Inspire

Inspire (pronounced in-spahyuhr)

(1) To fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence.

(2) Too produce or arouse (a feeling, thought etc).

(3) To fill or affect with a specified feeling, thought etc.

(4) To influence or impel; to animate, as an influence, feeling, thought, or the like, does.

(5) To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by inspiration.

(6) To prompt or instigate (utterances, acts, etc) by influence, without avowal of responsibility.

(7) To give rise to, bring about, cause, etc.

(8) In medicine and physiology, to take (air, gases, etc.) into the lungs in breathing; inhale (now rare).  The antonym in this context is expire; only between physicians should inspire & expire be used to refer to breathing.

(9) In medicine, to infuse (breath, life, etc) by breathing (usually followed by into); to breathe into or upon (archaic).

1300–1350: From the Middle English inspiren & enspiren (to fill (the mind, heart etc, with grace etc) & also "to prompt or induce (someone to do something)"), from the Old French enspirer & inspirer (variant of espirer, from the Latin inspīrāre (to breathe upon or into(and figuratively "inspire, excite, inflame”))), present active infinitive of īnspīrō (inspire), itself a loan-translation of Biblical Ancient Greek πνέω (pnéō (also as pnein)) (breathe), the construct being in- + spīrō (breathe), from the primitive Indo-European (s)peys- (to blow, breathe).  The construct of inspīrāre was in- (The prefix -in is quirky because it can act either to negate or intensify.  The general rule is that when pre-pended to a noun or adjective, it reinforces the quality signified and when pre-pended to an adjective, it negates the meaning, the latter mostly in words borrowed from French.  The Latin prefix in- was from the Proto-Italic en-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥- (not), the zero-grade form of the negative particle ne (not) and was akin to ne-, nē & nī.  In Modern English it is from the Middle English in-, from Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in, from the primitive Indo-European en) + spīrāre (to breathe).  The general sense of inspire meaning "influence or animate with an idea or purpose" dates from the late fourteenth century and in Middle English, was sometimes also used in literal sense.

The adjective inspired dates from circa 1400 in the sense of “communicated by divine or supernatural powers" and was the past-participle adjective of the verb inspire; from the 1660s the meaning extened to "infused with seemingly supernatural influence".  The noun inspirer came into use circa 1500 as the agent noun of the verb.  Inspirator, a Late Latin form, has existed in English since the seventeenth century in the Latin figurative sense but from 1890 was used literally as the name of a component of (a double injector (or a pair of injectors combined and working in unison, one raising the water from the pump-chambers or reservoirs and delivering it to the other which forces it into the boiler).  In modern theology, dating from 1846, an inspirationist was "one who believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures”.  Inspiratrix, the feminine form of inspirer, has been in use since 1819.  The adjective inspirational in the sense of “tending to inspire” dates from 1878 but was by 1839 also being used to mean “influenced by inspiration" and by 1888 “pertaining to inspiration” and earlier, it was used in the writings of spiritualism.  To convey the meaning “tending to inspire” there were inspirative (1770) & inspiring (1640s).  Inspire is a noun & verb, inspirable & inspirative are adjectives, inspirer is a noun and inspiringly an adverb.

Crooked Hillary Clinton, the Met Gala and inspiration

Crooked Hillary Clinton, Met Gala 2001.

Crooked Hillary Clinton provided an unexpected photo-opportunity at the 2022 Met Gala, twenty-one years after her last appearance.  The theme in 2001 had been Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years and in that spirit (the then pre-crooked) Hillary choose a leopard-print taffeta gown paired with an olive-green and gold wrap augmented by a somewhat haphazard arrangement of jewels.  It was blingish but most seemed to like the look and though the relationship to Camelot may have been strained, that’s hardly rare on the Met red carpet.  The 2001 appearance was presumably to celebrate having taken possession of the New York senate seat to which she felt entitled, an exercise in public legitimization for taking the presidency in 2008, another office to which she’d come to think was her entitlement.  Events in 2008 didn’t go as planned but, in fairness, by the time of the 2016 election, a majority of those who voted agreed she was entitled but not enough of them lived among the “deplorables” in the states she’d either ignored or taken for granted.

Crooked Hillary Clinton, Met Gala 2022.

The Met’s theme in 2022 was In America: An Anthology of Fashion, said to be a sequel to last year’s similarly vague In America: A Lexicon of Fashion but, twenty-one years on, the voluminous Bordeaux-colored dress, designed by Joseph Altuzarra (b 1983) was politely received.  Much admired was the detail work in the subtle pleating which showed a sense of restraint, the designer resisting the temptation to do too much which can be hard to resist with all that fabric.  The choice of color too seemed inspired; it's hard to imagine anything else so suiting the cut.  At the edges of bertha collar and the hemline were embroidered the names of sixty women from America’s past, all of whom crooked Hillary claimed had been an inspiration to her, including:

Abigail Adams (1744–1818; wife of John Adams (1735-1826; US president 1797-1801 and thus de facto First Lady 1797-1801).

Sacagawea (circa 1788–1812 or 1884; Lemhi Shoshone woman associated with early exploration).

Harriet Tubman (circa 1822–1913; American abolitionist and social activist).

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962; diplomat and wife of Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945, US president 1933-1945) and thus First Lady 1933-1945).

Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005; US politician & civil rights activist).

Rosa Parks (1913-2005; US civil rights activist).

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1993-2020).

Madeleine Albright (1937–2022; US secretary of state 1997-2001).

Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007; wife of Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973; US president 1963-1969) and thus First Lady 1963-1969)).

Dorothy Rodham (1919-2011; mother of crooked Hillary Clinton).

There was a racial diversity in the list notably wider than that in the neighborhoods where she and her husband choose to live or spend their frequent vacations (apart from the help of course) but that may be coincidental.  What was not was that all on the list are dead, avoiding any embarrassment which might have been caused had anyone living been included who might have asked to be removed, not happy with the association.  Crooked Hillary claimed that had she included the living, the sheer number would have “filled the entire dress” so, she added “…I decided to stick with women who are no longer with us because that would have made it really impossible to have even one dress if I had everyone on it I admired".  That cleared up any misunderstandings.

The small print: Embroidered names on the bertha collar.

The designer’s take on the embroidered names and their link to the Met’s theme was more technical, reflecting his interest in the tradition of “friendship quilts” which for generations women have crafted with embroidered sayings, phrases or the names of friends and family members.  Altuzarra noted that his creation “…paid homage to the homemakers and seamstresses” who had long been a neglected part of the history of American fashion.  Sometimes, to mark a special occasion, a village would make a quilt, a community would quilt together, signing their names in ink or embroidery and family quilts would serve as mementos of the dead or former homes.  “The quilt was an opportunity for women to get together and have this social interaction”, Altuzarra explained and “they were often a kind of memory for women of their community and families, especially if they didn’t stay in one place all their life.”  The making of friendship quilts flourished between the 1840s and the early twentieth century and there is an International Quilt Museum devoted to their preservation.

Best part of the coverage however came from Olx Praca which reported “the dress was embroidered with the names of sixty women who Clinton said find her inspirational.”  Olx Praca is a news aggregator presumably not staffed by politically aware journalists and these days there are no sub-editors so the mistake (unless crooked Hillary “misspoke” as does seem to happen a bit) is perhaps understandable and probably there are on Earth sixty women who find crooked Hillary inspirational.  Olx Praca may however be onto something; maybe crooked Hillary really does still believe most women find her inspirational.