Saucepan

Saucepan (pronounced saws-pan)

(1) A deep cooking vessel fashioned usually from metal, typically with a long protruding handle and often a lid; used for boiling, stewing etc with use not restricted to the preparation of sauces.

(2) In uranography (celestial cartography; the mapping of celestial bodies), a pot-shaped asterism in the constellation Orion, consisting of Orion's Belt, Orion's Sword, and the star Eta Orionis (proper noun, thus initial capital).

(3) As “saucepan fish”, a dated term for the king crab.

(4) In slang, to spread information (rumors or facts).

(5) In military slang, a “name” used as a substitute when the real name is deemed too long or hard to pronounce (“wheelbarrow” a historic alternative).

(6) In on-line gaming slang, to kill an opponent (or random other player) in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(7) In on-line gaming slang (as “saucepanned”), a player killed in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(8) To cook ingredients in a saucepan.

(9) To hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon.

1680–1690: The construct was sauce + pan.  Dating from 1300–1350, sauce was from the Middle English sauce, from the Middle French sauce, from the Old French sauce, sausse & sause, from the Vulgar Latin salsa (things salted, salt food), noun use (feminine) of the Latin salsus (salted), past participle of sallere (to sprinkle with salt), from sāl (genitive salis), from the primitive Indo-European root sal-(salt).  The spelling sawce is long obsolete.  Pan (in the context of the cooking utensil) was from the pre-900 Middle English pann & panne, from the Old English panne, from the Proto-West Germanic pannā, from the Proto-Germanic pannǭ.  It was cognate with the West Frisian panne, the German Low German Panne, the German Pfanne, the Dutch pan, the Saterland Frisian Ponne, the Danish pande, the Swedish panna, the Icelandic panna and the Old Norse panna but the ultimate origin remains murky.  Etymologists suspect variants such as patna & panna were in use in the Vulgar Latin (from the Late Latin panna) in the sense of “pan”; these from the Classical Latin patena & patina (shallow dish, shallow pan, stewpan), from the Ancient Greek πατάνη (patánē) (dish, flat dish), likely of pre-Greek origin.  Among the profession, the Late Latin panna seems generally accepted as the source but some do note the untypically rare attestation and the limited spread to other Romance languages, suggesting the matter should be thought unresolved.  However, alternative explanations (such as the Proto-Germanic pannǭ and Late Latin panna coming from a non-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate word remain speculative and even a link between the Greek patánē and the primitive Indo-European root pete (to spread) has limited support.  Saucepan is a noun & verb, saucepanful is a nouns, saucepanned & saucepanning are verbs and saucepanlike is an adjective; the noun plural is saucepans.  The adjectives saucepanish & saucepanesque are non-standard.

Cooks Standard Multi-Ply Clad 8-Inch (200 mm) Stainless Steel Frying Pan.

A pan is a broad, shallow container of metal, usually having sides flaring outward to the top; they’re used in various forms for frying, baking, mixing (this & that), gold prospecting, washing etc.  So often is the shape seen in many fields that the word has come to be used of any “hollowed-out” thing shaped (even vaguely) like a pan used in cooking.  In engineering, pan-shaped parts are common ranging from the heads of tiny screws to huge “dishes” used in cosmic observation and components in power-generation.  In idiomatic use there was the “flash in the pan” (a transient occurrence with no long-term impact; an early-career success not followed subsequent accomplishments), based on the flash that happened when a musket or flintlock pistol was fired (the gunpowder held in a “pan”).  To say “out of the frying pan and into the fire” suggests going from a bad situation to something worse).  In figurative use, to “pan out” means “to proceed according to plan; to result or end up with an acceptable outcome or in an acceptable form”; it evolved from the nineteenth century Californian gold rush where “pan out” described the process of separating and recovering the precious metal by swirling dirt or crushed rock in a pan of water.  “Pan handle” (literally “the handle of a pan”) is used in geography & cartography to describe a part of land surface that appears to “stick out or project” when viewed on a map (the US state of Florida a classic panhandle).  In military aviation, the lever used to activate an ejector seat was dubbed “pan handle”.  There are specialized variants including the “milk saucepan” (the internal surface now often coated with Teflon) that features a wide lip with a “built-in” indentation for pouring; as the name suggests, typically it’s used to heat milk for drinks.  The now rare sense of pan in the sense of “face” is an Americanism from the 1920s and the idea endures in the slang “pieface” (a “round-faced” person).

Lindsay Lohan cooking pasta with two saucepans (one for pasta; one for sauce), London. 2014.

