Shakespeare, Bob and their jive talk

QUESTION What is the origin of the term ‘getting stoned’? TODAY, the term stoned is usually applied to those under the influence of drugs, particularly cannabis. In the past it described people who were drunk, or ‘stone-drunk’.

A satirical 1852 compendium called A Cracker Bon-bon For Christmas Parties by Robert Barnabas Brough features the anecdote How The Last Act Of Hamlet Was Written. In it, the Earl of Essex tries to rouse Shakespeare after a three- day binge:

‘“Will,” said the Earl of Essex, “get up!”

“Go hang!” was t he only reply.

“He’s stone drunk!” said the Earl.

“… ours is a house of entertainment, and we couldn’t refuse him liquor while his money lasted. …”’

The term ‘ s t oned’ first appeared in print in Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary (1945).

In the Sixties it was firmly linked to drugs culture, as in Bob Dylan’s 1966 song Rainy Day Women #12 And #35 with its jazzy music and laughing or high refrain ‘I would not feel so al one/ Everybody must get stoned’.

As early as 1963 the Rolling Stones wrote and released an instrumental called Stoned, the B side of I Wanna Be Your Man, which itself was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Later that decade, John Lennon would write a song called What’s The New Mary Jane?, clearly about marijuana.

Mercifully, the chaotic, lowquality song was never released officially at the time, although it was available on bootlegs for years afterwards.

Many other musicians latched on to drugs culture at the time, producing dreamy records with drug references, notably Jefferson Airplane with the excellent song White Rabbit.

Not all musicians used the term stoned to refer to drugs. In Billy Joel’s Piano Man, about a bar for the lonely, ‘the waitress is practising politics, as the businessmen slowly get stoned’ – clearly a reference to alcohol.

The etymology is unsure; the term was probably a euphemism for being as unresponsive as a stone. Kim Rouse, Hertfordshire.

QUESTION I have a very basic understanding of Einstein’s theories, being a non-physicist. I do not understand how they revolutionised our understanding of the world and affect our everyday lives. FURTHER to the earlier answer, Einstein’s ideas also had an i mpact on cathode- ray TV technology.

Electrons are accelerated close to the speed of light in a TV and, according to the Theory of Relativity, the mass of these electrons thereby increases measurably.

If this increase was not taken into account, the electrons on the screen would show divergences and the images would be blurred.

The ‘E’ in E = mc2 refers to energy, so Einstein’s equation says mass and energy are interchangeable.

This understanding made nuclear science possible.