Fluke

Fluke (pronounced flook)

(1) In nautical jargon, the part of an anchor that catches in the ground, especially the flat triangular piece at the end of each arm (also called flue).

(2) A barb, or the barbed head, of a harpoon, spear, arrow etc (also called flue).

(3) A metal hook on the head of certain staff weapons (such as a bill), made in various forms depending on function, whether used for grappling or to penetrate armour when swung at an opponent.

(4) In metal casting, a wing-like formation on a central piece (similar to a spur and often a product of the vesting process to be filed off.

(5) In industrial processing, waste cotton.

(6) Either half (the triangular lobes) of the tail of cetacean (whales, dolphins, porpoises and such).

(7) An accidental advantage; a stroke of good luck; a fortuitous event.

(8) An accident or chance happening.

(9) In cue sports (billiards and such), a successful shot, achieved wholly by accident.

(10) In ichthyology, any of several American flounders of the genus Paralichthys, found in the Atlantic Ocean; used loosely, any of various other flatfishes (an often used an an alternative name for the flounder).

(11) Any parasitic flatworm (notably the blood fluke and liver fluke), of the classes Monogenea and Digenea (formerly united in a single class Trematoda (as trematodes)).

Pre 900: From the Middle English flok, fluke & flewke, from the Old English flōcand cognate with the Old Norse flōki; It may be compared with the and the Old High German flah (flat (source of the modern German flach)), from the Proto-Germanic flakaz although for technical reasons related to the phonetics, etymologists seem to prefer a link with the Middle Low German vlögel (wing) and Germanic vlōch & vlucht (used in the sense of both “wing” & “flight”) or even vlunke (the modern Low German Flunk (wing, pinion)).  The modern use in German of fluke to describe the tail of whales and such is thought to be borrowed from English.  The use of fish came from the Old English flōc (flatfish), of Germanic origin, related to the German flach (flat), the Old Saxon flaka (sole), the Old High German flah (smooth) and the Old Norse floke (flatfish, flounder, flak, floe; disk), all ultimately from Proto-Germanic flakaz, from the primitive Indo European root plak- (to be flat).  The parasitic worm was so named in the 1660s by virtue of the distinctive (flat) shape.  Fluke is a noun & verb, flukishness is a noun, fluking is a verb, fluked is a verb & adjective, flukeless, fulkesque, flukelike, flukier, flukish, fluky, flukier & flukiest are adjectives and flukily is an adverb; the noun plural is flukes (the plural fluke used of the fish; flukes used otherwise including of the flatworms).

Lawyer and feminist activist, Sandra Fluke (b 1981), Ms magazine, Vol XXII, No 2, Spring-Summer 2012.

The use to describe the components of anchors, harpoons and such dates from the mid-sixteenth century and is of obscure origin, most etymologists concluding it was adopted cognizant of the original sense of “flat”, the reference used originally of the flat, pointed end of a anchor and that may have been picked up either from fluke in the sense of “the flatfish” (based on the shape) or from the Low German flügel (wing).  What is certain is the anchor’s triangular fitting was transferred to the tails of whales (and later other cetaceans), that in use by at least 1725.  Fluke has been used in the sense of “a lucky stroke, a chance hit” only since 1857 (when it appeared in the press also as “flook” and the origin is obscure although most sources suggest it came from billiards.  The speculative theories include (1) a reference to a whale's use of flukes rapidly to propel themselves in the ocean, (2) a re-purposing of the contemporary sailors slang “going-a-flunking” (to sail quickly; to go fast) or (3) an English dialectal origin (in the sense of “a guess”).  The adjective fluky (depending on chance rather than skill (“pure ass” a modern form)) was in use by at least 1867.  The “fluke” usually is something “lucky or fortuitous” but there are also the idiomatic phrases “fluke out”, “flukes out”, “fluking out” & “fluked out” which is “to lose or fail due to a fluke; to deserve to win or succeed but instead lose due to a fluke, especially a last-minute or unpredictable fluke” and thus connected with the notion of “defeat from the jaws of victory”.  The “fluke up” (also as “flukes up”, “fluking up” & “fluked up”) is not dependent on the existence of a “fluke” (in any sense) but means “to mess up; to blunder; to fail” and is a polite form of “fuck up”.  The special coinings flukicide & flukicidal are used in relation to the killing of the parasitic fluke worms.

Fluke Networks Cable Tester RJ45, LinkIQ (Part Number LIQ-KIT).

Fluke Corporation is a highly-regarded US manufacturer of industrial test, measurement and diagnostic equipment best known for their electronic test gear.  The company was founded in 1948 by John Fluke (1911-1984), then working at General Electric (GE).

