Gymnasium

Gymnasium (pronounced jim-ney-zee-uhm)

(1) A building or room designed and equipped for indoor sports, exercise and physical training or education.

(2) A public place or building where Ancient Greek youth took exercise, equipped with running and wrestling grounds, baths, and halls for discussions and lectures.

(3) In continental Europe (and most common in Germany) a classical school providing education for those preparing for university (often initial capital letter).

1590-1600: From the Latin gymnasium, from the Ancient Greek γυμνάσιον (gumnásion, from gumnazein) (exercise; school), from γυμνός (gumnós) (naked), the connection owed to the tradition in Antiquity of Greek athletes training (and sometimes competing) naked.  The use in the German education system (as the noun Gymnasium) dated from the mid fifteenth century, the spelling in Hungarian being gimnázium, in Lower Sorbian gymnazium and in Polish gimnazjum.  The plural form in German is Gymnasien.  In English, gymnasium was adopted with the meaning “a place of exercise”, reflecting the Latin gymnasium (school for gymnastics) and the Ancient Greek gymnasion (public place where athletic exercises are practiced; gymnastics school).  The familiar modern clipping (gym) was in use by 1871 as US student slang and is now almost universal in both conversational use and commerce.  The adjective gymnastics (of or pertaining to athletic exercise) actually predated the noun, noted as early as the 1570s and was from the Latin gymnasticus, from the Ancient Greek gymnastikos (fond of or skilled in bodily exercise), from gymnazein (to exercise or train).  Gymnasium, gymnast & gymnastics are nouns, & gymnastic is a noun & adjective, gymnasial & gymnastical are adjectives and gymnastically is an adverb; the noun plural is gymnasia or (the more common) gymnasiums although the most commonly used plural form is gymnastics.

Lindsay Lohan: Gymnastics in the gymnasium.

Although historians have relied on deductive reasoning rather than documentary evidence in tracing the structural evolution of urban spaces in Ancient Greek (certainly prior to the classical era), it’s thought the original gymnasiums were something like an open sports field, a place devoted to youth exercising and training for sports and combat.  As the education systems developed, school building began to be added in places close to the gymnasium and in the way words in language develop associatively, the area as a whole came to be the gumnásion, physical training being thought just one aspect of the curriculum.  In the German states, from the mid fifteenth century, the name was adopted for high schools (emulating the use in Latin), institutions then something of a novelty and the nod to the Classical world reflected the veneration for the era (or at least an idealized construct of it) which was a feature of the Renaissance.  In English, the use has always been restricted to a sub-set (ie certain (usually indoor) events) of athletics although in the nineteenth century, gymnastical was used as adjective (of or relating to schools) and a gymnasiast was a student at such an institution.  The legend is the Greeks held that men training and competing in a state of nakedness was good for body and soul, but the archaeological evidence seems to suggest the many paintings of the events (with the athletes always depicted at an angle which permitted some modesty to be preserved) were a product of the Renaissance imagination.  This is unsurprising because so much of the art and historiography of Antiquity created as the West "discovered" the Classical world was an idealized version, reflecting the veneration in which the era was held.

Early activewear: Sala delle Dieci Ragazze (Room of the Ten Girls), a first century AD mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily.  For whatever reason, it was a later addition, added atop what's thought to be a conventional geometric mosaic.  

What the men seem usually to have worn was a kynodesme, a learned borrowing from the Ancient Greek κυνοδέσμη (kunodésmē) (literally “dog tie”) which was a thin leather strip which served to restrain the foreskin, this preventing exposure of the glans, something which would have made the sporting activities easier to perform by limiting intrusive (and even painful) movement.  For the same reason, women competing in their own events wore a type of bra, depicted in surviving contemporary art in a style which would now be called a bandeau.  So, it's probably a myth that in the ancient Olympic Games (τὰ Ὀλύμπια) (ta Olympia; held at four year intervals at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia) the athletes were naked (although doubtlessly it was common during training) and definitely a myth the bra was invented in the late nineteenth century.  To the west there was later pragmatism.  Although the public schools of England were much taken with the classics and took especially to sporting competitions, the alleged tradition never caught on the playing fields of England where it tends to be colder than the Mediterranean.

Lindsay Lohan in the gym, Planet Fitness Super Bowl Commercial, 2022.

Supine

Supine (pronounced soo-pahyn)

(1) Lying on the back, face or front upward.

(2) Inactive, passive, or inert, especially from indolence or indifference; displaying no interest or animation; lethargic, apathetic or passive towards something.

(3) Being reluctant to take action due to indifference or moral weakness

(4) Inclining or leaning backward; inclined, sloping (now probably obsolete except for poetic or historic use).

(5) Of the hand, forearm or foot, turned facing toward the body or upward: with the thumb outward (palm up), or with the big toe raised relative to the little toe.

(6) A technical rule in Latin; a noun form derived from verbs, appearing only in the accusative and the dative-ablative.  Often used to express purpose with verbs of motion

(7) A technical rule in English; the simple infinitive of a verb preceded by to.

(8) A descriptor (in English) for an analogous form in some other language.

(9) Inclining or leaning backward; inclined, sloping (now rare and used only as a literary or poetic device).

