Orwellian

Fewer eponyms have made a bigger career than Orwellian. Extremely popular during the cold war, it was widely used by correspondents reporting on the gritty realism of the Soviet Union. The word took its name from George Orwell (1903-1950), an English writer and journalist, who criticized a socialist totalitarianism in his monumental book entitled 1984.

Originally published in 1949, the novel depicted a futuristic world of Oceania, where the omnipresent Big Brother controls every move of his citizens and the thought police “vaporizes” anyone who dares to rebel, even in his mind.

The book sold well and almost immediately the adjective Orwellian became synonymous to totalitarian. Mary McCarthy, an American writer and critic, is reported to have first used the word in one of her works in 1950. Soon it was noticed by newspapermen who began to include it in most of their reports from the Soviet Union and other countries where freedom and democracy were banned. Time described Isaac Babel, a Russian writer expelled from the USSR, as “an Orwellian unperson.” The same magazine also called Fidel Castro's continuous appearance on TV “an Orwellian marathon.”

Throughout the years, the eponym assumed different meanings. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, journalists used Orwellian more often in situations that involved less strict control, for example at work or school. The adjective also earned a satirical notion. Leonard Sloane of the New York Times entitled his 1992 article about electronic badges registering employees' movements, “Orwellian Dream Come True: A Badge That Pinpoints You.”

The decade of the 1990s was dubbed the decade of peace as totalitarianisms fell apart one after another. For a while it seemed that Orwellian would soon disappear from the popular vocabulary as democracy was spreading across the world. But the tragic events of September 11, 2001, have made many countries introduce restrictive laws that, for some, equaled undemocratic solutions. “The Senate may be moving towards passage of the Orwellian Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevent Act of 2007,” warned the Global Research website in May of 2008. A year earlier, BBC quoted a senior police officer from London who feared that “the spread of [city's] cameras is leading to an Orwellian situation.”

Although in his books – Animal Farm and 1984 – Orwell presented himself as an ardent critic of any totalitarianism, his personal opinion was more ambiguous. “I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler,” wrote Orwell in 1940. “The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him.”

Nicotine

Bad as it is, smoking is still widely popular among people of all ages and nationalities. Although more and more smokers give up this nasty habit, undaunted millions remain faithful to Oscar Wilde's words that “a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.” All this fuss is about one substance: nicotine.

One man, Jean Nicot (1530-1600) is solely responsible for millions of nicotine victims. This French diplomat discovered tobacco in Portugal while negotiating a marriage between a six-year-old French princess and a Portuguese prince one year her junior. As cigarettes were unknown in Europe (unlike in South America), Nicot and other fashionable aristocrats snuffed tobacco powder rather than smoke it. The habit quickly caught on in France and from there moved rapidly east and south, reaching the frontiers of Russia and Turkey.

Because Jean Nicot popularized tobacco in Europe, the curious plant earned his name. Its Latin form – herba nicotiana – was coined circa 1600, and could be translated as Nicot's herb. Now by “Nicotiana” we mean “any of various flowering annual or perennial herbs of the genus Nicotiana, native to the Americas and including the tobacco plant and ornamental species with fragrant flowers” (the American Heritage Dictionary Fourth Edition). It is worth mentioning that the word “tobacco” dates back to 1588 and is of Indian origin.

On the other hand, the word “nicotine” made its way to the English language only in 1819. To quote the same source, nicotine is “a colorless, poisonous alkaloid, derived from the tobacco plant and used as insecticide. It is the substance in tobacco to which smokers can become addicted.” A pair of German chemists, Posselt and Reimann, who first isolated nicotine in 1828, gave it a less appealing name – C10H14N2 .

Why is nicotine so dangerous? “Nicotine in high doses acts as an effective nerve poison and can have a number of potentially harmful side effects,” writes Wise Geek, a website which provides “clear answers for common questions.” In other words, the substance works like a drug that enslaves people who, in order to satisfy their nicotine hunger, need it in bigger and bigger quantities. Moreover, nicotine – apart from cigarettes' other ingredients – increases the chance of developing cancer. The same applies to various nicotine patches and gums, advertised as safe alternatives to smoking.

