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Newton did not invent the term optics for the science of visible light. It had been brought into English from Latin in 1579 by Leonard Digges (not to be confused with his grandson Leonard, the translator of the nicely titled romance Gerardo, the Unfortunate Spaniard). Optics was originally regarded as plural in English, since it derived from the plural Greek word optika, ‘optical matters’. But optics has been construed as singular since the 19th century.
The overused new sense of optics is most commonly found in political contexts, for it simply means ‘appearances’, which are professional life or death for politicians. ‘The optics were important for Turnbull,’ explained a piece in the Guardian on Australian politics, ‘Addressing the nation with Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann by his side sent a strong message to his internal foes.’ It’s all to do with what people perceive (a word that has acquired a connotation of mistaken perception).
Oddly enough appearances long ago found a place in the theories of astronomy, in which optics played such an important part. To save (or, earlier, salve) the appearances meant ‘to accommodate a hypothesis to observations’, such as the movement of planets.
The earlier form of the phrase was save the phenomena, transferring the Greek word directly into English. But in parallel (as in John Florio’s translation of Montaigne), save appearances also bore the sense of keeping them up, like Hyacinth Bucket. Optics meant a lot to her.
Also by Dot Wordsworth
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