Bonk

Bonk (pronounced bongk)

(1) A bump on the head (usually not severe).

(2) To hit, strike, collide etc; any minor collision or blow.

(3) In slang, a brief intimacy between two people, usually with a suggestion of infidelity; often modified with the adjective quick and only ever used where the act is consensual (less common in North America).

(4) In sports medicine, a condition of sudden, severe fatigue in an endurance sports event, typically induced by glycogen depletion (also in the phrase “hit the wall”).

(5) In snowboarding, to hit something with the front of the board, especially in midair.

(6) In zoology, an animal call resembling "bonk" (such as the call of the pobblebonk (any of various Australian frogs of the genus Limnodynastes)).

1931: A creation of Modern English, the origin remains uncertain but most suspect it was likely imitative of sounds of impact (like bong, bump, bounce or bang) and thus onomatopoetic.  As a slang term for an affaire de coeur, use was first noted in 1975 and has always, depending on context, carried an implication of something illicit or quickly done; purely recreational though always consensual.  The use in sports medicine describing the condition of glycogen depletion references a metaphorical impact as in “hitting the wall”, the first known use in 1952 in endurance sports medicine.  Bonkee, as a descriptor for a "woman of loose virtue", appears to have been a 2014 creation which never caught on which is a shame because there are all sorts of cases where the companion terms "bonker" & "bonkee" might have been handy .  The form "bonkers", referring to the deranged, dated from circa 1957 and was apparently unrelated to the earlier naval slang for “drunk” but alluded rather to what could be the the consequence of a “bonk on the head”.  The third-person singular simple present is bonks, the present participle, bonking and the simple past and past participle, bonked.  Bonk & bonking are nouns & verbs, bonker is a noun, bonky is an adjective, bonked is a verb and bonkers is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bonks.

Bonkers: "Last Call" 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 in "plum crazy" (one of the retro colors which reprised those used by Chrysler in the "psychedelic era" of the late 1960s).  3300 were produced, many of which are now being advertised for sale at well above the RRP (recommended retail price).

The Demon 170 was released as part of Dodge’s “Last Call” programme which marked the end of the corporation's run of high-performance V8s, a tradition dating from the early 1950s.  Offered in a bewildering array of configurations in a process which was something like Nellie Melba's (1861-1931) "farewell" tours, the SRT Demon 170 was the most bonkers of a generally bonkers lot.  Rated at 1,025 hp (764 kW), the factory claimed it could accelerate from 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 1.66 seconds with an elapsed time in the standing ¼ mile (400 metres for those who insist) of 8.91 seconds (terminal speed 151 mph (243 km/h)), setting the mark as the worlds quickest ever standard production car, a reasonable achievement for something weighing 4275 lbs (1939 kg).  By world standards it was also very cheap and on the basis of cost-breakdown vs performance, there was nothing like it on the planet.  In British (and other English-speaking regions although rare in the US) use, "bonkers" can and often is used in an entirely non-pejorative way to suggest something or someone verging on the irrational but in some way astonishing, admirable or inspiring.  Road cars with 600+ horsepower V8 & V12 engines are of course bonkers but we'll miss them when they're gone and it would seem the end is nigh.  Greta Thunberg (b 2003) has expressed no regret at the extinction of this species.  

Bonking Boris

Hand-turned fish bonkers on sale in Jaffray, a village in the south-western Canadian province of British Columbia (left) and the front page of The Sun (7 September 2018; right), a tabloid which rarely lets an alliterative opportunity pass by.  

The noun bonker is (1) a short, blunt hardwood club used by fishers efficiently to dispatch (ie bonking them dead) just-caught fish and (2) according to The Sun, the adulterous Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022).  A bonk by Boris or the club and a not wholly dissimilar outcome ensues; a one-time employer called bonking Boris "ineffably duplicitous" and the estranged (now former) Mrs Johnson presumably agreed.  At the time, the former prime minister had "a bit of previous" in extra-marital bonking and when this one was announced, it was with an alliterative flourish not seen since the headline “BORIS BACKS BREXIT”.  His resignation from Theresa May's (Lady May, b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) government was unrelated to bonking (as far as is known) and came, in July 2018, three days after a cabinet meeting at Chequers (the prime-minister's country house), where agreement was reached on Mrs's May’s Brexit strategy, a document compromised by the need to make a nonsensical impossibility look like good policy.  That can be done but it requires rare skill to be in Downing Street and it's been some time since that could be said. 