Women are especially prone to nicotine addiction. In 2005, the New York Times published a scientific research that found female smokers less successful “with nicotine replacement therapy and are more affected by 'cues' that set off a desire to smoke.” If this does not sound convincing enough, many women will shiver at the thought that one of nicotine's effects is “to make women's brains work more like men's.”

It was never Jean Nicot's dream to go down in history as the name-bearer of an addictive drug. The French diplomat died 40 years after first snuffing tobacco and there is little prove that his habit rendered his health. But contemporary statistics do not lie: nicotine claims hundreds of thousands of people every year all over the world.

Machiavellian

Politics is a dirty world. Lies and machinations belong to the arsenal of every ambitious statesman who should stop at nothing to gain power. Politicians come and go, but this brutal vision of state affairs painted by Niccolo Machiavelli has remained constant.

For Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), politics was his whole life. Born to a noble Florentine family, Machiavelli began his public service as a diplomat in 1498 only to become a defense minister eight years later. Soon his name opened many doors to Europe's royal courts; among his acquaintances were kings, emperors, and popes. Machiavelli's brilliant career ended abruptly in 1512, when Florence turned from a republic into an authoritarian state. He withdrew to his country estate where he devoted his time to writing treatises that completely changed the way people perceived politics.

His most famous work, The Prince, was published in 1532. In it, Machiavelli advised future statesmen to abandon any moral scruples as they could only block their ascension to power. Instead, a good politician should be ready to employ every strategy – no matter how wicked and vicious – to achieve his goals. No one judges the winners, said Machiavelli. Although to admit to reading Machiavelli is a serious faux pas in the contemporary world of politics, his works continuously remain bestsellers.

The coinage of the adjective “Machiavellian” is dated to the year 1568. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word appeared even before The Prince and other major works were translated into English. The explanation is simple: Machiavelli became famous when France and the Catholic Church publicly chastised his philosophy and indexed his books. Defined as “cunning, deceitful, unscrupulous,” the eponym made a career of its own in the English world where there was no better encouragement than France's disapproval.

Just like in the 16th century, also now the eponym has negative connotations. Writing on George H.W. Bush's tenure as a US envoy to China, Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post reported on the future president's uneasiness about then National Security Adviser Henry “Kissinger's secretive and Machiavellian ways.” The same tones strike novelist James Hawes who in his My Little Armalite complains about “Machiavellian Presidents who called themselves socialists but had collaborated with the Nazis.”

But “Machiavellian” is by no means restricted to politicians. Recent examples show that writers often use it to denounce people who play dirty or like secrecy. The latter appears to be the reason why a New York Times journalist wrote this line about Cardinal Spellman: “His polar personalities shifted from guileless to Machiavellian.” This rather gloomy picture is supported by John Cooney, the cardinal's biographer, who says: “Spellman held his tongue in Rome, where it would be unwise to be indiscreet about the new pope [John XXIII]. But when he returned home, the Cardinal announced his disdain.”

In the words of columnist Irving Kristol, Niccolo Machiavelli was “one of the most wicked men who ever lived.” But whatever his faults, Machiavelli only publicized what everyone knew: that politics is a game with no rules.

Leviathan

People are bad by nature, wrote Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). If they had their way, they would kill one another until the only living things on the planet were animals and plants. To prevent “a war of all against all,” argued the English philosopher, people must be ruled by a strong sovereign – Leviathan.

Leviathan was a Biblical sea creature of gargantuan size that could only be defeated by God himself. For Hobbes, however, the monster symbolized an absolute ruler who stood at the apex of a commonwealth, established by people to save them from anarchy. Published in 1651, Leviathan revolutionized western philosophy, laying foundations for the development of modern states. The book influenced such figures as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith, among others.

The noun “leviathan” had been present in the English Language long before the publication of Thomas Hobbes's famous book. The word made its debut in the late fourteenth century and its original sense, derived from the Bible, was used to describe any large sea creature. “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?” asked Job in the Old Testament.

Within the years, “leviathan” became a synonym of a large ship and boat. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives this example: “He said oil slicks from the stricken leviathan still sometimes marred the bay.” In the same fashion, Yachting&Boating World, a London-based magazine, reported in 2007 that “another big carbon leviathan is being built for next year's races.”

