Bench

Bench (pronounced bench)

(1) A long seat (without arm or back-rest) for two or more people:

(2) A seat occupied by an official, especially a judge in a courtroom.

(3) Such a seat as a symbol of the office of an individual judge or the judiciary.

(4) The office or dignity of various other officials, or the officials themselves.

(5) In certain team sports, the seat (literally or figuratively) on which the reserve (substitute) players sit during a game while not playing and on which “starting side” players sit while substituted.

(6) The quality and number of the players named as substitutes.

(7) By extension, the quality and number of professionals or experts in reserve, to be called upon as needed:

(8) As a clipping of workbench, the worktable of those engaged in trades.

(9) In interior design, certain fixed flat surfaces (kitchen bench, bathroom bench etc).

(10) A platform on which animals or objects are placed for exhibition.

(11) In farming, a hollow on a hillside formed by sheep.

(12) In surveying, a bracket used to mount land surveying equipment onto a stone or a wall.

(13) In certain legislatures, as “front bench” (the office-holding members of a government or opposition who sit on the bench at the front of their side of the assembly), “back bench” (those elected members not appointed to an office who sit on benches behind) and “cross-bench” (those not members of the party in government or formal opposition who sit on other benches).  The terms are sometimes literal but depending on an assembly’s architecture or the size of a government’s majority, others can sometimes “overflow” to the physical “cross benches”.  Thus there are “front benchers”, “back benchers” & “cross benchers” (sometimes hyphenated).

(14) In geography, a shelf-like area of rock with steep slopes above and below, especially one marking a former shoreline.

(15) In extractive mining, a step or working elevation in a mine.

(16) In science (usually as “at the bench”), to distinguish between being engaged actively in research and concurrent or subsequent administrative functions.

(17) To furnish with benches (now rare).

(18) To seat on a bench or on the bench (now rare).

(19) In extractive mining, to cut away the working faces of benches.

(20) In certain team sports, to substitute or remove a player from a game or relegate them to the reserve squad.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bench, benk & bynk, from the Old English benc (bench; long seat (especially if backless)), from then Proto-West Germanic banki, from the Proto-Germanic bankon & bankiz (bench), from the primitive Indo-European bheg.  It was cognate with the Scots benk & bink, the West Frisian bank, the Dutch bank, the Old High German Bank, the Old Norse bekkr, the Old Frisian benk, the Danish bænk, the Swedish bänk and the Icelandic bekkur, all from a Germanic source and all of which meant “bench”.  In the Old English there were the verbs bencian (to make benches) and bencsittend (one who sits on a bench).  The dialectal spellings benk & bink are both long obsolete.  Bench & benching are nouns & verbs, bencher is a noun, benched is a verb & adjective and benchy & benchlike are adjectives; the noun plural is benches.

The source of the idea of the “bench as a type of long seat” is thought to come from a riparian imagery (natural earthen incline beside a body of water) and etymologists speculate the original notion was of a “man-made earthwork used as a seat”.  Bench was from the late fourteenth century used of the tables on which merchants displayed their wares and that may have been a borrowing from the reference to the seat the judge would occupy in a court of law, that use emerging early in the 1300s and coming soon to mean “judges collectively, office of a judge, the judiciary”.  Whether it was actually an allusion to customers “judging the goods displayed” is speculative.  The use in team sports of “the bench” being the “reserve or substitute team members” was drawn from the actual physical bench on the sideline on which those players would sit while not on the field.  The earliest known reference to the existence of furniture used for this purpose is from the US in 1899 but extending this generally to the “reserve of players” in baseball, football etc seems not to have begun until 1909.  In sport, the idiomatic forms include “bench player” (one habitually selected only in the reserves and not the “starting side”), “benched” (a player substituted during play and “sent to the bench”, either because of poor performance or as part of a planned rotation, “injury bench” (players substituted due to injury), “bench warmer (or “bench sitter”, or “bench jockey”) (one whose career has plateaued as a “bench player”, “warming the bench”) 

Bench has attracted many modifiers describing use including “bench grinder”, “bench saw”, “bench drill”, “sawbench”, “kitchen bench”, “deacon's bench”, “friendship bench”, “bench easel”, “mourners' bench”, “piano bench” (a “piano stool” for two), “preacher’s bench” et al.  The noun & verb “benchmark” refers to the optimal results obtained when testing something or someone on a “test bench” although the use is often conceptual, a physical “test bench” not necessarily part of the processes and even some structures in engineering referred to as a “test bench” may bear no relationship to any actual “bench” however described.

Bench seats ranged from the austerely functional to the luxurious: 1971 Holden HQ Belmont Station Sedan (station wagon or estate-car) in vinyl (turquoise) (left) and 1974 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop in “fine Corinthian leather” (chestnut) (right), the tufted “pillowed” upholstery a signature of the US luxury cars during an era in which they were forced to abandon high-performance.  Imperial's advertizing copy noted of the brochure’s photograph: “...while the passenger restraint system with starter interlock is not shown, it is standard on all Imperials.”  The marketing types didn't like seat-belts messing up their photos.

Bench seat for four: the improbable 1948 Davis Divan.  The blue car (one of a dozen survivors of the 17 built) was restored by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles where it is on display.