1490-1500: From the Latin supīnus (bent backwards, thrown backwards, lying on the back (and figuratively "inactive, indolent"), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European sup & up.  It was cognate with the Catalan supí, the Italian supino (on one's back), the Old French sovin, the Middle French souvin, supin & supin, the Anglo-Norman supin (which persists in modern French as supin), the Old Occitan sobin & sopin, the Portuguese supino and the Spanish supino.  The verb supinate dates from 1831 in the sense of "to place the hand so that the palm is turned upward" and was from the Latin supinatus, past participle of supinare (to bend back) and related to supinus (the related forms being supinated, supinating & supinators.  The adjective was from the Latin supīnus, the construct being sup- (in the sense of “under”) + -īnus (of or pertaining to).  The noun came later, from the Late Middle English supin (as in “supine of a Latin verb”) or the Middle French supin ((grammar) supine) all from the Latin supīnum (short for supīnum verbum (supine verb)) from supīnus.  It partially displaced the Old English upweard (upward, supine), from which Modern English gained "upward".  The now rarely used sense of "morally or mentally inert, negligent, listless, heedless" was in use in English by the early seventeenth century and the noun supinity is used in this context.  Supine is a noun & adjective, supination, supinator, supinity & supineness are nouns, supinate is a verb, supinated is a verb & adjective and supinely is an adverb; the noun plural is supines.

Lindsay Lohan supine from a photo-shoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love Magazine (2012).

The technical rule in Latin grammar: "the verbal noun formed from the past participle stem" is from the Late Latin supinum verbum (supine verb), the origin of which is undocumented but thought so called because, though furnished with a noun case ending, it "falls back" on the verb.  In Latin grammar, supine is best thought of as a practice rather than a rule and it’s observed rather than understood or applied.  The verbal noun is used in only a few syntactic constructions and occurs in only two cases, an accusative in -tum or -sum and an ablative in -tū or –sū although the accusative form is sometimes listed by scholars as the fourth principal part of the Latin verb, a fine distinction only they understand.

Although there was a war going on, the misuse of "supine" and "prone" (by fellow  physicians!) so disturbed Dr Edwin H Shepard MD of Syracuse, NY he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which was published in the edition of 27 May 1944.  Eighty years on, Very Well Health advises doctors the trick to remember the difference between supine and prone is: "supine contains the word "up", reminding you you are face up in this position while prone contains the word "on" which you can use to remember you are lying on your face or stomach."

So, strictly speaking, "supine" means lying face upwards while the words for lying face downwards are "prostrate" or "prone" but these have long been used loosely (probably increasingly so) for lying flat in any position.  Thus, the antonym correctly is "nonsupine" (or "non-supine") but "prone" is sometimes used, doubtlessly leaving many baffled, including, clearly, some physicians.  The synonym resupine is rare and may be functionally extinct.

Etiquette

Etiquette (pronounced et-i-kit or et-i-ket)

(1) A construct both culturally specific and culturally variable which is a codification of the requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion (and thus often exists as sub-sets which can in detail be contradictory).

(2) A prescribed or accepted code of usage in matters of procedure, ceremonies et al in any formal environment (courts, investitures et al).

(3) An accepted (and sometimes in whole or in part codified) set of rules of ethical behavior relating to professional practice or the conduct between members of the profession.

(4) The expected behavior in certain situations (surfing; golf etc) and enforced according to prevailing standards.

(5) A label used to indicate a letter is to be sent by airmail (the French par avion (by airplane).

1730–1740: From the French étiquette (property, a little piece of paper, or a mark or title, affixed to a bag or bundle, expressing its contents, a label, ticket; a memorandum), from the Middle French estiquette (ticket, label, memorandum), from the Old French verbs estechier, estichier, estequier estiquier & estiquer (to attach, stick), from the Frankish stekan, stikkan & stikjan (to stick, pierce, sting), from the Proto-Germanic stikaną, stikōną & staikijaną (to be sharp, pierce, prick), from the primitive Indo-European steyg or teyg- (to be sharp, to stab).  It was akin to the Old High German stehhan (to stick, attach, nail) (which endures in Modern German as stechen (to stick)) and the Old English stician (to pierce, stab, be fastened).  Etiquette is a noun and etiquettal is an adjective; the noun plural is etiquettes.

The most attractive story of the origin of etiquette in its modern form is that the groundskeepers tending the gardens & parks at the Palace of Versailles became annoyed at the casual way the courtiers attached to the household of Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715) would walk across their lovingly manicured lawns.  In response the gardeners would erect stakes onto which they would pin étiquettes (literally “little cards”) warning transgressors to “Keep off the Grass”.  Unfortunately, although there’s no doubt the signs did exist at Versailles and the legend is even Louis XIV dutifully complied, they were not the origin of “etiquette” in its modern sense.