If we are to believe British newspapers, the present usage of “leviathan” is even more liberal. Commenting on affluent European basketball clubs fighting for new talents, the Guardian concluded: “Europe's leviathans are flexing their financial muscle, and it will be the performers who benefit most.” The same daily also criticized the state bureaucracy for “jeopardizing all the government's grandiose schemes from ID cards to the leviathan health service computer.”

The popularity of Hobbes's masterpiece extended the meaning of “leviathan.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, capitalized “Leviathan” can be applied to “the political state” or “a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy.” Ryan Sager of Time cited one political writer as complaining that “the Republican Party has abandoned all pretense of being the party of small government and has instead embraced the Leviathan state – leaving the Democrats, the usual champions of the Leviathan state, in something of a bind.”

In all its meanings, the word “leviathan” describes large forms, either physical or imaginative. It was grandiosity of this eponym that made the US Navy rename the captured German cruiser and the world's largest ship, SS Vaterland, into SS Leviathan in 1917. It bordered on a paradox that Leviathan – Hobbes's ideal ruler – played a significant role in a “war of all against all,” also known as World War I.

Kafkaesque

You wake up one morning and everything seems to be wrong. You understand nothing from what is happening around you and people you thought you knew, now behave in a strange way. Welcome to the Kafkaesque world where things are never what they used to be.

The biography of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) may explain the surrealism of his stories. Born in Czech Prague to a German-speaking Jewish family, Kafka could feel like a pariah of his times, misunderstood by his relatives and friends alike. The monotony of office work, as well as various failures in personal life, turned him into a withdrawn man who found seclusion in literary fiction. His novels – the Trial and the Castle, among others – depict fantastical realms where bureaucracy controls every sphere of life and people are sentenced for uncommitted crimes.

Unfortunately for Kafka, his works were discovered long after his death. The writer himself seemed to doubt his talent as, while bedridden by tuberculosis, asked his close friends to destroy whatever he had produced. They did not obey and Kafka's novels and stories hit bookstores. The German originals were soon followed by English translations, which popularized Kafka and his perception of the human nature. In 1946, the word “Kafkaesque” entered the English language.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. “Kafkaesque” is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger.” Another source adds that the word may relate to “a nightmarish complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.” Examples provided by both dictionaries include: “the kafkaesque terror of the endless interrogations,” and “Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays.” It must be noted that the capitalized version of the eponym is now more popular.

A better definition of the word provides Frederick R. Karl, a biographer of Franz Kafka. “What's Kafkaesque,” said Karl in an interview given to the New York Times in 1991, “is when you enter a surreal world in which all your control patterns, all your plans, the whole way in which you have configured your own behavior, begins to fall to pieces, when you find yourself against a force that does not lend itself to the way you perceive the world.”

The paradox of the Kafkaesque world is that, despite realizing the fruitfulness of our actions, we still endeavor to find our way out. Josef K., the main character of the Trial, not even once does doubt that his fate has been already sealed, yet he tries to convince the soulless bureaucracy about his innocence. “For of course the fact of being accused,” says the Trial's narrator, “makes no alternation in a man's appearance that is immediately obvious.” At the end, Josef K. dies “like a dog.”

The word “Kafkaesque” has recently been making a brilliant career in (surprise, surprise) law jargon. The first utterance of the eponym in an American courtroom was registered in the early 1970s and, according to the New York Times, every next decade has brought over 100 other instances.

Jacuzzi

It is hard to imagine a decent bathroom without a jacuzzi. Within only four decades, it has become a universal symbol of luxury and high social position. Although the bathtub with bubbles was not unknown for the ancient Romans, it resurfaced in the modern world as the invention of American Roy Jacuzzi.

Believe it or not, the construction of the jacuzzi took its inspiration from airplane's propellers. However inconceivable it may sound, the Jacuzzi brothers, who emigrated to the United States from Italy in the early 1900s, began their American dream as an aircraft company. It wasn't until 1968 that Roy Jacuzzi – the third generation family member – constructed the first integrated whirlpool bath. He called his creation the “Roman,” in memory of the original inventors. But “jacuzzi” sounded much better and soon replaced the ancient name.

What is so special about Roy's bathtub? “The key to the Roman was the incorporation of innovative therapy jets into the sides of the bath tub,” writes the company's website. “His patented jets produced a 50/50 air to water ratio providing an experience like none before. The same air to water ratio we use today to provide a spa experience you won't find anywhere else.” The assembly plant in California produces around 300 Jacuzzis every day, which are later sold all over the world.