In cars and such, a “bench seat” differs from a “bucket” or “individual” seat in that comfortably it can accommodate two or more occupants, the comparison with furniture being the difference between a “chair” and a “sofa”.  In commercial vehicles, bench seats commonly can seat four but in cars the recommended (and eventually legal) limit was typically three although the truly bizarre Davis Divan (1948) featured a bench allowing four abreast seating for four adults, something which would have been an interesting experience for the quartet because a quirk of the suspension system was the long, pointed nose of the thing actually rose under braking.  The three-wheeled Divan was the brainchild of “automotive entrepreneur” (some historians are less kind) Glen Gordon “Gary” Davis (1904-1973) who put some effort into building the prototypes, not enough into preparation for actual production but much into raising funds from “investors”, a goodly chunk of which apparently was spent on real estate, mink coats for “friends” and such.  He had a flair for slogans so many investors were attracted but the project proved chimeric, Davis tried and convicted of fraud & grand theft, spending two years in prison.  The name Divan was used as an allusion to the car's wide bench seat.  It was from the French divan, from the Ottoman Turkish دیوان (divan), from the Iranian Persian دیوان (divân), from the Classical Persian دیوان (dēwān), from Middle Persian dpywʾn' or dywʾn' (dēwān) (archive, collected writings, compilation of works”), from the Sumerian dub.  The sense was of a sofa-like piece of furniture comprising a mattress lying against the wall and on either the floor or an elevated structure.  Part of the tradition of interior decorating in the Middle East, in the West divans are sometimes called “ottomans”; those with an internal storage compartment: box ottomans.

In courts of the common law traditions the terms “bench” & “bar” date from the medieval age and remain part of courtroom terminology.  “The bench” was originally the seat on which judges at while presiding, the early furniture apparently a simple wooden bench as one would find at many long dining tables and in the manner typical of the way English evolves, “bench” came to be used of judges collectively and of the institution of the judiciary itself.  The “bar” was the physical barrier separating the spectators and participants of a trial from the area where the lawyers and judges conducted the proceedings, thus the “bar table” being that at which the advocates sat and the right to practice law before the bench being “passing the bar”, familiar in the modern US phrase “passing the bar exam” or the English form “called to the bar”.  As “bench” became a synecdoche for the judiciary, “bar” came to be used of the lawyers although in jurisdictions where there is a separation between those who appear in court (barristers) and those who do not (solicitors) “bar” was applied only to the former and even after reforms in some abolished the distinctions between certain branches of the law, specialist practitioners continue often to be referred to as the “equity bar” & “common law bar”.  There’s thus the apparent anomaly of the use of “bencher” (recorded in the 1580s) being used to mean “senior member of an inn of court”, all of whom would have been members of “the bar”.  Presumably the idea was one of “approaching the bench” or (more mischievously) “aspiring to the bench”.  The bench-warrant (one issued by a judge, as opposed to one issued by a magistrate or justice of the peace (JP) dates from the 1690s. 

An illuminated manuscript (circa 1460) which is the earliest known depiction of the Court of King's Bench in session.

In England, the Court of King’s Bench (KB) (or Queen’s Bench (QB) depending on who was on the throne) began in the twelfth century as a court at which the monarch literally presided; it was a circuit court which would, from time-to-time, travel around the counties hearing cases.  The Court of KB was thus in some sense “virtual”, whatever wooden bench upon which he sat becoming the KB for the duration of the trial.  Kings would cease to sit as judges and the KB later was interpolated into the system of courts (there would be many internecine squabbles over the years) until (as the Court of Queen’s Bench), under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873), it, along with the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer and Court of Chancery were merged to become the High Court of Justice, each of the absorbed institutions becoming a division.  The Common Pleas and Exchequer Division were abolished in 1880 when the High Court was re-organized into the Chancery Division, Queen's Bench Division and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (the latter memorably known as “wills, wives & wrecks” in legal slang).  The origin of the KB is a hint of why a king or queen can’t appear before a court in the UK or other places in which they remain head of state: Although it is in a practical sense now a legal fiction, all courts of law are “their courts” of which they remain the highest judge.

Benches afforced with foreign judges, the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong’s national security law

Multi-national benches are not uncommon.  There have been courts operating under the auspices of the League of Nations (LoN; 1920-1946) & United Nations (UN; since 1945) such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the various ad-hoc bodies set up to handle prosecutions related to crimes in specific locations (Rwandan, the former Yugoslavia et al) and the UK had the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) which included senior judges from the Commonwealth.  The JCPC functioned not only as a final court of appeal for Commonwealth nations (a role for a handful it still fulfils) but also as the appellate tribunal for a number of domestic bodies including some ecclesiastical bodies, admiralty matters and even matters from the usually obscure Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.  There were also the International Military Tribunals (IMT) which tried matters arising from the conduct of German & Japanese defendants from World War II (1939-1945), the bench of the latter Tokyo Tribunal notably diverse although those of the subsequent dozen trials in Nuremberg were staffed exclusively by US judges.  A number of former colonies also use foreign judges (and not always from the former colonial power).

