Orton, Joe orig. John Kingsley Orton (b. Jan. 1, 1933, Leicester, Leicestershire, Eng.—d. Aug. 9, 1967, London) British dramatist. Origi¬ nally an unsuccessful actor, he turned to writing, finding success in 1964 when his radio play The Ruffian on the Stair was broadcast by the BBC. His three full-length plays. Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1964), Loot (1965), and What the Butler Saw (produced posthumously, 1969), were black comedies that scandalized audiences with their examination of moral cor¬ ruption, violence, and sexual rapacity. Orton’s career was cut short when he was murdered by K.L. Halliwell, his lifelong companion, who after¬ ward committed suicide.
and various dark markings on the body and legs. Both sexes have long, sharp-tipped, straight or curved horns.
Osage \o-'saj\ North American Plains Indian people living mostly in Oklahoma, U.S. Their language is Siouan. The name Osage is a French- derived version of their name for themselves, Wazhazhe. They lived vari¬ ously in the Piedmont and Ozark plateaus and the western Missouri and southeastern Kansas prairies. Their culture was marked by the combina¬ tion of village agriculture and buffalo hunting. Their villages consisted of longhouses; tepees were used during the hunting season. Their religious ceremonies divided clans into symbolic sky and earth groups. In the late 19th century the Osage were removed to a reservation in Oklahoma. The discovery of oil there made them a uniquely prosperous tribe. They num¬ ber more than 18,000.
Osage \o-'saj, 'o-,saj\ River River, western Missouri, U.S. Formed by the junction of the Marais des Cygnes and Little Osage rivers, it is about 500 mi (800 km) long and is one of the principal tributaries of the Mis¬ souri River. It flows east and northeast through Lake of the Ozarks and enters the Missouri just east of Jefferson City, Mo.
Osaka \o-'sa-ka,\ Japanese Vo-sa-ka\ ancient Naniwa City (pop., 2000 prelim.: 2,598,589) and seaport, west-central Honshu, Japan, on the northeastern shore of Osaka Bay. A long-established city and port, Naniwa was made a castle town by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 16th century. It was the leading commercial city of Japan during the Tokugawa period and the leading industrial city from the late 19th century. It was badly damaged by U.S. bombing during World War II. Once noted for its large textile indus¬ try, it is now a leading financial centre with heavy industries including machinery, iron and steel, and chemicals. With Kobe and Kyoto, it is part of Japan’s second largest urban and industrial agglomeration. It is also a cultural and educational centre, with several universities and theatres.
Orumiyyeh, Daryacheh-ye See Lake Urmia
Orwell, George orig. Eric Arthur Blair (b. 1903, Motihari, Ben¬ gal, India—d. Jan. 21, 1950, Lon¬ don, Eng.) British novelist, essayist, and critic. Instead of accepting a scholarship to a university, Orwell went to Burma to serve in the Indian Imperial Police (1922-27), an expe¬ rience that changed him into a liter¬ ary and political rebel. On returning to Europe, he lived in self-imposed poverty, gaining material for Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), and became a socialist. He went to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War and stayed to join the Republi¬ can militia. His war experiences, which gave him a lifelong dread of communism (he would later provide George Orwell.
British intelligence services with BBC copyright lists of his fellow British commu¬
nists), are recounted in Homage to Catalonia (1938). His novels typi¬ cally portray a sensitive, conscien¬ tious, emotionally isolated individual at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment. His most famous works are the anti- Soviet satirical fable Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), a dystopic vision of totali¬ tarianism whose influence was widely felt in the postwar decades. His literary essays are also admired.
oryx Any of four species (genus Oryx) of large stocky antelopes living in herds on African and Arabian deserts and plains. Oryxes are 40^-7 in. (102-120 cm) high. They have a mane and a tufted tail. The coat is grayish brown, whitish, or white, depending on the species, with dark patches on the face and forehead, a dark streak on either side of the eye,
Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx)
ROD MOON-THE NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY COLLECTION/PHOTO RESEARCHERS
Osborne, John (James) (b. Dec. 12, 1929, London, Eng.—d. Dec. 24, 1994, Shropshire) British play¬ wright and film producer. Initially an actor, he cowrote his first play. The Devil Inside Him (1950), with Stella Linden. His Look Back in Anger (1956; film, 1959) ushered in a spate of vigorously realistic plays about contemporary British working-class life, making Osborne the first of the postwar Angry Young Men. His next play, The Entertainer (1957; film,
1960), told the story of a failing music-hall comedian; it was com¬ missioned by the actor Laurence Oliv¬ ier, who starred in the stage and film versions. Osborne wrote the screen¬ play for the film Tom Jones (1963,
Academy Award), and his other plays include Luther (1961) and Inadmissible Evidence (1964).
Oscan \'as-kon\ language Italic anguage formerly spoken in south¬ ern and central Italy, related closely to Umbrian and more distantly to Latin. It was probably the native tongue of the Samnite people of Ita¬ ly’s central mountainous region. Oscan was gradually displaced by Latin and apparently became extinct by the end of the 1st century ad. Modem knowledge of it comes from some 250 inscriptions written in a colonial Latin alphabet, the Greek alphabet, and an alphabet derived from that used for Etruscan.
Osceola \,a-se-'6-l3\ (b. c. 1804, Georgia, U.S.—d. Jan. 30, 1838, Charleston, S.C.) Seminole Indian leader during the Second Seminole War. The war began in 1835 when the U.S. government attempted to
John Osborne
UPI/BETTMANN NEWSPHOTOS
Osceola, detail of a lithograph by George Catlin, 1838
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
oscillator ► Ostade I 1421
force the Seminole off their traditional lands in Florida and into the Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. Osceola and his followers employed guerrilla tactics and forced a truce. During negotiations he was arrested and removed to a military fort at Charleston, S.C., where he died.
oscillator Mechanical or electronic device that produces a back-and- forth periodic motion. A pendulum is a simple mechanical oscillator that swings with a constant amplitude, requiring the addition of energy at each swing only to compensate for the energy lost because of air resistance or friction. In electronic oscillators, electrons oscillate with a constant period and also require the addition of energy to replace energy loss. Electronic oscillators are used to generate alternating current and high-frequency currents for carrier waves in radio broadcasting. They are incorporated in a wide variety of electronic equipment.
oscilloscope \3-'si-l3-,skop\ or cathode-ray oscilloscope Elec¬ tronic display device used to produce patterns on a screen that are the graphical representations of electrical signals. Time is normally on the horizontal axis, and a function of the voltage generated by the input sig¬ nal to the oscilloscope on the vertical axis; four or more plots can be simultaneously shown. Because almost any physical phenomenon can be converted into a corresponding electric voltage, oscilloscopes find com¬ mercial, engineering, and scientific applications in acoustic research, television-production engineering, and electronics design.
Oshogbo \5-'shog-bo\ City (pop., 1996 est.: 476,800), Nigeria. Located northeast of Ibadan, it lies along the Oshun River. Originally settled by the Ilesha from Ibokun, it remained a small town until the early 19th cen¬ tury when an influx of Yoruba fleeing from Fulani conquerors arrived. In 1840 it was the scene of a battle won by Ibadan that proved to be the turning point in the Fulani-Yoruba wars. It was made part of Oyo state in 1976 and the capital of the newly created state of Osun in 1991. It is a trade centre for cocoa and palm oil; weaving and dyeing cotton cloth and growing tobacco are other local occupations.