The reverence for lawns however outlasted the Ancien Régime, Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna, the revolutions of the nineteenth century, wars, occupations and five republics and Nicolas Sarközy (b 1955; President of France 2007-2012).  On visits to Paris, tourists who have since high school neglected their French sometimes see the signs Pelouse au repos in parks which they translate as “place to rest”, only to be harangued by an angry attendant, pointing and ordering them back to the pavement.  The actual translation is “the lawn is resting” and any other country would include “Keep off the Grass” in English (the world’s lingua franca) but that’s not the French way.  In the hierarchy of Gaelic officialdom, the part inspectors are said to be worse than the parking police but not as bad as the stewards patrolling the spectator areas at the annual Le Mans 24 hour endurance race, their officiousness something to behold as gleefully they enjoy being cloaked in their brief authority.

The exact history remains murky but etymologists seem most convinced the word in its modern sense can be traced to the seventeenth century Spanish royal court which, impressed by the ritualized forms of the Hapsburg monarchy in Vienna, had officials record a list of the rules and procedures covering dress, orders of procedure in ceremonies, forms of dress and so on.  There were printed on cards distributed to functionaries and others so they would know what to do and when.  From this, the Spanish court became one of Europe’s better behaved royal operations and from the French etiquette (label, ticket etc), the Spanish form was etiqueta.  Simultaneously, many army barracks had such labels nailed to the walls (France étiquettes, In Spain etiquetas, in Italy etichette) containing the relevant instructions for the soldiers.  However, it’s thought the use in the royal court was the most influential and from this evolved the concept of etiquette which has developed into a list of the rules or formalities signifying the socially accepted rules of behavior and decorum.  Not all agree with the Spaniards getting the credit and some trace it back to well before Louis XIV but all seem to agree it was one royal court or another.

There has for centuries been an industry in publishing “etiquette guides” (the first seem to have appeared in sixteenth century Italy) and that many have been issued with titles such as “Modern Etiquette” or “American Etiquette” which does suggest what is regarded as acceptable is subject to change although the very notion of etiquette is highly nuanced; what is acceptable in one context can be social death in another.  Nor is necessary even to purchase a book because the internet is awash with guides on the matter but as an indication that both formats may just be scratching the surface, there are finishing schools in Switzerland which offer six-week courses for US$34,000.  Presumably essential for daughters being prepared for husband hunting, the six-week duration does hint there’s more to it than mastering the use of the flatware arrayed at dinner and knowing whether it’s a properly a napkin or serviette.  Even more essential that learning those details, what such courses can impart is the essential skill to be able to identify those who are and are not “one of us”; group identity as important to the rich as it is to supporters of football clubs.

Surely only a matter of time.

The model of eitquette has been used to coin a few amusing forms including netiquette (the construct being (inter)net + et(iquette)) which was documented as early as 1993 (the dawn of the world wide web) and referred to the “appropriate style and manners to be used when communicating on the internet).  Some of this early (often doomed) attempt to imposed civility on digital communication survives including the warning that the use of capital letters conveys SHOUTING.  Chatiquette is a similar set of rules, specific to chatrooms.  Jetiquette lists the standards of acceptable behavior expected of passengers travelling on a commercial airline) (arm-rest ownership, the politics of the reclining seat, the matter of socks and bare feet and all that).  Hatiquette defines the etiquette attached to the wearing of hats and it’s a complex business because what’s obligatory in one place is a sin against fashion in another.  It goes back a long way: After the passing of the UK’s Reform Act (1832) which extended the franchise, permitting the entry to parliament by lower reaches of the middle class, the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) cast his eye on the benches of the House of Commons and pronounced he’d “never seen such bad hats”.  Reddiquette describes the proper conduct to be followed on the website Reddit and it takes not long to work out not all redditors comply, any more than they take seriously the moderators’ rules on their sub-reddits.  In the narrow technical sense Wikiquette is the etiquette dictating how one should behave when working on a wiki (a type of database; there are many Wikis) but it’s used almost exclusively of Wikipedia, the open access online encyclopaedia.  Debtiquette sets out the rules of debt and deals both with owing something and being owed; it seems more to be about non-financial debts, the rules for which are fairly well defined in law. 

Slag

Slag (pronounced slag)

(1) The substantially fused and vitrified matter separated during the reduction of a metal from its ore; also called cinder.

(2) The scoria (the mass of rough fragments of pyroclastic rock and cinders produced during a volcanic eruption) from a volcano.

(3) In the post-production classification of coal for purposes of sale, the left-over waste for the sorting process; used also of the waste material (as opposed to by-product) from any extractive mining.

(4) In industrial processing, to convert into slag; to reduce to slag.

(5) In the production of steel and other metals, the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal.

(6) In commercial metallurgy, to remove slag from a steel bath.

(7) To form slag; become a slaglike mass.

(8) In slang, an abusive woman (historic UK slang, now a rare use).

(9) In slang, a term of contempt used usually by men of women with a varied history but now to some degree synonymous with “unattractive slut” (of UK origin but now in use throughout the English-speaking world and used sometimes also of prostitutes as a direct synonym, the latter now less common).

(10) In the slang of UK & Ireland, a coward (now regionally limited) or a contemptible person (synonymous with the modern “scumbag” (that use still listed by many as “mostly Cockney” but now apparently rare).

(11) In Australian slang, to spit.

