Cracker

Cracker (pronounced krak-er)

(1) A thin, crisp biscuit, sometimes flavored and salted (less widely used in North America).

(2) A firework (a clipping of firecracker).

(3) A small paper roll used as a party favor, that usually contains candy, trinkets etc which separates with a n induced pop when pulled sharply at one or both ends; also called a Christmas cracker or bon bon.

(4) A nickname for a native or inhabitant of the US states of Georgia or Florida (initial capital letter) which is neutral when used in a self-referential manner by inhabitants (also as Cracker State) but can be disparaging and offensive if applied by outsiders (and among certain communities in Florida, a derogatory term for a police officer).

(5) As disparaging and offensive slang, a contemptuous term used to refer to a white person in the South, especially a poor white living in some rural parts of the south-eastern US.

(6) Slang for a black hat or a boastful man (both archaic).

(7) As an onomatopoeic form, a person or thing that cracks.

(8) In chemistry, a chemical reactor used for cracking, often as the refinery equipment used to pyrolyse organic feed-stocks (if catalyst is used to accelerate the process, it’s informally called a cat-cracker).

(9) In the plural (often with a modifier), an informal term to describe someone mad, wild, crazy etc.

(10) In (chiefly UK) slang a thing or person of notable qualities or abilities (often in the form crackerjack).

(11) In Australian & New Zealand slang, something or someone thought worthless or useless (often in the form “not worth a cracker).

(12) In computing senses (as cracker, crack, and cracking), terms suggested in the 1980s as an alternative to “white-hat hacker” in an attempt to create a more positive public image of certain activities.

(13) In cryptology, as code-cracker (synonymous with code-breaker), one who decodes, analogous with the previous safe-cracker but often without the pejorative associations.

(14) A short piece of twisted material (often string) tied to the end of a whip that creates the distinctive sound when the whip is thrown (or cracked); the crack is the sonic boom as the material passes through the sound barrier.

(15) In zoology, a northern pintail, species of dabbling duck.

(16) In materials processing, a pair of fluted rolls used for grinding (obsolete).

(17) In Czech slang, a drug user.

(17) In botany, as crackerberry, The Canadian bunchberry (Cornus canadensis).

1400-1450: Crack was from the Middle English crakken, craken & craker, from the Old English cracian (to resound, crack), from the Proto-West Germanic krakōn, from the Proto-Germanic krakōną (to crack, crackle, shriek), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European gerhz (to resound, cry hoarsely).  It was cognate with the Scots crak (to crack), the West Frisian kreakje (to crack), the Dutch kraken (to crunch, creak, squeak), the Low German kraken (to crack), the German krachen (to crash, crack, creak), the Lithuanian gìrgžděti (to creak, squeak), the Old Armenian կարկաչ (karkačʿ) and the Sanskrit गर्जति (gárjati) (to roar, hum).  The meaning “to break” is thought related to the Latin crepare (to rattle, crack, creak), and the secondary, figurative meaning of that “boast of, prattle, make ado about” gave rise to the Elizabethan era meaning of “a braggard”, which, after reaching southern North America in the 1760s, gained new interpretations.

The sense of a cracker as a hard bread dates from the fifteenth century but the use to describe a thin, crisp biscuit was first attested in 1739.  The most common modern understanding of a cracker is a dry, thin, crispy baked biscuit (usually salty or savory, but sometimes sweet, as in the case of graham crackers and animal crackers.  Being thin and crisp they crack easily (hence cracker (literally "that which cracks or breaks", agent noun from the verb crack)) and are often sold with a modifier added to the name (cream cracker, saltine cracker, soda cracker, water cracker et al).  The meaning in agricultural milling (instrument for crushing or cracking) is from 1630s and in various forms of engineering, chemistry & physics, the descriptor was adopted over the centuries, the best known the steam-powered coal cracker (machinery that breaks up mined coal (1857)) although the term (apparently since 1853) the tem had been applied to people manually doing the same job.  The original Cracker-barrel dates from 1861 and was literally a "barrel full of soda-crackers for sale" and came to be associated with general stores in rural areas which influenced the development by 1905 of the adjectival sense “cracker barrel” to suggest something or someone "emblematic of unsophisticated ways and views".  The noun wisecracker dates from 1906 an was an invention of American English meaning someone boastful (from wise + crack (in the sense of "boast") and though wisecrack survived, the use wisecracker, wisecracking and cracker in this general sense declined as “wise guy” came to be preferred.  The idea of crackers referring to someone mad or exhibiting unstable behavior emerged in the late nineteenth century and was based on the imagery of something “cracked up”; crackpot was of similar origin, the idea of boiling water in a pot with a crack being unwise.