In medical use, the variations include bile fluke (Clonorchis sinensis), blood fluke (Schistosomatidae spp.), bladder fluke (Schistosoma haematobium), cat liver fluke (Opisthorchis felineus), cecal fluke (Postharmostomum gallinum), Chinese liver fluke (Clonorchis sinensis), deer fluke (Fascioloides magna), lancet fluke (and lancet liver fluke) (Dicrocoelium dendriticum), sheep liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica),  lung fluke (Paragonimus spp.), giant intestinal fluke (Fasciolopsis buski) and giant liver fluke (Fascioloides magna); the last two sounding most ominous.  In ichthyology, the names include bannock fluke (Rhombus maximus), Gulf fluke (Paralichthys albiguttus), long fluke (Hippoglossoides limandoides), pole fluke (Glyptocephalus cynoglossus), sail fluke (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis), American fluke (Fascioloides magna) and sand fluke (Hippoglossoides limandoides).

Poster for Just My Luck (2006, left) and four of the shots (right) from the roll taken by Larry Schwartzwald on Madison Avenue in 2005.

Being one of the industry’s notorious nictators, it was perhaps something not especially flukish when a paparazzo took a photograph of Lindsay Lohan winking but what was a fluke was the shot was perfect for a movie poster, the thought being the wink was a midliminal device which convey the message “you will have a marvellously good time if you watch this film” and the starlet must have agreed because for a while, the wink became her signature gesture.  According to the authoritative PosterWire, Ms Lohan sat for a photo shoot so promotional shots would be ready for the release (even wearing an auburn wig because she had by then entered her famous blonde phase) but the studio rejected what was offered because they were “too high style which was not the vibe of the film.”  Another photo session was scheduled but then someone remembered the paparazzi “winking shot”; not only did it become the poster but it also inspired the film’s tag line: “Everything changed in the wink of an eye.”  The shot used for Just My Luck (2006) was taken the previous year on Madison Avenue by New York Post photographer Larry Schwartzwald (1953-2021) who had the untypical background (among the paparazzi) of studying literature at New York University and, as he proved, “everything is text”.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024), Butler, Pennsylvania, 13 July 2024, the “blood shot” (left) and the “bullet shot” (right), both by Doug Mills (b 1960), who has shot (in the photographic sense) every president since Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).

The “blood shot” is destined to become one of the images of twenty-first US politics and while in many ways “perfect”, it’s really not a “fluke” because at that point, every photographer on site was snapping away and something similar was guaranteed to emerge.  Noting the injury was to Mr Trump’s right ear, some immediately dubbed the “bullet shot” the “In one ear and out the other” but it was a genuine fluke because if snapped a millisecond earlier or later, the “speeding bullet” would not have been in the frame; a “one in a million” (at least) shot and therefore flukish.

Backwoodsman

Backwoodsman (pronounced bak-woodz-muhn)

(1) A person living in or coming from the backwoods, or a remote or unsettled area (backwoodswoman a later back-formation).

(2) A person of uncouth manners, rustic behavior or speech etc.

(3) In historic UK use, a peer (member of the House of Lords) who rarely attends the chamber.

1700-1710: An Americanism, the construct being backwoods ((1) partly or wholly uncleared forest (especially in North America use) and (2) a remote or sparsely inhabited region (especially in North America use); away from large human settlements and the influence of modern life) + -man.  The related terms included “hinterlander”, “mountain man” & “woodsman” and while the history of use meant they evolved to be not wholly without implied meaning, in various places a number of “loaded” words and phrases came to be used as a way of disparaging rural dwellers including country bumpkin, boor, clodhopper, hick, rube, rustic, yokel, country boy (or country girl), hayseed, clod, hodge, swain, country cousin, son of the soil, lubber, lummox, galoot, mountainmen & lunk.  Backwoodsman is a noun; the noun plural is backwoodsmen.

Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc (rear part of the body), from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic baką & bakam, possibly from the primitive Indo-European bhago- (to bend; to curve) and may be compared with the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah, and the Swedish and Norwegian bak.  It was cognate with the German Bache (sow (adult female hog)).  Wood was from the Middle English wode, from the Old English wudu & widu (wood, forest, grove; tree; timber), from the Proto-West Germanic widu, from the Proto-Germanic widuz (wood), from the primitive Indo-European hweydh- (to separate).  It was cognate with the Dutch wede (wood, twig), the Middle High German wite (wood), the Danish ved (wood), the Swedish ved (firewood), the Icelandic viður (wood) and additional cognates include the Irish fiodh (a wood; tree), the Irish fid (tree) and the Welsh gwŷdd (trees), all from the Proto-Celtic widus (wood).  The word was unrelated to the Dutch woud (forest), and the German Wald (forest).  Man was from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-West Germanic mann, from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man), probably from the primitive Indo-European mon- (man) (men having the meaning “mind”); a doublet of manu.  The specific sense of “adult male of the human race” (distinguished from a woman or boy) was known in the Old English by circa 1000.   Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late in the thirteenth century, replaced by mann and increasingly man.  Man also was in Old English as an indefinite pronoun (one, people, they) and used generically for "the human race, mankind" by circa 1200.  It was cognate with the West Frisian man, the Dutch man, the German Mann (man), the Norwegian mann (man), the Old Swedish maþer (man), the Swedish man, the Russian муж (muž) (husband, male person), the Avestan manš, the Sanskrit मनु (manu) (human being), the Urdu مانس‎ and Hindi मानस (mānas).  Although often thought a modern adoption, use as a word of familiar address, originally often implying impatience is attested as early as circa 1400, hence probably its use as an interjection of surprise or emphasis since Middle English.  It became especially popular from the early twentieth century.

Types de pionniers, de bouviers et d indians de Benton (Montana) (pioneers, drovers and Indians from Benton, Montana).  A late nineteenth century engraving after the drawing by Émile-Antoine Bayard (1837–1891), depicting the voyage from Washington to San Francisco, in 1868, by French engineer & geologist Louis Laurent (1830-1886), published in Le tour du monde (Hachette edition, 1874), edited by Édouard Charton (1807–1890).  When reproduced for sale in the US (right), the title Backwoodsmen and Indians (in the sense of “Native Americans” was sometimes used.

In the US, “backwoodsman” was a term used to describe those living remotely and it could be used neutrally or, by city-dwellers, as a form of disparagement.  It spread to the UK but didn’t become widely used until the dispute between the Conservative & Unionist Party (the Tories) opposition and the new Liberal government over certain budget measures, the squabble culminating in the “constitutional crisis” of 1911 and the passage of the Parliament Act which removed from the non-elected House of Lords the power permanently to block legislation passed by the (then sort of) democratically elected House of Commons.  When the Lords, defying convention, voted to reject the government’s budget, the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer (the finance minister or treasurer) decided what was needed was constitutional reform, ending or at least severely restricting the right of their lordships to frustrate a government with a majority in the Commons.

HH Asquith, London, 1911.

The significance of the “backwoodmen” in the constitutional crisis was that they were the peers (members of the House of Lords, almost all of who had inherited their title and the right to sit in the parliament’s upper house, some there thus because of some great service (or in some cases corrupt act) of a ancestor possibly centuries earlier) who rarely, if ever attended sessions.  They gained their name by virtue of being country gentlemen and by virtue of their inherent bias for the Tory cause, they provided a built-in majority for the party and should ever the need arise, they could be summoned to vote.  That need arose during the crisis because the prime-minister (HH Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916) had threatened to secure George V’s (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) acquiescence to the creation of hundreds of Liberal Party aligned peers thereby overwhelming the Tory majority, a move which contained the implied threat of the new crop being used in an act of “political suicide”: voting to abolish the Lords.  That might have seemed scaremongery but in the decades ahead, elsewhere in the empire, upper houses would do exactly that.

Backwoodsperson Lindsay Lohan in the woods in Albus Lumen top & skirt from Matches Fashion with Missoni earrings & choker from Ounass, Emirates Woman magazine, May 2018.

As the parliamentary battle-lines were drawn, the Tories in the Lords coalesced into two factions: the “ditchers” and “hedgers”.  The ditchers were the “hardliners”, the absolutists prepared (metaphorically) to “die in the last ditch” rather than accede to any reform which constrained their power.  The ditchers had a world view which included the aristocracy being the natural and essential class to govern the nation.  The hedgers were the age’s version of the “power-realists”, pragmatists who may not have approved of reform but could sniff the winds of political change blowing through Westminster’s oak-panelled corridors, winds that were turning to gusts, blowing in moths already nibbling at the ermine.  Their view was the threatened reform was the lesser of two evils and it was better to concede a little now than later lose a lot more.

David Lloyd George, London, 1907.