(12) Verbally to attack or disparage somebody or something (usually as “slag off”, “slagged them”, “slagged it off” etc); not gender-specific and used usually in some unfriendly or harshly critical manner; to malign or denigrate.  Slang dictionaries note that exclusively in Ireland, “slagging off” someone (or something) can be used in the sense of “to make fun of; to take the piss; the tease, ridicule or mock” and can thius be an affectionate form, rather in the way “bastard” was re-purposed in Australian & New Zealand slang.

1545–1555: From the Middle Low German slagge & slaggen (slag, dross; refuse matter from smelting (which endures in Modern German as Schlacke)), from the Old Saxon slaggo, from the Proto-West Germanic slaggō, from the Proto-Germanic slaggô, the construct being slag(ōną)- (to strike) + -gô (the diminutive suffix).  Although unattested, there may have been some link with the Old High German slahan (to strike, slay) and the Middle Low German slāgen (to strike; to slay), the connection being that the first slag from the working of metal were the splinters struck off from the metal by being hammered.  Slāgen was from Proto-West Germanic slagōn and the Old Saxon slegi was from the Proto-West Germanic slagi.  Slag is a noun & verb, slagability, deslag, unslag & slaglessness are nouns, slagish, slagless, slagable, deslagged unslagged, slaggy & slaglike are adjectives and slagged, deslagged, unslagged, slagging, deslagging & unslagging are verbs; the noun plural is slags.  As an indication of how industry use influences the creation of forms, although something which could be described as “reslagging” is a common, it’s regarded as a mere repetition and a consequence rather than a process.

In the UK & Ireland, the term “slag tag” is an alternative to “tramp stamp”, the tattoo which appears on the lower back.  Both rhyming forms seem similarly evocative.

The derogatory slang use dates from the late eighteenth century and was originally an argot word for “a worthless person or a thug”, something thought derived from the notion of slag being “a worthless, unsightly pile” and from this developed the late twentieth century use to refer to women and this is thought to have begun life as a something close to a euphemism for “slut” although it was more an emphasis on “unattractiveness”.  The most recent adaptation is that of “slagging off” (verbal (ie oral, in print, on film etc) denigration of someone or something, use documented since 1971 although at least one oral history traces it from the previous decade.  In vulgar slang, slag is one of the many words used (mostly) by men to disparage women.  It’s now treated as something akin to “slut” (in the sense of a “women who appears or is known to be of loose virtue) but usually with the added layer of “unattractiveness”.  The lexicon of the disparaging terms men have for women probably doesn’t need to precisely to be deconstructed and as an example, in the commonly heard “old slag”, the “old” likely operates often as an intensifier rather than an indication of age; many of those labeled “old slags” are doubtless quite young on the human scale.  Still, that there are “slags” and “old slags” does suggest men put some effort into product differentiation.

How slag heaps are created.

All uses of “slag”, figurative & literal, can be traced back to the vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore, the fused material formed by combining the flux with gangue, impurities in the metal, etc.  Although there’s much variation at the margins, typically, it consists of a mixture of silicates with calcium, phosphorus, sulfur etc; in the industry it’s known also as cinder and casually as dross or recrement (the once also-used "scoria" seems now exclusively the property of volcanologists).  When deposited in place, the piles of slag are known as “slag heaps” and for more than a century, slag heaps were a common site in industrial regions and while they still exist, usually they’re now better managed (disguised).  A waste-product of steel production, slag can be re-purposed or recycled and, containing a mixture of metal oxides & silicon dioxide among other compounds, there is an inherent value which can be realized if the appropriate application can be found.  There are few technical problems confronting the re-use of slag but economics often prevent this; being bulky and heavy, slag can be expensive to transport so if a site suitable for re-use is distant, it can simply be too expensive to proceed.  Additionally, although slag can in close to its raw form be used for purposes such as road-base, if any reprocessing is required, the costs can be prohibitive.  The most common uses for slag include (1) Landfill reclamation, especially when reclaiming landfills or abandoned industrial sites, the dense material ideal for affording support & stability for new constructions, (2) the building of levees or other protective embankments where a large cubic mass is required, (3) in cement production in which ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) can be used as a supplementary component material of cement, enhancing the workability, durability and strength of concrete, (4) manufacturing including certain ceramics & glass, especially where high degrees of purity are not demanded, (5) as a soil conditioner in agriculture to add essential nutrients to the soil and improve its structure, (6) as a base for road-building and (7) as an aggregate in construction materials such as concrete and asphalt.  The attraction of recycling slag has the obvious value in that it reduces the environmental impact of steel production but it also conserves natural resources and reduces the impact of the mining which would otherwise be required.  However, the feasibility of recycling slag depends on its chemical composition and the availability of an appropriate site.

Harold Macmillan, Epsom Derby, Epsom Downs Racecourse, Surrey, 5 June 1957.