Freed by his resignation from the burdens of the Foreign Office, bonking Boris was clearly unconcerned at rumors his opponents in the party were assembling a dossier of some four-thousand words detailing his cheating ways, fondness for cocaine and failings of character and turned his attention to a campaign for the Tory leadership.  As wonderfully unpredictable as the politics of the time were fluid, nobody was quite sure whether he’d go into the inevitable election or second referendum as "leave" or "remain"; it would depend on this and that.  In the end, he remained a leaver and things worked out well, his election victory meaning that for one, brief, shining moment, the three world leaders with the most outstanding hair, all had nuclear weapons at the same time.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; left), Boris Johnson (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011; right)

Some hairstyles are more amenable than others to a quick post-bonk rectification.  Kim Jong-un's cut is probably quite good and would bounce back from a bonk with little more than a run-through with the fingers.  Donald Trump  however would likely need both tools and product for a post-bonk fix.  Mr Trump usually appears well-fixed unless disturbed by breezes any higher than 2 on the Beaufort scale and even a perfunctory bonk is probably equal to at least 4 on the scale so it would have been interesting to see if Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) lived up to her (stage) name although Mr Trump has denied that bonk ever happened.  Mr Johnson's hair so often looks post-bonk that either his conquests are more frequent even than has been rumored or he asks for a JBF with every cut.  One UK publication suggested exactly that, hinting his instruction was "not one hair in place".  That has the advantage for Mr Johnson in that it's a style essentially the same pre-bonk, mid-bonk and post-bonk and thus pricelessly ambiguous in that merely by looking at him, one couldn't tell if he was going to or coming from a bonk although, one assumes, whichever it was, a bonk would never be far from his mind.  Whatever the criticisms of Mr Johnson's premiership (and there were a few), it's to his eternal credit that in his resignation honours list Ms Kelly Jo Dodge (for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser) was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "parliamentary service".  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Mr Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.  Few honours have been so well deserved.

A bandaged Lindsay Lohan waking dazed and confused after a bonk on the head in Falling for Christmas (2022; left) and on the move in Irish Wish (2024).   

In May 2021, Netflix & Lindsay Lohan executed what became a three movie deal, the first (Falling for Christmas) released in the northern winter of 2022, just in time for the season.  She played the protagonist, a pampered heiress who loses her memory after suffering a bonk on the head, waking up to a new life.  The second Netflix release opens in February 2024 and in Irish Wish, the plotline involves her spontaneously wishing for something, subsequently waking up to find the wish granted.  So it’s a variation on the theme of the first (though without the bonk on the head), the twist being in the theme of “be careful what you wish for”.

Bonking Barnaby and the bonk ban

Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Mr Turnbull and Mr Joyce in parliament, House of Representatives, Canberra, ACT.

The substantive matter was the revelation in mid-2017 the press had become aware Mr Joyce (a married man with four daughters) was (1) conducting an affair with a member of his staff and (2) that the young lady was with child.  Mr Turnbull recorded that when asked, Mr Joyce denied both "rumors", which does sound like a lie but in the narrow sense may have verged on "the not wholly implausible" on the basis that, as he pointed out in a later television interview, the question of paternity was at the time “...a bit of a grey area”.  Mr Joyce and his mistress later married and now have two children so all's well that end's well (at least for them) and Mr Turnbull didn't so much shut the gate after the horse had bolted as install inter-connecting doors in the stables.  His amendments to the Australian Ministerial Code of Conduct (an accommodating document very much in the spirit of Lord Castlereagh's (1769–1822; UK foreign secretary 1812-1822) critique of the Holy Alliance) banned ministers from bonking their staff which sounds uncontroversial but was silent on them bonking the staff of the minister in the office down the corridor.  So the net effect was probably positive in that staff having affairs with their ministerial boss would gain experience through cross-exposure to other portfolio areas although there's the obvious moral hazard in that they might be tempted to conduct trysts just to engineer a transfer in the hope of career advancement.  There are worse reasons for having an affair and a bonk for a new job seems a small price to pay.  It's been done before.

Planter

Planter (pronounced plahn-tah (U) or plan-ter (non-U))

(1) A person who plants (usually seedlings, shrubs etc).

(2) An implement or machine for planting seeds, seedlings etc in the soil.

(3) The owner or manager of a plantation.

(4) In historical use, during the era of European colonialism, a colonist or new settler.

(5) In historical use, any of the early English or Scottish settlers, given the lands of the dispossessed Irish populace during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).

