{"id":48315,"date":"2020-08-14T12:38:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T11:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=48315"},"modified":"2020-08-21T21:39:38","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T20:39:38","slug":"jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-clowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/08\/14\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-clowns\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Clowns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most unusual entry from among the nearly 600 that were added to the <\/span>Oxford English Dictionary<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>OED<\/span><\/i>) in March of this year was coulrophobia, defined in the dictionary as \u201cExtreme or irrational fear of clowns\u201d. However, fears do not have to be irrational. The <\/span>OED <\/span><\/i>lists over 100 different types of phobias, only 20 of which are defined as being irrational (Table 1); nine of them are about fear of infections.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly possible to be justifiably afraid of clowns, conditioned as we have been by the many sinister clowns portrayed in books and the <\/span>movies<\/span><\/a>. Anyone who has seen It<\/em>, the movie based on Stephen King\u2019s grotesquely long novel of the same name, and has had nightmares about its eponymous clown-like paedophage, will understand this.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the uncommon conjunction of the <\/span>l<\/span><\/i> and the <\/span>r<\/span><\/i> that makes \u201ccoulrophobia\u201d seem unusual. The two letters are liquid consonants and are often <\/span>etymologically interchangeable<\/span><\/a>; consider, for example, milagro, the Spanish word for a miracle, pilgrim, from the Latin word peregrinus, and the pronunciation of the word colonel. However, the –<\/span>lr<\/span><\/i>– combination is unusual. Other instances include already, chivalry, devilry, revelry, and wassailry, bullroarer, bulrush, malrotation, and railroad, and a few proper names, such as Kilroy, Milroy, Mulready, and Nesselrode. As these examples imply, the conjunction arises only when two different elements are concatenated; no basic IndoEuropean linguistic roots include the combination.<\/span><\/p>\n

So where does \u201ccoulrophobia\u201d come from? Well, the <\/span>OED<\/span><\/i> frankly admits that it doesn\u2019t know. It floats the suggestion, which it confesses is unlikely, that it\u2019s from a Byzantine Greek word <\/span>\u03ba\u03c9\u03bb\u03bf\u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2, a stilt-walker, from Hellenistic <\/span>Greek, \u03ba\u03c9\u03bb\u03cc\u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, a stilt, in turn from \u03ba\u1ff6\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd, a limb, + \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, a base or pedestal,.<\/span><\/p>\n

Might it come from an old French word for a clown, coqueluchier, from classical Latin cucullus, the hood of a cloak? The dictionary doesn\u2019t even consider it. In modern French, incidentally, coqueluche means an infectious disease, typically whooping cough.<\/span><\/p>\n

A metathetical origin is possible, but none seems likely; colure, for example, \u201ceach of two great circles which intersect each other at right angles at the poles, and divide the equinoctial and the ecliptic into four equal parts\u201d, is from \u03ba\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, dock-tailed or truncated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps \u201ccoulrophobia\u201d was just a clownish misprint. Or a clownish invention.<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201cclown\u201d entered the English language in the middle of the 16<\/span>th<\/span> century. It came from Scandinavian, Dutch, and German words meaning a block of wood, which gave rise to words such as clod, clog, and clot. In Yiddish a klutz is a fool or a clumsy person. In English, \u201cclown\u201d originally meant a countryman or rustic, implying ignorance or rude manners. Nine clowns appear in Shakespeare\u2019s first folio. They are typically peasants, as in <\/span>All\u2019s Well That Ends Well<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Titus Andronicus<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Measure for Measure<\/span><\/i>. In some cases they are domestic servants, as in <\/span>Othello<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/span><\/i>. The clown in <\/span>Antony and Cleopatra<\/span><\/i> adds tension to the play when, having brought an asp to Cleopatra, he talks to her nonstop, leaving only when she has bid him farewell four times. Some clowns are there for light relief. The two clowns in <\/span>Hamlet<\/span><\/i>, for example, often reduced in performance to just one, are wisecracking gravediggers. The best known of Shakespeare\u2019s clowns, Feste in <\/span>Twelfth Night<\/span><\/i>, is called Clown in the stage directions but is addressed by others as \u201cFool\u201d. His responses are \u201cBetter a witty fool than a foolish wit\u201d and \u201cCucullus non facit monachum [a cowl doesn\u2019t make a monk]; that\u2019s as much to say, as I wear not motley in my brain.\u201d Cucullus again.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the start of the 17<\/span>th<\/span> century \u201cclown\u201d had come to mean a fool or jester on stage or at court or in grand dwellings. A century later it became a character in a pantomime or circus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several ancient Greek words meaning a clown might be added to \u201cphobia\u201d (Table 2). Of these alternatives I prefer \u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03bd\u03b9\u03c9\u03bd, reminiscent as it is of \u201czany\u201d, although the etymologies are different. \u201cZany\u201d comes from the Italian, zanni or zani, a name given to servants who act as clowns in the Commedia dell’ Arte, including Harlequin, Pulcinella, and Scaramuccia (Figure). \u201cZanni\u201d is thought to have been a corruption of the name Gianni, and not connected to the Greek or Latin words. So fear of clowns might be called zaniphobia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A masked Zanni (<\/span>Wikimedia Creative Commons<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeffrey Aronson<\/strong>\u00a0is a clinical pharmacologist, working in the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is also president emeritus of the British Pharmacological Society.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Competing interests:<\/strong> None declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

