The Hindu Business Line : A rude encounter with crude

CRUDE is getting cruder with prices rising to such record heights this week that even small retreats give much respite to markets. Oil companies are pushing the government to allow the retail rate rocket to zoom, and when that happens, we may realise much opportunity gain in letting our vehicles lie idle. Normally, we can never come to terms with crude behaviour, nor that of crude, unless somebody finds a limitless source of fossil fuel.

What is crude oil, asks www.chevron.com/learning center/crude before proceeding to explain the origin. "There were few takers of the 19th century elixir that came to be called `snake oil'. It was one of the less successful uses of petroleum, but not the first to claim healing properties." It seems ancient Persians, 10th century Sumatrans and pre-Columbian Indians all believed that crude oil had medicinal benefits. "Marco Polo found it used in the Caspian Sea region to treat camels for mange, and the first oil exported from Venezuela (in 1539) was intended as a gout treatment for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V." If oil becomes too expensive and scarce, crude may well return to its snake oil status, as bottled medicine, for sparing use as a nostalgia stimulant.

Crude means "in a natural or raw state," explains Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Thus, crude oil is "not yet processed or refined". Crude weapons are those made in a "rudimentary or makeshift way" such as the caveman's club, or the `dirty bomb', which is a combination of conventional explosive and nuclear material. "The stone age was marked by man's clever use of crude tools; the information age, to date, has been marked by man's crude use of clever tools," is an Anon quote on http://en.thinkexist.com.

Crude estimates are approximate. "We are developing methods to allow us to generate a crude estimate of the potential-of-mean-force along the reaction coordinate spanning propagation," notes a page on www.chpc.utah.edu. "Crude estimates suggest that 500,000 women and children die from Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) each year," states www.winrockindia.org, and I am confused about the geography that the number covers. G. B. Shaw would comfort saying, "Crude classifications and false generalisations are the curse of organised life."

In statistics, what is crude is what they are yet to adjust or correct, as it happened with census data that collided head on with religion. "Crude marriage rate is the number of marriages registered during the calendar year per 1,000 estimated resident population," explains the Australian Bureau of Statistics. "In 2001, Tasmania's crude marriage rate was 4.6 per 1,000 population. This was the lowest rate recorded." One may adapt Raymond Chandler's quote, "Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery", and say that without the decent cloak of statistics, our numbers may look too crude.

A project of the International Agency for Research on Cancer explains that for a specific tumour and population, a crude rate is calculated simply by dividing the number of new cancers or cancer deaths observed during a given time period by the corresponding number of people in the population at risk. "For cancer, the result is usually expressed as an annual rate per 100,000 persons at risk."

What is crude is "offensively coarse or rude", as one may see at times in a cricket game. "Confusion can arise over the thumbs-up gesture, which in Australia can be interpreted as being rather crude," explains www.aeo.us/students/adjustments.html. "A circle made with the thumb and forefinger with the other fingers extended indicates approval or agreement or optimism, or a `good luck' wish." However, Greeks understand that as a signal of a body orifice, so all is not okay with OK.

The word crude is of 14th century, from Latin crudus, meaning ``raw, rough, cruel'', according to Encarta. Crude with `e' shorn is crud, and means "slushy snow that is unfit for good skiing", or in manufacturing, "an unwanted by-product, especially in the nuclear industry." Crude can be refined, or made "more crude," which is what crudify means. You may find crudités in your meal, and they are no minerals, but "small pieces of raw vegetables such as carrots and cucumber eaten as an appetiser or snack, often served with a dip."

In the entry for crude, the Online Etymology Dictionary explains that the meaning ``lacking grace'' is first attested 1650. There are more words from Latin crudus: Recrudesce, meaning break out again, reopen (of wounds) means literally "become raw again''. The issue of petroleum pricing is as painful as recrudescence, you'd agree. The word `cruel' too is from Latin crudelem, meaning ``unfeeling, cruel'', related to crudus. Sanskrit for cruel is kruura. Interestingly, raw is from Old English hreaw, and has etymological links to Sanskrit kravih `raw flesh', Greek kreas `flesh', and Latin crudus `not cooked'. Crude minus `c' is rude, though the shorter word too means ``rough, crude, unlearned'', in its Latin form rudis. "Perhaps related to rudus `rubble'," hypothesises www.etymonline.com.

From Shakespeare there is nothing that www.rhymezone.com offers in response to `crude' though on `cruel' there is a legion, such as in Hamlet: "I must be cruel, only to be kind." Similarly, we hear our netas say: "We must raise the prices, to be kind to the economy". There's a sprinkling of `refined' too in the Bard's works. "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow... is wasteful and ridiculous excess," instructs Salisbury colourfully in King John. `Raw', a synonym of crude, finds a place in Merry Wives of Windsor, as "raw rheumatic day". Brutus advises Portia in Julius Caesar: "It is not for your health thus to commit your weak condition to the raw cold morning." It is not for financial health, either, to commute in own vehicles after petrol bunks sport a new price on a raw cold morning.

A different Portia would say in The Merchant of Venice, "I have within my mind a thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, which I will practise." But it is crude that among the thousand tricks our politicians brag of, government expenditure reduction is not what gets practised as much as price hikes for raking in more taxes from consumers.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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