“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.”
Sunday, August 31, 2008
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.
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.
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