This week’s interesting integer: 287<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>Kynea numbers<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> Kynea numbers have the form (2k<\/sup> + 1)2<\/sup> \u2013 2 or 4k<\/sup> + 2k+1<\/sup> \u20131; in other words, they are the sum of the kth<\/sup> power of four plus the (k+1)th<\/sup> Mersenne number<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> The first four Kynea numbers, corresponding to k = 0, 1, 2, or 3, are 2, 7, 23, and 79, which are all primes.<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> The fifth Kynea number, with k = 4, is 287, which is thus the first composite Kynea number.<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> The sixth Kynea number is 1087, and so 287 is the only three-digit Kynea number.<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> The binary representations of Kynea numbers are uniform; they all start with a one, are followed by (k\u20131) zeros and then (k+1) ones; so 287 in binary is 100011111.<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> Kynea numbers were studied by Cletus Emmanuel who named them after a baby girl.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 <\/strong><\/b>287 is the sum of different strings of integers:<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> three consecutive primes: 89 + 97 + 101<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> five consecutive primes: 47 + 53 + 59 + 61 + 67<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> nine consecutive primes: 17 + 19 + 23 + 29 + 31 + 37 + 41 + 43 + 47<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> seven consecutive odd numbers: 35 + 37 + 39 + 41 + 43 + 45 + 47<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> five consecutive odd numbers: 53 + 55 + 57 + 59 + 61<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> 15 consecutive odd numbers: 5 + 7 + 9 + 11 + 13 + 15 + 17 + 19 + 21 + 23 + 25 + 27 + 29 + 31 + 33<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> two consecutive integers: 143 + 144 (but all odd numbers are the sums of two consecutive numbers);<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> seven consecutive integers: 38 + 39 + 40 + 41 + 42 + 43 + 44<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> 14 consecutive integers: 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> 287 is therefore a trapezoidal number three times over (see Interesting integer <\/span>278<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>279<\/span><\/a>); such numbers are also called polite numbers; indeed it is the sum of so many different types of number in so many ways that it might be called extra polite; this shows that 287 is also the difference between two triangular numbers in three different ways:<\/span>
\nT27<\/sub> \u2013 T13<\/sub> = 378 \u2013 91 = 287<\/span>
\nT44<\/sub> \u2013 T37<\/sub> = 990 \u2013 703 = 287<\/span>
\nT144<\/sub> \u2013 T142<\/sub> = 10440 \u2013 10153 = 287<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> eight consecutive non-primes: 32 + 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 + 38 + 39 + 40<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> 15 consecutive non-primes: 9 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 18 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28<\/span>
\n\u25cb<\/span> four non-zero squares but no fewer (see <\/span>Interesting integer 284<\/span><\/a>):<\/span>
\n22<\/sup> + 32<\/sup> + 72<\/sup> + 152<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>287 is an arithmetic number, because the average of its divisors is an integer: (1 + 7 + 41 + 287)\/4 = 84.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>287 is also an RMS (root mean square) number, since the square root of the sum of the squares of its divisors is integral: 12<\/sup> + 72<\/sup> + 412<\/sup> + 2872<\/sup> = 1 + 49 + 1681 + 82369 = 84100; 84100\/4 = 21025 = 1452<\/sup>. 287 is only the fifth such number, the smaller ones being 1, 7, 41, and 239.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>287 is a ludic number (see <\/span>Interesting integer 277<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>Multiply the 7<\/span>th<\/span> and 8<\/span>th<\/span> primes and then subtract them from the product:<\/span>
\n(17 \u00d7 19) \u2013 17 \u2013 19 = 287<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>287 is the 14<\/span>th<\/span> pentagonal number.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most unusual entry from among the nearly 600 that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in March of this year was coulrophobia, defined in the dictionary as […]<\/p>\n

More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5762],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jeff-aronsons-words"],"yoast_head":"\nJeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Clowns - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/08\/14\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-clowns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . 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