“Amazing” doesn’t begin to describe the images that the JWST is delivering to us. This one here shows a fledgling star, or protostar, which until now was hidden from telescopes by a dense, dark cloud of gas. What you’re seeing is the final stage of that cloud’s collapse and the beginnings of what may eventually become a new solar system. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI)).
Reader Bruce Mackenzie writes: “I was watching the women’s final at the Australian [tennis] Open last week and the word Amazon sprang to mind; perhaps you will understand why. I can see the similarity to ‘amazing’ and was wondering if there is a connection.”
First, I certainly do understand why “Amazon” would occur to someone watching women’s elite tennis.
The Amazons were a race of female warriors believed by the ancient Greeks to live on the edge of the known world. As the boundaries of the known world moved outward with no actual Amazons turning up, so too did the Amazons’ supposed location, which tells you a lot about humanity’s ability to not let the absence of evidence get in the way of a good belief.
Among the Amazons’ attributes were agility and strength greater than any man’s, as well as superior archery, riding and fighting skills. Listen to an Aryna Sabalenka ace smack into the far wall and you, like Bruce, will surely get the connection.
The Amazons didn’t think much of men, regarding them as useful for reproductive purposes and not much else. I’m still trying to decide whether this is a gross insult or the fulfilment of a deep male fantasy. I’m sure Freud would have had something to say about it and I suspect men would not have come out covered in glory.
The word Amazon has come down to us largely unchanged from the ancient Greeks, but no one is quite sure where they got it from. The consensus among etymologists is that it likely reached them via an unknown non-Indo-European word, or from an Iranian compound *ha-maz-an- “(one) fighting together”.
One largely discounted theory is that Amazon derives from the Greek a- “without” and mazos, a variant of the word for breast. While this would be consistent with stories of these fearsome women cutting or burning off one breast (see Freud, above) so they could draw bowstrings more effectively, there is no evidence of any female warrior tribe ever cutting bits off to improve their fighting ability (or for any other purpose, for that matter).
This makes sense. It seems to me that if you want to be an effective fighter, the idea would be to remove bits from your enemy, not yourself.
As for Amazon’s resemblance to amazing, it’s pure coincidence. Amazing is an early 15th century word used to describe something that was either dreadful or capable of causing stupefaction. Before amazing we had maze, a 13th century word for “delusion, bewilderment, confusion of thought”.
I’m pretty sure that when Bruce thought of amazing in relation to the female tennis players, he wasn’t thinking “dreadful”, “stupefying”, or any form of delusion. The sense he undoubtedly had in mind didn’t arise until the early 18th century. As we all know, that meaning now rules the roost. While amazing is sometimes used to express displeasure or disapproval, it’s predominant sense is, as Oxford Dictionary puts it, something like “very impressive; excellent”.
As it happens, Bruce’s question came at an appropriate time. Three weeks ago, the sorry figure in the photo above walked onto a tennis court for the first time in 25 years, believing he was still a relatively youthful 40-year-old.
I learned a harsh lesson about human biodynamics as a result, which I’ll share with you now. If a lumbering, overweight, 64-year-old body goes running (and I use the word loosely) after a well struck tennis ball imagining itself to be a lean, nimble 40-year-old body, everything from the ankles and above will move with the speed (but not the grace) of the 40 year old, while the feet will barely move at all. Physics dictates that in such a situation, the whole fleshy edifice will crash humiliatingly to the floor before grinding its face into the deceptively abrasive surface of the court.
No match for physics, this is exactly what my body did.
Let me tell you, while artificial grass courts may look soft and bouncy, they are nothing of the sort. At least the asphalt courts my generation grew up with openly display their intention to knock your teeth out and tear large strips of skin from your outside. Artificial grass courts are the Ted Bundys of the sports world: all affable charm on the surface, but cruel and murderous underneath.
I’m happy to report that the physical wounds have now healed and the bruise to my ego is also slowly receding. I’ve returned to the court a few times since, slower and wiser - but also, so far, more or less upright.
My lurching about is not pretty to watch but I’m having fun. One thing I’m also certain of: if Amazons did exist and saw me on the tennis court, they would not consider me useful even for reproductive purposes. My only hope of survival would be if they also have a deep appreciation of the absurd.
That I can offer them in amazing abundance.
Bits and specious
A word of warning if you decide to research the Amazons. No matter how you word your query, Google will almost certainly decide you’re asking about Jeff Bezos’s promising Seattle startup, not the women we’ve been talking about here.
The reason elite tennis players can smack the ball with a massive thud against the far wall while mortals like you and me are happy if it merely dribbles that far isn’t because they’re built like Amazons. It’s all technique. Check out this illuminating video for more.
One of my favourite Substack writers is New York-based Rebecca Ericson, who publishes a language newsletter called Everybody Talks. Last week she published this moving piece on why she is afraid to speak Chinese, her first language but not the one she feels most confident with in public. I’m sure many of my readers will resonate with it, and for those - like me - who live a largely monocultural life, it’s a great insight into the challenges life can pose for those who daily straddle more than one world.
Quote of the week
Whoever said, ‘It's not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
Martina Navratilova
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