(6) A decorative container, in a variety of sizes and shapes, used usually for growing flowers or ornamental plants.

(7) In the slang of law enforcement and the criminal class, an individual (from either group) who “plants” incriminating evidence for various purposes.

1350–1400: From the late fourteenth century Middle English plaunter (one who sows seeds), an agent noun from the verb plant, the construct being plant + -er.  Plant was from the Middle English plante, from the Old English plante (young tree or shrub, herb newly planted), from the Latin planta (sprout, shoot, cutting) while the broader sense of “any vegetable life, vegetation generally” was from the Old French plante.  The verb was from the Middle English planten, from the Old English plantian (to plant), from the Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter.  Similar European forms meaning “to plant” included the Dutch planten, the German pflanzen, the Swedish plantera and the Icelandic planta.  The use of “plant” to describe heavy machinery and equipment emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, based on the ideas of something being “planted” in place and immovable (like a planted tree).  As technology evolved, use extended to non-static equipment such as heavy earth moving vehicles but the exact definition now differs between jurisdictions, based variously on purchase price, function etc although the aspect of most practical significance is often the threshold to qualify for certain taxation advantages such as accelerated depreciation.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Planter is a noun; the noun plural is planters.

Planters (with plants) at the main entryway to Lindsay Lohan's house, Venice, Los Angeles, California, 2013.

The figurative sense of “one who introduces, establishes, or sets up” dates from the 1630s, picked up a decade later to refer to “one who owns a plantation, the proprietor of a cultivated estate in West Indies or southern colonies of North America” although in the latter case it was literally the “planting of seeds” for cropping rather than the idea of planting the “seeds of civilization”, a notion which for centuries appealed to the defenders of European colonialism and echoes of this attitude are heard still today.  The mechanical sense of a “tool or machine for planting seeds” is by 1850 dates from the 1850s.  The “planter’s punch” was a cocktail mixed with Jamaican rum, lime juice and sugar cane juice; first mentioned in the late nineteenth century it fulfilled a similar role to the gin & tonic (G&T) under the Raj.  The now familiar use to describe a “pot for growing plants” is a surprisingly late creation, apparently named only in 1959 although such devices obviously had been in use for centuries, such as the “window box” attached to the sills outside windows in which folk grew either something decorative (flowers) or useful (herbs or miniature vegetables).  The form “window box planter” is now used in commerce; something which seems a needless addition.  A church planter (also as churchplanter) describes a missionary, preacher or organization which travels to establish a church in a place where no congregations of the relevant denomination exist.  The tactic is most associated with Evangelical Christianity.  In Cebuano (an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines), as a back-formation from planteran, planter is used as a noun to mean “a frame-up; a false incrimination of an innocent person”.  The Cebuano verb planteran was also from the English plant and was used to mean “to arrange fraudulent evidence to falsely implicate someone in the commission of a crime”.  An often un-mentioned aspect in the career of Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) was his early career as a planter.  Dispatched by his father Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) to establish a sisal plantation on Andros Island in the Bahamas, the younger Neville proved a tough imperial pioneer, toiling for some six years in the Caribbean but the climate was uncooperative and the soil proved no more receptive to Neville's attempts at appeasement than would Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) two generations later.  The sisal project ended in failure with the family fortune suffering a loss equivalent (in 2024 values) to some US$8-9 million.

Bollards, raw and disguised.

Dealing with terrorism is of necessity a reactive business and in Western cities, bollards appeared sometimes within hours of news of the use of motor vehicles somewhere as an instrument of murder, either as a delivery system for explosives or brute-force device to run down pedestrians.  Because of the haste with which the things were deemed needed, it wasn’t uncommon for bollards initially to be nothing but re-purposed concrete blocks (left), often not even painted, the stark functionality of purpose limited to preventing vehicular access which permitting those on foot to pass with minimal disruption.  They’ve since become a fixture in the built environment, often is stylized shapes (centre & right) and urban designers have been inventive, many objects which function as bollards not recognizably bollardesque, being integrated into structures such as city furniture or bus shelters.

Bollards disguised as planters.