However, what remains unusual is the matter of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deciding to have foreign judges serve on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA), established in 1997 when the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was created upon Beijing regaining sovereignty (under the “one country, two systems” (1C2S)) principle, with the end of British colonial rule.  At that point, the HKCFA became the territory’s highest judicial institution, replacing the JCPC in London.  On the HKCFA’s bench sits the Chief Justice (a Hong Kong national), several “Permanent Judges” and some two-dozen odd “Non-permanent Judges” who may be recruited from Hong Kong or from among lawyers of the requisite background from any overseas common law jurisdiction.  As non-permanent judges, appointments have been drawn (from bar & bench) from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Lindsay Lohan, foreign judge on the bench of The Masked Singer (2019), a singing competition, the Australian franchise of a format which began in the ROK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) as King of Mask Singer.

While it may seem strange a developed country like the People’s Republic of China (The PRC, the world’s second largest economy, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and since 1965 the final member of the original “Club of Five” declared nuclear powers) would have foreign judges sitting in one of its superior courts, on the mainland the PRC operates under a civil law system which, like the tradition in continental European, is based primarily on written statutes and codes, unlike common law systems, which rely heavily on case law and judicial precedent.  As a British colony, Hong Kong had used common law and under that system had become a major regional and international presence, something in part due to its judicial system being perceived as fair an uncorrupted; it was a “rule of law” state.  In the PRC there simply wasn’t a body of judges or lawyers with the necessary background in common law to staff the territory’s highest appellate court and significantly, at the time of the handover from the Raj, Hong Kong was of great importance to the PRC’s economy and the CCP understood it would be critical to maintain confidence in the rule of law, investors and overseas corporations with Hong Kong resident interests needing to be assured matters such as contracts would continue as before to be enforceable.

So it was, literally, “business as usual”, whatever may have been the fears about the political undercurrent.  The growth of the mainland economy since 1997 has been such that the HKSAR now constitutes only a small fraction of the national economy but analysts (some of whom provide advice to the CCP) understand the linkages running through the territory remain highly useful for Beijing and some long-standing conduits are still used for back-channel communications about this and that.  As far as business is concerned, the operation of the legal system has remained satisfactory, even though the CCP ensured that Beijing retained a reserved power to overturn the HKCFA’s decisions.

The colonial era building where now sits the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.  Formally opened in 1912, it was built with granite in the neo-classical style and between 1985-2011 was the seat of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

However, in 2020, a “National Security Law” (technically the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and thus usually written in English as the “NSL”) was imposed.  While not aimed at the regulation of business or economic matters, it was wide in its scope and claims of application (the extraterritoriality extending worldwide), essentially extending to the territory many of the laws of the mainland regarding “political activities” and matters of “free speech”, the latter widely interpreted by the CCP.  Citing the “political situation”, two British judges in June 2024 resigned from the HKCFA, prompted by Beijing’s recent crackdown on dissent in the city, something made possible by the NSL.  In his published letter, one judge, his rationale for departure notwithstanding, did say he continued “…to have full confidence in the court and the total independence of its members.”  As early as 2020, one Australian judge had already resigned, followed by two others from the UK, both saying the Hong Kong government had “…departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression.”  The CCP may have anticipated some objection from the overseas judges because, since the passage of the NSL, no overseas judge has been allocated to hear the “security-related” cases.  The judicial disquiet seemed not to trouble the territory’s chief executive, former police officer John Lee (Ka-chiu) (b 1957) who said the overseas appointments would continue to help “…maintain confidence in the judicial system and… strong ties with other common law jurisdictions.”  In response to the departing judge’s comment, he claimed the NSL had “no effect” on judicial independence and the only difference was that “…national security is now better safeguarded.”

Early in June, the Hong Kong authorities arrested two men and one woman attending a FIFA World Cup qualification match against Iran, their offence being “turning their backs to the pitch and not standing during the performance of the national anthem”, a police spokesman adding that anybody “…who publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem in any way in committing a crime.”  Before the NSL was imposed, bolshie Hongkongers were known to boo the anthem to express discontent with their rulers; that definitely will no longer be tolerated.  The match ended Iran 4: Hong Kong 2 but despite that, more than ever the HKSAR and the Islamic Republic have much in common.

Agastopia

Agastopia (pronounced agg-uh-stow-pee-ah)

Deriving visual enjoyment from the appearance of a specific body part or parts (some suggesting the attraction must be fetishistic to cross the threshold from admiration to syndrome).

2011: A creation of etymologists Peter Novobatzky & Ammon Shea who included it in their 1999 book Depraved English (sub-titled: "The most disgusting and hilarious word book ever" which may be hyperbolic but certainly captured their intentions).  While the book may not have been exhaustive, there was an entry for maschalephidrosis (runaway armpit perspiration), the construct being the Ancient Greek μασχάλη (maskhálē) (armpit) + hidrosis, from the New Latin hidrōsis, from the Ancient Greek ἱδρώς (hidrṓs) (sweat) + -sis (the suffix in medicine used to form nouns of condition) so there were certainly highlights.  The construct of agastopia was the Ancient Greek ἀγα- (aga(s)-) (very) + -topia (a back-formation extracted from utopia (and other words) ultimately deriving from the Ancient Greek τόπος (tópos) (place).  Utopia was from the New Latin Ūtopia, the name of a fictional island possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system in the 1516 book Utopia by Sir Thomas More (1478–1535).  The construct was the Ancient Greek οὐ (ou) (not) + τόπος (tópos) (place, region) + -ία (-ía) (the New Latin suffix, from the Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia) which formed abstract nouns of feminine gender.  More’s irony in calling a world in which everything and everyone works in perfect harmony being best translated as “not a real place” is often lost in modern use.  Agastopic is a noun & adjective, agastopia is a noun, and agastopically is an adverb; the noun plural is agastopias.    