Jacuzzi is now a trademark, which the Associated Press Stylebook advises to substitute with whirlpool bath or whirlpool spa. But in many instances the eponym serves as the symbol of wealth rather than a mere bathtub with bubbles. A journalist of the New York Times found herself out of breath in one of Las Vegas hotels, when she was confronted with “a raised Jacuzzi, surrounded by a gold-tipped iron balcony in the living room (...) embedded in a marble platform that, presumably like the faces of its happy occupants, lights up at night.”

Everything changes, so do people's habits. With decreasing water resources and, in consequence, rising bills, the jacuzzi seems like a luxury that only the elite can now afford. But for clever Roy Jacuzzi no obstacle is too formidable. “We recognize there are a lot of people who simply prefer showers,” he told the New York Times in 1991, presenting his latest invention – J-Dream. For mere $9,600, J-Dream offers “16 multilevel hydrotherapy jets, as well as three adjustable shower heads, a cascading waterfall and a steambath with a built-in seat.”

Americans fell in love with their Jacuzzis. The nation has traveled a long way since its formation when Pennsylvania and some other states considered banning tubbing as very unhealthy. The White House earned its first bathtub only in 1851.

Iris

The rainbow has fascinated people since forever. This atmospheric phenomenon is present in almost every culture: one needs only to remember the Wizard of Oz, or Irish legends about a pot of gold behind the rainbow. But no one could talk about the rainbow as beautifully as the ancient Greeks who called it Iris.

According to Greek mythology, Iris was a goddess-messenger. The daughter of sea deities, she performed the role of a mediator between the heavens and earth as both sides used her help to communicate with each other. Few creatures could rival Iris in speed; thus the Greeks believed the rainbow was a smudge left by the hurrying goddess who wasted no time going between gods and mortals.

“Iris” traveled to the English language also very fast. Among the first recorded instances is a sentence from 1387 where the eponym stood for “prismatic rock crystal.” At around the same time, it began to be used in reference to certain species of colorful flowering plants, as well as to name a part of the eye (iris of the eye). On the other hand, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary dates the word “rainbow” (Gothic rign for rain and boga for bow) back to as early as the 12th century.

Although the same dictionary lists four different meanings of the eponym, there is little doubt as to which one is now the most popular. The iris flower, which stretches to some 300 species, grows in both cold and warm climates, which can explain why everyone from India to Norway has no problems in naming it correctly. In almost all languages, including French, German, Polish, and Hungarian, the multicolored flower is known as “iris.”

It is also the rainbowlike multitude of colors that earned the surrounding of the pupil of the eye this mythological name. “The iris is a delicate, loosely meshed mat of tiny blood vessels, nerves, muscles and flimsy connective tissue,” explained Time Magazine in 1932. “A circular system of muscles around the pupil opening acts as a draw string to decrease the size of the pupil in bright light.” This sensitive mechanism creates a bluish area, which after a closer examination, reveals its full colors.

Crafty Englishmen has transformed the noun form into a verb. In the early 19th century, some writers began to use “to iris” when meaning “to make iridescent.” Iridescent, on the other hand, is another eponym deriving from goddess Iris. Unsurprisingly it is defined as “having or showing shifting changes in color or an interplay of rainbowlike color, as when seen from different angles.” Reversing its meaning, a Time journalist commented on young movie stars in 1924: “[they] rise before the camera, harden into the semblance of cabaret girls, then iris out.”

Even those who reject the divine origin of the rainbow, must admit that it is one of the most beautiful creations of the world. Whether it is the smudge following Iris or the road to ineffable treasures or just an atmospheric spectacle, the rainbow adds the color to our black-and-white lives.

Hitlerism

The reign of Adolf Hitler belongs to the darkest periods in the history of Germany. He alone is responsible for the death of millions of people all over Europe and elsewhere. It comes with little surprise that his name now symbolizes barbarism.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was not a man of many talents. He failed as a painter. Even in the army he rose only to the rank of corporal. But like no one else, Hitler could guess the mood of his countrymen who, after the debacle of 1918, felt Europe had betrayed them. In 1933, in a democratic election, his party garnered the largest number of votes. The terror and world war that ensued were of his own making but the fact remains that until the last months of his life, Hitler ruled the hearts and minds of millions of Germans.