Urban planners have however responded and the large-scale planter box, which had for some time been a familiar sight in cityscapes, has proved adaptable, able to be shaped and placed in a way which obviates the need for conventionally shaped bollards.  Where the space is available, even small green spaces can be installed and, with integrated drip-feed irrigation systems, maintenance is low, an additional benefit being the lowering of temperature in the immediate environment, the foliage reducing radiated heat.  One popular feature of the big planter boxes in many cities is that they include built-in benches on which people can sit, something seen in squares, malls and plazas.  Not all support this however.  Retailers think people should be in such places only to shop and giving them somewhere to sit makes them for the time they spend unproductively inert not able to go to shops and spend money.  There’s also the view such things attract an anti-social element who loiter with nefarious intent and there is still a view by some in authority (based apparently on some English case-law from the 1960s) that in public spaces, while people have the right to walk up and down, there’s no right to stay in the one place, sitting or standing.  So, planters with seating presumably are provided on a case-by-case basis: in nice respectable suburbs which are well-policed, planters have comfortable seats in the shade while in low income areas where the police appear only to respond to murders, serious assaults, armed robbery etc, the built environment is designed in such as way that to sit anywhere is either uncomfortable or impossible.

Planters with an integrated bench on which people can sit are a feature of the street architecture in Canberra, Australia.  Pictured here are several on Lonsdale Street, Braddon.

However, even when planters offer a comfortable spot on which to rest, dangers lurk, especially if one is at the time tired and emotional or at least a bit squiffy.  Shortly before midnight on 8 February 2024, the honourable Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) was observed sprawled on the sidewalk mumbling obscenities into his phone, having fallen from the planter where he’d paused to gather his thoughts.  The planter sits on Lonsdale Street in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, a short distance from a bar popular with politicians.  The Daily Mail published footage of the remarkable scene, the highlight in some ways being the conversation the former deputy prime-minister was having with his wife, the lucky soul who captured the scene reporting the uttering of “dead fucking cunt” (the phrase a not infrequently ejaculated part of idiomatic Australian English).

Vikki Campion (b 1985) and Barnaby Joyce (b 1967) on their wedding day, 11 November 2023.  In a nice touch, the couple's two children were able to witness the ceremony.

In answer to enquiries from the Daily Mail (past masters at identifying those “tired and emotional”), Mr Joyce’s wife confirmed she was the interlocutor and her husband was referring not to her as a “dead fucking cunt” but was “…calling himself one.”  “He likes to self flagellate” she added.  She further observed it was disappointing that rather than offering assistance to someone sprawled on the ground in the dead of night, someone would instead film the scene but the witness confirmed Mr Joyce seemed “relaxed & happy”, in no obvious distress and conducting his phone call calmly, using the wide vocabulary which has helped make him a politician of such renown.  Responding later to an enquiry from the Daily Mail, Mr Joyce admitted the incident was “very embarrassing” and that had he known “…someone was there with a camera, I would have got up quicker.”  Explaining the event, he told the newspaper: “I was walking back to my accommodation after parliament rose at 10 pm.  While on the phone I sat on the edge of a planter box, fell over, kept talking on the phone, and very animatedly was referring to myself for having fallen over.  I got up and walked home.”  Commendably, Mr Joyce seems to have made no attempt to blame the planter box for what happened but a Murdoch outlet did report that "...privately he was telling friends he was taking medication you cannot drink alcohol with and that was the cause of the incident".  Left unexplored by Sky News was whether that implied (1) knowing that, he hadn't taken any alcohol that day and the episode was induced by a reaction to the medicine or (2) he had taken a quantity of alcohol and the episode was induced by the combination of strong drink and the pharmaceuticals.  He later clarified things, confirming the latter, after which he announced he was "giving up alcohol for Lent".

The honourable Barnaby Joyce MP, Lonsdale Street, Canberra ACT, February 2024.

The morning after the night before, the planter box's 15 minutes of fame was marked in an appropriately ephemeral way, a chalk outline added where the recumbent Mr Joyce continued his phone call.

Mr Joyce should be given the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps recalling Lyndon Johnson’s (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) observation of Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) as someone “so dumb he can’t fart and walk at the same time” (sanitized by the press for publication as “chew gum and walk at the same time”), Mr Joyce may have thought it wise to sit on the planter while making his call.  Unfortunately, when one is tired and emotional, the challenge of using one’s phone, even if one sits a planter, can be too much and one topples to the ground, a salutatory lesson for all phone users.  

Dr Rudd sitting in a pew during the ecumenical church service marking the start of the parliamentary year, Canberra, February, 2008.