Paradoxically, most saucepans doubtlessly are used for purposes other than preparing sauces so it should be little surprise there’s no standardization in the terminology and whether a “saucepan” is from time-to-time deemed a “pot”, “saucepan” or some flavour of “pan” is determined wholly by an individual’s culinary lexicon and even within regions that can vary; what’s one thing in one place might be something else in another.  So, there are conventions rather than rules but, as a general principle, pots and pans are distinguished by their depth and use, in which case (1) a saucepan (with its elongated sides) is pot despite its name, (2) pots and pans are distinguished by type and/or number of handles, in which case a saucepan can be a pan and (3) both vessel depth and handles are distinguishing features, in which case saucepans form a separate third class that is sibling to pots and pans.  All that is really not a great deal of help and the best guide is how a manufacturer or retailer describes the thing although a purchaser is free to call their utensil whatever they wish.  What the internet has done is make this use diffuse so whereas it was once possible to guess on which side of the Atlantic the terms were being used, this is no longer the case with the regionalisms now blurred.  Working chefs, better acquainted than most with cooking utensils, seem not too concerned, the language heard in production kitchens tending to be clipped to “pots” and “pans”, visual identification sufficient to determine choice.

Influencer site PureWow Picks noted one of the items Lindsay Lohan thought essential items in the inventory of the modern young woman was a “better non-stick pan”.  In what was described as an “exclusive interview”, Ms Lohan revealed a half-dozen items “she can’t live without” and although it was disclosed “PureWow may earn compensation through affiliate links within the story”, the list was nevertheless an insight into some of the more obscure things that matter to at least a subset of the population:

(1) Nanit Pro Camera & Flex Stand: A handy device with which a mother can monitor her child in another room with two-way audio communication also supported.

(2) Alaïa Criss Cross patent leather ballet flats: Men tend to prefer the female foot in a classic stiletto pump but women seem inclined to allow comfort to matter, ballet flats often the shoe of choice.

(3) Hexclad six-piece Hybrid Fry Pan Set with Lids:  Hexclad’s product is “Teflon free”, “hybrid” a reference to a patented system of “hexagonal steel peaks” (a laser-edged network of ridges said to “boost searing power”), the “non-stick” valleys coated with the company’s proprietary TerraBond™ ceramic non-stick (free from PTFE and forever chemicals).  Concerns about the shedding of PTFE microparticles into food were raised when Teflon was produced using PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid). The story Teflon (PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, a synthetic fluoropolymer composed of carbon and fluorine) was developed in the 1960s for the US space program is an urban myth; it actually emerged from DuPont's labs, its low friction properties making the stuff and an ideal coating to create “non-stick” cookware; in that application it’s been a minor but significant contribution to civilized life.

(4) Ōura Ring: Ōura say their ring captures the body's “signals”, converting 40 live activities into biometric data, displayed on a phone app as measures of stress, signs of strain, effective cardiovascular age and such.  Ms Lohan says she uses it daily, checking every morning to track her sleep patterns.

(5) Levi’s 90s Jeans and Frankie Scoop neck white cotton Tee-shirt: For decades, the most enduring “go to uniform” of the Western woman, blue denim jeans and a white cotton scoop-neck Tee-shirt can work as a stand-alone ensemble or a base to accessorize (boots, hats, scarves, blazers etc).  When in doubt, stick to the classics.

(6) Insight Timer App (Meditate, Sleep):  Claimed to be the world’s most popular “wellness app”, Ms Lohan says it and WhatsApp are the phone apps she uses most, the Insight Timer useful for “meditation” or “breath work”.

Before being saucepanned: Callum Forbes (left) and David Cao (right) enjoying an “Instagram sunset moment”, cruising on Sydney Harbour.

The verb “saucepanned” (to cook ingredients in a saucepan) is not recent but few outside of cooking schools will have heard it used and it doesn’t appear with any frequency in cookbooks.  There is however also the sense “to hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon” and while that does feed into the reality television stereotype of the “psychotic chef”, most probably assumed it was something seen perhaps in on-line gaming rather than IRL (in real life).  However, in August 2026 came news French police had arrested Australian David Cao (b 1989), then an employee of ING Bank alleging he had attacked his (now former) partner (Callum Forbes (b 1990)) using a saucepan.  At the time of “assault by saucepanning”, Mr Cao had been employed by ING Bank (Australia) (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch ING Group) as “head of retail value creation” (it’s not clear what that means), having previously worked at Westpac (a portmanteau word, the construct being Wes(tern) + pac(ific)); originally the Bank of New South Wales (1817), in 1982 it was re-branded as Westpac Banking Corporation, a year after acquiring the CBA (Commercial Bank of Australia)) as head of DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion (everyone knows what that means)).  An ING spokesperson was quoted as saying Mr Cao was no longer employed by the bank but the institution was “aware of allegations involving a former employee”.

Château de Perreux.

The attack allegedly transpired in the Château de Perreux (a “boutique” hotel, close to the historic town of Amboise in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France in the heart of the Loire Valley).  The couple had been spending a night at the hotel, en route to Amsterdam where they were to attend the WorldPride event; Mr Cao had since January 2026 been on the board of LGBTQ+ organisation Rainbow Giving Australia Foundation but, after details emerged of the “saucepan incident”, his profile was removed from the organisation’s website.  The details remain sketchy and it’s not clear whether the saucepan was a “weapon of choice” in a premeditated attack or just whatever fell conveniently to hand at the “spur of the moment” and could just as easily have been whatever else lay close (hair dryer, make-up case etc).  It certainly proved effective, wielded by Mr Cao with such force the handle snapped.  Mr Forbes afterwards locked himself in the bathroom, telling the online site Gay Sydney Daily: “I remember thinking very clearly that I might die there that night in the chateau.  I had been bleeding heavily and too terrified to open the door for what felt like 30-plus minutes waiting for hotel staff to come in.”  As well as the attack with the saucepan (depending on mode of use, effectively both “blunt instrument” and “edged weapon”), Mr Cao is alleged to have poured boiling water over his victim’s body; although the sequence of events wasn’t disclosed, presumably the water was boiled in saucepan and subsequently re-purposed.