The word “slag” has been heard in the UK’s House of Commons in two of the three senses in which it’s usually deployed.  It may have been used also in the third but the Hansard reporters are unlikely to have committed that to history.  In 1872, Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880) cast his disapproving opposition leader’s gaze on the cabinet of William Gladstone (1809–1898; prime-minister 1868–1874, 1880–1885, Feb-July 1886 & 1892–1894) sitting on the opposite front bench and remarked: “Behold, a range of extinct volcanoes; not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest.”.  Sixty-odd years later, a truculent young Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) picked up the theme in his critique of a ministry although he was slagging off fellow Tories, describing the entire government bench as “a row of disused slag heaps”, adding that the party of Disraeli was now “dominated by second-class brewers and company promoters.”  Presumably Macmillan thought to be described as a “slag heap” was something worse than “extinct volcano” and one can see his point.  The rebelliousness clearly was a family trait because in 1961, when Macmillan was prime-minister, his own son, by then also a Tory MP, delivered a waspish attack on his father’s ministry.  When asked in the house the next day if there was “a rift in the family or something”, Macmillan said: “No.”, pausing before adding with his Edwardian timing: “As the House observed yesterday, the Honorable Member for Halifax has both intelligence and independence.  How he got them is not for me to say."

Lindsay Lohan and the great "slagging off Kettering scandal".

Although lacking the poise of Macmillan, Philip Hollobone (b 1964; Tory MP for Kettering since 2005), knew honor demanded he respond to Lindsay Lohan “slagging off” his constituency.  What caught the eye of the outraged MP happened during Lindsay Lohan’s helpful commentary on Twitter (now known as X) on the night of the Brexit referendum in 2016, the offending tweet appearing after it was announced Kettering (in the Midlands county of Northamptonshire) had voted 61-39% to leave the EU: “Sorry, but Kettering where are you?”

Philip Hollobone MP, official portrait (2020).

Mr Hollobone, a long-time "leaver" (a supporter of Brexit), wasn’t about to let a mean girl "remainer's" (one who opposed Brexit) slag of Kettering escape consequences and he took his opportunity in the House of Commons, saying: “On referendum night a week ago, the pro-Remain American actress, Lindsay Lohan, in a series of bizarre tweets, slagged off areas of this country that voted to leave the European Union.  At one point she directed a fierce and offensive tweet at Kettering, claiming that she had never heard of it and implying that no one knew where it was.  Apart from the fact that it might be the most average town in the country, everyone knows where Kettering is.”  Whether a phrase like “London, Paris, New York, Kettering” was at the time quite as familiar to most as it must have been to Mr Hollobone isn’t clear but he did try to help by offering advice, inviting Miss Lohan to switch on Kettering's Christmas lights that year, saying it would “redeem her political reputation”.  Unfortunately, that proved not possible because of a clash of appointments but thanks to the Tory Party, at least all know the bar has been lowered: Asking where a town sits on the map is now “slagging it off”.

Screen grab from the "apology video" Lindsay Lohan sent the residents of Kettering advising she'd not be able to switch on their Christmas lights because of her "busy schedule".

Stationary & Stationery

Stationery (pronounced stey-shuh-ner-ee)

(1) Writing paper.

(2) Writing materials, as pens, pencils, paper, and envelopes.

(3) Any office related hardware (staplers, pencil sharpeners et al) or consumables (staples etc), a use technically incorrect by historic standards but widely used and understood in commerce. 

1727: From the Medieval Latin statiōnārius (station), used to describe a bookseller who had a fixed station (especially at universities) as distinct from the then more prevalent form of commerce which was peripatetic.  The construct of stationery was not station + ery but stationer (one who sell paper, pens, books etc from a fixed location) + -y.  Stationery is a noun & adjective & stationer is a noun; the noun plural is stationeries but stationers is more commonly used.

Reader's Digest Kids Letter Writer Book & Stationary Set, one of Lindsay Lohan’s early (in 1994, then aged seven) modelling jobs.    The original form (circa 1675) was "stationery wares", describing the books, pens, ink and such sold by a "stationer" who was someone with "a station" (as opposed to the them common itinerant vendor)) and, over time, popular usage saw stationery gain and retain its modern association.  So there's a reason why two words with slightly different spellings share the same pronunciation yet have meanings which at first glance appear to be unrelated.  Such linguistic quirks are not unique to English but the language does seem to have many which, even when explained, must seen strange to those learning the tongue.

The suffixes –ary, -ery and –y

The suffix –ary was a back-formation from unary and similar, from the Latin adjective suffixes -aris and –arius.  It created the adjectival sense “of or pertaining to” when applied to various words, often nouns, and was used most frequently with words of Latin origin but it’s long been more broadly applied.  In mathematics, it’s used to refer to results having the specified -arity (the maximum number of child nodes that any node in a given tree (data structure) may have).-ate

The suffix -ery was from the Middle English -erie, from the Anglo-Norman and Old French -erie, which is inherited from the Latin -arius and Latin –ator (a suffix forming abstract nouns).  The suffix first appeared  in loan words from the Old French into Middle English, but became productive within English by the sixteenth century, in some instances properly a combination of -er with -y as in stationery, bakery & brewery, but also as a single suffix in words like slavery & machinery.  Added to nouns, it could form other nouns meaning "art, craft, or practice of"; added to verbs it could form nouns meaning "place of an art, craft, or practice”; added to nouns it could form other nouns meaning "a class, group, or collection of"; added to nouns it could form other nouns meaning "behaviour characteristic of."

