Freelance

Freelance (pronounced free-lans or free-lahns)

(1) A person who works selling work or services by the hour, day, job etc, rather than working on some regular basis for one employer; also as freelancer or free-lancer; self-employed, free agent, unaffiliated.

(2) A person who contends in a cause or in a succession of various causes, as he or she chooses, without personal attachment or allegiance (applied often to politicians who tend to supports several causes or parties without total commitment to any one).

(3) The act of working as a freelancer; used often as a modifier.

(4) Of or relating to freelancing or the work of a freelance.

(5) A mercenary soldier or military adventurer in medieval Europe, often of knightly rank, who offered his services to any state, party, or cause (retrospectively applied).

1820: The construct was free + lance.  Free was from the Middle English free, fre & freo, from the Old English frēo (free), from the Proto-West Germanic frī, from the Proto-Germanic frijaz (beloved, not in bondage), from the primitive Indo-European priHós (dear, beloved), from preyH- (to love, please); from this evolved the related modern English friend.  It was cognate with the West Frisian frij (free), the Dutch vrij (free), the Low German free (free), the German frei (free), the Danish, Swedish & Norwegian fri (free) and the Sanskrit प्रिय (priyá).  The verb is from the Middle English freen & freoȝen, from the Old English frēon, & frēoġan (to free; make free), from the Proto-West Germanic frijōn, from the Proto-Germanic frijōną, from the primitive Indo-European preyH-.  Germanic and Celtic are the only Indo-European language branches in which the primitive Indo-European word with the meaning of "dear, beloved" acquired the additional meaning of "free" in the sense of "not in bondage".  This was an extension of the idea of "characteristic of those who are dear and beloved" (those who were friends and others in the tribe as opposed to the unfree, those of other tribes, slaves etc).  The evolution was comparable with the Latin use of liberi to mean both "free persons" and "children of a family".  Lance was from the Middle English launce, from the Old French lance, from the Latin lancea.  Ultimate root was via the Celtic & Celtiberian, possibly from the primitive Indo-European plehk- (to hit) and related to the Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē).  The hyphenated form (free-lance, free-lancer et al) is a correct alternative but should be used with the usual convention of English use: consistency within a document.  If an alternative hyphenated form is used for one word, it should be used for all where the option exists.

The first know instance is in Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) to describe a medieval mercenary warrior or "free-lance", the meaning lying in the notion of his arms (lance, sword etc) being freely available for hire and not sworn to any lord's services). Scott’s description of them resembles that of the Italian condottieri (a leader or member of a troop of mercenaries).  It became a figurative noun circa 1864, most frequent used when applied to writers & journalists from 1882, the unhyphenated “freelance” attested from 1898.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listed it as a verb in 1903 and in modern use the word has morphed into an adjective, and an adverb, as well as the familiar derivative noun freelancer.  The sense of politicians who tended to go off on tangents and champion causes unrelated to the party platform they were hired to pursue was known since the late nineteenth century, sometimes with the implication (drawn from Sir Walter Scott’s picture of soldiers for hire by anyone) of mercenary motives.

The emergence of the gig economy doesn’t indicate any great change in the understanding of freelancing, the category of “gig worker” defined more by the method by which they obtain their work.  Gig worker encompasses just about any independent worker, including contingent and freelance workers, the convention of use being that they pickup their hours from a digital platform rather than the historically conventional channels.  Gig workers were understood not to be hired as employees by the company with which they contract to do the job, instead being freelance contractors, each individual task a separate contract.  That idea has been challenged in several jurisdictions with some courts and tribunals finding, in some cases, the nature of the relationship between freelancer and platform and the pattern of work performed being such that, within existing law, a conventional employer-employee relationship exists with all that implies.  This dispute is ongoing in many places and is played-out within the micro political economy.  

By contrast, a contingent worker is employed by a different company (usually a staffing agency or recruiter, often known as labour hire companies) than the one for which they’ll actually be performing the task.  The agency acts as the intermediary between the worker and the company, finding the jobs and the workers, billing the client and paying the contingent workers.  Contractors are different again and can be freelancers or contingent workers, the distinction being that they are deployed usually for fixed terms of longer duration than a gig.  There’s no precise definition but while a gig might last only minutes, a contract typically is measured in weeks or more.  The "freelance" status may be misleading in that there have been some known to to work exclusively for one entity (which might be an agent or other third-party) and for this reason and that they certainly weren't formally on the payroll.  In most cases though the freelancers can be thought of as proto-gig economy workers in that from an industrial relations viewpoint they were independent contractors even if in some cases their entire income might come from the one entity (indeed, some had signed contracts of exclusivity on some negotiated basis).     

Former Australian senator Cory Bernardi and animal welfare

Freelancing: Former Australian Senator Cory Bernardi (b 1969; senator for South Australia 2006-2020) is a member of the Roman Catholic laity noted for leaving the Liberal Party in 2017 to form his own party, the Australian Conservatives.  Such creations, drawn often from the extremes of mainstream parties (of the left, right or single-issue operations) are usually short lived, the political inertia and structural advantages the incumbents create for each other being hard to topple; it’s tough even to sustain co-existence.  So it proved for the Australian Conservatives, Bernardi in 2019 announcing he was dissolving and consequently deregistering the party.  Electoral support had proved not only elusive but barely detectable although the senator claimed to be happy with the project’s outcomes, noting the Liberal-National Coalition's upset victory in 2019 was proof "common sense" had returned to national politics which was "all we, as Australian Conservatives, have ever sought to do”.  Rarely has spin been so spun.   

Bernardi’s most publicised contribution to political discourse happened in 2012 when he suggested allowing same-sex marriage would lead to “legalised polygamy and bestiality”.  "The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society - or any other type of relationship" the senator was quoted as saying.  "There are even some creepy people out there... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals.  Will that be a future step? In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union'.  "I think that these things are the next step."

His views attracted scant support from his colleagues, even several who opposed marriage equality distancing themselves from Bernardi’s view it was the thin end of the homosexual wedge, a step on a slippery slope of depravity descending to the violation of beasts of the field.  The backlash compelled Bernardi’s resignation as parliamentary secretary to the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015).  In accepting the resignation, Mr Abbott described the comments as "ill-disciplined", adding they were “…views I don't share...” and “I think it's pretty clear that if you want to freelance, you can do so on the backbench."

From the backbench, the freelancer released a short statement saying he had resigned "in the interests of the Coalition", one of his thoughts with which few disagreed.  Sadly, even from organisations like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) he never received any credit for his efforts to protect goats and other hapless creatures from the predations of packs of crazed gay marriage advocates.  Despite that, the former senator found his natural home working as one of the right-wing fanatics at Rupert Murdoch's Sky News where his thoughts are imparted to an appreciative audience which believes the ills of this world are the consequence of conspiracies by the Freemasons, the Jews, the Jesuits and the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or.  His viewers agree with everything he says.

The paparazzi are the classic freelancers.