – the same stone, resting on or in the earth
How did meteor come to mean 'an
atmospheric phenomenon' in the first place? It began with Greek aeirein 'to raise' and aoros 'lifted' (kin to the terms that gave us aorta
'that which is hung', air, and malaria 'bad air'). The Greeks
added the prefix meta- 'over; beyond' to form meteoros,
referring to a ship raised on the crest of a wave, but later taking this word
to mean 'suspended up in the air'.¹ Hence meteorology, the study of
atmospheric phenomena.
The verb form of the same word (meteôrizô 'to raise in the air') came to be used figuratively for 'to
raise hope' (Thucydides) or 'to inflate with pride' (Aristophanes, The
Birds). In the Bible the word is used precisely once and with an unclear
meaning, something like 'to be kept in suspense'.
(Luke xii. 29)
¹One spoke of four
types of meteors: aqueous meteors (rain, snow, hail); aerial meteors
(wind); luminous meteors (aurora, rainbow); and igneous or fiery
meteors (lightning; shooting star)
²Coined 1865 by Hubert Anson Newton of Yale: "The term meteoroid will be
used to designate such a body before it enters the earth’s atmosphere." Amer. J. of Science (apparently at 39:198, but possibly at
37:377-389 or 38:53-61). AHD calls him 'Huburt',
but is mistaken.
Disclaimer: I rely
on secondary sources; certain details conflict or appear in only one source. I
have not been able to trace original texts, nor do I speak Greek.
cosmos – the universe, the world, seen as a well-ordered whole
cosmology – a account (whether scientific, philosophic or mythic) of the
creation of the universe
The root is Greek kosmos "orderly
arrangement". in Homer, kosmeo
is the act of marshaling troops.
The same sense of kosmos gives us microcosm,
macrocosm, cosmopolitan, and obviously cosmonaut. Less
obviously, it is the base of cosmetic: Greek kosmetikos
"skilled in adornment," > kosmein
"to arrange, adorn," > kosmos
"order."