After being saucepanned: Image distributed by Mr Forbes while undergoing treatment in hospital.

By the time staff arrived in the room, Mr Cao had fled in a rental car, detained by French police some 36 hours later, near the Belgian border, allegedly trying to board a train out of France.  According to a statement issued by French police: “One of the partners had just been struck several times on the head during a domestic dispute in which separation was being discussed.  The victim began shouting ‘help’ while a saucepan with a sharp edge was used as a weapon.   The brutality of the blows was such that the handle of the pan broke under the impact.”  Mr Cao was reported as having been charged with “attempted murder, acts of torture and barbarity, kidnapping, and theft” with a trial date not yet set.  The Australian DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade) confirmed it was providing consular assistance to the victim and was attempting to make contact with Mr Cao (by then in custody) but was unable to make further comment, citing privacy obligations.  Asked his view on Mr Cao, one ING staff member (who requested anonymity) said the former DEI operative had “…an inflated opinion of himself”.  Mr Forbes shared post-attack photographs; he suffered second degree burns to his face requiring stitches, along with burns to his torso and arms and a burst eardrum.  He told a Sydney newspaper the attack happened shortly after the pair had discussed separating and clearly it was unexpected, Mr Forbes asleep at the time after the couple “had enjoyed a pleasant dinner and spa”.  The newspaper La Nouvelle Republique, (citing a source “close to the investigation”), reported Mr Cao admitted to the attack but not to intending to kill his partner.

Counting Dead Women Australia.

Domestic violence is a scourge in Australia with working-class women disproportionately the victims.  Quite the extent of the problem isn’t known because published statistics reflect only reported incidents but what is known is, on average, the long-term trend is every 9 to 11 days, a woman is killed by her current or former partner.  So consistent and troubling were the numbers that a Facebook page was created: Counting-Dead-Women-Australia providing annual summaries of the grim toll (41 for calendar year 2026 by the end of October).  Despite the numbers, the fact that most of the victims are working-class women not organized into or represented by pressure groups able to pose a political threat may not be unrelated to politicians handling the matter as just another tiresome question to be fobbed off with sympathetic words and vague assurances.  That stands in stark contrast to the political class’s shocked reaction and practical response when, in October 2026, a female politician was the victim of an attack (rammed by a motor vehicle, the victim losing both legs).  Suddenly, violence became a first-order (ie “money no object”) issue and it was clear resources would be made available to ensure politicians were afforded even more protection; women generally would be left to arrange their own defences.

Women being murdered by men either their current or former partner represent overwhelmingly the bulk of those killed but, as the “saucepan incident” illustrated, the LGBTQQIAAOP community is not immune from domestic violence but the prevalence is uncertain and early in 2026, the LGBTQIA+ DVAF (Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation) highlighted concerns that campaigns addressing domestic and family violence often “overlook” LGBTQIA+ people. According to the Private Lives 3 Report (2020), more than 60% of LGBTQIA+ people reported experiencing domestic or family violence.  That does sound high but (1) the term “violence” is now wider and encompasses concepts such as “psychological violence” and (2) statistics will be slanted by those with an experience of “violence” being more inclined to report so the numbers must be read with caution.  Still, there’s little doubt the LGBTQQIAAOP community does have a problem with domestic violence and while the nature and extent (the “tops slapping their bottoms” trope a homophobic slur) may be different from that in “straight society”, clearly it’s not insignificant.  Since 2020, the foundation has raised awareness of the issue through an annual awareness day held each May, an approach prompted by the historic lack of research into domestic violence within same-sex relationships.  One report in the academic journal Trauma, Violence and Abuse reviewed 108 studies (published between 1990 and September 2021), finding LGBTQIA+ people were found to experience high rates of sexual violence, most commonly perpetrated (predictably) by men; the highest rates were reported among transgenders, the gender-diverse and bisexual women.  Again, the statistics cannot be relied on as indicative of the wider problem, the research conducted mostly among US university students (a cohort for a variety of reasons for decades over-represented in academic research) and the only valid conclusion must be the standard: “more research required”.

Although a simple coincidence, courtroom sketch artist Rocco Fazzari's (b 1959) drawing of Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996, left) looks damnably like Spanish Franciscan friar Francisco Garcés (1738–1781, right) who served as a missionary in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521-1821, an often shifting claim of territories centred around Mexico and extending to southern & western North America, the Caribbean, northern parts of South America and a number of Pacific archipelagos (including briefly even the island of Formosa (now the renegade province of Taiwan))) before being “martyred” when killed in what is now Yuma, Arizona, by members of a indigenous nation displeased by the conduct of Spanish colonizers.