Agastopic: Lindsay Lohan's feet.

Although there had not previously been a generic descriptor of part-focused voyeuristic fetishism, there’s no suggestion Novobatzky thought agastopia a serious contribution to the taxonomy of mental health but some have adopted it, fleshing out the definitional range.  It’s been suggested the condition manifests as (1) a love or admiration of one’s own body part, compelling either a fondness of performing a particular task with it or a preference to cover and shield it with a protective layer or (2) the more familiar admiration of another’s body part(s).  Some sources, without citation, note it’s “…believed to be a rare condition” and one for which there’s “… no cure.”  Despite these nudges, when the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published in 2013 (DSM-5), there was no specific mention of agastopia and this was maintained when the revised version (DSM-5-TR) was released in 2022.  Still, for clinicians who find it a convenient medical shorthand, presumably, a patient found to be "fond of certain body part" without fetishizing it (or them) would be found to be "agastopish" and because fetishes seem inherently spectrum conditions, the comparative would be "more agastopic" & the superlative "most agastopic".

The notion agastopia is “believed to be a rare condition” must be based on the published statistics but they reflect (1) the profession no longer regarding it as a diagnosable condition unless certain criteria were fulfilled and (2) the general consensus most instances of agastopia are never reported.  Impressionistically, real-world experience would take note of industry having long recognized the prevalence in at least a (male) subset of the population at a level necessary to justify the investment necessary to supply the demand.  In the days when two of the most significant vectors for the distribution of pornography were glossy magazines and various digital media (tapes and optical discs), both forms provided some content devoted exclusively to one body part or another, the protocol carried over to the internet when websites became the default mode.  Among the pornography aggregation sites, it’s not unusual for the usual suspect body parts to be listed as categories for consumers with a particular agastopic focus.

So agastopia is a thing which exists at a commercially critical mass.  ‘Twas ever thus perhaps but what has in recent decades changed is the attitude of the mental health community.  Before the release of DSM-III-R (1987), fetishism was usually described as a persistent preferential sexual arousal in association with non-living objects or an over-inclusive focus on (typically non-sexualized) body parts (most famously feet) and body secretions.  With the DSM-III-R, the concept of partialism (an exclusive focus on part of the body) was separated from the historic category of fetishism and appended to the “Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified” category.  Although one of the dustier corners of psychiatry, the field had always fascinated some and in the years since the DSM-III-R was published, a literature did emerge, most critics maintaining partialism and fetishism are related, can be co-associated, and are non-exclusive domains of sexual behavior.  There was a technical basis for this position because introduced in the DSM-IV (1994) was a (since further elaborated) codification of the secondary clinical significance criterion for designating a psychiatric disorder, one the implications of which was that it appeared to suggest a diagnostic distinction between partialism and fetishism was no longer clinically meaningful or necessary.  The recommendation was that the prime diagnostic criterion for fetishism be modified to reflect the reintegration of partialism and that a fetishistic focus on non-sexual body parts be a specifier of Fetishism.

Fetish was from the Latin facere (to make) which begat factitious (made by art), from which the Portuguese feitico was derived (fetiche in the French), from which English gained fetish.  A fetish in this context was defined as "a thing irrationally revered; an object in which power or force was concentrated".  In English, use of fetish to indicate an object of desire in the sense of “someone who is aroused due to a body part, or an object belonging to a person who is the object of desire” dates from 1897 (although the condition is mentioned in thirteenth century medical documents), an era during which the language of modern psychiatry was being assembled.  However, in the literary record, surviving from the seventh century AD are dozens of brooding, obsessive love letters from the second century AD of uncertain authorship and addressed to both male and female youths.  That there are those to whom an object or body part has the power to captivate and enthral has presumably been part of the human condition from the start.

The DSM-5 Criteria

Criterion 1: Over a six month period, the individual has experienced sexual urges focused on a non-genital body part, or inanimate object, or other stimulus, and has acted out urges, fantasies, or behaviors.

Criterion 2: The fantasies, urges, or behaviors cause distress, or impairment in functioning.

Criterion 3: The fetishistic object is not an article of clothing employed in cross dressing, or a sexual stimulation device, such as a vibrator.

Specifiers for the diagnosis include the type of stimulus which is the focus of attention (1) the non-genital or erogenous areas of the body (such as feet) and this condition is known also as Partialism (a preoccupation with a part of the body rather than the whole person), (2) Non-living object(s) (such as shoes), (3) specific activities (such as smoking during sex).

WikiFeet is a wiki which curates users’ submissions of feet with the predictable emphasis on celebrities (Lindsay Lohan’s wears a US size 9 shoe).  It includes the sections “feet of the day” and “feet of the week” although the criteria for making the selection cut for these honors aren’t disclosed.  Even crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has a page but both senile old Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) and sleazy old Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) are neglected.  That may be an opportunity missed by the campaign teams given the evidence suggests many people think much about feet and the sight of those of the candidates may influence the votes of at least a few.

Shine envy: Field Marshal el-Sisi and President Trump, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 2017.  Military men usually have shiny shoes.