Among serious & cynical observers of politics (the adjectival tautology acknowledged), the consensus seems to be this latest incident in Mr Joyce's eventful life will prove beneficial and he'll likely increase his majority at the next election, the rationale for that being politicians tend to benefit from being seen as “authentic” and few things seem more authentically Australian than going to a bar, spending a few hours giving it a nudge, then falling off a planter box on the way home.  People can identify with that in a way something like the essay discussing "faith in politics" and the example set by anti-Nazi preacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) which Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) published in The Monthly (October 2006), just doesn't "cut through".  The essay was politely received as “earnest”, “thoughtful” and “worthy”, few apparently prepared to risk retribution by pointing out it was also derivative, taking 5000-odd words to say what had many times over the years already been said (which is fairness, can be said of many works).  Still, it was shorter than might have been expected so there was that.  The sanctimony in the text would have surprised nobody but it was only after he was defenestrated by his colleagues that some, musing on the the policies his government implemented, decided to point out the hypocrisy of him asserting Christianity “must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed” and that politicians should uphold “the values of decency, fairness and compassion that are still etched deep into our national soul”.  Mr Joyce's many and varied sins are (mostly) well documented and “ordinary Australians” (as politicians like to call us) seem still willing to extend to him the Christian virtue of forgiveness.  Of Dr Rudd, they probably prefer to try to forget.

Compunction

Compunction (pronounced kuhm-puhngk-shuhn)

(1) A feeling of uneasiness or anxiety of the conscience caused by regret for doing wrong or causing pain; contrition; remorse; sorrow.

(2) Any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action.

1350–1400: From the Middle English compunccion, from the Old French compunction (from which in the twelfth century Modern French gained compunction), from the Late Latin compunctionem (a pricking) & compūnctiōn- (stem of the Ecclesiastical Latin compunctiō) (remorse; a stinging or pricking (of one’s guilty conscience)), the construct being the Classical Latin compūnct(us) (past participle of compungere (to sting; severely to prick), the construct of which was (com- (used as an intensive prefix) + pungere (to prick; to puncture) (from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root peuk- (to prick)) + -iōn- (stem of –iō and a suffix forming nouns, used especially on past participle stems).  The origin of the meaning in Latin (transferred from the element pungere (to prick; to puncture)) was the idea of “a pricking of one’s guilty conscience” which could induce some feeling of regret although, like many injuries cause by pin-pricks, recovery was often rapid.  The adjective compunctious (causing compunction, pricking the conscience) dates from the late sixteenth century.  Compunction & compunctiousness are nouns, compunctious & compunctionless are adjectives and compunctiously is an adverb; the noun plural is compunctions.

The Ecclesiastical Latin compunctiō (and compunction in other forms) appears frequently in the texts of the early Church, used in a figurative sense originally to convey a more intense sense of “contrition” or “remorse” than that familiar in modern use.  Contrition and remorse were of course a thing vital for the Church to foster, indeed to demand of the congregation.  The very structure of Christianity was built upon the idea that all were born in a state of guilt because the very act of conception depending upon an original sin and this was what made Jesus unique: the virgin birth meant Christ was born without sin although centuries of theological squabbles would ensue as the debate swirled about his nature as (1) man, (2) the son of God and (3) God.  That was too abstract for most which was fine with the priests who preferred to focus on the guilt of their flock and their own importance as the intermediaries between God and sinner, there to arrange forgiveness, something which turned out to be a commodity and commodities are there to be sold.  Forgiveness was really the first futures market and compunction was one of the currencies although gold and other mediums of exchange would also figure.

Sorry (Regretful or apologetic for one's actions) was from the From Middle English sory, from the Old English sāriġ (feeling or expressing grief, sorry, grieved, sorrowful, sad, mournful, bitter), from the Proto-West Germanic sairag, from the Proto-Germanic sairagaz (sad), from the primitive Indo-European seh₂yro (hard, rough, painful).  It was cognate with the Scots sairie (sad, grieved), the Saterland Frisian seerich (sore, inflamed), the West Frisian searich (sad, sorry), the Low German serig (sick, scabby), the German dialectal sehrig (sore, sad, painful) and the Swedish sårig.  Remarkably, despite the similarities in spelling and meaning, “sorry” is etymologically unrelated to “sorrow”.  Sorrow (a state of woe; unhappiness) was from the Middle English sorow, sorwe, sorghe & sorȝe, from the Old English sorg & sorh (care, anxiety, sorrow, grief), from the Proto-West Germanic sorgu, from the Proto-Germanic surgō (which may be compared with the West Frisian soarch, the Dutch zorg, the German Sorge, and the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sorg), from the primitive Indo-European swergh (watch over, worry; be ill, suffer) (which may be compared with the Old Irish serg (sickness), the Tocharian B sark (sickness), the Lithuanian sirgti (be sick) and the Sanskrit सूर्क्षति (sū́rkṣati) (worry).