In Australia, a dramatic instance of domestic violence in the LGBTQQIAAOP community captured attention when, in February 2024, NSW Police Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996) was accused of having murdered TV presenter Jesse Baird (1997–2024) and flight attendant Luke Davies, (1994-2024), shooting both with his police-issue Glock semi-automatic pistol in Mr Baird’s home in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington.  According to press reports, Mr Lamarre-Condon had become “obsessed” with Mr Baird which whom he'd previously ("off and on") enjoyed some sort of relationship and was not best pleased at him having “moved on” to another boyfriend (Mr Davies).  The allegation is Mr Lamarre-Condon donned the disguise of an Uber Eats delivery driver and went to Mr Baird’s house where he shot dead both victims, later disposing of their bodies in bushland; facing two charges of murder and one of aggravated break and enter, Mr Lamarre-Condon pleaded not guilty, citing self defence as a justification for his actions causing two deaths.  In such matters, a claim of "self defence" can wholly be exculpatory but success depends on the facts presented in court and, on the basis of what’s been published (suspect alleged while armed with handgun to have gone uninvited to the home of unarmed victims), the circumstances during the critical moments would have to be most untypical for the legal tactic to work.

Beau Lamarre-Condon with “default” influencer collateral (private jet (Hawker 1000), champagne flute and Hermès Birkin Bag in black leather with silver-tone Palladium hardware) prominently displayed.

An alternative defence of some flavor of insanity has apparently not been filed but when giving evidence, Mr Lamarre-Condon did discuss certain aspects of events he considered contributed to his mental state including (1) a former colleague who took his own life, (2) the “confronting” situations he faced during his service as a police officer (including “dealing with” multiple corpses) and (3) a complaint he’d made in 2018 about a fellow officer’s alleged homophobic remarks.  That was in accord with an earlier interview with detectives during which he'd mentioned certain work-related matters had “messed me up” and made repeated references to “not remembering” and having an “outer [sic] body experience” (the report of interview noted him stating: “I’m not that person”).  “I don’t want you judge me, I’m not a bad person”, he told one investigator, adding he’d been “upset” about NSW police being excluded from that year’s Sydney Mardi Gras gay-pride parade and hoped “one day be able to talk to Jesse and Luke’s families”.  The office conducting the interview acknowledged that while Mr Lamarre-Condon was at times “emotional”, he seemed cognisant of what was happening and did not display “any obvious signs of psychosis”.

Jessie Baird (left) and Luke Davies (right).

In court, the prosecution introduced evidence suggesting some degree of premeditation, including the history on Mr Lamarre-Condon’s phone revealing searches for “a silencer” (a device attached to the muzzle of a firearm to muffle the sound of a shot) and a video tutorial titled “how to mix concrete”, the latter said to suggest the accused intended to dispose of the bodies by encasing them in “quick-set concrete” and “sinking them” (presumably at sea, according to urban legend the New York mafia’s term for the method was “cement overshoes”).  The essence of the Crown’s case is Mr Baird was shot twice while standing in the kitchen (the second shot described as “execution style”) and subsequently Mr Davies was shot through a bedroom door as he tried to call police for assistance.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claims his gun “went off” during two separate struggles, both victims fatally wounded.  His subsequent actions (“cleaning up” the scene and disposing of the bodies) were described by prosecutors as “calculated” to “cover up his involvement” in the double-murders, but counsel for Mr Lamarre-Condon’s told the jury they were the actions of a man who “panicked considerably”.

Unlike the “code states” (Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory) in which the criminal law is codified, NSW technically is a “common law state” although a large number of crimes and procedures have been collected into statutory acts (notably the Crimes Act (1900)) meaning the underlying system administering criminal law remains rooted in precedent (historical, judge-made decisions).  However, between the two approaches, the concept of “self defence” varies little and Mr Lamarre-Condon’s evidence was a case study in how an accused should structure their answers and assertions.  The single most vital aspect in mounting the defence in the case of murder is the defendant must genuinely and reasonably believe their own life was at immediate risk at the hands of the victim, the latter needing to display both an intent to kill and the means to achieve that.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claimed Mr Baird had a knife and he had aimed his shot “at the shoulder” in an attempt to effect a disarming, tell the jury he made the “right call” and had gone into “police mode”, explaining he had said: “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot you”, adding “I knew if I didn’t do that I was 110% going … to be dead … and Jesse Baird would be sitting in my position today.”  He further claimed that in the struggle that ensued after the first shot, he had “accidentally discharged” the firearm.  “I stand by the first shot. I've had lots and lots of time to think about this.  The first shot was intentional the second wasn't.”

Beau Lamarre-Condon in “police mode”.

