Peculiar (pronounced pi-kyool-yer)
(1) Something thought strange, queer, odd, eccentric, bizarre.
(2) Something uncommon or unusual.
(3) Distinctive in nature or character from others.
(4) Belonging characteristically to something.
(5) Belonging exclusively to some person, group, or thing.
(6) In astronomy, designating a star or galaxy with special properties that deviates from others of its spectral type or galaxy class.
(7) A property or privilege belonging exclusively or characteristically to a person.
(8) In the Church of England, a particular parish or church that is exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or bishop in whose diocese it lies and is governed by another.
(9) In printing and typesetting, special characters not generally included in standard type fonts, as phonetic symbols, mathematical symbols etc (such as ±§¿). Also called arbitraries.
1400-1450: From the late Middle English, from the Old French peculiaire and directly from the Latin pecūliāris (as one's own property), from pecūlium (private property (literally "property in cattle") a derivative of pecū (flock, farm animals) from pecus (cattle) (in Antiquity, the ownership of cattle was an important form of wealth). The meaning “unusual” dates from circa 1600, a development of the earlier idiom “distinguished or special”. The meaning "unusual, uncommon; odd" emerged by circa 1600, an evolution from the earlier "distinguished, special, particular, select" which was in use by at least the 1580s. The euphemistic phrase "peculiar institution" (slavery; "peculiar" used here in the sense of "exclusive to the "slave states") dates from the 1830s when it was used in speeches by Southern politician John C Calhoun (1782-1850) and it was a standard part of the US political lexicon until abolition. In ecclesiastical administration, peculiar was used in the sense of "distinct from the auspices of the diocese in which it's located". Peculiar is a noun & adjective, peculiarize is a verb, peculiarity is a noun and peculiarly is an adverb; the noun plural is peculiars.
Photographers will use the natural environment to produce peculiar effects which can be striking: This is Lindsay Lohan straked by sunlight & shadow from a photo session by Ellen Von Unwerth (b 1954) for Vogue Italia, August 2010. The caption “Ho fatto terribili sbagli dai quali però ho imparato molto. Probabilmente per questo sono ancora viva” translates from the Italian as “I've made terrible mistakes, but I've learned a lot from them. That's probably why I'm still alive.”
In the Church of England, a peculiar is an ecclesiastical district, parish, chapel or church which operates outside the jurisdiction of the bishop and archdeacon of the diocese in which they are situated. Most are Royal Peculiars subject to the direct jurisdiction of the monarch but some are those under another archbishop, bishop or dean. The arrangement originated in Anglo-Saxon times and developed as a result of the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English Church. King Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) retained Royal Peculiars following the Reformation and the Ecclesiastical Licences Act (1533), as confirmed by the Act of Supremacy (1559), transferred to the sovereign the jurisdiction which previously been exercised by the pope. Surprisingly, most peculiars survived the Reformation but, with the exception of Royal Peculiars, almost all were abolished during the nineteenth century by various acts of parliament. Mostly harmless among Anglicans, the concept existed also in the Roman-Catholic Church where it caused a few difficulties, usually because of bolshie nuns in convents answerable to Rome and not the local bishop. The bishops, used to obedience, even if grudging, enjoyed this not at all.
One archaic-sounding peculiarity in the sometimes intersecting world of geopolitics and diplomatic conventions is that on the Chrysanthemum Throne sits an emperor yet there is no Japanese empire. Actually, despite the institution having a history stretching back millennia, no empires remain extant and some of the more recent (such as the Central African Empire (1976-1979)) have been dubious constructions. Despite that, the Japanese head of state remains an emperor which seems strange but the reasons the title has endured are historical, linguistic & diplomatic. The Japanese sovereign’s native title is 天皇 (Tennō (literally “Heavenly Sovereign” and best understood in the oft-used twentieth century phrase “Son of Heaven”). When, in the mid 1800s, the Western powers first began their engagement with Japan, the diplomatic protocol specialists soon worked out there was in their languages no exact term which exactly encapsulated Tennō and because “king” historically was lower in status than “emperor”, that couldn’t be used because, the Japanese court regarding itself as equal to (in reality probably “superior to”) the ruling house in China, it would have implied a loss of face. So, on the basis of the precedent of the Chinese 皇帝 (huángdì (Emperor), Tennō entered English (and other European languages) translated as “emperor”. This solved most potential problems by placing the Japanese sovereign on the same level as the Chinese Emperor & Russian Tsar.
Cars of the Chrysanthemum Throne: Emperor Akihito (b 1933; Emperor of Japan 1989-2019) waving while leaving Tokyo's Imperial Palace in 2006 Toyota Century (left) and the 2019 Toyota Century four-door parade cabriolet (right). Although in the West, Toyota in 1989 created the Lexus brand for the upper middle class (and hopefully above), the royal household has for years been supplied with Toyotas, some of them with bespoke coachwork and interior appointments although mechanical components come from the Toyota/Lexus parts bin. The four-door cabriolet replaced a 1990 Rolls-Royce Corniche DHC (drophead coupé) which, having only two doors made less easy an elegant ingress or egress.
