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 with a sudden acute yearning for a baby.  In a Chick lit sort of way, he solution 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.

Consecutive

Consecutive (pronounced kuhn-sek-yuh-tiv)

(1) Following one another in uninterrupted succession or order; successive without interruption.

(2) Marked or characterized by logical sequence (such as chronological, alphabetical or numerical sequence).

(3) In grammar & linguistics, as “consecutive clause”, a linguistic form that implies or describes an event that follows temporally from another (expressing consequence or result).

(4) In musical composition, a sequence of notes or chords which results from repeated shifts in pitch of the same interval (an alternative term for “parallel”).

1605-1615: From the sixteenth century French consécutif, from the Medieval Latin cōnsecūtīvus, from the Latin cōnsecūtus (follow up; having followed), from consequī (to pursue) & cōnsequor (to travel).  The construct was consecut(ion) + -ive.  Consecution dates from the early fifteenth century and by the 1530s was used in the sense of “proceeding in argument from one proposition to another in logical sequence”.  It was from the Middle English consecucioun (attainment), from the Latin consecutionem (nominative consecution), noun of action from the past-participle stem of consequi (to follow after), from an assimilated form of com (in the sense of “with, together”) + sequi (to follow (from the primitive Indo-European root sekw- (to follow).  The meaning “any succession or sequence” emerged by the 1650s.  The Latin cōnsecūtiō (to follow after) was from the past participle of cōnsequor (to follow, result, reach).  The –ive suffix was from the Anglo-Norman -if (feminine -ive), from the Latin -ivus.  Until the fourteenth century, all Middle English loanwords from the Anglo-Norman ended in -if (actif, natif, sensitif, pensif et al) and, under the influence of literary Neolatin, both languages introduced the form -ive.  Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc).  The antonyms are inconsecutive & unconsecutive but (except in some specialized fields of mathematics) “non-sequential” usually conveys the same meaning.  Like the Latin suffix -io (genitive -ionis), the Latin suffix -ivus is appended to the perfect passive participle to form an adjective of action.  Consecutive is a noun & adjective, consecutiveness is a noun and consecutively is an adverb; the noun plural is consecutives.

In sport, the most celebrated consecutive sequence seems to be things in three and that appears to first to have been institutionalized in cricket where for a bowler to take three wickets with three consecutive deliveries in the same match was first described in 1879 as a “hat trick”.  Because of the rules of cricket, there could be even days between these deliveries because a bowler might take a wicket with the last ball he delivered in the first innings and the first two he sent down in the second.  A hat trick however can happen only within a match; two in one match and one in another, even if consecutive, doesn’t count.  Why the rare feat came to be called “hat trick” isn’t certain, the alternative explanations being (1) an allusion to the magician’s popular stage trick of “pulling three rabbits out of the hat” (there had earlier also been a different trick involving three actions and a hat) or (2) the practice of awarding the successful bowler a hat as a prize; hats in the nineteenth century were an almost essential part of the male wardrobe and thus a welcome gift.  The “hat trick” terminology extended to other sports including rugby (a player scoring three tries in a match), football (soccer) & ice hockey (a player scoring three goals in a match) and motor racing (a driver securing pole position, setting the fastest lap time and winning a race).  It has become common in sport (and even politics (a kind of sport)) to use “hat trick” of anything in an uninterrupted sequence of three (winning championships, winning against the same opponent over three seasons etc) although “threepeat” (the construct being three + (re)peat) has become popular and to mark winning three long-established premium events (not always in the same season) there are “triple crowns).  Rugby’s triple crown is awarded to whichever of the “home countries” (England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales) wins all three matches that season; US Horse racing’s triple crown events are the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.

Graham Hill (1929–1975) in BRM P57 with the famous (but fragile) open-stack exhausts, Monaco Grand Prix, 3 June 1962.  Hill is the only driver to have claimed motor-racing's classic Triple Crown.