Long before Hitler assumed power in Germany, “Hitlerism” became an established word. As early as in 1930, a Time correspondent quoted a British nationalist as saying: “The force of Youth at work in Europe is called Fascism in Italy and Hitlerism in Germany!” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides this definition of the eponym, repeated by other sources as well: “The fascist program, ideas, and methods of Hitler and the Nazis.”

At the roots of Hitlerism lay the fears and animosities that had lingered among Germans for years. “Hitlerism fed and grew fat on defeated Germany's monumental inferiority complex,” wrote Time Magazine in 1933, attacking “Handsome Adolf” for his “antiSemitism and ranting speeches.” Because Nazism had replaced religion in Germany, Christians believed that “it is the prime concern of government to defeat Hitler, but it is the business of the church to help defeat Hitlerism,” as Rev. Fred Robert Tiffany told the New York Times in August 1944.

Despite the fall of Adolf Hitler in May 1945, “Hitlerism” has remained present in the English language. Due to its negative connotations, the eponym has been widely used to denounce political opponents as authoritarian or chauvinistic. During the 1964 Presidential Campaign, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater was attacked by Rev. Martin Luther King who said that “we can see dangerous signs of Hitlerism in the Goldwater campaign.” Even more controversial was the writer Richard Bernstein, a Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany, who compared Hitlerism to Zionism.

Adolf Hitler dominated the lives of his subjects. There was the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary organization grouping children and teenagers. There were millions of Hitlerites who deeply believed that their fuhrer would finally restore the country to its right place among world powers. Finally, there was Hitlerism, the one and only ideology acceptable in Nazi Germany.

Guillotine

“Off with her head!” cried the Queen of Hearts when she saw Alice interrupting her game of croquet. Luckily for the curious girl, the monarch was hardly ever listened to by her subjects. With the introduction of the guillotine, however, the command “off with their heads,” acquired a new meaning.

It borders on irony that Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) is now remembered for the murderous machine. A literature professor and medicine doctor, Guillotin lobbied for the abolishment of capital punishment in his native France. But when his efforts proved futile, he began to work on a more humane method of killing people, which at that time varied from hanging to burning to decapitating by axe. Far from designing it, Guillotin only proposed to build “a machine that beheads painlessly.”

The machine claimed its first victim in 1791, two years after Guillotin's proposal. The original name, “louisette” was quickly substituted with a catchier “guillotine,” additionally popularized by a famous song. In 1793, the entire world shivered at the invention when King Louis XVI and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, literally lost their heads in a public spectacle watched by hundreds of Parisians. Before the French Revolution slowed down, some 40,000 people followed their suit.

As soon as the heads of the royal family landed in a basket, the word “guillotine” entered the English language. It was probably brought to the British Isles by French refugees who crossed the Channel in thousands to keep their bodies in one piece. According to one dictionary, the first registered phrase with the eponym was written in 1973 and read: “At half past 12 the guillotine severed her head from the body.” One year later, the verb form of the eponym appeared.

The more heads were falling, the more fashionable the eponym became. With the guillotining of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794 ended the terror and mass executions of political enemies. The machine, however, was reactivated by the Nazis who are thought to have decapitated some 17,000 people between 1933 and 1945. This number is impressive, especially that, as Time Magazine reported in 1933, Herman Goering preferred “the medieval chopping block and headsman's axe” to the humane guillotine.

As capital punishment has been now abolished by most countries, the eponym has been used more often in its figurative sense. A Weekly Standard journalist commented on the tight presidential race within the Democratic Party between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, saying: “All this Hillary hype now merely cranks the guillotine blade higher and higher into the air should she lose Iowa.” Still, the word carries bloody connotations as this example clearly illustrates: “White House aides insist that [President Bush's criticizing then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] was intended neither to placate critics who wanted Rumsfeld's head nor to fuel demands for the guillotine.”

Fortunately for contemporary politicians, “off with their heads” does not mean their decapitation. It doesn't change the fact that they still lose their heads as often as during the darkest moments of the French Revolution.

Frisbee

You can see them in every park and on every beach. For over fifty years, no picnic has been successful without this piece of round plastic, which from a distance looks like an alien spaceship. After all, who could resist the joy offered by this ultimate invention of our civilization – Frisbee?