Johnny Depp & Amber Heard saying sorry in Australia and Johnny Depp deconstructing sorry in London.

Sorry indicates (1) one is regretful or apologetic for one’s thoughts or actions but it can also mean (2) one is grieved or saddened (especially by the loss of something or someone), (3) someone or something is in a sad or regrettable state or (4) someone or something is hopelessly inadequate for their intended role or purpose.  Such is human nature that expressions of sorry in the sense of an apology are among the more common exchanges and one suspects something like the 80/20 rule applies: 80% of apologies are offered by (or extracted from) 20% of the population.  So frequent are they that an art has evolved to produce phrases by which an apology can be delivered in which sorry is somehow said without actually saying sorry.  This is the compunction one fells when one is not feeling compunctious and a classic example was provided when the once (perhaps then happily) married actors Johnny Depp (b 1963) & Amber Heard (b 1986) were in 2015 caught bringing two pet dogs into Australia in violation of the country’s strict biosecurity laws.  Ms Heard pleaded guilty to falsifying quarantine documents, stating in mitigation her mistake was induced by “sleep deprivation”.  No conviction was recorded (the maximum sentence available being ten years in jail) and she was placed on a Aus$1,000 one-month good behavior bond, the couple ordered to make a “public apology” and that they did, a short video provided, the script unexceptional but the performances something like a Monty Python sketch.  However, whatever the brief performance lacked in sincerity, as free advertising for the biosecurity regime, it was invaluable.  Mr Depp later returned to the subject when promoting a film in London.

The synonyms for “sorry” (as in an apology) include regret, apologize, compunctious, contrite, penitent, regretful, remorseful & repentant (which is more a subsequent act).  Practiced in the art of the “non-apologetic” apology are politicians (some of whom have honed it to the point where it’s more a science) who have a number of ways of nuancing things.  Sometimes the excuse is that simply to say “sorry” might subsequent legal proceedings be construed as an admission of liability, thus exposing the exchequer and there was some basis for that concept which has prompted some jurisdictions explicitly to write into legislation that in traffic accidents and such, simply to say “sorry” cannot be construed as such an admission.  That of course has had no apparent effect on the behaviour of politicians.  Even when there is no possibly of exposing the state to some sort of claim, politicians are still averse to anything like the word “sorry” because it’s seen as a “loss of face” and a victory for one’s opponents.

There are exceptions.  Some politicians, especially during periods of high popularity, worked out that such was the novelty, saying sorry could work quite well, especially if delivered in a manner which seemed sincere (and the right subject, in the right hands, can learn such tricks) although some who found it worked did overdo it, the repetition making it clear it was just another cynical tactic.  An example was Peter Beattie (b 1952; Premier of Queensland 1998-2007) who found the electorate responded well to a leader saying sorry but such was the low quality of the government he headed that there was often something for which to apologize and having set the precedent, he felt compelled to carry on until the sheer repetitive volume of the compunctiousness began merely to draw attention to all the incompetence.

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

The other exception is the set-piece event.  This is where a politician apologizes on behalf of someone else (a previous government, hopefully the opposition or something a vague as the nation in some dim, distant past) while making it clear that personally it’s nothing to do with them personally.  There has been a spate of these in recent decades, many apologizing for egregiously appalling acts by white men against ethnic minorities, indigenous populations, the disabled or other powerless groups.  Again, some of the apologies have been in the form of “personally sorry it happened”, thereby ticking the box without costing anything; people like and indigenous population apparently deserving words but not compensation.  For the rest of us, ranging from the genuinely sincere to the cynically opportunistic nihilistic psychopaths, the most obvious tool is the adverb: to say “I am so sorry” can be more effective than “I’m sorry” provided the tone of voice, inflections and the non-verbal clues are all in accord.  Sorry is recommend by many because it so easily can be made to sound sincere with a ease that’s challenging with compunctious, contrite, penitent, regretful, and remorseful, the longer words ideal for one politician “apologizing” to another in a form which is linguistically correct while being quite contemptuous.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy (pronounced ek-stuh-see)

(1) Rapturous delight.

(2) An overpowering emotion or exaltation; a state of sudden, intense feeling.

(3) Mental transport or rapture from the contemplation of divine things.

(4) A slang term for the drug Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) (often initial capital letter).