The term is widely used in motorsport but the classic version is the earliest and consists of the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Formula One (F1) World Drivers' Championship (only one driver ever winning all three) and there’s never been any requirement of “consecutiveness”; indeed, now that F1 drivers now rarely appear in other series while contracted, it’s less to happen.

Donald Trump, a third term and the 22^nd Amendment

Steve Bannon (left) and Donald Trump (right).

Although the MAGA (Make America Great Again) team studiously avoided raising the matter during the 2024 presidential election campaign, now Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) is President elect awaiting inauguration, Steve Bannon (b 1957 and a one the most prominent MAGAs) suggested there’s a legal theory (that term may be generous) which could be relevant in allowing him to run again in 2028, by-passing the “two-term limit” in the US Constitution.  Speaking on December 15 at the annual gala dinner of New York’s Young Republican Club’s (the breeding ground of the state’s right-wing fanatics), Mr Bannon tantalized the guests by saying “…maybe we do it again in 28?”, his notion of the possibility a third Trump term based on advice received from Mike Davis (1978, a lawyer who describes himself as Mr Trump’s “viceroy” and was spoken of in some circles as a potential contender for attorney general in a Trump administration).  Although the 22^nd Amendment to the constitution states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”, Mr Davis had noted it was at least arguable this applied only to “consecutive” terms so as Mr Bannon confirmed, there was hope.  Warming to the topic, Mr Bannon went on to say :“Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on the King James Bible and take the oath of office, his third victory and his second term.” (the MAGA orthodoxy being he really “won” the 2020 election which was “stolen” from him by the corrupt “deep state”.

Legal scholars in the US have dismissed the idea the simple, unambiguous phrase in the 22^nd amendment could be interpreted in the way Mr Bannon & Mr Davis have suggested.  In the common law world, the classic case in the matter of how words in acts or statutes should be understood by courts is Bank of England v Vagliano Brothers (1891) AC 107, a bills of exchange case, decided by the House of Lords, then the UK’s final court of appeal.  Bank of England v Vagliano Brothers was a landmark case in the laws relating to negotiable instruments but of interest here is the way the Law Lords addressed significant principles regarding the interpretation of words in statutes, the conclusion being the primary goal of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the intention of Parliament as expressed in the statute and that intention must be derived from the language of the statute, interpreted in its natural and ordinary sense, unless the context or subject matter indicates otherwise.  What the judgment did was clarify that a statute may deliberately depart from or modify the common law and courts should not assume a statute is merely a restatement of common law principles unless the statute's language makes this clear.  The leading opinion was written by Lord Herschell (Farrer Herschell, 1837–1899; Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1886 & 1892-1895) who held that if the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous, it should be interpreted as it stands, without assuming it is subject to implicit common law principles; only if the language is ambiguous may courts look elsewhere for context and guidance.

So the guiding principle for courts is the words of a statute should be understood with what might be called their “plain, simple meaning” unless they’re not clear and unambiguous.  While the US Supreme Court recently has demonstrated it does not regard itself as bound even its own precedents and certainly not those of a now extinct UK court, few believe even the five most imaginative of the nine judges could somehow construe a constitutional amendment created for the explicit purpose of limiting presidents to two terms could be read down to the extent of “…more than twice…” being devalued to “…more than twice in a row…”.  Still, it was a juicy chunk of bleeding raw meat for Mr Bannon to throw to his hungry audience.

The ratification numbers: Ultimately, the legislatures of 41 of the then 48 states ratified the amendment with only Massachusetts and Oklahoma choosing to reject.  