The story of the flying disc began in the late nineteenth century. The Frisbie Pie Company, established in 1871, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, served a number of baked delicacies, ranging from chocolate cookies to birthday cakes. But it was the company's pies that kept the enterprise going, especially when they became popular at nearby colleges. Crafty students quickly discovered that empty pie tins could easily be tossed and caught, and the sport was born.

The first official tossing was recorded around the year 1930. Although Yale alumni claimed they had been the inventors of what would be later known as Frisbee, this honor unquestionably belongs to the students of Middlebury College. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the history of the Frisbie family stretches even further into the past, to 1226, when English records mentioned a place in Leicestershire called Frisby on the Wreak.

Many years passed until the name Frisbee was officially introduced. Earlier attempts, varying from Whirlo-Way (1946) to Pipco Flyin-Saucer (1948) to Pluto Platter (1955), proved less successful than previously expected and Walter Morrison, who had patented the flying disc, sold the rights to Wham-O, the same company that stood behind the Hula Hoop craze. Wham-O refreshed the design of the disc and found a more catching name for it – Frisbee. (The original spelling was changed to avoid legal problems).

The Frisbee became an immediate success. “Last year they [Wham-O] hit their first jackpot with a lightweight plastic platter, the 'frisbee,'” wrote Time Magazine in 1958. The New York Times went as far as to proclaim that “Frisbee started on its way to become one of America's rare native sports.” In the 1960s, the disc – like ping-pong years later – helped warm up the East-West relations. A Time journalist reported in 1969 that during a conference of scientists from the two blocks, “an American scholar and a leading Soviet physicist were skimming a Frisbee at each other.”

The love for Frisbees is unconditional. On his dead bed, Ed Headrick, who gave the disc its present form, had only one wish: that his ashes be molded into an exclusive series of Frisbees. His family granted his request.

Epicure, Epicurean

Eat, drink, and have fun! This could be the motto of Epicurus and his disciples. If death is the final ending, claimed the Greek philosopher, there is no point in wasting our lives on religion that could only restrain us from being happy.

Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC) believed that the entire world was comprised of microscopic parts, which he called atoms. Unlike Aristotle and Socrates, Epicurus rejected anything that the human eye failed to see; therefore, the only moral code people should follow was their personal perception of good and evil. In other words, nothing could stop you from pursuing your happiness, even if it was frowned upon by others. Unsurprisingly, this apostle of materialism found little understanding among Christians who criticized him for popularizing unabashed consumption.

Even though Epicurus saw perfect harmony in asceticism rather than indulgence, it is the latter that is now widely associated with his name. The noun “epicure,” used to dub someone who either follows Epicurus's teachings or who “enjoys good food and drink,” entered the English language around the year 1380. Within the centuries, the word had acquired a more negative connotation. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that from the first half of the seventeenth century, the eponym began to describe “one who gives himself up to sensual pleasure, especially glutton, sybarite.”

Together with the noun form, came the adjective “epicurean.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary dates it back to 1586 and defines it as “relating to, or suited to an epicure,” that is, to someone who is “devoted to sensual pleasure.” How our perception of what is sensual pleasure has changed throughout the years, shows this New York Times dispatch from 1876: “An epicurean prisoner of state; green peas and cucumbers for a contumacious witness; the expensive habits of a member of the district real estate ring.”

Presently, writers reach for “epicurean” to criticize indulgent, even hedonistic, behavior. Bruce Crumley of Time Magazine reported from Paris that “the turmoil in the world economy is hitting the French where it hurts this epicurean nation hardest – on their dinner tables.” One of the best examples how far people may go to satisfy their urges is the Epicurean Masters of the World, an exclusive series of dinners. For roughly $25,000 per person, anyone can eat meals prepared by the best chefs and taste fine, and of course awfully expensive, wines.

If you have problems with choosing what is the best for you, why don't you ask an epicurean concierge? It is a person, usually working for five-star hotels, who has a great knowledge on the most exquisite and astronomically pricey food and drink. Being an epicure is not a cheap thing.


* For ages philosophers and theologists have been seeking an answer to the Epicurean Paradox (the Riddle of Epicurus). The paradox is the famous question that the Greek philosopher asked his opponents: “If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?” (quote from 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught) Christians have claimed that God has given people freedom and whatever evil is in this world, it comes from people themselves, not from God. But for epicures it is another prove that they have chosen the right track by neglecting moral scruples and indulging in their wants instead.