The suffix -y was from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (the –y & -ic suffixes), from the Proto-Germanic -īgaz (-y, -ic), from the primitive Indo-European -kos, -ikos, & -iḱos (-y, -ic).  It was cognate with the Scots -ie (-y), the West Frisian -ich (-y), the Dutch -ig (-y), the Low German -ig (-y), the German -ig (-y), the Swedish -ig (-y), the Latin -icus (-y, -ic) and the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós); doublet of -ic.  It was added to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives meaning “having the quality of” and to verbs to form adjectives meaning "inclined to”; “tending towards".  The suffix remains productive in English and can be added to just about any word.  If the result is something perceived not to be a real word, a hyphen should be used to indicate it’s a deliberate attempt to convey a meaning rather than a spelling mistake.  A few long-established words ending with this suffix have distinctive spellings, such as wintry and fiery, which are often misspelled as wintery and firey although these mistakes are now so frequent that they’re likely to gain acceptance and there are special cases: "firey" is now widely used in slang as a noun to describe fire fighters.

Stationary (pronounced stey-shuh-ner-ee)

(1) Standing still; not moving.

(2) Having a fixed position; not movable.

(3) Established in one place; not itinerant or migratory.

(4) Remaining in the same condition or state; not changing.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English from the Latin word statiōnārius (surface analysis station) from statiō (a standing, post, job, position) ultimately from stō (to stand). Stō was a word-forming element used in making names of devices for stabilizing or regulating (eg thermostat), from the Ancient Greek statos (standing, stationary) from the primitive Indo-European ste-to-, a suffixed form of root sta- (to stand, make or be firm)  It was first used in heliostat (an instrument for causing the sun to appear stationary (1742)).  The late fourteenth century sense of "having no apparent motion" was in reference to planets and was derived from the Middle French stationnaire (motionless) also from the Latin statiōnārius; the meaning "unmovable" is from 1620s.  Not unusually, the meanings in later English and European languages evolved beyond the original; in Classical Latin, statiōnārius is recorded only in the sense "of a military station, the word for "stationary, steady" being statarius.  Stationary is a noun & adjective, stationariness is a noun and stationarily is an adverb; the noun plural is stationaries.  The most common appearance of stationary as a noun is probably as a misspelling stationary but it can be use (1) as a clipping of the description of a static version of something (stationary engine et al) or (2) of any person or object which is not moving (usually in the context of a contrast with surrounding people or objects which are moving) and (3) in historic astronomy, a planet or other heavenly body which apparently has neither progressive nor retrograde motion (now obsolete).  In the aerospace community, it may be that "geostationary" (of satellites) are sometimes casually referred to as "stationaries") but it seems not documented.

Stationary Engines

Engineers insist a “stationary engine” is one bolted or cemented in place, to remain there until (1) it blows up, (2) it’s scrapped or (3) it’s uprooted and moved to a new location where it can again function.  Stationary engines provided much of the horsepower (a calculation devised to define engine power) for the first industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, used to drive anything from generators & pumps to cranks moving parts of machines.  The classic example were the big reciprocating devices (steam or internal combustion) whereas the large scale electric plants or turbines tended (once reaching a certain size) to be classified as “plant”.  The development of the infrastructure to distribute electricity from regional hubs meant the used of stationary engines declined but they remain widely used and are a common sight in rural areas where they both pump water from a variety of sources and distribute it to irrigation systems.  There are also engines which technically are portable (some small enough to be carried by hand while others are mounted on trailers, trucks or even boats) but which often function as stationary devices and engineers regards such things always as “portable”, even if stationary for years.

A Chrysler Air Raid Siren being delivered (1953, left) and permanently installed (1960, right), atop the Rob Storms Rochester Fire Department maintenance building, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.  This was a stationary engine even while on the truck which it remained after being taken up to the roof and bolted down.  Had it remained on the truck (even if bolted to the chassis) and been driven from place to be run, it would have been classified a “portable engine”.

According to Guinness World Records, the loudest sirens ever were the 350-odd built by Chrysler for the US government in the early 1950s and installed around the country to warn of an impending nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.  The maximum volume the devices generated was recorded (at a distance of 100 feet (30.5 m)) as 138 decibels (dB), a level which meant a human would be deafened if within 200 feet (61 m) during their operation.  Guinness noted the compressor discharge throughput at peak volume was 74 m³ (2,610 cubic feet at 7 lb per square inch) of air per second and the physics of fluid dynamics (air a fluid in this context) was such that this would have caused a sheet of paper in the path spontaneously to ignite.  By comparison the now retired supersonic airline Concorde at take-off produced noise levels between 112-114 dB at a distance of 100 feet and even the after-burner equipped military jets (F-16, F-35 et al) haven’t been recorded as generating levels as high as 138 dB.  Although there were ebbs in the tensions, the “High Cold War” is regarded as the time between the early 1950s and mid 1960s, the public perception of which was dominated by the fear of nuclear war. The US government made many preparations for such an event, notably building vast underground facilities where essential personnel (members of the administration, the Congress and their families and servants) could live until it was safe to emerge into the post- apocalypse world).  The tax-payers who paid for these facilities were of course rather less protected but the government in 1952 did install warning sirens in cities; people might still be vaporized by comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) H-Bombs but they would know it was coming so there was that.