If the jury accepts that explanation, Mr Lamarre-Condon was correct in saying “It was my fault … I’ve said from the start I am guilty of manslaughter and I am responsible for his death but it wasn’t intentional.”  All that is boilerplate stuff from legal practice textbooks but his explanation of why he was disguised as an Uber Eats delivery driver (with full-face helmet and hi-viz vest) was more imaginative.  He claims it was at a nearby café he “found a parked motorbike with an Uber Eats helmet and jacket” and it was these items he donned for the fateful visit, taking with him “an Uber Eats paper bag” further to enhance the apparent authenticity.  At that point, he became emotional and his voice faltered, saying it was “…this moment here that caused…”  He added: “I wish that I didn’t do this, but I had the thought process of I guess … I could knock on Jesse’s door and if he answered the door he wouldn’t be able to see my face.   I couldn’t be falsely accused of harassment.”  Now in its seventh week, the trial in the NSW Supreme Court before Justice Natalie Adams (b 1965) continues.

Sponge

Sponge (pronounced spuhnj)

(1) Any aquatic, chiefly marine animal of the phylum Porifera (also called poriferan), having a porous structure and usually a horny, siliceous or calcareous internal skeleton or framework, occurring in large, sessile (permanently attached to a substrate and not able independently to move) colonies.

(2) The light, yielding, porous, fibrous skeleton or framework of certain animals or colonies of this group, especially of the genera Spongia and Hippospongia, from which the living matter has been removed, characterized by readily absorbing water and becoming soft when wet while retaining toughness: used in bathing, in wiping or cleaning surfaces, etc.

(3) Any of various other similar substances (made typically from porous rubber or cellulose and similar in absorbency to this skeleton), used for washing or cleaning and suited especially to wiping flat, non-porous surfaces; bat sponge, car-wash sponge etc).

(4) Used loosely, any soft substance with a sponge-like appearance or structure.

(5) Use loosely, any object able rapidly absorb something.

(6) As “sponge theory” (1) a term used in climate science which tracks the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting carbon dioxide, (2) a term used in urban planning to re-design the built environment to "absorb" water in heavy rainfall events rather than encouraging "runoff" that tends to produce flooding and (3) one of the competing ideas in the configuration of the US nuclear arsenal that supports the retention of the triad (ICBMs, SLMBs and those delivered by strategic bombers).

(7) Figuratively, a person who absorbs something efficiently (usually in the context of information, education or facts).

(8) Figuratively, a person who persistently borrows from or lives at the expense of others; a parasite (usually described as “a sponger” or one who “sponges off” and synonymous with a “leech”).

(9) In disparaging slang, a habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated (one more mildly affected said to be “spongy” (a synonym of “tipsy”)).

(10) In metallurgy, a porous mass of metallic particles, as of platinum, obtained by the reduction of an oxide or purified compound at a temperature below the melting point; iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition; iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.

(11) In clinical medicine, a sterile surgical dressing of absorbent material, usually cotton gauze, for wiping or absorbing pus, blood, or other fluids during a surgical operation.

(12) In hospitals and other care institutions, as "sponge bath", a method of hygiene whereby a patient is cleaned with a sponge (usually with soap & water) while in a chair or bed.

(13) In cooking (baking), dough raised with yeast before it is kneaded and formed into loaves and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.

(14) In cooking, a light, sweet pudding of a porous texture, made with gelatin, eggs, fruit juice or other flavoring ingredients; popular as a cake, often multi-layered with whipped cream (or similar) between.

(15) In birth control, a contraceptive made with a disposable piece of polyurethane foam permeated with a spermicide for insertion into the vagina.

(16) As “makeup sponge” or “beauty sponge”, a device for applying certain substances to the skin (most often blusher and similar products to the face).

(17) In ballistics, a mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge, consisting of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.

(18) In farriery, the extremity (or point) of a horseshoe, corresponding to the heel.

(19) In the slang of the nuclear industry, a worker routinely exposed to radiation.

(20) To wipe or rub with or (as with a wet sponge), to moisten or clean.

(21) To remove with a Usually moistened) sponge (usually followed by off, away, etc.).

(22) To wipe out or efface with or as with a sponge (often followed by out).

(23) To take up or absorb with or as with a sponge (often followed by up).

(24) Habitually to borrow, use, or obtain by imposing on another's good nature.

(25) In ceramics, to decorate (a ceramic object) by dabbing at it with a sponge soaked with color or any use of a sponge to render a certain texture on the surface.

(26) To take in or soak up liquid by absorption.

(27) To gather sponges (from the beach or ocean).

(28) In marine biology (in behavioral zoology, of dolphins), the description of the use of a piece of wild sponge as a tool when foraging for food.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun sponge, spunge & spounge, from the Old English noun sponge & spunge (absorbent and porous part of certain aquatic organisms), from the Latin spongia & spongea (a sponge (also (the “sea animal from which a sponge comes”), from the Ancient Greek σπογγιά (spongiá), related to σπόγγος (spóngos) (sponge).  At least one etymologist called it “an old Wandewort” while another speculated it was probably a loanword from a non-Indo-European language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form close to “sphong-”.  From the Latin came the Old Saxon spunsia, the Middle Dutch spongie, the Old French esponge, the Spanish esponja and the Italian spugna.  In English, the word has been used of the sea animals since the 1530s and of just about any sponge-like substance since the turn of the seventeenth century and the figurative use in reference to one adept at absorbing facts or learning emerged about the same time.  The sense of “one who persistently and parasitically lives on others" has been in use since at least 1838.  The sponge-cake (light, fluffy & sweet) has been documented since 1808 but similar creations had long been known.  Sponge is a noun & verb, sponged & sponging are verbs, Spongeless, spongy, sponginess, spongable, spongiform & spongelike are adjectives and spongingly is an adverb; the noun plural is sponges.