What the 22^nd amendment did was limit the number of times someone could be elected president.  Proposed on 21 March 1947, the ratification process wasn’t completed until 27 February 1951, a time span of time span: 3 years, 343 days which is longer than all but one of the other 26, only the 27^th (delaying laws affecting Congressional salary from taking effect until after the next election of representatives) took longer, a remarkable 202 years, 223 days elapsing between the proposal on 25 September 1789 and the conclusion on 7 May 1992; by contrast, the speediest was the 26^th which lowered the voting age to 18, its journey absorbed only 100 days between 23 March-1 July 1971.  While not too much should be read into it, it’s of interest the 18^th Amendment (prohibiting the manufacturing or sale of alcohol within the US) required 1 year, 29 days (18 December 1917-16 January 1919) whereas the 21^st (repealing the 18^th) was done in 288 days; proposed on 20 February 1933, the process was completed on 5 December the same year.

The path to the 22^nd amendment began when George Washington (1732–1799; first president of the United States, 1789-1797) choose not to seek a third term, his reasons including (1) a commitment to republican principles which required the presidency not be perceived as a life-long or vaguely monarchical position, (2) the importance of a peaceful transition of power to demonstrate the presidency was a temporary public service, not a permanent entitlement and (3) a desire not to see any excessive concentration of power in one individual or office.  Historians have noted Washington’s decision not to seek a third term was a deliberate effort to establish a tradition of limited presidential tenure, reflecting his belief this would safeguard the republic from tyranny and ensure no individual indefinitely could dominate government.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) generated images by Stable Diffusion of Lindsay Lohan and Donald Trump having coffee in the Mar-a-Largo Coffee Shop. 

For more than a century, what Washington did (or declined to do) was regarded as a constitutional convention and no president sought more than two terms.  Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909), celebrating his re-election in 1904 appeared to be moved by the moment when, unprompted, he announced: “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination” and he stuck to the pledge, arranging for William Howard Taft (1857–1930; president of the United States 1909-1913 & chief justice of the United States 1921-1930) to be his successor, confident he’d continue to pursue a progressive programme.  Taft however proved disappointingly conservative and Roosevelt decided in 1912 to seek a third term.  To critics who quoted at him his earlier pledge, he explained that “…when a man at breakfast declines the third cup of coffee his wife has offered, it doesn’t mean he’ll never in his life have another cup.”  Throughout the 1912 campaign, comedians could get an easy laugh out of the line: “Have another cup of coffee”? and to those who objected to his violating Washington’s convention, he replied that what he was doing was “constitutional” which of course it was.

Puck magazine in 1908 (left) and 1912 (right) wasn't about to let Theodore Roosevelt forget what he'd promised in 1904.  The cartoon on the left was an example of accismus (an expression of feigned uninterest in something one actually desires).  Accismus was from the Latin accismus, from Ancient Greek ακκισμός (akkismós) (prudery).  Puck Magazine (1876-1918) was a weekly publication which combined humor with news & political satire; in its use of cartoons and caricatures it was something in the style of today's New Yorker but without quite the same tone of seriousness.

Roosevelt didn’t win the Republican nomination because the party bosses stitched thing up for Taft so he ran instead as a third-party candidate, splitting the GOP vote and thereby delivering the White House to the Democrats but he gained more than a quarter of the vote, out-polling Taft and remains the most successful third-party candidate ever so there was that.  His distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) was the one to prove the convention could be ignored and he gained not only a third term in 1940 but also a fourth in 1944.  FDR was not only a Democrat but also a most subversive one and when Lord Halifax (Edward Wood, 1881–1959; British Ambassador to the United States 1940-1946) arrived in Washington DC to serve as ambassador, he was surprised when one of a group of Republican senators with whom he was having dinner opened proceedings with: “Before you speak, Mr Ambassador, I want you to know that everyone in this room regards Mr Roosevelt as a bigger dictator than Hitler or Mussolini.  We believe he is taking this country to hell as quickly as he can.”  As a sentiment, it sounds very much like the discourse of the 2024 campaign.

"The Trump Dynasty has begun" four term coffee mugs (currently unavailable) created for the 2020 presidential campaign. 