The early version was co-developed by Chrysler and Bell Labs and named the Chrysler Bell Victory Siren which sounds optimistic but although the acoustic properties met the specification, the drawback was the devices were manually controlled and required someone physically to be there to start the thing and, being directional, rotate it so the sound would be broadcast 360^o.  The obvious flaw was that were there to be a nuclear attack in the area, the job-description was self-sacrificial, something comrade Stalin would doubtless have thought just the part of the cost of war with the unfortunate soul posthumously to be awarded the coveted Герой Советского Союза (Hero of the Soviet Union) decoration.  However, neither the White House or the Pentagon liked the optics of that and revised specifications were issued.  Chrysler responded with a more elaborate device which was automated and remotely administrated, the Chrysler Air Raid Siren introduced in 1952.  It was powered by the corporation’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Hemi-head V8, rated at what was then a stellar 180 HP (134 kW), a three-stage compressor added to increase output.  Instead of demanding a potentially doomed operator, there was a control panel connected (with nothing more than the two-pair copper cables which became familiar as Cat3) to dedicated phone lines so it could be activated either by local civil defense authorities or the military.  The big V8 provided sufficient power to both increase the dB and the geographical coverage, the siren able to be heard over an area of some 15.8 square miles (41 km³), an impressive number given the electric sirens used today for tornado and tsunami warnings have an effective footprint of only some 3.9 square miles (10 km³).

Chrysler FirePower 392 cubic inch V8 in 1957 Chrysler 300C Convertible.

In 1952, there was no engine better suited to the task than Chrysler’s new “FirePower” V8.  Applying their wartime experience building a number of high-output, multi-cylinder engines (the most remarkable a V16 aero-engine rendered obsolete by jet technology before it could be used), the FirePower featured hemispherical combustion chambers and was the corporation’s first use of overhead-valves.  Both designs had been around for decades but in time, Chrysler would make a (trade-marked) fetish of “Hemi”, continuing cheerfully to use the name for a range of V8s introduced in 2003 even though they were no longer a true hemi-head, the design unable to be adapted to meet modern exhaust emission laws.  The so-called “third generation” Hemi remains available still although how long it will last will be a matter of the interplay of politics and demand.  Doubtless, it was Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) hit-list and that she and the engine debuted in the same year would have impressed her not at all.  

Nerd

Nerd (pronounced nurd)

(1) A person obsessed with a hobby or pursuit or with a particular topic, most associated with IT related or non-fashionable matters.

(2) A person thought socially awkward, boring, unstylish etc (used in both an affectionate and derogatory sense and also as a self descriptor by nerds proud of their status (and debatably by those who aspire to be accepted as part of the nerdhood).

(3) To spend an inordinate amount of time or devote extraordinary attention, energy, enthusiasm etc on an activity or topic of special or obsessive interest to oneself; (sometimes used interchangeably with geek and often in conjunction with “nerd out” or “nerding”).

1951: An Americanism described best as an “obscurely derived expressive formation” (the etymology thus unknown) but it seems agreed it began as US student slang.  The rare spelling nurd was either a mistake (probably an imperfect echoic) or an attempt at nuance although the purpose remains obscure while the forms nerdic, nerdism, nerdling, nerdlet, nerdsome & nergasm are usually regarded as non-standard parts of IT slang; arachnerd & cybernerd are both generally recognized, probably because of the long history of use.  Nerd has been widely adopted in other languages, usually unaltered and apparently always in the sense of a “computer geek” while as an acronym, NERD is used for Non-Erosive Reflux Disease, Non-Ester Renewable Diesel, Network Event Recording Device, Nucleic Exchange Research & Development & Neuro-Evolutionary Rostral Developer.  In IT slang, the acronym can decode as Network Emergency Repair Dude & Network Emergency Repair Diva.  Nerd is a noun & verb, nerding & nerded are verbs, nerdy, nerdish, nerdlike & nurdish are adjectives (nerdesque is non-standard); the noun plural is nerds.

If I Ran the Zoo by Dr Seuss (1950)

The word (in capitalized form), appeared in 1950 in the children’s book If I Ran the Zoo by Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel; 1904–1991) who used it as the name of one of his imagined animals:

And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Katroo
And bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo,
A Nerkle, a Nerd and a Seersucker too!

All the evidence suggests Dr Seuss choose “Nerd” because he liked the word and it suited his sentence structure but there has been speculation about the etymology.  One suggestion was the character of Mortimer Snerd, a ventriloquist's dummy created by Edgar Bergen (1903-1978), a ventriloquist who was versatile enough to also build a career in radio.  Snerd was the archetypical hillbilly (a “country bumpkin” to English audiences), a species derided as tiresome or dull, these qualities magnified by his sophisticated foil, the dummy Charlie McCarthy.  One can see the point but there’s nothing to support the connection.