(5) A state of prophetic (especially poetic) inspiration (archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English extasie, from the Old & Middle French extasie (ecstasy, rapture), from the Medieval Latin extasis, from the Ancient Greek ékstasis (entrancement, astonishment, insanity; any displacement or removal from the proper place" (in the New Testament "a trance")) from existanai (displace, put out of place, drive out of one's mind).  The construct of ékstasis was ek- (ec-)- + stásis. The construct of existanai was ex- (out) + histanai (to cause to stand) from the primitive Indo-European root sta- (to stand, make or be firm).  The  verbs ecstatize (1650s), ecstasiate (1823), ecstasize (1830) are extinct and the spellings ecstacy, exstacy, exstasy, extacy & extasy are all obsolete.  Ecstasy is a noun & verb, ecstatical is an adjective, ecstatically is an adverb, ecstatic is a noun & adjective and ecstaticize, ecstaticized & ecstaticizing are verbs; the noun plural is ecstasies.

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

The adjectival use seems first to have emerged in the 1590s in the sense of "mystically absorbed" (from the Ancient Greek ekstatikos (unstable, inclined to depart from) & ekstasis, and something like the familiar modern meaning "characterized by or subject to intense emotions" is from 1660s, used by writers to describe mystical experiences, states “…of rapture which stupefied the body while the soul contemplated divine things".  That meaning shift to "exalted state of good feeling" seems to have been in general use early in the seventeenth century.  However, although now almost exclusively associated with feelings of exaggerated pleasure, it wasn’t always so, once associated in religious use with feelings anything but and there are those today for whom pain is an essential part of their ecstatic experience.  It’s a niche market.

Expert advice.  Lindsay Lohan confirmed Ecstasy is better than cocaine.

The slang use of ecstasy for the drug methylendioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) dates from 1985.  Taken as a pill (which can include other drugs as active ingredients), MDMA attracted slang including E, E-Bomb, Ekkie, Dancing Shoes, Love Drug, Love Potion, Molly, XTC, X, Bean Drug & Disco Biscuits.  One interesting footnote to emerge from studies of its use was that young women punctilious in checking supermarket labels to monitor their intake of fat, salt & sugar, seemed remarkably trusting of drug dealers offering pills.  Another phenomenon in the marketing of MDMA was the use of corporate trademarks, stamped onto the pills; it’s said Mitsubishis were very popular.  One interesting consensus which seemed to emerge from users that if enjoying a lollypop after MDMA, the best flavor was lemon.

Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022), House of Representatives, Canberra, ACT, Australia, February 2018.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Unlike many of the buildings usually included in the standard tourist itinerary of Rome, the Cornaro Chapel (1626), at Santa Maria della Vittoria, close to the Repubblica metro station, is tiny.  In this intimate space is an elevated aedicule on which sits the little church’s famous installation, L'Estasi di Santa Teresa (The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa; sometimes called The Transverberation of Saint Teresa), a sculptural group in white marble, carved by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) in 1652.

The interior of the church, also the work of Bernini, is sumptuously decorated, gilded stucco and multi-colored marble arranged so that barely a surface or crevice is left naked, this lushness the best setting imaginable for this masterpiece of high Roman baroque.  Bernini dismissed the suggestion he use an enclosed chapel and instead presented his composition as a theatre, cleverly lit by a window hidden by the pediment with, on the flanking walls, two opera-boxes containing sculptured representations of the family of his patron, the Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro (1579–1653). 

Bernini had reason to be grateful to the cardinal.  The work was completed during the pontificate of Innocent X (1574–1655; Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, pope 1644-1655) and Bernini had been the court architect of the previous pope, Urban VIII (circa 1568–1644; Maffeo Barberini, pope 1623-1644), regarded by Innocent as profligate.  With papal patronage withdrawn, Bernini was again an artist for hire and the cardinal granted the commission.  Teresa of Ávila, the Spanish founder of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, is depicted seated on clouds as if on a bed.  She is captured during the ecstasy she described in her mystical autobiography, experiencing an angel piercing her heart with a dart of divine love, causing both immense joy and pain.  Considering the long tradition of statuary in the Roman Catholic Church, that of Saint Teresa is quite a departure, her contorted posture and the ambiguous smile of the angel lending the scene a rare mix of passion and voluptuousness.  It’s reputed also to be the only Roman Catholic church with a painting depicting a battle scene above the alter and soldiers instead of angels holding up the organ, a legacy of the celebrations at the end of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).