Compromise was anathema to the ditchers who mobilized the network of backwoodsman peers, summoning them to London to vote which would have been a experience for some who had not for decades cat their eyes upon the the houses of parliament, let alone sat in the place.  The ditchers thought they had the numbers and at some points in the struggle they almost certainly did but when the news circulated the king had agreed to created hundreds of new barons, some of the ditchers, appalled at the thought their  exclusive circles would be diluted by an infusion of miners, manufacturers and motor car salesmen, left their ditch for the hedge.  When the moment arrived, the Parliament Act (1911) was passed by 131 votes to 114, the hundreds of abstentions an indication of how many had decided to “sit on the hedge”.  After the Parliament Act, the Lords could no longer veto all but the most fundamental constitutional acts and their power was restricted to delaying implementation for two years (in 1949 reduced to six months).  One Liberal actually pleased the need for the hundreds of new peers had never arisen was David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), then chancellor of the exchequer.  Lloyd George was well acquainted with the character of men likely to be among the hundreds of new barons and viewed them with some distaste, admitting to the Tory leader of the opposition (Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905)) that like him he had no desire to see the creation happen: “…looking into the future, I know that our glorified grocers will be more hostile to social reform than your Backwoodsmen.”  Lloyd George appreciated the backwoodsmen might have some sense of noblesse oblige but he knew the way the “jumped up grocers” treated the working class in their mines, mills and factories.

Continuity

Continuity (pronounced kon-tn-oo-i-tee or kon-tn-yoo-i-tee)

(1) The state or quality of being continuous; logical sequence, cohesion or connection; lack of interruption.

(2) A continuous or connected whole.

(3) In political science, as “continuity theory”, an approach to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).

(4) In narratology, a narrative device in episodic fiction where previous and/or future events in a series of stories are accounted for in present stories.

(5) As bicontinuity (the sate of being bicontinuous), (1) in topology: homeomorphic (a continuous bijection from one topological space to another, with continuous inverse) and (2) in physics, chemistry (of a liquid mixture), being a continuous phase composed of two immiscible liquids interacting through rapidly changing hydrogen bonds.

(6) In film production, as “continuity girl” (the now archaic title in film production (now called “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”)) for the person responsible for ensuring the details in each scene conform to the continuity of the narrative.

(7) In film production, the scenario (in the industry jargon a synonym of “continuity”) of script, scenes, camera angles, details of verisimilitude etc, in the sequence in which they should appear in the final cut.

(8) In fiction (especially in television series but also in film and literature), as “continuity nod”, a reference, to part of the plot of a previous series, volume, episode etc.

(9) In audio & visual production (radio, podcasts, television, internet et al), the spoken part of a script that which provides introductory, transitional or concluding material in non-dramatic (documentaries and such) programmes (some production houses include in their staff establishment the position “continuity announcer”).

(10) In film projection, the continuous projection of a film, using automatic rewind.

(11) In mathematics, a characteristic property of a continuous function.

(12) In mathematics, as semicontinuity (of a function), the state of being semicontinuous (that it is continuous almost everywhere, except at certain points at which it is either upper semi-continuous or lower semi-continuous).

(13) In mathematics, as equicontinuity, (of a family of functions), the state of being equicontinuous (such that all members are continuous, with equal variation in a given neighborhood).  The Lipschitz continuity was named after German mathematician Rudolf Lipschitz (1832–1903); the Scott continuity was named after US logician Dana Scott (b 1932).

(14) In mathematics, as hemicontinuity, the state of being hemicontinuous (having the property that if a sequence of points in the domain of a function converges to a point L, then either the sequence of sets that are the images of those points contains a sequence that converges to a point that is in the image of L, or, alternatively, for every element in the image of L, there will be a sub-sequence in the domain whose image contains a convergent sequence to that element.

(15) In marketing, in the plural, as “continuities”, sets of merchandise, given away for free or sold cheaply as promotional tool (the idea being the continuity of the customers returning).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English continuite (uninterrupted connection of parts in space or time), from the Old & Middle French continuité, from the Latin continuitatem (nominative continuitās) (a connected series (the construct being continu(us) (continuous) + -itās (equivalent to the English continu(e) +‎ -ity), from continuus (joining, connecting with something; following one after another) from the intransitive verb continere (to be uninterrupted (literally “to hang together”).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Continuity is a noun, continuance, & continuousness are nouns, continue is a verb, continuous & continual are adjectives and continually is an adverb; the noun plural is continuities.

The adjective continuous (characterized by continuity, not affected by disconnection or interruption) dates from the 1640s and was from either the French continueus or directly from the Latin continuus.  The verb continue (was in use by at least the mid-fourteenth century) in the form contynuen (maintain, sustain, preserve) which by the late 1300s has assumed the meaning “go forward or onward; persevere in”.  It was from the thirteenth century Old French continuer and directly from Latin continuare (join together in uninterrupted succession, make or be continuous, do successively one after another), from continuus.  The sense of “to carry on from the point of suspension” emerged early in the fifteenth century while the meaning “to remain in a state, place, or office” dates from the early 1400s, the transitive sense of “to extend from one point to another” was first documented in the 1660s.  The word entered the legal lexicon with the meaning “to postpone a hearing or trial” in the mid fifteenth century.