Dickensian

Hardly any history book depicts nineteenth-century England better than Charles Dickens's novels. Although his Oliver Twist or Little Dorrit are by no means fictional characters, thousands of impoverished workers and children from that period could easily identify with them.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) understood the plight of the English poor like hardly any other writer. Born into a struggling family of eight children, Dickens had to take up a job at the age of 12. Few expected that this shoeshiner would grow to be the most acclaimed chronicler of his times. He debuted in 1837 with Pickwick Papers, but it would be two more years until Oliver Twist, a touching story of an orphan fighting for life, was published and Dickens became a well-known novelist. When he died on June 9, 1870, the entire literary world mourned the great artist.

Because Dickens's novels, humorous as they are, present England as a country of ineffable poverty, his name now symbolizes those harsh conditions. The adjective “Dickensian” is, in the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, “reminiscent of the novels of Charles Dickens, especially in terms of the urban poverty that they portray.” Another source expands the definition to any “poverty, distress, and exploitation.”

Although children are not forced to work anymore – at least not in the developed world – “Dickensian” remains widely used. Reviewing Richard Rhodes's A Hole in the World, the New York Times wonders how the writer, orphaned in the early years, “survived this Dickensian upbringing.” In fact, Dickens and Rhodes could find many similarities in their biographies – both had to work to survive in their youth and both established themselves as unrivaled critics of their times.

Within the decades, however, the eponym has lost some of its original strength. Modern journalists use it more often not only to denote tough conditions of slums, but also to complain about less appalling problems. Christopher Dickey of Newsweek, for example, stated recently that “Flying today is a Dickensian affair: lines, cramped conditions and sharp divides between have and have-nots.” If crammed airports were Oliver Twist's only problems!

Nineteenth-century England was far from perfect. But even in this cruel reality, Charles Dickens always found a few individuals who miraculously saved unfortunate heroes. After all, Dickens wouldn't be himself if he hadn't given his books happy endings, and this too, is part of the Dickensian world.

Caesar

In snobbish Europe, a mere duke or king would not do. Great empires desired great titles for their sovereigns and what word would be better than Caesar, the name of the man who had once ruled the whole world?

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC) was predestined to achieve great things. According to the family legend, his predecessors were mythical heroes and gods, both supernaturally strong and intelligent. These two characteristics coalesced in Caesar who distinguished himself first as a military commander and later as a statesman, transforming the Roman Republic into an authoritarian empire. His rule stretched from the British Isles to North Africa, and who knows what other lands he would have conquered, had it not been for his envious friends who literally stabbed him in the back.

Even though Caesar became a despised figure during his reign, all subsequent Roman rulers titled themselves after his name. This tradition was later inherited by some European monarchs who built their own dominions on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Among them were Russian rulers – czars (tsars) – that believed it was their destination to turn Moscow into the third Rome, the second being Byzantium (now Constantinople) until it had fallen to the Turks in the 15th century.

The word czar (Slavic tsesari for Caesar) came to the English language in 1555. To quote the Oxford English Dictionary: “the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii, 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally.” The same source notes, however, that since the 19th century most English journalists and authors have been using the French form, “tsar.”

When in 1871 numerous German states formed one country, Prussian King Wilhelm I assumed the title kaiser. The word – like Slavic tsesari – derives from Caesar, which in Old High German was spelled as keisur. Long before Germany was unified, the crowned heads of the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) and its successor, Austria, titled themselves kaisers in memory of Roman emperors. However, it wasn't until Wilhelm II – dubbed Kaiser Bill by the British during World War I – that the word “kaiser” became popular in the English language.

As Wilhelm II was rather a controversial person, the word kaiser began to symbolize authoritarian, often erratic, individuals. In its 1923 report from Germany, Time rhetorically asked: “Does a Christ preach a creed of peace on earth, good will to men, some Kaiser will pervert his words into 'Gott mit Uns.' [God is with us].” Ten years later, Adolf Hitler was elected the chancellor and fuhrer.

The times of kaisers, tsars, and emperors are fortunately gone. The last one, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, died in a military coup in 1974, and few cried after him. What he and others hardly ever realized was that deeds, not titles, guarantee immortality.