The noun nut-cracker (also nutcracker) (hand operated instrument for cracking hard-shelled nuts) dates from the 1540s although there is evidence similar devices had been fabricated centuries earlier.  The term was applied to the "toy having a grotesque human head, in the mouth of which a nut is placed to be cracked by a screw or lever".  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's (1840-1893) two-act "fairy ballet" The Nutcracker was first performed in 1892; it was based on Alexandre Dumas' (1802–1870) rendition of ETA Hoffmann's (1776-1822) story Nussknacker und Mausekönig (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816)).

The noun cracker-jack (also crackerjack) (something excellent) was a US colloquialism from 1893, said to be a fanciful construction, the earliest use in reference to racing horses and the first evidence of the caramel-coated popcorn-and-peanuts confection is from the World's Columbian Exposition of that year, the (unverified) connection being someone using the then popular expression "that's a cracker-jack" when tasting some; the name was trademarked 1896, the "Prize in Every Box" introduced 1912.  The noun firecracker (also fire-cracker) (exploding paper cylinder) dates from 1830, a coinage of American English for what is elsewhere in the English-speaking world called a cracker, but the US use distinguishes it from the word related to thin biscuits.  The noun safecracker (also safe-cracker) was first used in 1897, a reference to thieves who used dynamite.

Cracker (and Cracker State) is used as a neutral or affectionate nickname by inhabitants of the US states if Georgia and Florida.  However, when applied by outsiders, it’s often used with disparaging intent and perceived as an insult.  Cracker is always disparaging and offensive when used to refer to a poor white person in the South; the word in this sense often implies that the person is regarded as ignorant or uneducated (and thus vaguely similar to redneck, hillbilly, chav bogan et al used in various places).  However, when used by people of color, cracker can refer to a white racist or white supremacist and be unrelated to whether the target is poor or rural; in that it’s in the long and unsuccessful tradition of trying to coin descriptors (honky, peckerwood, redneck, trailer n-word, trailer trash, white trash, whitey, wonderbread et al) which white people find offensive.

The origin of cracker as a racial slur against poor white Southerners is uncertain.  One theory suggests it began (as corn-crackers) with impoverished white corn and wheat farmers who cracked their crops rather than taking them to the mill for processing.  An alternative explanation is that it was applied because Georgia and Florida settlers (the original Florida crackers) cracked whips to drive herds of cattle; the related speculative etymology references the whip cracking of plantation slave drivers.  Both may be correct yet may have run in parallel with the inherited use of cracker in use since the Elizabethan era to describe braggarts, the link being the sense (attested from the early sixteenth century) of "a boaster, a braggart", thought related to the Latin crepare (to rattle, crack, creak), the secondary figurative sense of which was "boast of, prattle, make ado about".  It’s argued the US form emerged to suggest a boastful person was “not all he was cracked up to be”.

Published in Darwin since 1949, the NT News serves readers in Australia’s Northern Territory and, purchased in 1960, was one of Rupert Murdoch’s early acquisitions, published to this day by News Corp.  Rather than the journalism within, it’s noted for its award winning front pages, many of which feature large crocodiles, double entendres, or a combination of the two and the most famous remains WHY I STUCK A CRACKER UP MY CLACKER.  The onomatopoeic clacker in most places means (1) in music a percussion instrument that makes a clacking noise and (2) by extension, any device which makes a clacking noise but in the slang of Australia & New Zealand it also means (3) “the anus” (the etymological connection hopefully obvious).  Helpfully, the NT News did explain why the firework was so placed (and detonated) and, unsurprisingly for anyone acquainted with Northern Territory culture, it involved alcohol.  Firecrackers remain available for sale in the Northern Territory on specific occasions, long after most jurisdictions in the country banned “cracker nights”, the origins of which lay in the “Gunpowder Plot”, the attempt on 5 November 1605 by Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) to blow up the English houses of parliament.  Guy Fawkes' plot was thwarted and although the Luftwaffe did some damage, the UK's parliament has, with the odd interruption, kept going as a place of "low skulduggery" and the occasional "pursuit of noble causes", one often disguised as the other.

Boris Johnson & Liz Truss discussing policy.

