Treadmill (pronounced tred-mil)
(1) A device for producing rotary motion by the weight of
people or animals, treading on a succession of moving steps or a belt that
forms a kind of continuous path, as around the periphery of a pair of
horizontal cylinders (also called a treadwheel (archaic)).
(2) An exercise machine that allows the user to walk or
run in place, usually on a continuous moving belt.
(3) Figuratively, a process or situation in which
continued effort leads to or is required for remaining at a particular state or
level without moving ahead; any monotonous, wearisome routine in which there is
little or no satisfactory progress.
(4) By extension, anything repetitive and unending.
(5) In molecular biology, as treadmilling, the apparent
locomotion of certain cellular filaments by adding protein subunits at one end,
and removing them at the other, a phenomenon observed in many cellular
cytoskeletal filaments.
1822: The construct was tread + mill. Tread was from the Middle English tred, from treden (to tread), from the Old English tredan, from the Proto-West Germanic tredan, from the Proto-Germanic trudaną. Mill was from the Middle English mylne & mille, from the Old English mylen,
from the Proto-West Germanic mulīnu (mill),
from the Late Latin molīna, molīnum
& molīnus (mill), from the Latin verb
molō (grind, mill), related to the Proto-Germanic
muljaną (to crush, grind (related to
the later English millstone). Although
speculative, some etymologists have suggested a relationship with the surname
Milne, based on an associative link with the profession of some sort of milling. The synonyms for the physical devices have
variously included mill, stepper & everlasting staircase, and in the
figurative sense, chore, drudgery, groove, labor, pace, rote, routine, rut,
sweat, task, toil, travail & moil. Treadmill
is a noun, treadmilling is a noun & verb, treadmilled is a verb (the forms
treadmillish & treadmillesque are both non-standard); the noun plural is plural
treadmills.
Depiction of penal treadmill (the wheel).
Treadmills originated
as a means of translating human energy into mechanical action to be applied to tasks
such as moving water or air, grinding grain or making more efficient processes like
the kneading of dough. All such devices had
since the mid sixteenth century tended to be known as treadwheels and the name
treadmill wasn’t widely adopted until 1822 when a machine, invented by the son
of a miller and used in English jails since 1818, was introduced into the US prison
system, the intention in both places being to occupy the prisoners (on the
basis of the theory that “the Devil makes work for idle hands”) and harness the
energy produced for some useful purpose (although it’s unclear to what extent the
devices were ever used a power source). Designed
ultimately to accommodate a dozen-odd men at a time, penal
treadmills were rotating cylinders with steps built into the external surface,
the prisoners essentially “walking uphill” for up to 4000 metres (14,000 feet)
per day. In prison slang the treadmills
became known as “the wheel” and they were widely used in England until a
decline in the late nineteenth century before use was discontinued in
1902; In the US, they were rare and extinct by mid-century, prison administrations
preferring to apply the labor of inmates directly to some productive purpose. The penal treadmill (the wheel) is best
remembered as being one of the punishments to which Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
was subjected during some of the two-year sentence he received after being
convicted of gross indecency.
Lindsay Lohan on treadmill, Planet Fitness Super Bowl commercial, 2022.
The figurative senses allude to the way running on a treadmill requires continued effort and motion in order to remain in the same place and it’s used to refer either to one’s continued application to a specific task without making discernible progress towards the goal or the general idea of being “stuck in a rut”, leading a repetitive existence. The idea for the familiar modern device dates from the early twentieth century and in medicine, sports and the military, variations emerged as required but by the 1970s, they became a standard piece of gym equipment and have become increasingly elaborate, linked to diagnostic and monitoring sensors and even the generation of electricity, some commercial operations granting users credits against the charges for use.
The term "euphemism treadmill" was coined by Harvard professor and psycholinguist Steven Pinker (b 1954) to describe the process by which euphemisms become as emotionally or politically loaded as the words supplanted. It was the same idea as “euphemism cycle” which University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor had mentioned as long ago as 1974 but more exact in that the process is lineal rather the cyclical; once cancelled, euphemisms seem forever doomed. Linguists call this the move from euphemism to dysphemism and while it’s impossible to know how long this has existed as a social phenomenon, the implications differ greatly between (1) purely oral cultures, (2) one where written or other records exist and (3) the digital era. It’s now not uncommon for words individuals used decades earlier (at a time when use was either common or at least tolerated) to be produced so an understanding of historical context matters. The word retard for example was once thought neutral and inoffensive compared with the earlier terms (idiot, imbecile & moron) which had migrated from clinical use to become slurs used as general-purpose insults against anyone. Retard suffered the same fate and it may be the currently acceptable terminology (intellectual disability, individual with an intellectual disability & intellectually and developmentally disabled) will undergo the same process although none roll of the tongue as easily as retard and IDD is not effortless so they may endure as neutral. The solution, Pinker pointed out, was that people should be educated to "think differently" about the subject, substituting euphemisms when progress inevitably from sanitized to slurs just kicks the can down the road.
Structurally though, the process can be seen as inevitable because it’s associative, a product of the interplay between a descriptor and that it denotes. Gay (a word with a centuries-long history in sexual politics) emerged in the late twentieth century as the preferred term to replace all the slurs referring to homosexuals, recommended by many even as preferable to homosexual which, despite being a neutral descriptive formation, had come to be regarded by many as a slur or term of derision. Of course, being associative, gay soon came also to be used as a slur (and as a synonym for strange, weird, un-cool or queer (in its more traditional sense)) though the negative application is now socially proscribed so gay in its modern sense may survive. So, the change of a descriptor doesn’t necessarily change attitudes. Just because gay became preferred to homosexual didn’t mean homophobia vanished although, interestingly, although there’s a record of the word gayphobia from as early as the 1990s, it never caught on.
Of interest too is the succession of terms which replaced the infamous N-word. Negro (which probably already is N-word 2.0 except in historic references) was in the 1960s used in the sense of something purely descriptive by mainstream figures such as John Kennedy (1917-1963; US president 1961-1963) and civil rights activist Martin Luther King (1929-1968) but it too came to be regarded as slur and was replaced by black. Negro did though have an interesting history. When first used in print in English in the mid-sixteenth century it was nearly always capitalized, the uncapitalized use beginning to appear in the late eighteenth century and becoming the standard form in twentieth although there were activists who insisted an initial capital was justified as a mark of respect, despite this being etymologically dubious. It’s now rare because it carries connotations of earlier discrimination although remains acceptable in context, such as when used by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The mater of capitalization had also affected the use of black, some activists claiming its
should be capitalized whereas white should not and that too is a purely
political argument given the word initially gained currency because it was
thought white’s linguistic equivalent.
In many ways that was true but it was controversial because, as used, it
wasn’t exactly synonymous with Negro which is why the more precise African American became popular in the
1980s, again for reasons of seeking social equivalence (Polish-Americans,
Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans et al).
Black, in practice, is often used to refer to dark-skinned
people whether or not of African descent and for this reason it became
unfashionable. Other sub-sets have also
moved in their own direction, the Fox News audience now preferring “the 13%”.
The distinction between colored people and people of
color puzzles some but is entirely due to the historical association of colored and colored people with racism both subtle and overt. People of color is a construction without the
baggage and to date has generally be used to assert identity or in a celebratory
sense and technically it’s a synonym for non-white because all those not white
can so self-classify. However, language
evolves and there’s no guarantee people of color won’t emerge as a slur. So, it can be a linguistic minefield and
while the general principle is that people should be described as they wish to
be described (or described not at all), at least for now, people of color seems
safe.
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