The noun continuation (act or fact of continuing or prolonging; extension in time or space) dates from the late 1300s, from the thirteenth century Old French continuation and directly from the Latin continuationem (nominative continuatio) (a following of one thing after another), a noun of action from past-participle stem of continuare.  The adjective continual was from the early fourteenth century continuell (proceeding without interruption or cessation; often repeated, very frequent), from the twelfth century Old French continuel and directly from the Latin continuus.  The noun continuance (perseverance, a keeping up, a going on) dates from the mid-fourteenth century, from the thirteenth century Old French continuance, from continuer.  Continuance seems to have been the first of the family to appear in the terminology of legal proceedings, used since the late fourteenth century in the sense of “a holding on or remaining in a particular state”, in courts this by the early fifteenth had extended to “the deferring of a trial or hearing to a future date” and in some jurisdictions lawyers to this day still file an “application for continuation”.  The now widely used discontinuation (of legal proceedings; of a product range etc) has existed since at least the 1610s in the sense of “interruption of continuity, separation of parts which form a connected series” and was from the fourteenth century French discontinuation, from the Medieval Latin discontinuationem (nominative discontinuatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of discontinuare.

Page 1 of IMDb's (Internet Movie Database) listing of discontinuities in Mean Girls (2004).

A discontinuity: In Mean Girls, a donut (doughnut) appeared with a large bite taken from it while a few seconds later it had endured just a nibble.

In film production, the job title “continuity girl” seems to have been retired in favor of “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”, one of the terms culled in the process of gender neutrality which also claimed most of the “best boys” (they’re now styled with titles such as “assistant chief lighting technician” or “second lighting technician”.  Whether myth or not, the industry legend is the “best boy” job title really did begin with the request “give me your best boy” although that wasn’t something as ominous as now it may sound.  The first known reference to a continuity girl in a film’s credits was in the US 1918 and the job involved ensuring the “continuity” (in the industry “scenario” is synonymous) of the final cut appeared as a seamless narrative.  The job was required because although a single scene in a film might appear to be a contiguous few minutes, the parts assembled in the editing process to produce it may be made up of takes shot days or even months weeks and possibly in different places.  Among a myriad of tasks, what a continuity girl had to do was maintain a database with the details of each piece of film (vital for the editing process) and ensure the details of each shot (clothes, haircuts, props (including their exact placement) and environment (climate, time of day etc) are in accordance with the previous footage.  The detail can be as simple as the time displayed on a wall clock and it matters because there’s a minor industry of film buffs who go through things frame-by-frame looking for discontinuities, all of which gleefully they’ll catalogue on various internet sites.

Three covers used for Leah McLaren’s The Continuity Girl (2007, left); not all Chick lit titles used vibrant or pastel shades in the cover art.  The Continuity Girl (2018, right) by Dr Patrick Kincaid (b 1966) is an unrelated title.

The Continuity Girl (2007) was the debut novel of Canadian journalist Leah McLaren (b 1975), the protagonist being a continuity girl named Meredith Moore.  A classic piece of Chick lit (the construct being chick (slang for “a young woman” + lit(erature)), a now unfashionable term describing novels focused on women and their feelings) the plotline involves Ms Moore’s biological clock tick-tocking to the psychological moment on her 35^th birthday: she wakes up feeling a sudden acute yearning for a baby.  In a Chick lit sort of way, her solution was to leave her predictably pleasant Canadian life and head for London where she plans to select a man on the basis of her assessment of his genetic suitability for breeding, seduce him and, in the way these things happen, fall pregnant.  Things of course don’t work out quite that effortlessly but, being Chick lit, there’s much self-realization, self-discovery and self-expression on the path to a happy ending.

In political science, “continuity theory” is an approach (in two aspects) to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).  The first aspect was the notion there existed “continuity” in the persistent influence of long-term social, political, cultural, and institutional developments in German history, dating at least from the time of Martin Luther (1483–1546) contributed to the particular nature of Imperial Germany (1871-1918), the failure of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and the Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) which, structurally, was the distinguishing feature of the Third Reich (1933-1945).  This idea has underpinned a number of major historical studies but has always been contested because another faction (which has at times included a significant proportion of the German population) which argues that Nazism was uniquely radical and an aberration in the nation’s history.  Most controversially, some proponents of continuity theory extend the application to the post war years, examining how former Nazis, neo-Nazis and their ideologies persisted (and at times have flourished) both in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany (1949-1990)) and the unified state formed 1990 after the FRG absorbed the GDR (German Democratic Republic (the old East Germany)).