That the members of the British Conservative & Unionist Party (the Tories) voted to replace Boris Johnson (b 1964; prime-minister 2018-2022) as leader with Liz Truss (b 1975; prime-minister since 2022) was predicted by the polls, her margin of 57.4% was less decisive than recent contests (Boris Johnson (2019, 66.4%), Davis Cameron (2005 67.6 %) & Ian Duncan Smith (2001 60.7%)) and some had suggested a better number was expected.  One interesting aspect of the succession is the Tories have chosen to replace one madman with another.  Under the compelling system of characterization suggested by former Labour Party notable Tony Benn (1925-2015; aka Anthony Wedgwood Benn & the second Viscount Stansgate), those who ascend the greasy pole to the premiership are either: (1) madmen (2) fixers or (3) straight men.  Madmen change people, institutions and history, if necessary blowing up whatever stands in their way (figuratively, unlike Guy Fawkes and the Luftwaffe although prime-ministers, madmen, fixers and straight men alike, have shown little reluctance literally to blow up small parts of other people's countries if there's political advantage to be had); fixers are those who do deals and strike bargains to gain the consensus needed to make the system work better; straight men are incrementalists who seek to maintain the existing system and their place within  Politics does tend to be cyclical and though the three types don’t always operate in sequential rotation, it is unusual for one madman to replace another as Tory Party leader whereas there have in the past been successions of straight men or fixers.  US political scientists have also explored the idea of political cycles, described usually with labels something like conflict, consensus & idealism, the concept similar to Benn's idea.

Liz Truss in pantsuit.

Most observes seem to agree Liz Truss is a madman in the sense Benn used but while few suggest she’s actually barking mad (or even unstable to whatever degree a clinician might delicately describe her state of mind), most enjoyed the thoughts of Dominic Cummings (b 1971; political strategist and adviser to Boris Johnson 2019-2020).  Cummings is hardly an impartial observer but in branding Ms Truss “about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament”, he did strike a chord in finding a way succinctly to express what many thought but couldn’t quite put into words.  Crackers is such a good word and in the world of the early 2020s, for a head of government, it might be more a qualification than a diagnosis; desirable but not essential.

Number 10: Coming and going.

Of course what's more interesting than Ms Truss being elected to an office once held by Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), Lord Salisbury (1830–1903), Winston Churchill (1874–1965) & Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) was that although she may be crackers, all alternatives were clearly thought worse still.  It may seem not a desirable time to take Number 10 but the chance doesn’t occur that often (although there’s of late been a bit of churn) and, regardless of the circumstances, Ms Truss must think it still "something to be prime-minister of England" so should be wished the best of British luck.  If it works out then all’s well that ends well but one who will be watching with particular interest is Mr Johnson because, recalling Disraeli’s words that “finality is not the language of politics” he’ll not have abandoned hope but whether he comes back will be dependent wholly on events.  If the circumstances align so the Tories think only he can win them an election (or at least limit the loss of seats) then they'll take him back and so marvelously unprincipled is Mr Johnson that if need be, he'd campaign on the basis of re-joining the EU.  People still don't seem to realize how much he enjoyed being PM and principles will be blown up if they stand in the way.  His affectionate biography of Churchill added little to the historical record but he'll no doubt be re-reading the bits which covered "the wilderness years" between 1929-1939 although the millions he'll make from the public-speaking circuit and other lucrative dabbles should soften the blow; it's doubtful he'll be reduced to a diet of locusts and wild honey.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus Called from the Plow to the Dictatorship (circa 1707), oil on canvas by Sebastiano Ricci (1659–1734)

Barely out the door, already he’s missed.  Comparing himself to a spaceship's booster rockets falling back to Earth after their usefulness ended was a nice touch but not un-noticed in Mr Johnson's valedictory address was his allusion to the Roman dictator Cincinnatus (circa 519–circa 430 BC) who, after a brief rule, retired to his farm only later to return to solve a crisis no one else could master.  It's worth noting too that booster rockets, fished from the water after "splashing down invisibly in some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific" are now designed to be returned to the shop to be refurbished, refueled and re-fitted for re-launch.

Although he has a lifetime's history of carelessness in such matters, on this occasion, one suspects Mr Johnson chose his words with rare care and nobody would deny he has a way with words.  Mixing his classical allusions with quotes from pop culture lent his speeches a vividness often lacking in politics and his farewell phrase uttered in PMQs (prime-minister's questions) in the House of Commons was borrowed from the second Terminator movie: "Hasta la vista baby! (see you later!)"  It was going down with guns blazing but what was probably on his mind was the punchier phrase made famous in the first film: "I'll be back!"