A year after the publication of If I Ran the Zoo, Newsweek magazine ran a piece about the latest slang terms (the linguistic melting pot of the war years had seen both a proliferation and the geographical spread of the forms) and included was “nerd”, listed as having currency in the Detroit region and used in the same sense as “someone who once would be called a drip or a square” although they added that for the less severe cases, “scurve” seemed to suffice.  From Michigan it must have spread because by the 1960s use had migrated from lists of slang to more general use and, being the pre-internet era, it was transmitted often orally, thus the appearance of the spelling “nurd” although by the following decade when frequently it was seen in print, the current spelling was almost universal.  Etymologists date nerd as an established colloquial form from this decade, noting that despite the modern association, it initially had nothing to do with computers and the accepted connotation became “socially inept but brainy”, juxtaposed often in campus use with the “jock” (stereotypically there on a sports scholarship) who excelled in sports (and by implication the conquest of female students) but whose academic aptitudes were slight.

The Nerd as imagined by Dr Seuss (left), Bill Gates (b 1955), the defining nerd of the late twentieth century (centre) and John McAfee (1945–2021), the nerd’s anti-nerd (right).

The link between the nerd imagined by Dr Seuss and the notion of squareness has attracted interest but the character in the book looks more bad tempered than socially inept although one can perhaps see some resemblance to John McAfee (1945–2021), Bill Gates (b 1955) et al; that though is very much something retrospective and there’s nothing to support any degree of connection between “nerd” and computing until the 1980s when PCs entered the consumer electronics market.  There has been speculation Dr Seuss mentioned the “Seersucker” in the same sentence as the one introducing the Nerd as an attempt to harden to link with “squareness”, (seersucker in the view of the young a most uncool fabric) but that seems too clever by half and few have any doubt the author invented or choose the words to suit the rhythm of the text.

Inside Lindsay Lohan there's a nerd trying to escape: In nerd glasses, LAX, February 2012.

Another theory is that nerd was a piece of wordplay, an alteration of nerts, a slang form from the early twentieth century applied to things thought extraordinary (as in “that movie was the nerts”) or used as an interjection like “nuts!”.  An alternative idea was it was a re-bracketing of "inert" in which “they’re inert” became “they’re a nerd”, the same process which early meme-makers used to take “be alert” and render it as “be a lert; the world needs more lerts”.  In the case of “inert” begetting “nerd”, again, there’s no supporting evidence.  The ultimate folk etymology tale was probably that nerd developed from the campus slang knurd (“drunk” written backwards), the implication being that while a drunken student is obviously cool, the sober knurd would sooner study than party, the distinction explored by Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who labelled David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016) a “girly swot” to rationalize why Cameron got a First at Oxford and Johnson a Second.  It’s an attractive theory but without any evidence.  Nor is there any support for the notion of a link between nerd and “turd” (shit) or merde (French a vulgar word for “shit”).  There is however no doubt the 1980s slang “nerd pack” referred to the combination of a pocket protector (so the pens wouldn’t leak ink onto a nerd’s polyester shirt) and big lens spectacles with conspicuously unattractive frames although, that showed a fundamental misunderstanding of nerd culture: nerds know pencils are much better than pens.

Lindsay Lohan nerding up on rest.

In idiomatic use, to “nerd out” is enthusiastically to immerse one’s self in their interest or even an extended conversation (which may often be a monologue) on the topic.  The best nerd outs can last a day or more; the past tense is “nerded out”, modified when emphasis is demanded as “nerded out hardcore”, “totally nerded out” or “nerded out big time”.  To “nerd up” can mean variously (1) to augment one’s surroundings with the imagery or objects associated with one’s interest, (2) to cram study of some topic for some purpose (a exam, an upcoming date etc) and (3) to describe a discussion which evolved unexpectedly into something highly specific (usually as “nerded up”).

Richard Nixon (left) with Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977, right), the White House, October 1973.  Dr Kissinger was a policy wonk who became one of history's more improbable sex symbols.

There are a number of words which are used to convey something similar to nerd including geek, wonk & dork.  A word like anorak (mostly UK) is similar but has a different emphasis.  Historically a nerd is someone with an inclination to study, often subjects with technical focus or something truly arcane.  The modern association is with science, mathematics, computers and such but there are poetry nerds and those who nerd-out on the strains of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), Charles Ives (1874–1954) and Philip Glass (b 1937).  The association with social ineptitude seems no less prevalent.  Geeks are like nerds in that they are obsessive about their specific interests but these niches may be far removed from computer code or respectable academic pursuits and may include comic books, the film franchise Star Wars, baseball statistics or video games.  Often geeks are highly social but many would prefer they were not because their interests are their sole topic of conversation; they’re best left alone with each other.  Wonks are different again and the term has evolved to be used usually as “policy wonk”, describing a particular political creature who is genuinely interested in and has expertise related to specialized fields such as trade, agriculture and other important if dismal matters.  The political operatives admire the wonks and value them for doing the hard work which involves reading long documents of mind-numbing complexity.  Policy wonks think such papers are great.  Finally, there are dorks.  Dorks may or may not be nerds, geeks or wonks and are defined wholly by their social awkwardness and clumsy manners although in the early 1950s, in US slang a dork was “an effeminate male”.  Other slurs, more offensive still took its place and in less than a decade, dork seem exclusively to have assumed the idea of “social ineptitude and poor taste in clothing”.  Interestingly, although the reign of the policy wonks in government can be said to have begun during the administrations of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) & Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), the term entered mainstream pop-culture under Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001).