As things turned out, the linguistic pragmatism turned out to be predictive because during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Japan emerged as a modern imperial power, with colonies in Taiwan, Korea and other places. After World War II (1939-1945), the empire was dissolved but the imperial institution was retained, a fudge the Allied powers tacitly had conceded as an alternative to insisting on the “unconditional surrender” the Potsdam Declaration (26 July, 1945) had demanded. Tennō thus remained the head of state’s title and in English it has continued to be rendered as “Emperor”, a nod more to historical continuity than diplomatic courtesy. In a practical sense, this represented no obvious challenge because being styled “The Emperor” was geographically vague, unlike the king in the UK who obviously ceased to be called “Emperor of India” after the Raj was dissolved with the granting of Indian independence in 1947. The peculiar anomaly of an emperor without an empire remains peculiar to Japan.
Peculiar has a range of meanings. One is the sense of something “uniquely peculiar to” meaning an attribute or something else shared with no other and sometimes things one thought peculiar to one thing or another are proved not so unique. Saturn’s lovely rings were once thought peculiar to that planet but exploration and advances in observational technology meant that by the late twentieth century it could be revealed Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune all had ring systems, albeit more modest than those of Saturn but they were there. Non-realistic art has often for its impact depended on a depiction of the peculiar: blue trees, flying dogs and green people once all enough to shock. This too can change. Once, a painting of a black swan would have seemed peculiar because, as the Roman saying went rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno (a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan). The accepted fact was that all swans were white. However, late in the seventeenth century, Dutch explorers visiting what is now the coast of Western Australia became the first Europeans to see black swans and event subsequently picked up in philosophy as the “black swan moment”, referencing the implications of an accepted orthodoxy of impossibility being disproven, later developed into the “black swan logical fallacy” which became a term used when identifying falsification.
However, the two meanings can co-exist in the one sentence such as: (1) “Fortunately, the most peculiar of the styling motifs Plymouth used on the 1961 range remained peculiar to that single season” or (2) “On the basis of comments from experts in the linguistics community, Lindsay Lohan's peculiar new accent seems peculiar to her.” In each case the first instance was used in the sense of “strange or weird” while the second suggested “uniqueness”. Because in sentence construction, unless done for deliberate effect, there's some reluctance to repeat what may be called “noticeable words” (ie those which “stick out” because they’re rare or in some way unusual), writers can be tempted by the sin of what Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) called “elegant variation”. Although willing to concede inelegance had its place as a literary or dramatic device (rather as a soprano with a lovely voice sometimes has to sing an aria which demands she sounds “ugly”), Henry Fowler preferred all sentences to be elegant. Elegance however was a product and not a process, and he cautioned “young writers” (those older presumably written off as beyond redemption) against following what had become established as a “misleading rules of thumb”: Never to use the same word twice in a sentence or within 20 lines or other limit.” His view was that if unavoidable, repetition, elegantly done was preferable to the obviously contrived used of synonyms such as (1) monarch, king, sovereign, ruler or (2) women, ladies, females, the variants there just to comply with a non-existent rule. Predictably, the law was singled out as repeat offender, the use of “suits, actions & cases appearing in the one sentence to describe the same thing pointlessly clumsy in what was merely a list in which a repeated use of “cases” would had added clarity although that quality is not one always valued by lawyers.
Peculiar in the sense of something bizarre: 1961 Plymouth Fury Convertible. It must have seemed a good idea at the time and never has there been anything to suggest the stylists were under the influence of stimulants stronger than caffeine or nicotine.
Sometimes something thought peculiar can be described as “funny-peculiar” to distinguish it from something disturbing: peculiarities can be thought of as perversions. In 1906, an embittered and vengeful Friedrich von Holstein (1837–1909; between 1876-1906, an éminence grise in the foreign office of the German Empire) sent a letter to the diplomat Prince “Phili” Phillip of Eulenburg (1847–1921), the man he blamed for ending of his long and influential career:
“My
dear Phili – you needn’t take this beginning as a compliment since nowadays to
call a man ‘Phili” means – well, nothing very flattering… I am now free to
handle you as one handles such a contemptible person with your peculiarities.”
From this incendiary note ensued a series of legal proceedings exploring the allegations of “unnatural conduct” (homosexual activity) levelled against Prince Phillip, proceedings which involved a roll-call of characters, many with motives which went beyond their strict legal duty and a few with their own agendas. The matter of Phili’s “peculiarities” was of real political (and potentially constitutional) significance, not merely because homosexuality was punishable under the criminal code (although the statute was rarely enforced) but because the prince had for decades been the closest friend of the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Emperor & King of Prussia 1888-1918). To this day, the exact nature of the relationship between the two remains uncertain.