There was nothing in the recent testimony of Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) to suggest Mr Trump has a particular thing for feet but he certainly notices shoes.  When meeting Field Marshal Fattah el-Sisi (b 1954; President of Egypt since 2014) in Riyadh, Mr Trump couldn’t help but be impressed how much shinier were the field marshal’s shoes, his seemingly close to identical pumps made to look dull.  As they left the room, Mr Trump remarked to him: “Love your shoes.  Boy, those shoes. Man …” but knew he’d lost face and doubtless the White House shoe-shine operative was told: "You're fired!"  The Democratic Party may have their own reasons not draw attention to Mr Biden’s feet lest Fox News demand proof he can still tie his own shoe-laces.

Noting the definitional model in the DSM-IV-TR (2000), despite the history in psychiatry’s world of paraphilias and a notable presence in popular culture, there were those who claimed the very notion of a foot fetish was false because of that critical phrase “non-living” which would seem to disqualify a foot (unless of course it was no longer alive but such an interest would be seriously weird and a different condition; although in this context there are deconstructionists who would make a distinction between a depiction of a live foot and the foot itself, clinicians probably regard them as interchangeable tools of the fetishist although the techniques of consumption would vary).  The critic noted many fetishes are extensions of the human body, such as articles of clothing or footwear but that did not extend to feet and that diagnostically, a sexual fascination with feet did correctly belong in the category of “Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified,” and thus be regarded as partialism: Foot partialism.

OnlyFans is a niche player in the gig economy but it’s the oldest niche in the world and one of the first successfully to embrace the implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  There are also “parasitic sites” which exist as intermediaries between OnlyFans and third parties handling transactions with a guarantee of anonymity although, if curated with care, one’s own feet on an OnlyFans page should be similarly anonymous.  Content providers are known as “sole traders”.

The feet of Ana de Armas, OnlyFans "Feet of the Year, 2023".

It need not be an expensive hobby, provided one focuses on one's favorite feet.  English singer Lily Allen (b 1985) has an OnlyFans page (Lily Allen FTSE500) for her (US size 6) feet and subscriptions are offered at US$10 per month, her hook on an Instragram post titled “La dolce feeta” including a snap of her toes next to Rome’s Trevi in which Anita Ekberg's (1931-2005) feet splashed, all those years ago.  While to those not part of the fetish it can be hard to tell one foot from another, aficionados have eyes as well-trained as a sommelier's palate; in 2023 OnlyFans "Feet of the Year" title was awarded to Cuban-born Spanish actress Ana de Armas (b 1988).

It was Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who admitted that, lawfulness aside, as animals, the only truly aberrant sexual behavior in humans could be said to be its absence (something which the modern asexual movement re-defines rather than disproves).  It seemed to be in that spirit the DSM-5 was revised to treat agastopia and many other “harmless” behaviors as “normal” and thus within the purview of the manual only to the extent of being described, clinical intervention no longer required.  Whether all psychiatrists agree with the new permissiveness isn’t known but early reports suggest there’s nothing in the DSM-5-TR (2022) to suggest agastopics will soon again be labeled as deviants.

The washing of feet

In the New Testament there are three texts describing Christ washing feet, the best known of which is John 13:1-17 (Jesus Washing the Disciples' Feet).  The ritual is explained usually as Jesus demonstrating his humility and mission to serve mankind but it's clear he wished also to set an example to his sometimes fractious disciples:

"So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."  John 13:12-15 (King James Version; KJV, 1611)

Pope Francis kisses the foot of a female inmate of Rebibbia prison, Rome, 28 March 2024.  The foot-washing ritual takes place on the Thursday before Easter and seeks to imitate Christ’s washing of the Disciples’ feet the night before he was crucified.  It was on that evening he said to his Disciples: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.” (John 13:21)

The sight of a pope washing feet is familiar but when Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) performed the ritual at Rome’s Rebibbia prison on Holy Thursday 2024, it was apparently the first time in the institution’s two-thousand year odd existence a pontiff has washed the feet only of women.  Historians concede records from earlier centuries are obviously incomplete but the event was thought so remarkable most seemed to conclude a precedent had been set.  In the past Francis has washed the feet of women, Muslims, refugees and other minorities but never women exclusively.  He has certainly cast a wider net than his more conservative predecessor, Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) who sponged the feet only of men and, in the final years of his pontificate, only those of ordained priests.  It’s said feet proffered to popes, diligently are pre-sanitized.

Installation

Installation (pronounced in-stuh-ley-shuhn)

(1) Something installed (which can be physical, as in plant or equipment or weightless, as in software).

(2) The act of installing (to install) or the state of being installed.

(3) In military use, any permanent or semi-permanent post, camp, station, base etc, maintained to support operations.

(4) In art, an exhibit (widely defined) where the relation of the parts to the whole and the context of the space where exhibited are sometimes claimed to important to the interpretation of the piece.

(5) A formal ceremony in which an honor is conferred or an appointment made to an office (the state of being so honored or appointed being to be “installed”).