Adolf Hitler (left) looking at Ernst Röhm (right), Nürnberg, 3 September 1933.  Some nine months later, Hitler would order Röhm's discontinuation (murder).  Photograph from the Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives), Bild (picture) 146-1982-159-22A.

The theory’s other aspect was structural and was essentially an analysis of the extent to which the Nazi state operated under the constitutional and administrative arrangements inherited from the Weimar Republic, the state which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) claimed “his” National Socialist revolution had overthrown.  The indisputable fact that the Nazi dictatorship was fundamentally different from Weimar at the time obscured the continuity but maintaining the Weimar constitution was hardly unique.  Hitler choose also to adapt the existing mixed economic model, something which upset some of the more idealistic souls in his movement who had taken seriously the “socialist” bit in “National Socialism” and led to the infamous Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird) a purge executed between 30 June-2 July 1934, when the regime carried out a number of extrajudicial executions, ostensibly to crush what was referred to as “the Röhm Putsch” (Ernst Röhm (1887–1934; chief of the Sturmabteilung (the stormtroopers (the SA)), head of the four-million strong SA had certainly in the past hinted at one but there’s no doubt no such thing was imminent).

The USGS’s (US Geological Survey (1879)) depiction of the Mohorovičić discontinuity (the Moho).

The Mohorovičić discontinuity (which geologists tend to call “the Moho”) is the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle, the extent defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismic waves as they pass through changing densities of rock.  The phenomenon is named after Croatian geophysicist Andrija Mohorovičić (1857–1936; one of the seminar figures in modern seismology), who first published his findings (based on seismographic observations of shallow-focus earthquakes) in 1909.

Pylon

Pylon (pronounced pahy-lon)

(1) A marking post or tower for guiding aviators, much used in air-racing to mark turning points in a a prescribed course of flight.

(2) A relatively tall structure at the side of a gate, bridge, or avenue, marking an entrance or approach.

(3) A monumental tower forming the entrance to an ancient Egyptian temple, consisting either of a pair of tall quadrilateral masonry masses with sloping sides and a doorway between them or of one such mass pierced with a doorway.

(4) In electricity transmission, a steel tower or mast carrying high-tension lines, telephone wires, or other cables and lines (usually as power-pylon, electricity pylon or transmission tower).

(5) In architecture (1) a tall, tower-like structure (usually of steel or concrete) from which cables are strung to support other structures and (2) a lighting mast; a freestanding support for floodlights.

(6) In aeronautics, a streamlined, finlike structure used to attach engines, auxiliary fuel tanks, bombs, etc to an aircraft wing or fuselage.

(7) In modeling, as “pylon shot”, a pose in which a model stands with arms raised or extended outwards, resembling an electricity pylon.

(8) An alternative name for an obelisk.

(9) In aviation, a starting derrick for an aircraft (obsolete) and a tethering point for an dirigible (airship).

(10) In American football (gridiron), an orange marker designating one of the four corners of the field’s end zones.

(11) In the slang of artificial limb makers (1) a temporary artificial leg and (2) a rigid prosthesis for the lower leg.

(12) In literature, as "Pylon Poet" (usually in the plural as “the Pylons”), a group of British poets who during the 1930s included in their work many references to new & newish mechanical devices and other technological developments.

(13) In slang, a traffic cone.

1823: A learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) (gateway; gate tower), from pylē (gate, wing of a pair of double gates; an entrance, entrance into a country; mountain pass; narrow strait of water) of unknown origin but etymologists suspect it may be a technical term (from architecture or construction) from another language.  The first use was in archaeology to describe a “gateway to an Egyptian temple”, a direct adaptation of the original Greek.  In Western architecture, it’s believed the first “modern” pylons were the tall, upright structures installed at aerodromes to guide aviators and it was the appearance of these things which inspired the later use as “power pylon” (steel tower for high-tension wires over distance, use noted since 1923) and the word spread to any number of similar looking devices (even those on a small scale such as traffic cones).  Until then, in engineering and architecture, tall structures used to carry cables or in some way provide support (or even be mere decorative) were described as a “tower” or “obelisk” (such use continuing).  Pylon is a noun and pylonless, pylonlike, pylonesque & pylonish are adjectives; the noun plural is pylons.  Despite the fondness in engineering for such forms to emerge, the verbs pyloned & pyloning seem never to have been coined.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was used of the grand architecture seen in the entrances to temples and the usual word for doors (and gates) rather more modest was θύρα (thýra).  It was a feminine noun and appears in various forms depending on the grammatical case (θύρα (nominative singular; a door), θύρας (genitive singular; of a door) & θύραι (nominative plural; doors).  Etymologists believe θύρα may have undergone phonological changes, adapting to Greek morphology and pronunciation patterns, while retaining its fundamental meaning tied to entryways or openings.  The word was from the primitive Indo-European dhur or dhwer (door; gateway) which was the source also of the Latin foris (door, entrance), the Sanskrit dvā́r (door, gate), the Old English duru (door) and the Old Norse dyrr (door).  Because of their functional role and symbolism as thresholds (ie transition, entry, protection), the door played a prominent part in linguistic as well as architectural evolution.