The verb emerged late in the fourteenth century as spongen (to soak up with a sponge) or (as a transitive verb) “to cleanse or wipe with a sponge”, both uses derived from the noun and presumably influenced by the Latin spongiare.  The intransitive sense “dive for sponges, gather sponges where they grow” was first documented in 1881 by observers watching harvesting in the Aegean.  The slang use meaning “deprive someone of (something) by sponging” was in use by at least the 1630s, the later intransitive sense of “live in a parasitic manner, live at the expense of others” documented in the 1670, the more poetic phrase “live upon the sponge” (live parasitically, relying on the efforts of others) dating from the 1690s; such folk described as “spongers” since the 1670s.  However, in the 1620s, the original idea was that the victim was “the sponge” because they were “being squeezed”.  The noun sponge in the general sense of “an object from which something of value may be extracted” was in use by circa 1600; the later reference to “the sponger” reversed this older sense.  In what was either a neutral job-description or an example of military humor, the noun sponger also had a use in the army and navy, referring to the member of a cannon’s crew who wielded the pole (with a sponge attached to one end) to clean the barrel of the weapon after discharge.  It’s not clear when it came into use but it’s documented since 1828.

The companion sponge products Scrub Mommy & Sponge Daddy are available from Walmart.  Scrub Daddy is US$3.97 and Scrub Mommy is US$3.87 (a 3-pack of the latter available at US$9.87).

The anthropomorphism (eyes and smiling mouth) is both a sales gimmick and functional ergonomics, the eyes “hold two fingers to prevent slippage while scrubbing deep inside cups” while the mouth “cleans both sides of the utensils at once”.  So, the “happy look” both works subliminally to attract customers and offers real benefits when in use, thus justifying the spiel: “the versatile cleaning tool that is more than just a smile.”  Whether or not intentionally, the anthropomorphism extends to the product-description only selectively, Scrub Daddy’s references including “his ergonomic design”, “his eyes” and “his mouth” whereas Scrub Mommy gets the bland, gender-free “its ergonomic design”, “the eyes” and “the mouth”.  Someone in a university's gender-studies department should apply for a grant to explore this; clearly there is gender discrimination (generously, perhaps “unconscious bias”) going on at Walmart, Scrub Mommy's pink color also blatant gender-stereotyping.

The adjective spongiform (resembling a sponge, sponge-like; porous, full of holes) dates from 1774 and seems now restricted to medical science, the incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE) the best known use although the public understandably prefer the more evocative "mad cow disease".  The adjective spongy (soft, elastic) came into use in the 1530s in medicine & pathology, in reference to morbid tissue (not necessarily soft and applied after the 1590s to hard material (especially bone)) seen as open or porous.  In late fourteenth century Middle English, there was spongious (sponge-like in nature), again, directly from the Latin.  In idiomatic use and dating from the 1860s, to “throw in the sponge” was to concede defeat; yield or give up the context.  That came from bare-knuckle prize-fighting, the sponge (sitting usually in a bucket of water and used to wipe blood from the boxer’s face) thrown into the ring by the trainer or second, indicating to the referee the contest was conceded and the fight must immediately be stopped.  The phrase later “throw in the towel” means the same thing and is of the same origin although some older style guides insist the correct use is “throw up the sponge” and “throw in the towel”.  To the beaten and bloodied boxer, it probably was an unnoticed technical distinction.

Born of a Woman (1992) by Bishop John Shelby “Jack” Spong (1931–2021).  Spong's writings were as provocative as the titles of his books.  Unlike most “liberal” Anglicans, he didn't “nibble at the church’s doctrinal edges” but attacked the core tenants of Christianity, arguing much of what was in the Bible must be read as midrashic or interpretive symbols rather than literal historical accounts.

A prolific author and bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Bishop Spong was in some circles described as a “liberal theologian” but truly was a radical and many regarded his views as heretical.  Had he been Roman Catholic, it’s likely the Inquisition, (established in 1542 as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition; in 1908 renamed Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (clipped usually to “Holy Office”); in 1965 renamed CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) as part of the “reforms” imposed by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-1965); in 2022 renamed DDF (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) in the latest restructuring of the Roman Curia under the aegis of the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium (Preach the gospel)) would have prevented his ordination and, had he slipped through their fingers, it’s more likely he’d have faced laicization (defrocking) or even excommunication than receive a bishopric (for the Anglicans, he served as Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, between 1979 and 2000).  Theologically, he was not a mere “revisionist at the margins” but one who advocated a fundamental re-structuring of Christian belief and while it may sound casually dismissive, it’s not wholly unfair to characterize his oeuvre as the framework of a “DEI (diversity, equality & inclusion) Christianity”.  The surname Sponge is rare (the variant Spong more common) and in regional English dialects was derived from topography (there being no evidence of connection with the sea-dwelling creatures).  In dialectal East English, a spong was a marsh or other bog-like place, the word believed a guttural form of the Old English sponge; as a topographic surname, it was given to someone who lived near a wetland or swamp.  In German-speaking lands and in the Ashkenazi Jewish traditions, related surnames like Schwamm meant “sponge” or “mushroom”, their origins often as metonymic occupational names for someone who gathered edible fungi or harvested sea sponges.  In the UK television series Dad’s Army (1968-1977), the “minor but recurrent” character Private Sponge was a farmer, played by Colin Bean (1926–2009).