The Republicans truly were appalled by Roosevelt’s third and fourth terms and as soon as they gained control of both houses of Congress began the process of adding an amendment to the constitution which would codify in that document the two-term limit Washington had made a convention.  It took longer than usual but the process was completed in 1951 when the 22^nd Amendment became part of the constitution and were Mr Trump to want to run again in 2028, it would have to be repealed, no easy task because such a thing requires not only the concurrence of two thirds of both the House of Representatives & Senate but also three quarters of the legislatures of the fifty states.  In other countries where presidential term limits have appeared tiresome to those who have no intention of leaving office the “work-arounds” are usually easier and Mr Trump may cast the odd envious eye overseas.  In Moscow, Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) solved the problem by deciding he and his prime-minister temporarily should swap jobs (though not authority) while he arranged a referendum to effect the necessary changes to the Russian Constitution.  The point about referendums in Russia was explained by Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who observed: “it matters not who votes, what matters is who gets to count the votes.”  Barring accidents or the visitation of the angel of death, Mr Putin is now set to remain as president until at least the mid-2030s.  

Some mutual matters of interest: Donald Trump (left) and Vladimir Putin (right).

There have been many African presidents who have "arranged" for constitutional term limits to be "revised" but the most elegant in the handling of this was Pierre Nkurunziza (1964–2020; president of Burundi 2005-2020) who simply ignored the tiresome clause and announced he would be standing for a third term, tidying up loose ends by having Burundi's Constitutional Court declare the president was acting in accordance with the law.  It would seem the principle of statutory interpretation in Bank of England v Vagliano Brothers wasn't brought before the court (formerly part of the empire of Imperial Germany and later a Belgian-administered territory under a League of Nations mandate, Burundi follows the civil law tradition rather than the common law inheritance from the old British Empire) and shortly before the verdict was handed down, one judge fled into exile, claiming the government had applied "pressure" on the court to deliver a ruling favorable to the president. 

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Floccinaucinihilipilification (pronounced flok-suh-naw-suh-nahy-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-key-shuhn)

(1) The estimation of something as valueless.

(2) The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value or being worthless.

1735–1745: Apparently a coinage by pupils of Latin at England’s Eton College (a public (ie private)), the intent jocular but also something of an exercise in the pleonastic and tautological, the construct built (with the odd phonetic substitution or insertion) from the Latin words floccus (a wisp) + naucum (a trifle) +‎ nihilum (nothing) +‎ pilus (a hair) + -fication.  The elements (floccī + naucī + nihilī + pilī) all conveyed the notion “of little or no value, trifling”.  The -fication suffix was an alternative form of -ification, from the Middle English -ificacioun (ending on words generally borrowed whole from Old French), from the Old French -ification, from the Latin -ficātiō, a noun ending which appears on action nouns formed using the suffix -tiō (the English -tion) from verbs ending in -ficō (English -ify).   It was used to convey the idea of “the process of becoming” and was used in words of French or Latin origin, but in the last half-century the forms have become highly productive in English and the choice between -fication & -ification tends to be dictated by the resultant ease of pronunciation although when applying the suffix -ation to a verb ending in -ify, -ification is used instead of the expected -ifiation.  Modern forms like nerdification (the process of making or becoming nerdy) and hipsterfication (the process of making or becoming a hipster or characteristic of hipsters) have proliferated.  Floccinaucinihilipilification is a noun, floccinaucinihilipilificatious is an adjective and floccinaucinihilipilificate, floccinaucinihilipilificated & floccinaucinihilipilificating are verbs; the noun plural is floccinaucinihilipilifications (which some deny exists).

Modern reprint of the Eton Latin Grammar (1887) by Arthur Campbell Ainger (1841-1919).