Temple of Isis, first pylon, north-eastern view.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was the classical term for an Egyptian ceremonial gateway (bekhenet) used in temples from at least the Middle Kingdom to the Roman period (circa 2040 BC–AD 395) and anthropologists have concluded the intent was to symbolize the horizon.  The basic structure of a pylon consisted of two massive towers of rubble-filled masonry tapering upwards, surmounted by a cornice and linked in the centre by an elaborate doorway.  Ancient depictions of pylons show that the deep vertical recesses visible along the facades of surviving examples were intended for the mounting of flag staffs.

An “anchor pylon” is the one which forms the endpoint of a high-voltage and differs from other pylons in that it uses horizontal insulators, necessary when interfacing with other modes of power transmission and (owing to the inflexibility of the conductors), when significantly altering the direction of the pylon chain.  In large-scale display advertizing, a “pylon sign” is a tall sign supported by one or more poles and in the original industry jargon was something in what would now be called “portrait mode”; a sign in “landscape mode” being a “billboard”.  Not surprisingly, there are a number of mountains known as “Pylon Peak”.  The task of naming such geological features is part of the field of toponymy (in semantics the lexicological study of place names(a branch of onomastics)) and a specialist in such things is known as a toponymist.  The term toponomy was later borrowed by medicine where it was used of the nomenclature of anatomical regions. In aviation, the “pylon turn” is a flight maneuver in which an aircraft banks into a circular turn around a fixed point on the ground.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was used of the grand architecture seen in the entrances to temples and the usual word for doors (and gates) rather more modest was θύρα (thýra).  It was a feminine noun and appears in various forms depending on the grammatical case (θύρα (nominative singular; a door), θύρας (genitive singular; of a door) & θύραι (nominative plural; doors).  Etymologists believe θύρα may have undergone phonological changes, adapting to Greek morphology and pronunciation patterns, while retaining its fundamental meaning tied to entryways or openings.  The word was from the primitive Indo-European dhur or dhwer (door; gateway) which was the source also of the Latin foris (door, entrance), the Sanskrit dvā́r (door, gate), the Old English duru (door) and the Old Norse dyrr (door).  Because of their functional role and symbolism as thresholds (ie transition, entry, protection), the door played a prominent part in linguistic as well as architectural evolution.

The plyon pose: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates some variations.

In modeling, the “pylon shot” is used to describe the pose in which a model stands with arms raised or extended outwards, resembling (at least vaguely) an electricity pylon, the appearance of which is anthropomorphic.  There are practical benefits for designers in that raising the arms permits a photographer to include more of a garment in the frame and this can be significant if there’s detailing which are at least partially concealed with the arms in their usual position.  Topless models also adopt variations of the pose because the anatomical affect of raising the arms also lifts and to some extent re-shapes the breasts, lending them temporarily a higher, a more pleasing aspect.

The Pylons

The so-called “pylon poets” (referred to usually as “the Pylons”) were a group who dominated British poetry during the 1930s, a time when the form assumed a greater cultural and intellectual significance than today.  The best known (and certainly among the most prolific) of the Pylons were Louis MacNeice (1907–1963), Stephen Spender (1909–1995), WH Auden (1907-1973) and Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972), their names sometimes conflated as “MacSpaunday”.  It was Spender’s poem The Pylons which inspired the nickname and it referenced the frequent references to the images of “industrial modernity”, drawn from new(ish) technology and the machinery of factories.  The intrusion of novel machinery and technology into a variety of fields is not unusual; in the age of steam the devices were used as similes when speculating about the operation of the human brain, just as the terminology of computers came to be used when the lexicon entered the public imagination.  Their method underlying the output of the pylons was influenced by the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (circa 1571-1631) whose use of “scientific” imagery was much admired by TS Eliot (1888–1965), the work of whom was acknowledged as influential by both Auden and Spender.  However, the 1930s were the years of the Great Depression and probably their most fertile source was Marxist materialism although, of the Pylons, historians tend to regard only Day-Lewis as one of the “useful idiots”.

