Each month I take note of words, things, and ideas that caught my attention. Some I stumbled upon while reading, others emerged from conversations or late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes. Here's December: vocabulary worth knowing, historical curiosities, and mental models that help make sense of the world.
A group of people or vehicles moving forward in an orderly line, typically as part of a ceremony, festival, or formal occasion.
The funeral procession wound slowly through the city streets on its way to the cemetery.
To cause someone to lose courage, confidence, or composure.
The soldiers were unnerved by the enemy's overwhelming show of force.
A phrase meaning to pass a point of no return — making an irreversible decision or taking a decisive action from which there's no turning back. It originates from Julius Caesar's fateful choice in 49 BC to cross Italy's Rubicon River with his army, defying the Senate and sparking a civil war.
Caesar crossing the Rubicon, 19th century illustration
When the couple decided to open their relationship, they knew they had crossed the Rubicon.
Source: Wikipedia
This was a form of psychiatric treatment (1930s to 1960s) in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to induce daily hypoglycemic comas to "reset" the brain over weeks. It was mainly used for schizophrenia. The treatment was eventually discredited and abandoned after studies showed it had no real therapeutic value, though it remained in use in some countries until the late 1980s.
Dr. Manfred Sakel, who introduced insulin coma therapy in 1927
Source: Wikipedia · Britannica
A metaphor for how people fail to recognize threats that build gradually. Drop a frog in boiling water, and it jumps out immediately. But place it in lukewarm water and slowly raise the temperature, and it won't notice the danger until it's too late.
Source: Wikipedia
Done in secret, especially because it would not be approved of if discovered.
The athlete's surreptitious use of performance-enhancing drugs went undetected for years.
A person who has responsibility for taking care of or protecting something or someone.
The museum's custodian had protected the ancient artifacts for over thirty years.
A person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief; a beginner.
Coordinating both hands while playing piano can be daunting for neophytes.
To gradually recover health and strength after illness or injury.
After a severe bout of bronchitis, I spent two weeks convalescing at home.
When an attempt to hide, censor, or suppress information backfires, inadvertently drawing far more attention to it than it would have received otherwise.
The photo that started it all. Before the lawsuit: 6 downloads. After: over 420,000.
Source: Wikipedia · Britannica
The procession of whistleblowers walking toward the courthouse unnerved the corporation's executives. They knew they had crossed the Rubicon when they approved those surreptitious cover-ups — there was no going back now. A neophyte journalist, acting as an unlikely custodian of the leaked documents, published everything online. The company's frantic attempts to suppress the story only triggered the Streisand Effect, amplifying the scandal tenfold. Critics compared the public's delayed outrage to the boiling frog effect: the warning signs had been there for years, ignored until it was too late. The CEO, meanwhile, convalesced at a private clinic in Switzerland, reportedly suffering from "exhaustion." Some journalists darkly compared the company's workplace practices to insulin coma therapy — a brutal, discredited attempt to fix what was never truly broken.