Oil of angels, oil of man

You might know, if you worked for Shell 30-40 years ago or read its publications, that the phrase "oil of angels" means bribe. This writer, who never has worked for Shell but who has written and spoken about oil and corruption, didn't know that. But this writer had not, until recently, made the acquaintance of Beth Cassidy.

The phrase "oil of angels" came to mean bribe in the late 16th Century, when "oil" didn't refer to the ubiquitous material it does today. The word already was old, though, having appeared at various times and in various places as "oyle," "ulyie," "aual," "ulay," "olie," and other derivations of the Latin word "oleum," meaning "olive," a descendant of the Greek word for "olive tree." In fact, according to Ms. Cassidy, the word seems to have originated no later than the 5th Century, BC, eventually referring to a variety of unctuous substances from sources ranging from almonds to scorpions.

The link with angels comes from an old English coin called the "angel noble" because it had an image of the Archangel Michael on one side. So, like "greasing" someone's palm today, to rub with the oil of angels centuries ago meant to make an illicit payment.

But oil from scorpions? Reengineering Ms. Cassidy's research on that question is difficult. She doesn't recall where she found all these oily morsels.

"At this stage I have difficulty remembering yesterday," she says. "But my bookcase is full of dictionaries and histories."

Ms. Cassidy etymologized about oil in an article for a Shell house publication, "sometime in the '70s," she says. "If I remember rightly it was published in The Shell News." She has a photocopy of the published article, but the page contains no indication of publication title or vintage.

No matter. It's interesting reading. If, in the 18th Century, for example, "your favorite hairdresser invited you to his establishment with the promise of oiling your wig or oil-a-coiling your hair, a flat refusal was in order," Ms. Cassidy wrote. "His intentions would have been to make you dead drunk or to cover your hair with coal tar!"

Speaking with Ms. Cassidy, the first thing you notice is an accent altogether uncharacteristic of the city where she lives, Tulsa. She's Irish. She moved from Dublin in 1963 to New York, where she joined Shell as a secretary and soon moved to Houston.

"Shell put an ad in the Houston papers for someone to put out a newspaper for the credit card staff," Ms. Cassidy says. "Three journalists and I answered the ad and were given a 3-hr written test on two subjects and, with the luck of the Irish, I came out on top."

Transferred to Tulsa, she started a periodical called Alumni News. After 5 years she returned to Houston to produce a variety of Shell publications.

It was in that period that she wrote her article on oil's linguistic evolution, which appeared under the headline "That's oil, folks!" and revealed that "oil of man," applied topically, once was thought to convey medicinal benefits. And how did one come into possession of this balm? Ms. Cassidy's article quoted Moses Charras, writing about 1500 in Royal Pharmacopeia: "The skull of healthy men, slain in full flush of their strength by lead or steal." Yikes.

Of course oil in the modern sense of the word has its own disadvantages, such as the tendency of its price to change disadvantageously. A swing of that type ended Ms. Cassidy's career as a Shell employee.

"In 1985, there was an oil crisis, and Shell offered big bonuses to anyone who would take early retirement," she says. "I took the money and ran—right back to Tulsa, which is the nicest city I've ever lived in."

Ms. Cassidy will tell you her age, which is—well, it's not as though she moved to New York as a bubbly teenager or even an eager twenty-something.

"When God made time," she assures this writer, "He made stacks of it."

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