Despite the phonetic overlap, the verb expunge (pronounced ik-spuhnj) is unrelated.  Expunge (to erase or strike out; totally to eliminate; permanently to delete) was a learned borrowing from Latin expungere, the construct being ex- + pungō (to prick; to puncture; to sting).  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  The prefix was appended variously to create the sense of “out of”, “outside”, “former” or “without”.  Pungō was from the Proto-Italic pungō (with punctus for puctus after pungō), from the primitive Indo-European pewǵ- (prick, punch).  In English, although rare (effectively extinct except in literary or poetic use), the verb punge can be used to mean “to pierce, prick or puncture.”  In the slang of lexicographers, expunge is a “delicious word” in that it’s “pleasurable to say”, a quality shared by “succulent”.  Although rarely used, the derived forms are also pleasing; they include expugnable, expunger, expunge, expungement, expunction & expungible; the nouns expunctionist & expunctionism are non-standard.

Sea sponges.

In zoology, sponges are any of the many aquatic (mostly sea-based) invertebrate animals of the phylum Porifera, characteristically having a porous skeleton, usually containing an intricate system of canals composed of fibrous material or siliceous or calcareous spicules.  Water passing through the pores is the delivery system the creatures use to gain nutrition.  Sponges are known to live at most depths of the sea, are sessile (permanently attached to a substrate; all but a handful not able independently to move (fully-grown sponges do not have moving parts, but the larvae are free-swimming)) and often form irregularly shaped colonies.  Sponges are considered now the most primitive members of the animal kingdom extant as they lack a nervous system and differentiated body tissues or organs although they have great regenerative capacities, some species able to regenerate a complete adult organism from fragments as small as a single cell.  Sponges first appeared during the early Cambrian Period over half a billion years ago and may have evolved from protozoa.

Of sponges and brushes

Dior Backstage Blender (Professional Finish Fluid Foundation Sponge).

Both makeup brushes and makeup sponges can be used to apply blush or foundation and unless there’s some strong personal preference, most women probably use both, depending on the material to be applied and the look desired.  Brushes are almost always long-bristled and soft (sometimes to the point of fluffiness) with a rounded shape affording both precision and the essential ability to blend at the edges.  Brushes are popular because they offer great control over placement & blending (users debating whether a long or short handle is most beneficial in this and it may be that both work equally well if one’s technique is honed).  Brushes can be used with most varieties of formulation including powders and creams.

Lindsay Lohan, October 2011.  The (presumably inadvertent) "eye effect" is known in the industry as the "reverse panda".

This not entirely flattering application of grey-brown shade of blusher attracted comment, the consensus being it was an attempt to create the effect of hollowed cheekbones, a look wildly popular during the 1980 & 1990s and one which to which her facial structure was well-suited.  Unfortunately, the seemingly “heavy handed” approach instead suggested bruising.  Done properly, the “contoured blush look” is achieved with delicacy and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister 1868 & 1874-1880) might have called this: “laying it on with a trowel”.  It’s not known if Ms Lohan used brush or sponge but her technique may have been closer to that of the bricklayer wielding his (or her) trowel.  Makeup sponges (often called “beauty blenders” are preferred by many to brushes and are recommended by the cosmetic houses especially for when applying cream or liquid products.  They’re claimed to be easier to use than a brush and for this reason are often the choice of less experienced or occasional users; they create a natural, dewy finish, blending the product seamlessly into the skin and avoiding the more defined lines brushes can tend to produce.  When applying a powder blush, sponges produce an airbrushed, diffused effect and are much easier to use for those "doing their own" in front of a mirror, a situation in which the “edging” effect inherent in brush use can be hard to detect.  For professional makeup artists, both sponges and brushes will be used when working on others, the choice dictated by the product in use and the effect desired.

Sponge theory

The awful beauty of our weapons: Test launch of Boeing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM.

Ever since the US military (sometimes in competition with politicians) first formulated a set of coherent policies setting out the circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons was permissible, there have been constant revisions to the plans.  At its late 1960s peak, the US nuclear arsenal contained some 30,000 weapons and the target list extended to a remarkable 10,000-odd sites, almost all in the USSR (the Soviet Union, 1922-1991), the PRC (People’s Republic of China, 1949-) the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe either part of the Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) or in some way aligned with Moscow.  Even the generals admitted there was in this some degree of "structural overkill" but rationalized the system on the basis it was the only way to guarantee a success rate close to 100%.  That certainly fitted in with the US military’s long established tradition of “overwhelming” rather than merely “solving” problems but, given the projected death toll, not all would have agreed "success" was quite the right word.