1600–1610: From the Middle French installation, from the Medieval Latin installātiō.  The construct was install + -ation.  The verb install (which was used also as instal and before that enstall) was an early fifteenth century form used to mean “place in ecclesiastical office by seating in an official stall”.  It was from the Middle English installen, from the fourteenth century Old French installer, from the Medieval Latin īnstallō (to install, put in place, establish), the construct being in- (in)- + stallum (stall), from the Frankish stall (stall, position, place), from the Proto-Germanic stallaz (place, position), from the primitive Indo-European stel-, stAlǝn- & stAlǝm- (stem, trunk).  It was cognate with the Old High German stal (location, stall), the Old English steall (position, stall), the Old English onstellan (to institute, create, originate, establish, give the example of), the Middle High German anstalt (institute), the German anstellen (to conduct, employ), the German einstellen (to set, adjust, position), Dutch aanstellen (to appoint, commission, institute) and the Dutch instellen (to set up, establish).  The suffix -ation was from the Middle English -acioun & -acion, from the Old French acion & -ation, from the Latin -ātiō, an alternative form of -tiō (thus the eventual English form -tion).  It was appended to words to indicate (1) an action or process, (2) the result of an action or process or (3) a state or quality.

The mid fifteenth century noun installation (action of installing) was a reference to the processes (both administrative & ceremonial) of appointment to church offices or other positions, and in that sense was from the Medieval Latin installationem (nominative installātiō), the noun of action from past participle stem of installare.  Of machinery (in the sense of plant & equipment), the first known use in print, describing the “act of setting up a machine; placing it in position for use” dates from 1882 but it may by then have for some time been in oral use.  Installation & installationer are nouns and installational & installationlike are adjectives; the noun plural is installations.  Installationism & installationist are non-standard forms used in art criticism.

In computing, an “installation” can be of hardware or software.  With hardware, the point of distinction is an installation is something which is permanent (or, even if temporary, installed in a manner of something permanent), as opposed to a mere connection (such as plugging to a USB cable).  In software, the idea to is transfer from an external source (the internet, a place on a network or transportable media (diskettes, optical discs etc)) onto a device's permanent storage, the installation process usually taken to include putting things into the state where functional use is possible.  Installations can be as simple as copying a single file to a drive to long, interactive processes involving multiple external media and on-line registration or validation procedures.  Some installations are effortless while some are worse than others, as those who have enjoyed the experience of installing the earlier versions of Nvidia’s video drivers for some flavors of Unix can attest.  Especially in software, the terms “pre-installation” and “re-reinstallation” are common although “un-install” is more common than “un-installation” (the terms “failed installation” and “corrupted installation” are also not unknown although in most use, IT nerds usually clip “installation” to “install”).

Installations and Performance Art

It’s now unfashionable, and probably thought reactionary, to attempt to impose definitions on the various expressions of Western art.  There was a time, in living memory, when such distinctions were taken seriously, one squabble about whether an entrant in an Australian portraiture competition could be considered “a portrait” (and by implication the work of “an artist”) or “a mere caricature” (and the thus the scribblings of “a cartoonist”) ending up in the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Attorney-General v Trustees of National Art Gallery of NSW & Another (1945) 62 WN (NSW) 212.).

Portrait or caricature?  Mr Joshua Smith (1943, left), oil on canvas by Sir William Dobell (1899–1970) and Joshua Smith (1905-1995, right).

Wisely, Mr Justice Roper (1901–1958) decided the bench was not a place for amateur art criticism and agreed the work was indeed “a portrait”, holding, inter alia, that “portrait” “…means a pictorial representation of a person, painted by an artist. This definition denotes some degree of likeness is essential and for the purpose of achieving it the inclusion of the face of the subject is desirable and perhaps also essential.”  Of the work in question, he observed it was “…characterised by some startling exaggeration and distortion which was clearly intended by the artist, his technique being too brilliant to admit of any other conclusion.  It bears, nevertheless, a strong degree of likeness to the subject and is think, undoubtedly, a pictorial representation of him.  I find as a fact that it is a portrait…”  Given that, the judge found it unnecessary to consider whether the painting was a “caricature” or a “fantasy” which was a shame, even if it wouldn’t have been something on which the verdict hung.

Year later, in an essay he titled The White Bird (1987), the English painter & art critic John Berger (1926–2017) would discuss the relationship between artist, artwork & viewer and the tension between accurate depiction (“imitation” as he sometimes called it, a growing trend in modern portraiture) and creative expression: “The notion that art is the mirror of nature is one that only appeals in periods of scepticism.  Art does not imitate nature; it imitates a creation, sometimes to propose an alternative world, sometimes simply to amplify, to confirm, to make social the brief hope offered by nature.  Art is an organised response to what nature allows us to glimpse occasionally. Art sets out to transform the potential recognition into an unceasing one.”  With that, one suspects Mr Justice Roper would have concurred.

Finding legal proceedings tiresome, the art industry solved the problem of what does and does not belong in galleries by embracing “installations” and “performance art”, two categories without definitional boundaries and thus able to accommodate anything which can’t be squeezed into one of the traditional slots.  In retrospect, it is course easy to identify stuff stretching back many centuries which could be classified as either but in the modern age, there’s certainly a perception curators are now artistically more promiscuous.  It thus both impossible and pointless to try to define “installation” and “performance art” but some characteristics certainly are identifiable.