The Pylons (1933) by Stephen Spender.

The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages
Of that stone made,
And crumbling roads
That turned on sudden hidden villages
 
Now over these small hills, they have built the concrete
That trails black wire
Pylons, those pillars
Bare like nude giant girls that have no secret.
 
The valley with its gilt and evening look
And the green chestnut
Of customary root,
Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.
 
But far above and far as sight endures
Like whips of anger
With lightning's danger
There runs the quick perspective of the future.
 
This dwarfs our emerald country by its trek
So tall with prophecy
Dreaming of cities
Where often clouds shall lean their swan-white neck.

The term “useful idiot” is from political science and so associated with Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924; first leader of Soviet Russia 1917-1922 & USSR 1922-1924) that it's attributed to him but there's no evidence he ever spoke or wrote the words.  It became popular during the Cold War to describe pro-communist intellectuals and apologists in the West, the (probably retrospective) association with Lenin probably because had the useful idiots actually assisted achieving a communist revolution there, their usefulness outlived, he'd likely have had at least some of them shot as "trouble-makers".  Although it took many Western intellectuals decades to recant (some never quite managed) their support for the Soviet Union, the watershed was probably Comrade Khrushchev's (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964)  so called "Secret Speech" (On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences) to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956 in which he provided a detailed critique of the rule of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), especially the bloody purges of the late 1930s.

Some had however already refused to deny what had become obvious to all but avid denialists, and in 1949 a contribution by Spender appeared in The God that Failed, a collection of six essays in which the writers lay bare their sense of betrayal and disillusionment with communism because of the totalitarian state forged by comrade Stalin which was in so many ways just another form of fascism.  Spender was associated with the intellectual wing of left-wing politics during the 1930s and was briefly a member of the Communist Party but his attraction seems to have been motivated mostly by the Soviet Union’s promises of equality and its anti-fascist stance.  He quickly became disillusioned with the Soviet state, unable to reconcile its authoritarianism with his personal beliefs in freedom and individual rights, a critical stance differentiated him from figures like George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) and Sidney (1859–1947) & Beatrice Webb (1858–1943), the latter couple for some time definitely useful idiots.

The sort of sights which would have inspired Spender’s line “Bare like nude giant girls that have no secret”.

Louis MacNeice, was politically engaged during the 1930s but that was hardly something unusual among writers & intellectuals during that troubled decade.  Among the pylons he seems to have been the most sceptical about the tenets of communism and the nature of comrade Stalin’s state and no historians seem every to have listed him among the useful idiots, his views of the left as critical and nuanced as they were of the right.  What he most objected to was the tendency among idealistic & politically committed intellectuals to engage in a kind of reductionism which allowed them to present simplistic solutions to complex problems in a form which was little more than propaganda, a critique he explored in his poem Autumn Journal (1939) captures his doubts about political certainty and his disillusionment with simplistic solutions to complex problems.  Auden certainly wasn’t a “useful idiot” and while politically engaged and associated with several leftist intellectual circles during the 1930s, his sympathy for Marxism and anti-fascist causes were really not far removed from those share by even some mainstream figures and a capacity for self-reflection never deserted him.  Much was made of the time he spent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1940) but he went as an observer and a propagandist rather than a combatant and what he saw made his disillusioned with the ideological rigidity and in-fighting among leftist factions and he made no secret of his distaste for Stalinist communists.  By the early 1940s, he was distancing himself from Marxism, the process much accelerated by his re-embrace of Christianity where, at least debatably, he discharged another form of useful idiocy, his disapproval of collectivist ideologies apparently not extending to the Church of England.

Profiles of some electricity pylons.  There a literally dozens of variations, the designs dictated by factors such as the ground environment, proximity to people, voltage requirements, weight to be carried, economics, expected climatic conditions and a myriad of other specifics.

Of the Pylons, Cecil Day-Lewis (who served as Poet Laureate of the UK 1968-1972) had the most active period engagement with communism and Marxist ideals and he was for a time politically aligned with the Soviet Union; it was a genuine ideological commitment.  During the 1930s, the true nature of the Soviet Union wasn’t generally known (or accepted) in the West and Day-Lewis admired the Soviet Union as an experiment in social and economic equality which he championed and it wasn’t until late in the decade he realized the ideals he had embraced had been betrayed; it was Great Purge and the Moscow Show-Trials which triggered his final disillusionment.  Day-Lewis later acknowledged the naivety and moral compromises of his earlier stance and came to argue poetry and art should not be subordinated to political ideology, a view formed by his understanding of the implications of propagandistic pieces of his younger years being exactly that.