Archives for January 2006

Epithets

2006/01/16 By Rob 1 Comment

A few thoughts on the Epitheton Ornans, or ornamental epithet. This is more than a nickname, but a formalized word or phrase associated with a person. Classical epic poetry makes heavy use of this rhetorical device. For example, in Homer Achilles is often referred to as “podas okus” or “swift-footed”, whereas Agamemnon is often “anax andron” or “ruler of men”. There is internal evidence that these poems used a stock list of epithets of different lengths and stress paterns to fit into whatever metrical context was needed. In this way, the epithets could aid improvized oral performance, much as a jazz musician has a repetoire of riffs and chord progressions at his command which can be inserted to fill out a phrase.

The Romans allowed the honor of an “agnomen” for significant military victories. So Publius Cornelius Scipio, after defeating the Carthaginian Hannibal, became Scipio Africanus. Over the centuries, this trend escalated. So, by the 4th Century A.D., we have awe-inspiring names such as “Imperator Constantinus Maximus Augustus Persicus maximus, Germanicus maximus, Sarmaticus maximus, Britannicus maximus, Adiabenicus maximus, Medicus maximus, Gothicus maximus, Cappadocicus maximus, Arabicus maximus, Armenicus maximus, Dacicus maximus”. (Today We just call him “Constantine the Great” which is a great time-saver)

The trend continued. If you’ve seen an old British penny, from 100 years ago, you would read the legend “VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D”, short for “Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, Defender of the Faith”.

But the use of epithets has been on the wane for many years now, at least in the optimistic parts of the world. North Korea may have its “Dear Leader” and the late “Great Leader”, but we never even considered formally naming Eisenhower “The German Slayer”. We ended up with “Ike”. I guess we like our leaders to be mere men, and not gods. The Cult of Personality is difficult to maintain in a democracy with a free press. “No man is a hero to his butler”.
Sure, we have our little nicknames, “The Artist formally known as Prince”, “Iron” Mike Tyson or the “Scud Stud”, but that is done in jest, or in the entertainment world (which amounts to the same thing). We will never see “Scud Stud” carved in marble or engraved in brass.

But once a year, on this date (or the nearest Monday) I am reminded of the most prominent example of epitheton ornans in common use today. I refer to the ubiquitous use of the phrase “Slain Civil Rights Leader”. The fact that I do not need to name the owner of this epithet demonstrates its currency. A search of Google News shows almost 1,500 uses of this phrase in recent press clips. This epithet is so tightly associated with him that can be used as a substitue for his name, much as a medieval scholar could speak of “the Philosopher” to refer to Aristotle without ambiguity.

I’m trying to think of any other prominent examples of such epithets in common use today. I can’t think of any. Can you?

One wonders how long this epithet will remain? Will it outlast the generation that heard his message and headed his Dream? We can hope so. But I do note that in the generation after the assasinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinnley, all three were popularly acclaimed with the epithet “our martyred president”. But a search of Google News shows zero hits for “martyred president”, though there are 271 hits for “President Lincoln”.

Ptolemy IV, Philopator

2006/01/15 By Rob 2 Comments

photograph of coin, obverse and reverse — Coin of Ptolemy IV, Philopator

The word is “deaccession”, a fancy way of saying a museum is selling off a portion of its collection. This can happen for many reasons. For example, the museum may have received a bequest that was outside the parameters of its collection, it may have acquired items in the past that are now outside of the museum’s mission, or it may sell off some lesser works in order to raise funds to acquire a more significant piece of art. In any case, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts deaccessioned a number of ancient coins, one of which I was able to acquire, and which you see above. A close up view is here.

The obverse of this coin features a bust of Zeus/Ammon facing right. This was a composite god, conflating the chief Egyptian and Greek deities, under the Alexandrian practice of syncretism.

The reverse shows an Eagle grasping a thunder bolt, with a cornucopia under the rear wing. The legend reads ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ or “of Ptolemy, (the) King”.

You may notice the small central pit on each side of the coin. This is called the “centration dimple”, and is an artifact of the production method.

This particular coin type is a well-known type from Ptolemy IV, who reigned from 221 BC to 204 BC. The Ptolemies were the Greek/Macedonian rulers of Egypt in the period after the death of Alexander the Great and before the rise of Roman control. By all accounts Ptolemy IV was an ineffectual leader, more interested in orgiastic rituals than ruling the nation. His one notable military victory was at the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC where he defeated the troops of the Seleucid King Antiochus III. In this battle, Ptolemy supplemented his Greek army with native Egyptians trained as phalangites. This infantry advantage proved decisive, and Ptolemy won the day, preserving Syria and Palestine in Egyptian hands. This was a mixed blessing, since the Ptolemaic dynasty, foreign rulers of Egypt, had now to contend with the newly armed and trained Egyptians, as well as external threats.