Installation art tends to be three-dimensional, is often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space in which it exists and the range of materials used is unlimited, the genre notable especially for the use of everyday objects, video & audio content and often, interactive components.  Installation art has encompassed unmade beds so there’s some scope.  Just as there’s no one type of installation, nor are there defined parameters for the mode of display: installations have been hung from ceilings, wrapped around buildings and sat on the seabed.  In gallery spaces however, the most frequently seen installations are those on the floor with sufficient room surrounding them for the viewer to walk around, experiencing the work from multiple angles and perspectives.  Installations can be temporary or permanent or even in some way vanish, decay or be destroyed during the exhibition and in more than one case, the “installation” didn’t actually exist.

The context of location can also dictate the definition.  Wax figures of Lindsay Lohan & Paris Hilton might be all or part of an installation if exhibited in a gallery but when on display at Madame Tussauds in New York City (left), they are a tourist attraction.  More typically, installations combine artistic technique with social or political comment: Gabriel Dawe's (b 1973) Plexus series (centre) was made with a reputed 60 miles (97 km) of embroidery thread hooked from floor to ceiling in a repeating overlay while Judy Chicago’s (b 1939) The Dinner Party, 1974-79 (right) was a feminist piece but one which later attracted criticism because some degree of “ethnic exclusionism” was detected.

Performance art, as the term implies, is a form of “live art” where “something happens”, the actions of the artist or performers components of the work.  Perhaps best thought of as a form of encapsulated theatre, performance art would seem to depend on movement, sound, color and sometimes text although, being art, some performance art has been wholly static.  For that reason, Empire (1965), Andy Warhol’s (1928–1987) eight-hour, slow-motion film of an unchanging view of the Empire State Building must be considered performance art although, given the nature of the experience, it really must be the viewer who is thought the subject.  Performance art is of course intrinsically ephemeral and Empire played with that idea, each moment of the production seemingly the same yet in tiny ways different, rather like the exercise in textual definitional philosophy lecturers like to give students to ponder: “Is the river the ‘same’ river from one day to the next when almost all the molecules of water are different?”

US rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, hip hop identity & fashion designer Ye (formerly the artist known as Kanye West (b 1977)) and Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995): In Maimi, Florida, December 2023 (left) and in Paris for Fashion Week, June 2024 (centre & right).

The recent, much publicized appearances by Mr Ye and Ms Censori attracted all sorts of comments and the consensus was the project (one presumably restricted to the warmer months) was a promotional device for him and to some extent that seems to have worked, despite Mr Ye being mostly unnoticed while in the presence of his photogenic muse.  Although there are references to the pair being “married”, it’s not clear if that is their legal status and in artistic terms that may be significant.  What is of interest is whether in these appearances Ms Censori should be thought a “performance artist” or Mr Ye’s “installation”; both have been suggested and there’s no reason why the two states can’t be simultaneous.

Mr Ye & Ms Cansori at Paris Fashion Week, June 2024, the latter in character or possibly, installed.

Discreet & Discrete

Discreet (pronounced dih-skreet)

(1) Judicious in conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about delicate matters; prudent; circumspect.

(2) Showing prudence and circumspection; decorous.

(3) Modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious.

1325–1375: From the Middle English discret, from the Anglo-French & Old French discret (prudent, discerning), from the Medieval Latin discrētus (separated), past participle of discernere (to discern), the construct being dis- + crē- (separate, distinguish (variant stem of cernere)) + -tus, the Latin past participle suffix.  The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  The Latin suffix –tus was from the Proto-Italic -tos, from the primitive Indo-European -tós (the suffix creating verbal adjectives) and may be compared to the Proto-Slavic –tъ and Proto-Germanic –daz & -taz.  It was used to form the past participle of verbs and adjectives having the sense "provided with".  Latin scholars caution the correct use of the –tus suffix is technically demanding with a myriad of rules to be followed and, in use, even the pronunciation used in Ecclesiastical Latin could vary.  Discreet, discreeter, discreetest & discretionary are adjectives, discreetness & discretion are nouns and discreetly is an adverb; the noun plural is discretions.  Such is the human condition, the derived form "indiscretion" is in frequent use.

Discrete (pronounced dih-skreet)

(1) Apart or detached from others; separate; non-continuous; distinct; that which can be perceived individually and not as connected to, or part of something else.

(2) Consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous; that which can be perceived individually, not as connected to, or part of, something else.

(3) In mathematics, of a topology or topological space, having the property that every subset is an open set; defined only for an isolated set of points; using only arithmetic and algebra; not involving calculus.

(4) In mathematics, consisting of or permitting only distinct values drawn from a finite, countable set.

(5) In statistics (of a variable), having consecutive values not so infinitesimally close, so that its analysis requires summation rather than integration.

(6) In electrical engineering, having separate electronic components (diodes, transistors, resisters etc) as opposed to integrated circuitry (IC).

(7) In audio engineering, having separate and independent channels of audio, as opposed to multiplexed stereo, quadraphonic (also as quadrasonic) or other multi-channel sound.

(8) In linguistics, disjunctive, containing a disjunctive or discretive clause.

(9) In angelology, the technical description of the hierarchies and orders of angels.

1350–1400: Middle English from the Latin discrētus (separated; set apart) past participle of discernō (divide), the construct being dis- + cernō (sift); a doublet of discreet.  The Middle English adoption came via the Old French discret.  The common antonym is indiscrete (never hyphenated) but nondiscrete (also non-discrete), while synonymous in general used, is often used with specific meanings in mathematics & statistics.  Discrete is an adjective, discreteness is a noun and discretely is an adverb.  