US nuclear weapons target map 1956 (de-classified in 2015).

Over the decades, different strategies were from time-to-time adopted as tensions rose and fell or responded to changes in circumstances such as arms control treaties and, most obviously, the end of the Cold War (1918-1991) when the Soviet Union was dissolved.  A case-study in the synamics of the "military-industrial complex". the processes that produced these changes were always the same: (1) inter-service squabbles between the army, navy & air force, (2) the struggle between the politicians and military high command (many of the latter proving politically quite adept), (3) the influence of others within and beyond the “nuclear establishment” including (3a) the industrial concerns designing and manufacturing the things and (3b) those in think tanks & academic institutions, (4) attitudes and policies of foreign governments and (5) the (usually anti-nuclear) lobbyist and activist communities.  Many of the discussions were quite abstract (something the generals & admirals seemed to prefer to descending to specifics), probably because one of their quoted metrics in the early 1950s was that if after  a nuclear exchange there were 50 million dead Russians and only 20 million dead Americans, that meant the US could be said to have “won the war”.  Within the Pentagon's internal logic of the time, that made sense but after reductionist critics pursued this to its logical conclusion and asked if the verdict would be the same were the final result one Russian and two Americans being left alive, the military tended to restrict their discussion papers to delivery systems, targets, megatons and timings, body-counts (the term "collateral damage" not yet part of the jargon) just tiresome detail.  This meant the strategies came to be summed-up in short, punchy, indicative terms like “deterrence”, “avoidance of escalation” & “retaliation” although the depth was sufficient for even the “short” version (printed for the POTUS’s use in the event of war) was an inch (25 mm) thick.  What was described varied from a threat of use, a limited strike, various forms of containment (the so-called "limited nuclear war") and sometimes the doomsday option: global thermo-nuclear war.  However, during the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) there emerged a genuine linguistic novelty: “sponge theory”.

US Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-, left) and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (1989-, right).

The term “sponge theory” had been used in climate science to describe a mechanism used to track the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting CO₂ (carbon dioxide) (a la a sponge that absorbs water able to be expelled when squeezed) but in the matter of nuclear weapons it was something different.  At the time, the debates in the White House, the Congress and even some factions within the military were about whether what had become the traditional “triad” of nuclear weapons ((1) ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), (2) SLMB (submarine launched ballistic missiles and (3) the "gravity bombs" or "smart bombs" delivered by strategic bombers) should be maintained.  By “maintained” that of course meant periodically "refurbished or replaced".  The suggestion was that the ICBMs should be retired, the argument being they were a Cold War relic, the mere presence of which threatened peace because they encouraged a "first strike" (by either side).  However, the counter argument was that, in a sense, the US was already running a de-facto dyad because, dating from the administration of George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; POTUS 1989-1993), none of the big strategic bombers had been on “runway alert” (ie able to be scrambled for a sortie within minutes) and only a tiny few were stored in secure hangers with their bombs loaded.  Removing the ICBMs from service, went the argument, would leave the nation dangerously reliant on the SLMBs which, in the way of such things, might at any time be rendered obsolete by advances in sensor technology and the (still speculative) implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  The British of course had never used ICMBs and had removed the nuclear strike capability from their bombers, thus relying on a squadron of four submarines (one of which is on patrol somewhere 24/7/365) with SLMBs but the British system was a pure IND (independent nuclear deterrent), what the military calls a "boutique bomb".  

Test launch of US Navy Trident-II-D5LE SLBM.

There was also the concern that land or air to submarine communications were not wholly reliable and this, added to the other arguments, won the case for the triad but just in case, the Pentagon had formulated “sponge theory”, about their catchiest phrase since “collateral damage”.  The idea of sponge theory was that were the ICBMs retired, Moscow or Beijing would have only five strategic targets in the continental US: the three bomber bases (in the flyover states of Louisiana, Missouri & North Dakota) and the two submarine ports (in Georgia on the south Atlantic coast and in Washington state in the PNW (Pacific North-West).  A successful attack on those targets could be mounted with less than a dozen (in theory half that number because of the multiple warheads) missiles which would mean the retaliatory capacity of the US could (in a worst-case scenario) be limited to the SLMBs carried by the six submarines the USN (US Navy) maintains on permanent patrol.  Given that, a POTUS might be reluctant to use them because of the knowledge Moscow (and, increasingly, Beijing) could mount a second, much more destructive attack.  However, if the 400 ICBMs remained in service, an attack on the US with any prospect of success would demand the use of close to 1000 missiles, something to which any POTUS would be compelled to respond and the US ICBMs would be in flight to their targets long before the incoming Russian or Chinese missiles hit.  The function of the US ICBM sites, acting as a sponge (soaking up the targeting, squeezing the retaliation) would deter an attack.  As it was, the 400-odd Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman ICBMs remained in service in silos also in flyover states: Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.  After over 50 years in service, the Minuteman is due for replacement in 2030 and there seems little appetite in Washington DC or in the Pentagon to discuss any change to the triad.