Hobson's Choice

“To be or not to be?” wondered Hamlet. With his friends conspiring against him and the enemy at the doorstep of Denmark, the desperate prince could either face the difficult situation or run away. Take it or leave it, as Thomas Hobson (1544-1631) would say.

For many years Thomas Hobson served the British king as a mail carrier, operating between London and Cambridge. As the distance between the two cities was considerable, Hobson had at his disposal several horses, which he often lent to the students and faculty of the famous university. But when he realized that his clients only borrowed the few best horses, leaving the remaining forever unused in the stable, he quickly changed the rules. From then on anyone could either take the horse next in line or go on foot.

Facing Hobson's choice, his customers had little room for maneuver. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the eponym quite bluntly as “an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative; the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives.” It became fairly popular in the second half of the seventeenth century due to John Milton's poems. “Here lieth one who did most truly prove, that he could never die while he could move,” began the famous Hobson Epitaph.

“A Hobson's Choice for the New Year,” announced the New York Times in one of the first issues of 1964. It forecast that the Kennedy administration would soon have to decide whether “the United States [should] deliberately aid officer corps in underdeveloped countries for political rather than military purposes.” A different, but no less pessimistic, view the daily gave its younger readers: “People who are unhappy about their marriage also have a Hobson's choice,” a children column explained the idea of divorce.

Tough choices also await foreigners. “It appears Israeli voters have been left with a kind of Hobson's choice, in which they're going to have to vote against the candidate they like least or fear most,” reported Time days before a parliamentary election in Israel. What worried Israelis paled in comparison with the crisis in Haiti. In an article about Haitians who fled their homes when a civil war broke out, Christ Black of Boston Globe wrote that “refugees themselves gave the impression that leaving was a Hobson's choice, considering the near-impossibility of receiving any help.”

Despite the solid definition, many writers abuse the usage of “Hobson's choice.” Wikipedia complains that the eponym “is often misused not to mean a false illusion of a choice, but simply a choice between two undesirable options.” In most cases, says the free encyclopedia, “dilemma” or “alternative” would be more appropriate. Perhaps, the closest to the original meaning of “Hobson's choice” was one restaurant in Cambridge that offered a choice between the dish of the day and an empty stomach. Unsurprisingly, the place was named “Hobson's Choice.”

Alzheimer's Disease

What was his name? Where did I put the keys? Who am I? If these and similar questions often trouble you, it could mean that either you are awfully absent-minded or, worse, suffer of Alzheimer's disease.

Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) was a German psychiatrist who spent his adult life practicing in asylums. He became particularly interested in one of his patients, Auguste Deter, a 51-year-old woman with serious memory problems. Deter could not remember her name and often behaved like a child lost in a foreign land. When she died, Alzheimer had her brain tested. The research helped him understand that it was the accumulation of certain proteins in the brain that caused dementia.

Alzheimer published his theses in 1906 and soon his name was widely associated with the disease. But according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it wasn't until 1912 that English speakers learned about the German psychiatrist due to S.C. Fuller's essay in Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, entitled “Alzheimer's Disease.” The same source indicates, however, that the name broke to the mainstream only in the 1970s.

Although it's been over a century since Alois Alzheimer informed the public about his findings, the disease still baffles scientists. “A definite test to diagnose Alzheimer's disease, even in patients showing signs of dementia, has not yet been developed,” informs the New York Times. Time magazine, on the other hand, warned in August of 2008 that among other things, “the chemicals in antiperspirants could (...) contribute to problems like Alzheimer's disease or cancer.”

Alzheimer's disease spares no one, even the most powerful, including American presidents. Ronald Reagan told the world about his dementia problems six years after leaving the White House, but some journalists and scientists thought the Gipper had developed the disease while still being the commander-in-chief. “It is highly likely that he [Reagan] had Alzheimer's disease while in office. It is surprising how well a family member, or White House staff, can cover for someone with early dementia,” wrote Dr. Bruce Leff to the New York Times.

The Alzheimer's Association, a non-governmental health organization, estimates that in the United States alone there are five million people living with Alzheimer's disease. This number worldwide is even more staggering: 24 million people. Alois Alzheimer made a great leap by discovering the illness. It is up to his successors to find the cure.