Strange words

An etymological tangle, it was the influence of the Middle French discret (prudent, discerning) which saw discreet evolve to mean “wise person” in Anglo-French.  The Latin source was discrētus (past participle of the verb discernere (to discern; to separate, distinguish, mark off, show differences between)) and in post-Classical Latin discrētus also acquired the sense “prudent, wise,” possibly arising from association with the noun discrētiō, which shows a similar semantic development: physical separation, to discernment, to capacity to discern, the the notion of a "discreet person" being able to "pick" their way, setting "apart" the good from the bad, (dis- being "apart" & cerno "pick").

Discrete (apart or detached from others; separate; distinct) was originally a spelling doublet of discreet, sharing meanings, both derived from the same Latin source.  The spelling discrete is closer in form to the Latin discrētus and was probably a deliberate attempt to differentiate "discreet" from "discrete" (a courtesy to users English doesn't always extend) and one has always been more prolific than the other, dictionaries for centuries tending to offer some five times the citations for “prudent, circumspect” compared with the sense “separate or distinct” although the history of the latter is long in statistics, angelology, astronomy, and mathematics.  It wasn’t until the late sixteenth century that discrete became restricted to the now familiar meanings, leaving the spelling discreet to predominate in its own use.  In a way not uncommon in English, pre-modern spellings proliferated: discreyt, discrite, discreit, discreete and others existed but, by the late sixteenth century, the standard meanings became discrete in the sense of “individual” and discreet in the sense of “tactful”.  Had the usual convention been followed it would have been the other way around because in English the Latin ending –etus usually becomes –ete.  Even into the mid-twentieth century, there were style & usage guides which recommended different pronunciations for discrete & discreet the former accented dĭ'-krē’t rather than dĭs-krē’t, the rationale being it was both “natural in English accentuation” (the example of the adjectival use of “concrete” cited) and helpful in distinguishing the word from “discreet”.  The modern practice however is to use the same pronunciation for both, leaving the labor of differentiation to context.

Artistic angelology: The Assumption of the Virgin (1475-1476), by Francesco Botticini (1446–1498), tempera on wood panel, National Gallery, London.  Commissioned as the altarpiece for a Florentine church, it portrays Mary's assumption and shows the discrete three hierarchies and nine orders of angels.

The noun discretion means (1) the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment; freedom of judgment or choice and (2) the quality of being discreet, especially with reference to one's own actions or speech; prudence or decorum.  Discretion dates from 1250–1300 and was from the Middle English discrecioun, from the Anglo-French & Old French discrecion, from the Late Latin discrētiōnem-(stem of discrētiō (separation)).  The special use in English law as the “age of discretion” began in the mid-fourteenth century as dyscrecyounne (ability to perceive and understand) meaning one was deemed to have attained “moral discernment, ability to distinguish right from wrong”.  It thus implied “prudence, sagacity regarding one's conduct”.  The meanings of the later forms came from the Medieval Latin (discernment, power to make distinctions), which evolved from the use in Classical Latin (separation, distinction).

The Age of Discretion

The familiar phrase “at one’s discretion” seems not to have been in use until the 1570s although “in one's discretion” was documented by the late fourteenth century.  The use in English common law meaning “power to decide or judge; the power of acting according to one's own judgment” was reflected in the legal principle “the age of discretion which was part of law since the late fourteenth century when the age was deemed to be fourteen years, the age William Shakespeare (1564–1616) chose for the star-cross'd lovers in Romeo and Juliet (1597).

Historically, the “age of discretion” referred to the age at which a child was considered to be capable of making certain decisions and understanding the consequences of their actions.  Typically, was typically around seven years old, the point at which a child was deemed to have enough understanding to be responsible for certain actions, such as committing a crime or making religious decisions.  Gradually, the age crept up, especially as it applied to doli incapax (the age under which a child was presumed incapable of committing a crime) until it became established law a child between seven and fourteen was presumed not to have criminal intent unless it could be proven otherwise, the evidential onus of proof resting wholly with the prosecutor (almost always the Crown (ie some agent of the state)).  The generalized idea of an “age of discretion” influenced later developments in law such as the age of criminal responsibility, at which one could enter into legally enforceable contracts, enjoy a testamentary capacity or (lawfully) have sex.  Between jurisdictions the relevant age for this and that does vary and changes are not always without controversy: under the Raj, when Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927; Viceroy of India 1888-1894) raised the age of sexual consent for girls from ten to twelve, the objections from men united the castes like few other issues.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

For their purposes, the Church preferred seven and habitually declared children this age were capable of making their own decisions regarding religious practices, such as confession and communion and the phrase “give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man” is attributed usually to the Spanish priest Saint Ignatius of Loyola 1491-1556) who founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).  It’s no longer thought wise to leave children alone with priests but the social media platforms well-understood the importance of gaining young converts and for years did nothing to try to enforce their minimum age requirements for account creation.  The consequences of this have of late become understood and the debate about the wisdom of “giving children access to the internet” is now being framed as the more ominous “giving the internet access to children”.

Discreet Allure: “Discreet” is here used in the sense of “modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious” and was in reference to the displayed clothing lines which were designed to be acceptable (halal (حلال)) under the Sharia (شَرِيعَة).  Lindsay Lohan at London Modern Fashion Week, February 2018.