The reign of Ptolemy IV, including the Battle of Raphia, as seen from the perspective of an Egyptian Jew, is told in 3 Maccabees, a book canonical to the Bibles of Eastern Orthodox churches, though apocryphal to others.

One last close look at the coin. Notice the “Ε” between the eagle’s legs? This the “regnal date”, giving the year according to the year of the rules reign. Epsilon (Ε) was the 5th letter in the Greek alphabet. This would this correspond to 217BC, the year of the Battle of Raphia. So, a nice piece of history.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells

2006/01/09 By Rob 512 Comments

I’ve been reading Games and Songs of American Children by William Wells Newell, a Dover reprint of the 1903 edition. I find it fascinating how games are transmitted from generation to generation, games like “Tag”, “Button button who has the button?”, “The church and the steeple” or “Odd or even?” These games are not learned from teachers in a school, or read in a book, or typically even taught from parents. For the most part they are transmitted from child to child, from an older sibling, or a peer, through the most casual pathways. Games like this have spread across the country and beyond without any overt effort. In a way, it is like language.

So, that made me think about the “classic” children’s Christmas parody of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. I assume there is no part of this country where these words are not known to every child. But it exists in no songbook. Who first sang these words, and when and where was it done? How fast did it travel? I think if a sufficient survey was done of adults of various ages, as to when and where they recall first hearing these lyrics, one could reconstruct the migration of this bit of modern folklore. Those who heard it earliest would have heard it closer to its source.

It would help my little research if any old-timers (say over 40 years old) left a comment indicating what version you heard first, where you heard it (town and state) and approximately what year you heard it. I’d like to figure out what the original version truly was, and where it came from and how fast it spread.

There are several variants of this song. The one I grew up with was:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg.
The Batmobile lost a wheel
and the Joker got away (Hey!)

Other commonly reported versions include:

Shotgun shells, Santa smells,
Rudolf ran away,
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a beat-up Chevrolet!

Jingle bells, shotgun shells,
Santa Claus is dead,
Rudolf got a .22
and shot him in the head.

Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells,
BB’s in the air.
Oh, what fun it is to ride
in Santa’s underwear!”

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg,
The Batmobile lost a wheel,
and the Joker joined ballet , Hey!

Check the comments for other variations. Some have alternate lyrics to the verse as well as the chorus.

Also, if you are interesting in crazy Christmas music, then here are two CD’s, filled with zany holiday classics, for your consideration:

12 December 2015 Update

Nine years after I wrote this post I was prompted by Robert Evans over at Cracked to offer updated thoughts on the question of the origins of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.” We both went through the comments on this post, correlated the dates and places, and I then did further research in newspaper archives to try to locate the earliest printed occurrence of these lines. What we found out might surprise you. More over at The Secret True History of “Jingle Bells Batman Smells.”

The Most Dangerous Idea

2006/01/05 By Rob Leave a Comment

The Edge Foundation’s 2006 question is framed as:

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?
The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

You can read the answers from 120 luminaries from many disciplines here. Many of respondents fled to the polar banalities of atheism, solipsism or pantheism, and there is little here that is really dangerous, subversive, or would even be unseemly at Unitarian prayer breakfast.

But read and judge for yourself. And think of what your most dangerous idea is. I’ll share mine.

The last few years have seen great advances in genetics, the decoding of the human genome, the discovery of gene thearapies, etc. The prospects of curing genetic diseases by formulating designer drugs is no longer the stuff of science fiction. That some diseases are associated with certain ethnic or racial groups is also well-established. For example, Ashkenazic Jews have a greater probability of being born with Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, or Tay-Sachs diseases. Men on the Caribbean island of Tobago have a 3-fold increase in the likelihood of getting prostate cancer due to an shared genetic mutation. Cystic fibrosis is more common among Northern Europeans. This is not to say that race or ethnicity is a genetic determination, but that certain generic mutations associated with certain diseases are more prevalent among certain sub-populations, and these sub-populations often break along racial and ethnic lines.

For a hundred bucks or so, I can take a mail-order test in the privacy of my home to see if I have Native American ancestry, African ancestry or Jewish ancestry, including whether I have the Cohanim gene.

Think of the implications of this. We can identify specific genetic markers that can be used to distinguish members of various human sub-populations. But this ability can be used for good or bad. Put it altogether and think evil. No, even more evil than that. Think Ultimate Evil. Unleash the demons of biological warfare. What in principle prevents one from creating a biological organism which targets a specific human sub-population based on their genetics? For example, a targeted virus which would attack everyone of European ancestry, but would have no effect on the Chinese? The genocidal implications of this are enormous.

Churchill spoke of the danger of losing WWII and how we could “sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” Certainly there is no shortage of ways to destroy the entire world with germs, with bombs, with climate changes, with microscopic blackholes, etc. Our inability to prevent such destructions proves that Man is foolish. But our ability to destroy a fraction of our word, in a clinically targetted, racially motivated way — that may prove that Man is Evil, and that is my most dangerous idea.