Bored or baffled pupils in Latin class presumably coined many fake Latin words and it’s the longest, funniest or most vulgar which tended to survive.  At a hefty (by the conventions of English and most languages) 29 letters, floccinaucinihilipilification certainly is long and also enjoys the distinction of being the longest “non-technical” (ie not from medicine, physics etc) word in English although as something used to convey meaning (the very purpose of language), knowing the word does in itself seem floccinaucinihilipilificatious and for those who want more, that adjectival back-formation is lengthier still at a 30 character count.  Both trump that other schoolboy favorite antidisestablishmentarianism (opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established (state) church) which manages with 28 and attempts to claim the noun antidisestablishmentarianismist (31) exists have always been dismissed.  Etymologists believe the inventive pupils were inspired by a line which appears in various editions of William Lily's (circa 1468–1522) Latin grammars, one of which was the Eton Latin Grammar in which was listed a number of nouns commonly used in the genitive case with some verbs like pendo and facio expressing the idea of evaluating something as worthless.

Floccinaucinihilipilification: Trends of use.

To say the word is rare is stating the obvious but statistically, use spiked after the spread of the internet and that’s because of all the lists of long, bizarre or obscure words, Google’s ngrams increasing the count every time another one was created or shared.  Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

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

Despite appearing on all those lists, by the twenty-first century, actual (ie “real”) use had been so infrequent that to call it “archaic” was misleading but indisputably it was old and that had much appeal for Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (b 1969) an English politician who between 2010-2024 sat in the House of Commons, rising to become Lord President of the Council and later a member of cabinet in the memorable administration of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022).  As one who deliberately affects an archaic style, Sir Jacob’s amused colleagues soon dubbed him “the honourable member for the eighteenth century” and he made plain his disdain for much of what modernity has delivered (the EU (European Union), the Labour Party, working class people with ideas above their station, pop music etc) and in gratitude for his stellar service, Sir Jacob was created a Knight Bachelor in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list (which was as entertaining as any in living memory).  Because the Knight Bachelor is the most ancient of the UK’s many classes of knighthood, that would have pleased him but it’s also low in the pecking order (the “order of precedence” which dictates critical things like where one gets to sit (and, more to the point, next to whom) at certain dinners, church services and such) so that would not.  It ranks below all the knighthoods which are part of the organized orders of chivalry (the Garter, the Thistle, the Bath, the Star of India et al) and unlike the chivalric orders, does not confer any entitlement to the use of post-nominal letters, the form “KB” not used (except in historic reference) after 1815 when knighthoods in the order of the Bath (1725) were reorganized as Knight Grand Cross (GCB) & Knight Commander (KCB).  Still, he picked up the right to be styled “the honorable” when his father (William Rees-Mogg, 1928-2012) was in 1988 created a life peer and when in 2019 he was appointed to the Privy Council, he gained for life the style “The Right Honourable” so there was that.

The Right Honourable Sir Jacob Rees Mogg PC, attending the funeral of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022), London, 19 September 2019.

In 2012, Sir Jacob spoke the word “floccinaucinihilipilification” in a debate in the House of Commons, his topic being what he asserted was in the nation a common opinion of the EU and, helpfully, told the house it meant “the habit of regarding something as worthless”.  The 29 letter monster remains the longest word ever to appear in Hansard (a record of parliamentary proceedings) although someone did manage to use pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a factitious 45 letter creation said to mean “a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silica dust usually found in volcanos”) when appearing before a select committee (not being on the floor of the house it didn’t make the Hansard).  An opportunist extension of the medical term pneumonoconiosis, it was coined during the proceedings of the National Puzzlers' League convention in 1935 in an attempt to create English’s longest word but was dismissed by dictionaries as fake, clinicians and textbooks still referring to the disease as pneumonoconiosis, pneumoconiosis, or silicosis.  British dictionaries may feel compelled to include antidisestablishmentarianism but many overseas publications do not, on the basis there’s hardly any record of its use except in lists of long words which some editors treat as lexicographical freak shows.  Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary lists the longest as electroencephalographically, also from the physician’s diagnostic tool box.