Saint Teresa in white marble, 1652 (left) and Lindsay Lohan resting in a Cadillac Escalade, Los Angeles, May 2007 (right).  The striking similarity between the two saintly souls inspired one of 2007's most widely-shared memes.

Adultery

Adultery (pronounced uh-duhl-tuh-ree)

Voluntary sexual intimacy between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse.

1325-1375: From the Middle English adulterie, from the Classical Latin adulterium (voluntary violation of the marriage bed).  Adulterie replaced an earlier Middle English form advouterie, drawn from the Old French avoutrie.  So, construct was: adulterie, altered (as if directly from Latin adulterium) from avoutrie, via Old French from Latin adulterium, from adulter, back formation from adulterāre.  Modern spelling, with the re-inserted -d, is from early fifteenth century.  Interestingly, in Middle English, word also applied even to "sex between husband and wife for recreational purposes”, sex for other than procreation being regarded by the church as idolatry, perversion and heresy.  The church variously classified the sin as single adultery (with an unmarried person) and double adultery (with a married person).  In Old English the word was æwbryce (breach of lawful marriage), drawn from the German Ehebruch.  As one might imagine, the tradition of adultery goes way back and so does the condemnation by clerics and others; it is of course proscribed by one of the Ten Commandments (coming in usually at 6 or 7 in most translations) in the Christian Bible and the ever zealous Leviticus (at 20:10) spelled out the consequences: If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

In the US, Adultery Dune in Arizona corresponds to the Navajo sei adilehe (adultery sand), the place where, prior to European settlement, illicit lovers met.  It’s apparently something between Hampstead Heath and Death Valley as depicted in Michelangelo Antonioni’s (1912-2007) Zabriskie Point (1970).  Everyone should see Zabriskie Point before they die.

Double Adultery: Cheryl Kernot & Gareth Evans.

Although adultery can be a difficult, complicated business, two avoid things ending badly, there are really two options.  One is not to commit adultery because, in the words of  English author, Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), "advantage rarely comes of it."  Option two is not to get caught but there is a long list of politicians who made the greatest mistake of all: getting caught.  Although adultery seemed once almost obligatory (and once also tolerated) for French politicians great and humble, in the English-speaking world, it's always a scandal.  Of late, we’ve had the helpfully named Anthony Weiner (b 1964), Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) who had only himself to blame and Sir John Major (b 1943; UK prime-minister 1990-1997) who really must be admired; an affair with Edwina Currie (b 1946) hardly being safe-sex.  Jim Cairns (1914–2003) perjured himself while lying about his affair and John Profumo (1915–2006) committed adultery with Christine Keeler (1942–2017) while she was enjoying another adulterous affair with a Russian spy.  While leader of the opposition, Ben Chifley (1885–1951; prime minister of Australia 1945 to 1949) told the prime-minister he was going home to read a detective story, dying that night in the company of his mistress; men wept at the news of his death.  John Kennedy's (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) adultery was (within the beltway), famous even at the time and David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) blatantly took his mistress to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; one author claimed even the long-assumed faithful Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) may have strayed.  Doing his bit, Gareth Evans (b 1944; Australian Labor Party (ALP) senator or MP 1978-1999, sometime attorney-general & foreign minister) had an affair with then Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot (b 1948) who subsequently rated on them and joined the ALP although whether that was because or in spite of Gareth’s adulterous caresses has never been clear.

End of the line for Sir Billy Snedden.

Most illustrious are those said to have died on the job, expiring usually in hotel rooms following heart-attacks or strokes.  The list includes the 70 year old Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979; US vice-president 1974-1977) who was with a 25 year old aide and the 76 year old Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) who was in the company of an admirer of 37.  Lord Palmerston (1784-1865; variously UK prime-minister or foreign secretary on several occasions 1830-1865) is rumoured to have died on a billiard table with a housemaid and Pope John XII (circa 933–964; pope 955-964) is said to have died in circumstances not dissimilar.  Famously, Sir Billy Snedden (1926–1987), at 61, breathed his last in a Travelodge at Sydney's Rushcutter’s Bay with a somewhat younger woman who was his son’s ex-girlfriend, an event recorded by what was perhaps the Melbourne Truth's most memorable front page.  Remarkably, despite decades of speculation, her identity has never publicly been confirmed.

Former Australian Country Party leader Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022).

Mr Joyce joined a long line of adulterous politicians who made the greatest mistake of all: getting caught.  He's pictured here escorting wife to the parliament's mid-winter ball (left) and casting his mistress an admiring glance (right).